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The Hawke Box is an offshore area (8610 km2) of the boreal Northwest Atlantic that at the request of local fishers was closed to trawling and gillnetting in 2003, but remained open to seasonal snow crab ( Chionocetes opilio) pot fishing. Closure was a precautionary management measure primarily to sustain the crab fishery and secondarily to conserve cod known to aggregate there. Fall (1996-2013) and spring (1996-2003, 2015) surveys indicated that biological community assemblages changed significantly before-after and inside-outside the closure (PERMANOVA P < 0.01). Crab fishery data (1996-2013) indicated that landings and relative production declined throughout the region after closure, but was significantly more outside than inside. Atlantic cod ( Gadus morhua) increased inside and outside the closure, and several other demersal species increased significantly more inside. The Hawke Box provides a unique boreal area for the study of restrictions on trawling and gillnetting in an area with historically strong fisheries, restrictions that are strongly supported by local fishers. The overall evidence suggests that within a decade the Hawke Box has benefited fisheries communities, fisheries production, and biodiversity conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A rapid review of the literature on closed areas that recognize key ecosystem-based management ( EBM) principles of fisheries and biodiversity conservation and had fisher involvement was employed to review closed areas worldwide from a fisheries perspective and to develop a scorecard that can assess their efficacy. The review provided 523 abstracts of which 19 areas from various regions worldwide had peer-reviewed studies that met strict selection criteria. Criteria included fisher involvement, biodiversity conservation and fisheries management objectives. A repeat search without 'fisher' and synonyms found, 62,622 papers indicating that most closed area studies had no mention of any fisher involvement. The general success of the areas selected suggests that fisher involvement benefits both biological conservation and fisheries management. Fisheries and biodiversity conservation outcomes were not exclusive to any one type of management closure (e.g. MPA, Fishery Closure). Twenty-four indicators were selected, designed to provide measurable targets. High scoring indicators included management, planning and socio-economic indicators such as local support (100%), habitat protection (100%), conservation and fisheries objectives (100%), monitoring (91.7%) and fishers concerns (91.7%). Bio-ecological-based indicators scored lower in most cases for all types of areas. Fisheries closures rated as highly as the MPAs with respect to both fisheries and bio-ecological indicators. The scorecard provided a reasonable means to evaluate management success in the light of often qualitative or missing data. Addressing the interests and utilizing knowledge of those affected by closures and familiar with the area, most often local fishers, is key to achieving management objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meeting the urgent need to protect and restore ecosystems requires effective decision‐making through wisely considering a range of evidence. However, weighing and assessing evidence to make complex decisions is challenging, particularly when evidence is of diverse types, subjects, and sources, and varies greatly in its quality and relevance. To tackle these challenges, we present the Balance Evidence Assessment Method (BEAM), an intuitive way to weigh and assess the evidence relating to the core assumptions underpinning the planning and implementation of conservation projects, strategies, and actions. Our method directly tackles the question of how to bring together diverse evidence whilst assessing its relevance, reliability, and strength of support for a given assumption, which can be mapped, for example to a Theory of Change. We consider how simple principles and safeguards in applying this method could help to respectfully, and equitably, include more local forms of knowledge when assessing assumptions, such as by ensuring diverse groups of individuals contribute and assess evidence. The method can be flexibly applied within existing decision‐making tools, platforms, and frameworks whenever assumptions (i.e., claims and hypotheses) are made. This method could greatly facilitate and improve the weighing of diverse evidence to make decisions in a range of situations, from local projects to global policy platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]