May 27, 2026
Owl in America is a series of letters tracing the actions of the current U.S. administration from the perspective of an environmental lawyer. These notes follow how, in a time of rapid political and ecological change, governmental decisions are felt in the living world.
Hi all~
I have marine protected areas on my mind today. MPAs, for short, are ocean areas where human activity is limited to protect marine ecosystems. With varying levels of protection and restriction, they've been designated along coastlines around the world. Those with the strongest protections have proven remarkably effective at improving ocean health.
Almost 20 years ago, when I was in law school, the state of California was finalizing its MPA system. One of my duties as a legal intern at the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife was to present the developing MPAs to the staff. A map lover, I spent many happy hours poring over colorful diagrams of California's coastline.
A 1999 act of the state legislature set the new MPA network in motion. It was followed by years of study and compromise—among Tribes, fishers, conservationists, and scientists—until 2012, when the state dedicated the world's largest network of "ecologically connected" MPAs. Strung like beads along California's 1,100-mile coastline, 124 of these jewels now harbor increased biodiversity and safeguard natural processes.
Surfrider Foundation
Each MPA, when functioning as intended, not only serves as a refuge for marine life but also helps seed the surrounding ocean, an expanding ring of fecundity that improves the health of ecosystems outside its boundaries as well. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) recently named California's interlinked MPA system to its Green List, which recognizes the most successful efforts toward biodiversity conservation worldwide.
In California, as across the world, some MPAs allow for limited activity, such as swimming, boating, and even recreational fishing or collecting. Others may be more strictly protected, allowing for no "take" of any kind. Research has shown that the most strictly protected MPAs provide the best biodiversity boost.
According to the Marine Conservation Institute, about 9.6% of the world's oceans are protected in some form, just short of the 10% goal set by several nations in 2010. Upping the ante in 2023, 142 countries plus the EU adopted the High Seas Treaty, which creates a legal framework for conserving marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction and is intended to help countries meet the goal of protecting 30% of the world's oceans by 2030.[1]
California's state wildlife department says one of the greatest benefits of MPAs is "protecting big old fertile female fish." As many fish and invertebrate species get older and larger, the number of offspring they produce grows exponentially.
Those big old fertile females can repopulate protected areas and the ocean around them. According to Stanford University's Hannah Myers, "One of the notable benefits of MPAs is the spillover effect, where the recovery of fish populations within protected areas leads to an increase in fish abundance and size outside their boundaries."
Mongabay reported this week that ten years after Scotland protected its South Arran MPA and banned bottom trawl fishing across most of it, seabed life there has tripled in abundance compared to unprotected areas nearby, with double the number of species present. Arran Island sits between Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Seabed in the South Arran Marine Protected Area, Henley Spiers/Mongabay
Bottom trawling is a fishing method that drags huge weighted nets across the seafloor to rake up cod, hake, octopus, and other valuable species. In the process, it decimates wide swaths of the seabed ecosystem and can destroy its ability to store carbon.
Humans have trawled the European continental shelf since at least the mid-1300s. A history of fishing notes: "As far back as 1376, the English parliament highlighted the destructive nature of the practice to fish populations and habitats, noting that it ‘runs so heavily and hardly over the ground when fishing that it destroys the flowers of the land’ and takes so many fish ‘to the great damage of the commons and the destruction of the fisheries’ (Petition by the Commons to King Edward III, 1376 seen in Bolster, 2012)."
So, it seems people have been trying to limit trawling for at least 650 years. They are still hard at it. In other European news, a Dutch court ruling signals that other European governments also have a legal responsibility to regulate bottom trawling in MPAs. The specific case involved a blanket fishing exemption in the Dutch Dogger Bank, the Netherlands' largest protected area and a vital "nursery" for North Sea animals. According to Oceanographic , the Dogger Bank "supports a range of marine life, including sharks, rays, long-lived shellfish, sea pens, anemones and corals, and plays a critical role in the wider health of the region’s ecosystem."
Commercial fishers will now need a permit supported by an appropriate environmental assessment showing that the activity will not harm the protected area before being allowed to fish the Dogger Bank MPA. It's part of the Natura 2000 network, a European Commission initiative encompassing 27,000 nature sites across Europe and its waters. Protected by European legislation—but sometimes needing court orders for enforcement, as in this Dutch case—the network covers almost a fifth of EU land plus about a tenth of its marine waters.
