Managing the Impacts of Human Activities on Fish Habitat: The Governance, Practices, and Science

<em>Abstract.</em>—Monitoring of restoration at a basin rather than reach scale presents both scientific and organizational challenges. Using three case studies in the Pacific Northwest, we demonstrate the key factors and challenges that need to be considered when designing basin-scale evaluation of numerous restoration actions. These include linking reach and basin scale responses to restoration, identifying a core set of parameters to monitor at those different scales, and continuous coordinating of restoration, monitoring, and other fisheries management actions. Linking reach and basin level responses to restoration requires different methods of site selection, sampling design, and scale of measurement than typically used for reach-scale monitoring. In addition, parameters may not be appropriate for measurement at both scales. For example, parameters typically measured at a reach scale, such as fish abundance or pool frequency, may be examined at both a reach and basin scale while others, such as sediment supply, are more appropriately examined at basin level. Parameters that measure processes such as sediment supply or riparian condition respond slowly to restoration actions and require a long term monitoring (>10 years). A core set of parameters for basin scale monitoring of restoration should include: stream discharge and temperature, coarse and fine sediment supply, riparian species diversity and size, pool frequency, wood abundance, fish abundance, macroinvertebrates, and periphyton. Finally, failing to properly coordinate the timing, location, and implementation of restoration, monitoring, and other fisheries and land management activities can prevent the most well designed and costly monitoring program from detecting a restoration response.

Managing the Impacts of Human Activities on Fish Habitat: The Governance, Practices, and Science

<em>Abstract.</em>—Mexico is an important producer of fish resources, contributing 1.5% to the total world production. However, most of the fisheries are overexploited or fished to the maximum sustainable level as a result of problems such as overexploitation, poor infrastructure, poaching, limited knowledge of fishing laws, high discard rates, weak fisheries institutions, and little ability to research and manage these difficulties. To solve these problems, the National Program of Fisheries and Aquaculture was established in order to achieve sustainability in Mexican fisheries with the participation of the government, the fishing industry and research institutions. The program has been implemented for the 22 main fisheries of the country, notably the tuna, shrimp and shark fisheries, for which technical measures have been implemented for controlling the catch, the effort and the impact on coexisting species. Specifically, these measures have been aimed at reducing the bycatch of marine mammals and turtles, demersal and benthopelagic fishes and benthic invertebrates. Also, measures have been implemented to mitigate impacts of fishing gear on the benthos and coral reefs. However, many issues still need to be resolved both for these and other lower revenue fisheries, which are important in terms of their effect on ecosystems.

Managing the Impacts of Human Activities on Fish Habitat: The Governance, Practices, and Science

<em>Abstract.</em>—American Eel mortality has increased substantially over the past century due largely to significant cumulative effects of fishing and fish passage through hydro-electric turbines across their range. Nowhere has this been more pronounced than in waters of the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, Ottawa River and associated watersheds. We illustrate this by examining the cumulative effects of hydro-electric facilities on eels migrating downstream through the Mississippi River and Ottawa River, and outline further impacts eels encounter en route to spawn in the Sargasso Sea. The probability of a mature female eel surviving its emigration through the Mississippi and Ottawa River to the upper St. Lawrence River is estimated to be as low as 2.8% due to turbine mortalities alone (2.8–40%). Mortality risk increases as the eel attempts to run the gauntlet of fisheries in the lower St. Lawrence River and the probability of out-migration survival is estimated to be as low as 1.4%. Some mortalities could be mitigated through improved application of existing laws, development of policy requiring consideration of cumulative effects and improved integration among program areas responsible for sustainable management of fisheries, biodiversity, dams and hydro-electric facilities. We recommend changes to policy, procedures and internal organizational structures provided with clear directions, and call for increased accommodation of Aboriginal perspectives.

Managing the Impacts of Human Activities on Fish Habitat: The Governance, Practices, and Science

<em>Abstract.</em>—The landscape for policy and management of fish habitat is changing. The historic focus on evaluating environmental impact assessments for large projects, and issuing (or not) permits for small projects is being supplanted by new expectations for habitat managers and policy makers. Many of these new expectations are rooted in the adoption of an ecosystem approach to management of diverse human activities, including fisheries, in aquatic ecosystems, combined with a growing emphasis on integrated management of those human activities, in turn aided by spatial planning and spatial management approaches in many fields. These new expectations placed on habitat managers and policy makers create the need for expanded support from a new blending of habitat and population sciences. Historically, it may have been sufficient to use science advice based on relative indices of habitat quality and carefully assembled expert opinion as the basis for many tasks in habitat policy and management. Such tools now must be augmented by much more quantitative science advice, to allow for setting operational objectives for managing habitats, assessing the quality and quantity of critical or essential habitat for protected or exploited fish populations, conducting risk assessments of projects and mitigation measures, making siting decisions about marine protected areas and other spatial zoning measures, and many other tasks in which habitat managers and policy makers must participate. Science advice now must be able to quantify the relationships between habitat features and population status and productivity, as well with community properties such as resilience and vulnerability. This advice has to capture the uncertainty in the relationships and data sources, in forms that fit comfortably into risk assessments. Tools for forward projection of the habitat consequences of management options are needed, as are tools for cost-benefit analyses of tradeoffs among different types of habitats for different groups of aquatic species. None of these analytical challenges is beyond the scope of modern statistical and modelling capabilities, and current ecological concepts. Few of them can be met by existing tools and data-bases however. Moreover, many of the conceptual approaches to aquatic habitat management have been imported from terrestrial habitat management. They may have served adequately for management of riverine and marine benthic habitats, but some of the fundamental conceptual starting points are being questioned for marine and lacustrine habitats more generally. The paper brings out both some promising opportunities and some difficult challenges for the science needed to support contemporary habitat management and policy.

