Shankar Aswani

Coastal Ecosystem-Based Management with Nonlinear Ecological Functions and Values

A common assumption is that ecosystem services respond linearly to changes in habitat size. This assumption leads frequently to an “all or none” choice of either preserving coastal habitats or converting them to human use. However, our survey of wave attenuation data from field studies of mangroves, salt marshes, seagrass beds, nearshore coral reefs, and sand dunes reveals that these relationships are rarely linear. By incorporating nonlinear wave attenuation in estimating coastal protection values of mangroves in Thailand, we show that the optimal land use option may instead be the integration of development and conservation consistent with ecosystem-based management goals. This result suggests that reconciling competing demands on coastal habitats should not always result in stark preservation-versus-conversion choices.

Integrating indigenous ecological knowledge and customary sea tenure with marine and social science for conservation of bumphead parrotfish ( Bolbometopon muricatum ) in the Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands

Indigenous ecological knowledge and customary sea tenure may be integrated with marine and social science to conserve the bumphead parrotfish ( Bolbometopon muricatum ) in the Roviana Lagoon, Western Solomon Islands. Three aspects of indigenous ecological knowledge in Roviana were identified as most relevant for the management and conservation of bumphead parrotfish, and studied through a combination of marine science and anthropological methods. These were (1) local claims that fishing pressure has had a significant impact on bumphead parrotfish populations in the Roviana Lagoon; (2) the claim that only small bumphead parrotfish were ever seen or captured in the inner lagoon and that very small fish were restricted to specific shallow inner-lagoon nursery regions; and (3) assertions made by local divers that bumphead parrotfish predominantly aggregated at night around the new moon period and that catches were highest at that time. The research supported claims (1) and (2), but did not support proposition (3). Although the people of the Roviana Lagoon had similar conceptions about their entitlement rights to sea space, there were marked differences among regional villages in their opinions regarding governance and actual operational rules of management in the Lagoon. Contemporary differences in management strategies resulted from peoples historical and spatial patterns of settlement across the landscape and adjoining seascapes, and the attendant impact of these patterns on property relations. This was crucial in distinguishing between those villages that held secure tenure over their contiguous sea estates from those that did not. Indigenous ecological knowledge served to (1) verify that the bumphead parrotfish was a species in urgent need of protection; (2) explain how different habitats structured the size distribution of bumphead parrotfish; (3) identify sensitive locations and habitats in need of protection; and (4) explain the effect of lunar periodicity on bumphead parrotfish behaviour and catch rates. Secure customary sea tenure identified locations best suited to bumphead parrotfish management programmes, with a greater likelihood for local participation and programme success. The information was used to establish two marine protected areas in the region for bumphead parrotfish conservation.

Ecosystem Services as a Common Language for Coastal Ecosystem‐Based Management

Ecosystem-based management is logistically and politically challenging because ecosystems are inherently complex and management decisions affect a multitude of groups. Coastal ecosystems, which lie at the interface between marine and terrestrial ecosystems and provide an array of ecosystem services to different groups, aptly illustrate these challenges. Successful ecosystem-based management of coastal ecosystems requires incorporating scientific information and the knowledge and views of interested parties into the decision-making process. Estimating the provision of ecosystem services under alternative management schemes offers a systematic way to incorporate biogeophysical and socioeconomic information and the views of individuals and groups in the policy and management process. Employing ecosystem services as a common language to improve the process of ecosystem-based management presents both benefits and difficulties. Benefits include a transparent method for assessing trade-offs associated with management alternatives, a common set of facts and common currency on which to base negotiations, and improved communication among groups with competing interests or differing worldviews. Yet challenges to this approach remain, including predicting how human interventions will affect ecosystems, how such changes will affect the provision of ecosystem services, and how changes in service provision will affect the welfare of different groups in society. In a case study from Puget Sound, Washington, we illustrate the potential of applying ecosystem services as a common language for ecosystem-based management.

Customary management as precautionary and adaptive principles for protecting coral reefs in Oceania

Marine conservation programs in Oceania are increasingly turning to precautionary and adaptive management, particularly approaches which emphasize local participation and customary management. Although the application of community-based natural resource management is widespread in the region, the full integration of local knowledge and practices into the design, implementation, and monitoring of community-based conservation programs has been limited. There is also little empirical data to show whether or not community-based conservation projects are meeting their stated objectives. This paper summarizes an integrated method for selecting Marine Protected Area (MPA) sites and presents empirical evidence that illustrates how an MPA that was largely conceived using indigenous ecological knowledge and existing sea tenure governance (i.e., customary management practices), as part of a regional precautionary and adaptive community-based management plan, is showing signs of biological and social success. More generally, the paper shows how hybrid natural and social research approaches in tandem with customary management for designing MPAs can protect coral reefs in Oceania.

