randirotjan

Thank you for asking a happy question! YES, the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) has had some incredibly encouraging data emerge in the past two years. NPR did excellent coverage of a PIPA reef regaining biodiversity after a bleaching event, see here: https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2016/08/18/coral-reef-blooms-pacific.

Also, I’ve been working more and more in the deep sea (#DeepCoralsofPIPA) and we’ve found corals there that are thousands of years old. I love thinking about ancient organisms - they are fascinating in their own right, but also give me so much hope.

I’ve also seen the power of individuals: one person can truly change the world. It took one person to have the idea to create the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (not me!), but they started an unexpected catalytic movement of conservation across the globe. I have Rosie the Riveter in my mind as I write this: Let’s do this!

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are one of (but not the only!) the key tools in the marine conservation toolbox. There is conflicting evidence, but that is likely because the zonation, maintenance and enforcement of MPAs is highly variable. Many MPAs are no-take, but not all are well-enforced. Still others \are* well-enforced, but are NOT no-take, and therefore still allow a substantial amount of exploitation. In the end, the concept of MPAs is one of the most tractable and promising tools we have available, and they certainly achieve the credo put forth by the medical community: “First, do no harm”. But most MPAs are relatively recently created, and I think time, money, and resources are needed to answer this question fully. On a more personal note, I work very closely with the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA), owned and operated by the Republic of Kiribati. PIPA is the largest and deepest UNESCO World Heritage Site on the planet, and recently closed to all large-scale commercial and extractive activities as of Jan 1 2015. A paper published in collaboration with SkyTruth and Oceana and published in Science (McCauley et al 2016:* https://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6278/1148) looked at ship traffic (mostly related to tuna fishing) in PIPA pre- and post-closure and found that there was a dramatic reduction in ship traffic, suggesting that the MPA was effective in eliminating fishing pressure. Now, 4 years later, we are just starting to answer the question of whether PIPA is effective at protecting tuna (so stay tuned!).

Approximately, 80% of all marine debris comes from land-based sources, the remaining 20% comes from offshore vessels/activities. Of the 80%, microplastic sources include clothing, tires, personal care products and city dust and are transported via road runoff, wastewater, winds and waterways (we just quickly reviewed this in our recent pub - Rotjan et al. 2019). According to Lebreton et al., 2017, approximately 1.15 and 2.41 million tonnes of plastic waste enter the ocean each year from rivers (74% of emissions occurring between May and October). Research on freshwater plastic pollution is an upcoming field and most has been done in industrialized countries of Europe and North America. However, the top 20 polluting rivers (mostly in Asia) account for 67% of the global total (Lebreton et al. 2017). Riverine input of microplastics can vary between rivers which is attributed to population density, levels of urbanization and industrialization, rainfall rates and the presence of artificial barriers such as weirs and dams (Labereton et al. 2017) - https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15611. More research is needed to better understand freshwater contamination by plastic pollution, but the evidence is mounting - the Hudson River (NYC), for example, is a major source of microplastics (Miller et al, 2017 - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X17306094). As you are well-aware, the Mystic River is one of the most urban rivers in the world - I think it would be an important one to survey for microplastics. Efforts to reduce plastic pollution to river systems (i.e. artificial barriers) might help mitigate the input of microplastics into the ocean. Given that the top 20 polluting rivers are mostly in Asia, monitoring and mitigation efforts in those countries are necessary (i.e better waste management). To prevent plastics going into our watersheds, we are going to need a holistic approach that also tackles road tires… especially in highly urbanized areas, that will be a key problem to solve. Thanks Andy! :-) Keep our beautiful Mystic River watershed amazing!!

We must address climate change. But simultaneously, we can’t forget all the other stresses and pressures that we (humans) are putting on ocean life. There is not a “one size fits all” answer to this, and the biggest problems facing one area may not be the same everywhere, so regional management is extremely important. For example the most important issues facing corals in the Florida Keys may be very different than the problems facing corals in the Central Pacific. Education and awareness are the first and most important things (I always say that we can’t fix problems that we don't know or care about), which is part of this AMA - so great job! As for policy changes, I think we need a sea-change. The UN is about to launch the Decade of Ocean Science, which I think will go a long way towards identifying the most urgent and important and immediate policy changes globally, and will help catalyze the holistic and global change we so desperately need.

Microplastics are plastic pieces less than 5mm in size. They can be primary microplastics [deliberately made this size (microbeads, fibers)] or be secondary microplastics [originate as macro-plastic and degrade over time (i.e. a plastic water bottle breaking into fragments in the environment)].