Socio-Political Strategies Of Marine Protected Area

By, Fahry Muhammad 05

Effective Socio-Political Strategies That Help Support Ecological Resilience Of Marine Protected Area Networks Within The Coral
Triangle

The Coral Triangle is the global center of marine biodiversity and one of the world’s top priorities for conservation. Various organizations and partner groups are working to establish networks of Marine Protected Area (MPAs) within the Coral Triangle. Network designs are generally based on scientific principles of resilience, whereby focus is based on reefs that are most likely to survive threats. Criteria to form networks include among others:


(1) protecting a representative range of habitat
types and replicating these at multiple locations to spread the risk of habitat loss;
(2) protecting coral communities that are resistant to bleaching;
(3) understanding coral reef connectivity to other ecosystems and processes, and;
(4) increasing management effectiveness of controllable/human factors. In this light, the “Marine Learning Partnership” Project (LMPP), involving four global NGOs, is working towards a framework for tropical marine conservation that emphasizes
resilient and representative MPA networks.

The objective of LMPP is to improve conservation field practice in scaling up from MPA sites to ecological networks, by generating and disseminating knowledge
through inter-organizational collaboration. This required capturing and analyzing experiences gained among institutions working in six sites across countries through: (1) a survey using standard forms targeting MPA managers and primary stakeholders, and;
(2) a stakeholder learning workshop involving representatives from participating
countries. Since, ecological networking is relatively new, LMPP sites serve as “reality laboratories”.

We are realizing that certain initial sociopolitical arrangements are needed to support and sustain MPA network initiatives to achieve ecological resilience and economic benefits. The most effective socio-political approach taken by each of the six study sites will be presented to serve as models for others to learn from,
considering various political set-ups and cultures across countries.

from :
Anna MENESES*1, Alan WHITE2, Stuart GREEN3, Stacey KILARSKI4, Patrick CHRISTIE5

1Global Marine Initiative, The Nature Conservancy, Calamba City,Laguna, Philippines, 2Global Marine Initiative, The Nature Conservancy, Kailua, HI,
3Global Marine Initiative, The Nature Conservancy, Tagbilaran City, Bohol, Philippines,
4Global Marine Initiative, The Nature Conservancy, Honolulu, HI, 5School of Marine
Affairs and Jackson School of International Studies, University of
Washington, Seattle, WA