Managing the Impacts of Human Activities on Fish Habitat: The Governance, Practices, and Science

<em>Abstract.</em>—Habitat Area-Production relationships (HAP) are advocated for determining first-order estimates of the productive capacity of different ecosystems and fish habitat types. HAP is a two-step method. First, an estimate of habitat capacity is determined by regressing surface area of lakes, rivers or marine areas against total production (or a proxy of production) for each area. Area-production plots are not novel, but the premise of this paper is that surface area is often the dominant factor that determines total fish production for a region or site. The second step is to investigate the region- or site-specific environmental drivers or habitat factors that affect production. Case studies based on literature data are used to demonstrate the utility of the HAP method of estimating habitat capacity in freshwater and marine areas, both among and within ecosystems, and at different spatial scales. Advantages of the area-production relationship approach are: 1) first-order estimates of productive capacity, explicitly showing the relative importance of the quantity and quality of habitat, can be determined if surface area-production data are available for specific regions; 2) area-production plots will guide further research for refining habitat function and capacity; 3) HAP provides a quantitative method of identifying both habitat perturbations and important habitat; 4) a lack of a significant area-production relationship may be instructive; and 5) the method can be applied at different spatial scales in different ecosystems. HAP relationships can be used to determine region-specific benchmarks of habitat productive capacity and to guide monitoring to assess the effectiveness of habitat restoration.

Managing the Impacts of Human Activities on Fish Habitat: The Governance, Practices, and Science

<em>Abstract.</em>—Canada’s <em>Fisheries Act</em>, the country’s primary law for regulating the harvesting of its marine and freshwater fisheries resources, includes provisions to regulate the impacts of human activities on fish and fish habitat. As a result of these provisions the <em>Fisheries Act </em>represents the main federal statute for protecting freshwater and marine aquatic ecosystems and is considered one of the strongest environmental laws in Canada. This paper outlines the legal and policy frameworks and institutional arrangements for the administration of these provisions of the <em>Fisheries Act</em>. It describes the review process and practices established by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) for administering the provisions of the <em>Act </em>assigned to the Department’s Fish Habitat Management Program (HMP). It defines the key issues and concerns raised about the delivery of the Fish Habitat Management Program and reviews initiatives undertaken to address these. It suggests that while these have improved delivery of the regulatory responsibilities of the HMP, there is a need for more fundamental changes that will enable it to keep pace with the increasing and cumulative impacts associated with population growth and economic development and create conditions under which human activities and fish and fish habitat can co-exist on a sustainable basis. This paper suggests that such a change must be founded on an ecosystem-based approach and on the application of modern scientific and management principles for regulating impacts to fish and fish habitat. It also describes steps to move forward to demonstrate and instill an ecosystem-based approach.

Managing the Impacts of Human Activities on Fish Habitat: The Governance, Practices, and Science

<em>Abstract.</em>—Based on increased concern for habitat degradation, destructive fishing practices, and cumulative impacts across regional ecosystems, marine fish habitat conservation has received unprecedented attention in the past 15 years. Significant progress in science, management, and policy reflect growing acceptance that habitat conservation is an essential ingredient for successful management at the regional or ecosystem levels. Economic realities from the recent global downturn are dampening an immediate infusion of new monies, but the cumulative benefits of these efforts promise to bear fruit. In U.S. waters, our ocean’s health and society’s expectations appear to be nearing their respective tipping points on marine environmental and ecological issues such as declining population vitality and worsening economic yields. This new paradigm calls for a more inclusive approach to fisheries management, including habitat protection and restoration in regional approaches to resource management. Fisheries are likely to be managed in a larger context with other ocean uses and with an eye toward a broader sweep of ecosystem services. The next era of resource management could be based less on traditional fishery management tactics and more on new expectations related to broad ocean management. The result could be healthier oceans yielding greater returns across the larger range of societal needs.

Managing the Impacts of Human Activities on Fish Habitat: The Governance, Practices, and Science

<em>Abstract.</em>—Project level regulatory review and environmental assessment processes typically assess and ascertain potential impacts of one project or human sector activity on a specific habitat or species. The scope of the assessment is usually limited to the ecological foot print or zone of influence of the project. The assessment also identifies key mitigation measures designed to reduce effects to residual levels. These measures tend to be sector or project specific with a focus on activity specific adverse environmental effects such as fish passage, flow maintenance or sedimentation control. By design, such assessments are not effective to ascertain the project’s contribution to the overall cumulative effects in a given ecosystem. In this paper, a risk analysis approach is discussed as a means to structure and facilitate the characterization of cumulative effects and in priority setting for management. As part of the hazard identification step, the risk analysis approach requires that the ecological unit and the zone of influence of relevant drivers of human activities be identified. Cumulative effects are considered as the residual effects resulting from activities operating within their respective legal and policy frameworks. In preparation for the Risk Assessment step, the paper describes the need to establish pathways of effects linking the relevant drivers of human activities to their resulting pressures and potential ecosystem goods and services Impacts. Pathways of effects are important components of risk management in identifying which pressure require new or enhanced mitigation measures.