Grant Murray

Using expert judgment to estimate marine ecosystem vulnerability in the California Current.

As resource management and conservation efforts move toward multi-sector, ecosystem-based approaches, we need methods for comparing the varying responses of ecosystems to the impacts of human activities in order to prioritize management efforts, allocate limited resources, and understand cumulative effects. Given the number and variety of human activities affecting ecosystems, relatively few empirical studies are adequately comprehensive to inform these decisions. Consequently, management often turns to expert judgment for information. Drawing on methods from decision science, we offer a method for eliciting expert judgment to (1) quantitatively estimate the relative vulnerability of ecosystems to stressors, (2) help prioritize the management of stressors across multiple ecosystems, (3) evaluate how experts give weight to different criteria to characterize vulnerability of ecosystems to anthropogenic stressors, and (4) identify key knowledge gaps. We applied this method to the California Current region in order to evaluate the relative vulnerability of 19 marine ecosystems to 53 stressors associated with human activities, based on surveys from 107 experts. When judging the relative vulnerability of ecosystems to stressors, we found that experts primarily considered two criteria: the ecosystems resistance to the stressor and the number of species or trophic levels affected. Four intertidal ecosystems (mudflat, beach, salt marsh, and rocky intertidal) were judged most vulnerable to the suite of human activities evaluated here. The highest vulnerability rankings for coastal ecosystems were invasive species, ocean acidification, sea temperature change, sea level rise, and habitat alteration from coastal engineering, while offshore ecosystems were assessed to be most vulnerable to ocean acidification, demersal destructive fishing, and shipwrecks. These results provide a quantitative, transparent, and repeatable assessment of relative vulnerability across ecosystems to any ongoing or emerging human activity. Combining these results with data on the spatial distribution and intensity of human activities provides a systematic foundation for ecosystem-based management.

Constructing Paradise: The Impacts of Big Tourism in the Mexican Coastal Zone

Although coastal tourism is often looked to as a way of generating foreign revenue, it can also engender a range of social and environmental impacts. From an historical perspective, this article examines the growth of Cancún in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo since the late 1960s. The article documents a range of socioeconomic and environmental impacts associated with the rise of coastal tourism, and suggests that centralized planning and the provision of physical and financial infrastructure does not prevent those impacts. The principal causes of these impacts are also described, including changes in land-usage, population, tourism markets, foreign market penetration and control, an emphasis on short-term economic gain, weak regulatory enforcement, and an overall lack of integration of coastal zone management.

The capacity to adapt?: communities in a changing climate, environment, and economy on the northern Andaman coast of Thailand

The health and productivity of marine ecosystems, habitats, and fisheries are deteriorating on the Andaman coast of Thailand. Because of their high dependence on natural resources and proximity to the ocean, coastal communities are particularly vulnerable to climate-induced changes in the marine environment. These communities must also adapt to the impacts of management interventions and conservation initiatives, including marine protected areas, which have livelihood implications. Further, communities on the Andaman coast are also experiencing a range of new economic opportunities associated in particular with tourism and agriculture. These complex and ongoing changes require integrated assessment of, and deliberate planning to increase, the adaptive capacity of communities so that they may respond to: (1) environmental degradation and fisheries declines through effective management interventions or conservation initiatives, (2) new economic opportunities to reduce dependence on fisheries, and (3) the increasing impacts of climate change. Our results are from a mixed methods study, which used surveys and interviews to examine multiple dimensions of the adaptive capacity of seven island communities near marine protected areas on the Andaman coast of Thailand. Results show that communities had low adaptive capacity with respect to environmental degradation and fisheries declines, and to management and conservation interventions, as well as uneven levels of adaptive capacity to economic opportunities. Though communities and households were experiencing the impacts of climate change, especially storm events, changing seasons and weather patterns, and erosion, they were reacting to these changes with limited knowledge of climate change per se. We recommend interventions, in the form of policies, programs, and actions, at multiple scales for increasing the adaptive capacity of Thailands coastal communities to change. The analytical and methodological approach used for examining adaptive capacity could be easily modified and applied to other contexts and locales.

Multifaceted Measures of Success in Two Mexican Marine Protected Areas

ABSTRACT An emerging trend within the international conservation community suggests that the “success” of protected areas should be measured by strictly biological and/or ecological indicators. These “objective” measures, however, may only represent the objectives of one group of stakeholders—conservationists. Many of the stakeholders recently involved in creating two national marine parks in Quintana Roo, Mexico, not only prioritized conservation, but also emphasized a range of economic, political, and social goals that were shaped by the context in which those stakeholders are embedded. While the biodiversity protection offered is potentially weak, these parks can be considered successful in that they represent legitimate conservation foundations. Strictly biological/ecological measures of success are therefore a necessary but critically insufficient set of indicators, as they can ignore the objectives of powerful actors, as well as aspects of both context and social process that will fundamentally affect the success—by any measure—of protected areas.

Perceptions of shellfish aquaculture in British Columbia and implications for well-being in marine social-ecological systems

Shellfish aquaculture is often positioned as an adaptive alternative to traditional resource industries, but the social and cultural effects of expanding production on coastal/marine social-ecological systems are unclear. Reporting on a multimethods study, we present perceptions about shellfish aquaculture collected through interviews, participant-employed photography, and a household survey in British Columbia, Canada. With an approach focused on local preferences for social-ecological conditions and the ways in which those conditions may be enhanced or diminished, we indicate that perceptions of the effects of aquaculture on the environment, economy, and lived experience are composed of both objective and subjective components. Interview responses and survey opinions varied widely and included bimodal responses. Industry interviewees tended to focus on environmental and economic benefits while acknowledging concerns about the environment and lived experience. Nonindustry interviewees typically questioned the environmental effects while underscoring economic benefits and negative effects on experience. Most survey participants felt positively about the effects on the economy, expressed negativity and uncertainty about effects on the environment, and demonstrated the greatest variability in opinions about effects on lived experience. Findings revealed uncertainty and alienation across all dimensions. Our findings, used as an analytical lens, support the usefulness of the concept of well-being in attempts like this one to understand the dynamics of coastal communities by providing a framework for deciphering what is important to individuals and societies experiencing change and considering adaptations.

