Ecotrust's Marine Consulting - Human Use and Values Monitoring
Monitoring California’s Marine Protected Areas
Following the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) along California's Coast, Ecotrust in partnerships with Natural Equity established the Monitoring Human Uses and Values project to better understand the influence of MPAs on human activities. Currently, our work spans across three regions in California: the North Central, Central, and South Coast regions which extends from Alder Creek, near Point Arena in Mendocino County, to the Mexico border in the south. In these regions we are researching consumptive (e.g., commercial fishing, recreational fishing, charter fishing) and non-consumptive (e.g., diving, kayaking, whale watching, beach walking) uses. This project is a part of several projects that comprise the MPA Baseline Program developed by the MPA Monitoring Enterprise, a program of the California Ocean Science Trust, in collaboration with the California Ocean Protection Council (OPC), California Department of Fish and Game, and California Sea Grant.
The objectives of this research are to:
- A spatial and socioeconomic baseline characterization of select commercial fisheries and the commercial passenger fishing vessel (CPFV) fleet;
- Provide spatial and demographic baseline estimates of coastal recreation economic activity;
- Describe the initial responses of ocean/coastal user communities to the MPAs; and
- Inform the planning and implementation of long-term monitoring, in order to understand the causal links between ecosystem features, socioeconomic changes, and the implementation of MPAs.
Learn more about the Socioeconomic Impacts of MPAs in California