The legal ruling should pressure other EU member states to similarly regulate fishing practices in their MPAs. Litigation brought by environmental groups against the German government to ensure protections is pending. It joins lawsuits against several other EU states as well as a petition brought before the EU Commission asking it to take enforcement action against several member governments for failing to properly protect their MPAs.
The Dogger Bank also harbors fascinating prehistoric artifacts. It's the underwater remnant of Doggerland, an Ice Age land bridge connecting the British Isles and Ireland with the European mainland. Doggerland was inhabited by humans until it was inundated by the North Sea around 6,000 years ago. Bottom trawlers have been bringing up prehistoric artifacts and remains for hundreds of years, including Neanderthal bones, mammoth tusks, altar stones, and tools.
Map: Government of Canada
Over on the Pacific coast of North America, six First Nations together with Canada and British Columbia have agreed to establish a new MPA called Mia-yaltwa Ha’lidzogm hoon. It means “Realm of the Salmon, Home of the Salmon” and when finalized, will protect up to 6,700 square kilometers along the British Columbia coast.
The protected zone is now officially dedicated under Indigenous conservation law and, through an agreement with Canada's government, should also receive federal protection once regulations are complete. While some nondestructive commercial fishing practices will be allowed, officials expect to ban bottom trawling going forward. And, according to reporting in The Tyee , new oil and gas pipelines will also be excluded from the protected area.
As a little aside to close this letter out, California's fisheries agency has announced that the state will hold a limited commercial salmon fishing season for the first time since 2022. State fisheries managers say a stronger-than-expected Klamath salmon return contributed directly to their decision to reopen the season this year, alongside broader improvements in salmon conditions.
They credit the removal of four Klamath River dams, the largest dam-removal project in U.S. history, as "one of the most significant factors in the Klamath River’s salmon recovery." Last year's fall Chinook salmon run came in at nearly double what scientists had projected. It's an astonishing result, only one year after the dams came down.
The Yurok Tribe, one of the prime movers of the dam removal effort, has announced a Salmon Festival this August to again celebrate the fish's return to the river. They hope to catch and serve salmon to festivalgoers—grilled in the traditional way, on vertical redwood stakes over a pit of hot coals—for the first time since 2022.
The state's Ocean Protection Council says, "The 2026 reopening is a sign that the investments California has made in habitat restoration and fisheries management are producing results. It is also a reminder of how closely the health of California’s fisheries is tied to the health of its rivers, its forests, and its broader climate."
It's madness in Washington, D.C., but encouraging work proceeds elsewhere. The living world, when given room to recover, responds with fabulous speed.
Talk to you soon, Owl
[1] The High Seas Treaty provides for conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction. The U.S. signed the treaty in 2023. Ratification by 60 signatories was needed for the convention to enter into force. The U.S. has not yet ratified; however, Morocco became the 60th country to do so in late 2025. The treaty entered into force in January 2026. Parties that have ratified the treaty are bound by new international legal obligations and must implement them through their national laws. Parties that have merely signed the treaty are obliged to refrain from "acts that would defeat the object and the purpose of the treaty."
Sources:
https://wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Marine/MPAs/Master-Plan
https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=151949&inline
https://cdfwmarine.wordpress.com/2025/06/27/how-mpas-benefit-you/
https://marine-conservation.org/mpatlas/mpatlas-with-mpa-guide/
https://highseasalliance.org/treaty-ratification/map/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272771426001769
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-57953-0_2
https://oceanographicmagazine.com/news/dutch-court-rules-bottom-trawling-in-dogger-bank-is-unlawful/
https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/nature-and-biodiversity/natura-2000_en
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/doggerland/
https://thetyee.ca/News/2026/05/26/One-Strongest-Marine-Protected-Areas-World/
https://opc.ca.gov/2026/04/californias-salmon-season-returns/
https://www.si.edu/object/posts_74a8634219981f5e480bf00289951f1b
*Inspired by historian Heather Cox Richardson's Letters from an American
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