Customary Sea Tenure in Oceania as a Case of Rights-based Fishery Management: Does it Work?

This paper outlines the general characteristics of customary sea tenure (CST) in Oceania and identifies areas in which these characteristics overlap with modern rights-based fisheries management systems such as ITQs and CDQs. It also examines the effectiveness of CST regimes at regulating marine resource use and access by focusing on a particular case from the Solomon Islands. The institutional robustness or vulnerability of CST is assessed by examining various performance criteria for two communities in the Roviana Lagoon, Western Solomons. These criteria include people’s (1) settlement patterns in relation to their property, (2) cultural consensus, (3) cultural attitudes with regard to governance and management, and (4) fishing efforts and yields. The results show that a number of historical processes have shaped CST systems into heterogeneous and dynamic institutions, and that CST regimes can vary even on small geographical scales. Understanding the circumstances in which CST regimes are more likely to be successful has facilitated the design and implementation of co-management fishery prescriptions (MPAs) for protecting particular species and habitats in the region. More generally, the paper proposes that by discerning the effectiveness of local governance institutions at regulating resource use and access – taking into consideration that these are embedded in particular historical and political contexts – we can better predict whether or not an introduced fishery management system will work. This knowledge can also assist in designing hybrid management schemes that cross-fertilize community-based management, modern rights-based fishery management (e.g., ITQs and CDQs), and other government regulations. This integration is particularly relevant when these policies are to be implemented in coastal communities that have or have had traditional rights-based fishery management systems of their own and/or are more socio-culturally homogeneous. Given the long history of failed fishery management, it is now of vital importance to design innovative fishery management prescriptions that integrate natural and social science research more comprehensively.

Common property models of sea tenure : a case study from the Roviana and Vonavona Lagoons, New Georgia, Solomon Islands

In recent decades, Pacific Region indigenous sea tenure regimes have received considerable attention from social scientists who believe thatmarine-localized common entitlements and fishing practices can aid modern littoral fisheries management. The endorsement of sea tenure institutions as managerial tools, however, has proceeded without adequate consideration of their vulnerability to social and economic changes. The general view held by researchers is that Pacific Island sea tenure regimes are generally undermined by the influence of exogenous forces resulting in an open-access commons. In this article, it is argued that the contemporary transformation of sea tenure regimes emerges not only from exogenous agency, but from a complex set of autochthonous processes. A case study from New Georgia, Solomon Islands, is presented to show how sea tenure regimes can vary within an ethnically and culturally homogeneous region. Three tenure models are presented to show how different pre- and post-European contact regional settlement patterns, localized processes of political expansion and contraction, and dynamic indigenous sociocultural principles have resulted in institutional differences between each sea tenure model. The effect of the market economy on the organizational structure and managerial outcomes of each model also is discussed.

Assessing the effects of changing demographic and consumption patterns on sea tenure regimes in the Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands.

Abstract This paper investigates how sea tenure institutions in the Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands, mediate among population, consumption, and the environment. The focus is on explaining how growth in population and consumption alter sea tenure regimes, and the factors that shape either their institutional robustness or vulnerability. The paper also addresses the regional differences among sea tenure institutional arrangements, the processes that are producing them, and the social and environmental outcomes of these institutions as they engage external forces and internal changes. A major question is how existing forms of sea tenure respond comparatively when faced with parallel demographic and economic transformations? Two villages representing different sea tenure arrangements within the Roviana Lagoon are compared. Results show that inhabitants in these villages perceive their systems of sea tenure governance similarly; yet their managerial responses to changes brought about by growth in population and consumption differ, and the responses produce contrasting environmental effects.

