Marine protection needs to be attacked from many different angles if future generations are to experience what we have experienced. If we get it right, hopefully they’ll experience something better.

Good fisheries management, no take zones, customary management tools such as mataitai and rahui, voluntary fishing accords, education programmes, all these things working together could achieve that.

A human side-benefit of no-take zones is they serve as a reminder what natural abundance looks like and how far we have come from it.

Duncan, Ray Hilborn is a highly respected fisheries scientist and I would certainly not accuse him of lying. I have read other material (that I can’t find right now) that supports this report that sound fisheries management results in better environmental outcomes than simply closing areas.
Since 2007 there has been an area four times the land mass of NZ closed to bottom trawling and dredging (known as Benthic Protection Areas), some 32% of the EEZ. (http://www.fish.govt.nz/en-nz/Environmental/Seabed+Protection+and+Research/Benthic+Protection+Areas.htm)
Current productivity may be a fraction of the unfished biomass, but it is vastly better than 30 years ago when the Quota Management System was introduced.
Great idea that policy development will be based on evidence rather than popular bias.

Hi Alan
I have read that article and the good professor is simply lying in his back teeth – or else being massively misrepresented by Fox News (surprise!)

One of the main things that a marine protection area does is stop all bottom trawling – an incredibly destructive way of “harvesting” fish
Setting aside about 50% of the total area – especially the more productive nursery type areas leads to much higher availability of fish in the remaining 50%
Anybody doing any serious research in this area will know that the current productivity is a fraction of what used to be available – we now go a lot further for the same amount of fish

I recomend – The Unnatural History of the Sea
https://www.amazon.com/Unnatural-History-Sea-Callum-Roberts/dp/1597265772

According to Ray Hilborn, (Professor of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle), proper fisheries management is more effective than marine protected areas. [http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/10/06/obamas-new-ocean-preserves-are-bad-for-environment-and-for-people.html]
So, yes make sure resource utilization is science based and sustainable. A good start would be managing recreational fishing well away from political lobbying.

See also http://www.top.org.nz/jeffwilliams/biodiversity_protection_as_a_national_policy

More marine protection
I don’t know why this is even a question – Marine reserves BOOST the available output from the surrounding areas
The optimum condition for OUTPUT! – never mind conservation would be about 50% of our waters as conservation areas

I voted for the Greens once because they said before the election they would go with whoever the country chose. When it came to the crunch they wouldn’t even talk to National. NEVER again would I vote for them. It’s hard to get anything you want if you’re not the one in power. They should have been the conscience for the leading party (whoever that was)