Article about what remains of Ocean Wilderness

Long ago i had seen an article that was similar: studies have shown that wildlife is impacted up to half a mile on either side of a roadway, due to changes in behavior (avoidance), or mortality rates (roadkill), noise, lights, garbage, etc. They then went on to calculate how much global land area is at least half a mile from any road, and the answer was very surprising. If you think about it, most of the midwest is on a 1 mile grid, so no point is further than a half mile from the nearest road

 

Not the same article, but seems to be telling the same story
New map reveals shattering effect of roads on nature

 

You should be skeptical of all stories like this. Agendas.

 

quote from the story "The world needs areas that are free of influence from humans" That is nonsense. Not interested enough to read further. People who believe "preservation" is an effective strategy are just self righteous fools. Conservation of is how you save wildlife and protect habitat.

 

What someones claim as their agenda and what their actual agenda is are two very different things. If you want to help conservation that starts with education. Activism for the sake of activism is one of the biggest threats our wild places face. You need to combine education (knowledge) with ability (intelligence) if you want to achieve great things. There are no short cuts.

Pollution is not the problem. Pollution and other negative impacts are caused by Poverty/oppression, over population, and land use policies, these are the problems. The people making the most noise about how much they care are the problem. None of them know anything. Science needs to be in charge and that means removing the politics and the self self aggrandizing.

 

Let me give you food for thought. I aqua culture corals, fish and various inverts because I enjoy it and because it pays for the hobby. I don't kid myself about it being some awesome conservation agenda. Here is the question.

Fish can be supplied as part of a sustainable harvested, yes this can be done, or alternatively they can be raised in an aquaculture facility which uses electricity, man hours, and lots of resources, 10x the resources used to have a native net it and put it on a plane where it is 0.0001% of the cargo. Which is better for conservation?

Its not cut and dry. What we are learning about aquaculture is very important and in opposition to harvests which are not sustainable it will be the better choice but as I said it is not cut and dry. Are primary goal should be to harvest what we can sustainable and nothing more. If that leaves room for aquaculture that is great but if we drop the sustainable harvest part what we are doing isn't conservation.

Its the same for any other conservation issue. You have to understand the variables and do the math.

 

You literally entered this thread by dismissing article(s) about scientific research quantifying anthropogenic influences as TL;DR...

Cancer is not the problem. Smoking and forgotten sunscreen and a bad roll of the genetic dice are the problems. Idk, i think cancer patients think its a pretty big deal no matter what the underlying cause is.

 

Just the kind of thing scientists are good at! If only they published their works for other scientists to review, redo the math, and reach consensus, and then someone could summarize and disseminate their work on such matters for us lay-people to disregard as riddled with nefarious agendas. Watch out for Big Smithsonian

Why the Ocean Needs Wilderness | Science | Smithsonian

 

The popular press is famous for horribly misrepresenting scientific data. They hunt for a buzz line to make a headline sensational and in today's context to generate clicks. It disgusts me every time I get sucked into clicking on headline that goes to a fluff piece designed to generate add revenue. Smithsonian is popular press and your story is their version of an editorial. Editorials always site real real data when they are building their house cards.

 

A worthy cause does not make an editorial more credible, it makes it more suspect.

 

And yes I dismiss most of what the article says. It champions the "wilderness act approach" which is bad policy. It believes that preservation is both possible and effective. It is neither. If your interested in understanding my concerns examine Isle Royale and ask yourself how well did "preservation" work for the animal populations and for the habitat on that Island. Its not a perfect example but if you can understand why preservation fails there then maybe you can begin to understand my larger points here. Everything needs a starting point.

 

Actually the article explicitly says the Wildness Act effectiveness is debated, without backing or condemning it. The large majority of the article is concerning the research finding that some level of human impact is measurable no matter how remote a location you think you have found. Additionally, the researcher advocates for a standardized legal definition of wilderness, for the purpose of deciding which areas are the best focus of conservation. I say conservation because the only mention of preservation is in regards to the goal of maintaining biodiversity and wilderness characteristics. No mention of hands-off policies, in fact it says a legal definition helps dictate how we MANAGE such areas according to the goals we set as a society. Sounds very similar to the ideas you advocate. Isle Royale isn't a great parallel, since it is primarily a terrestrial ecosystem surrounded by water, which is a very real boundary to the wildlife there. The article states that it is well documented that protected fishing areas have dramatically improved harvests in surrounding fishing areas. Immediately reminds me of our own refugiums being a haven for pods that in turn benefit the main tank.

 

Yup, having "sanctuary areas" is great management. I would just add one wrinkle to that, Sanctuary areas should rotate after about five years to a new area if for any reason just to generate data that can be compared on the effectiveness of which areas are protected but also to generate utility. No area should be completely and permanently removed from production.

 

The biggest difference between managing fisheries and and managing wildlife inside the US is that countries always cheat and its almost impossible to enforce laws on the open sea, in international waters. That is why the sanctuaries are such a great idea, its harder to violate because the commercial ships have no business even being there in the first place.

 

And perhaps I misjudged your article, I just saw things that rubbed me the wrong way and did not give it a thorough evaluation. I read the raw data published in the journals and don't really have an interest in the popular press given their poor track record. I am biased against them and justifiably so after decades of misinformation.