Benthic mapping using local aerial photo interpretation and resident taxa inventories for designing marine protected areas

SUMMARY Given the frequent socioeconomic, political and concomitant ecological failures of science-driven marine protected area (MPA) programmes, it is now important to design MPAs by integrating natural and social science research more comprehensively. This study shows how indigenous peoples assisted in the design of MPAs by identifying marine substrates and related resident taxa on aerial photos, information which was then incorporated into a geographical information system (GIS) database, along with dive survey data. Two questions were asked: (1) Is indigenous ecological knowledge accurate enough for mapping the benthos and associated taxa? (2) Is such an approach an appropriate way for assisting in the biological and social design of MPAs in Oceania? Conventional quadrat field dive surveys were used to measure the accuracy of substrate identification by local informants and a visual survey was used to test hypotheses formulated from local knowledge regarding the spatial distribution and relative abundance of non-cryptic species within certain benthic habitats. Equivalence rates between indigenous aerial photo interpretations of dominant benthic substrates and in situ dive surveys were 75‐85% for a moderately detailed classification scheme of the benthos, which included nine locally-defined abiotic and biotic benthic classes for the MPA seabed. Similarly, the taxa inventory showed a strong correspondence between the qualitative predictions of local fisherfolk and the quantitative analysis of noncryptic species distribution, including their relative abundance and geophysical locations. Indigenous people’s predictions about the presence or absence of fishindifferentbenthichabitatscorresponded77%and 92% of the time (depending on scoring schema) with in situ visual measurements. These results demonstrate how incorporating local knowledge of benthic heterogeneity, existing biological communities,andparticular spatio-temporaleventsofbiological significance into a GIS database can corroborate the production of scientifically reliable base resource maps for designing MPAs in an environmentally and culturally sound fashion. This participatory approach was used to design and then establish MPAs in the Roviana and Vonavona region of the Western Solomon Islands. Under appropriate conditions, interdisciplinary work can complement the design of scientific fishery management and biodiversity conservation prescriptions for coastal Oceania.

Implications of urbanization for artisanal parrotfish fisheries in the Western Solomon Islands.

Increasing migration into urbanized centers in the Solomon Islands poses a great threat to adjacent coral reef fisheries because of negative effects on the fisheries and because it further erodes customary management systems. Parrotfish fisheries are of particular importance because the feeding habits of parrotfish (scrape and excavate coral) are thought to be critical to the resilience of coral reefs and to maintaining coral reef health within marine protected areas. We investigated the ecological impact of localized subsistence and artisanal fishing pressure on parrotfish fisheries in Gizo Town, Western Solomon Islands, by analyzing the density and size distribution of parrotfish with an underwater visual census (UVC), recall diary (i.e., interviews with fishers), and creel surveys to independently assess changes in abundance and catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) over 2 years. We then compared parrotfish data from Gizo Town with equivalent data from sites open to and closed to fishing in Kida and Nusa Hope villages, which have different customary management regimes. Results indicated a gradient of customary management effectiveness. Parrotfish abundance was greater in customary management areas closed to fishing, especially with regard to larger fish sizes, than in areas open to fishing. The decline in parrotfish abundance from 2004 to 2005 in Gizo was roughly the same magnitude as the difference in abundance decline between inside and outside customary management marine reserves. Our results highlight how weak forms of customary management can result in the rapid decline of vulnerable fisheries around urbanized regions, and we present examples in which working customary management systems (Kinda and Nusa Hope) can positively affect the conservation of parrotfish--and reef fisheries in general--in the highly biodiverse Coral Triangle region.

Indigenous Knowledge and Long-term Ecological Change: Detection, Interpretation, and Responses to Changing Ecological Conditions in Pacific Island Communities

When local resource users detect, understand, and respond to environmental change they can more effectively manage environmental resources. This article assesses these abilities among artisanal fishers in Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands. In a comparison of two villages, it documents local resource users’ abilities to monitor long-term ecological change occurring to seagrass meadows near their communities, their understandings of the drivers of change, and their conceptualizations of seagrass ecology. Local observations of ecological change are compared with historical aerial photography and IKONOS satellite images that show 56 years of actual changes in seagrass meadows from 1947 to 2003. Results suggest that villagers detect long-term changes in the spatial cover of rapidly expanding seagrass meadows. However, for seagrass meadows that showed no long-term expansion or contraction in spatial cover over one-third of respondents incorrectly assumed changes had occurred. Examples from a community-based management initiative designed around indigenous ecological knowledge and customary sea tenure governance show how local observations of ecological change shape marine resource use and practices which, in turn, can increase the management adaptability of indigenous or hybrid governance systems.