Local Ecological Knowledge, Science, Participation and Fisheries Governance in Newfoundland and Labrador: A Complex, Contested and Changing Relationship

Amidst the failures of fisheries across the globe and the perceived failure of scientific fisheries management, some recent scholarship has focused attention on the nature and collection of fishers’ knowledge, and on the potential utility of that knowledge to fisheries management. This chapter summarises the results of recent research on fish harvesters’ local ecological knowledge (LEK) and its interactions with fisheries science and management in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. We treat LEK, science and management as parallel, interacting socio-ecological knowledge systems that are internally complex and dynamic. We begin by characterising the dynamism of LEK in Newfoundland fisheries and then describe the rise of a linked fisheries science and management framework in Canada in the 1970s and 1980s that contributed to the marginalisation of fish harvesters’ LEK, particularly that of small boat fishers. We then explore the changing interactions between LEK, governance and science in Newfoundland, associated with a recently shifting international discourse that highlights the need for participation and the devolution of some responsibility and authority for fisheries management from centralised state bureaucracies and government-funded and controlled fisheries science to harvesters and other ‘stakeholder’ groups. Two case studies, comparing and contrasting the role of harvesters and LEK in the management of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) and American lobster (Homarus americanus) fisheries in Newfoundland and Labrador since 1992, are then used as examples of the interactions between these actors and their knowledge systems in practice. We conclude with a discussion of some of the potential benefits and dangers associated with this emerging contemporary relationship between harvesters and their knowledge, fisheries science, participation and governance in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Historical perspectives and recent trends in the coastal Mozambican fishery

Historical data describing changing social-ecological interactions in marine systems can help guide small-scale fisheries management efforts. Fisheries landings data are often the primary source for historical reconstructions of fisheries; however, we argue that reliance on data of a single type and/or from a single scale can lead to potentially misleading conclusions. For example, a narrow focus on aggregate landings statistics can mask processes and trends occurring at local scales, as well as the complex social changes that result from and precipitate marine ecosystem change. Moreover, in the case of many small- scale fisheries, landings statistics are often incomplete and/or inaccurate. We draw on case study research in Mozambique that combines national landings statistics and career history interviews with fish harvesters to generate a multi-scale historical reconstruction that describes social-ecological interactions within the coastal Mozambican fishery. At the national level, our analysis points toward trends of fishing intensification and decline in targeted species, and it highlights the significant impact of small-scale fisheries on marine stocks. At the local level, fishers are experiencing changes in fish abundance and distribution, as well as in their physical, social, and cultural environments, and have responded by increasing their fishing effort. We conclude with a discussion of the governance implications of our methodological approach and findings.

Lessons from a Multi-Scale Historical Reconstruction of Newfoundland and Labrador Fisheries

In this article we use a multi-scale, multi-method historical reconstruction of post– World War II social-ecological interactions within fisheries in Newfoundland and Labrador to explore the dynamics of intensification, expansion, and resource degradation in managed fisheries. Our case study draws on landings statistics, other archival information, and the Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) of fish harvesters to explore these linked dynamics at the macro, meso, and micro levels. By some measures we found large scale trends toward intensification of effort leading to over-harvesting at macro (province wide) levels. At the same time, at the local level (micro-scale) and across sectors and regions (the meso-scale), we found highly fluid fishing practices and a complex suite of stated motivations for change. As a basis for effective governance, an understanding of the dynamics of interactive restructuring in social ecological systems will require multi-scale analyses that are sensitive to this complexity.

Conceptual and Practical Issues in Defining Protected Area Success: The Political, Social, and Ecological in an Organized World

Placed within the people-park debates, the authors explore the complexities in defining protected area success. It is argued the selective focus on biodiversity as the only criterion for success often found in the broader literature has limited current discussions. The authors suggest the framing of protected area success should be seen as more multifaceted. Multiple perspectives and actors exist representing a number of interests at various scales across such domains as politics, economics, social legitimacy, scientific (ecological) knowledge. Each actor tends to highlight its own set of rationales. To illustrate their points, the authors present a case study from Quintana Roo, Mexico. They conclude by underscoring that it is the socio-political process of pursuing conservation itself that is likely more valuable to the efforts than a universally established notion of protected area success.

Conservation in Context: Variability in Desired and Perceived Outcomes of Community Based Natural Resources Governance in Ghana

Community resource management areas (CREMAs) in Ghana are protected areas managed under a community-based governance regime. This study examined five CREMAs to understand how desired outcomes and perceived performance of these CREMAs vary at a regional level, and the factors that might account for this variability. Importance-performance analysis showed that for all 29 outcomes examined, importance exceeded performance, indicating a need to improve on performance, but perhaps also to create more realistic expectations. Desired outcomes were factor analyzed, and the socioeconomic factor was rated as the most desired group of outcomes but was also the factor with the largest gap between desired and perceived achieved scores. Rankings of outcomes varied among the CREMAs, with attributes such as the role of external agents, communication strategies, social–ecological contexts, and local leadership appearing to be important. The demonstrated variability emphasizes the need to understand inter-CREMA variability in designing possible management interventions.