Browsing by Author "Cinner, Joshua"

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Exploring Social Resilience in Madagascar’s Marine Protected Areas
(2009) Cinner, Joshua; Fuentes, Mariana M. P. B.; Randriamahazo, Herilala
"We examined and compared aspects of local-level resilience in 13 coastal communities within and adjacent to all of Madagascar’s national marine protected areas. Our examination of social resilience focused on indicators of the flexibility of household livelihood portfolios and both formal and informal governance institutions, the capacity of communities to organize, their capacity to learn, and access to household assets and community infrastructure. In general, we found high levels of flexibility in formal institutions and livelihood portfolios and high levels of participation in decision-making and community groups. Together, these indicators suggest some latent capacity to adaptively manage resources, but this capacity may be offset by poor levels of trust between communities and resource managers, a poor understanding of the ways in which humans affect marine resources, inadequate feedback of ecological monitoring to communities, inflexibility in informal governance institutions, and a lack of assets to draw upon. We suggest that building desirable resilience in Madagascar’s marine protected areas will require the following: investments in community-level infrastructure, projects to generate household income, and enhanced agricultural production to improve the well-being of communities; improvements in the capacity to learn through investments in formal and informal education; enhanced trust between park staff and local communities; empowerment of communities to govern and enforce natural resources; the increased accountability of leaders and transparency of governance processes; adequate cross-scale interaction with local, provincial, and national institutions; and the pursuit of these activities in ways that capitalize on community-specific strengths, such as high flexibility and the presence of sociocultural institutions such as taboos that regulate resource use."
Governing Large-scale Marine Commons: Contextual Challenges in the Coral Triangle
(2011) Fidelman, Pedro; Evans, Louisa; Fabinyi, Michael; Foale, Simon; Cinner, Joshua; Franciska, Rosen
"Environment and development agendas are increasingly being characterised by regional-scale initiatives. This trend is in part motivated by recognition of the need to account for global drivers of change (e.g., climate change, migration, and globalisation), the aspirations of achieving large-scale ecological goals (such as maintaining ecosystem processes), and reconciling potentially conflicting priorities in multi-use planning. However, regional-scale governance is challenging and there is little theoretical guidance or empirical evidence to suggest how it can be achieved. This paper uses the Institutional Analysis and Development framework to highlight the diverse contextual factors that challenge governance of a large-scale marine common, using an example of the Coral Triangle Initiative. The analysis points to the need for a critical, reflexive approach to the Coral Triangle Initiative if it is to effectively navigate diverse contexts and reconcile multiple objectives in the region. Recognising the heterogeneous, multi-scale and interlinked nature of large-scale marine systems is critical. Coping with contextual complexity will require innovative approaches that strive to be inclusive of varied perspectives and actors, enable and support effective collective-choice arrangements at lower levels of organisation, and organise and link diverse institutional arrangements at multiple scales. Large-scale marine governance will also involve a great deal of experimentation and regular adjustments to governance arrangements to account for the dynamic nature of regional commons."
Levels and Drivers of Fishers' Compliance with Marine Protected Areas
(2015) Arias, Adrian; Cinner, Joshua; Jones, Rhondda; Pressey, Robert L.
"Effective conservation depends largely on people’s compliance with regulations. We investigate compliance through the lens of fishers’ compliance with marine protected areas (MPAs). MPAs are widely used tools for marine conservation and fisheries management. Studies show that compliance alone is a strong predictor of fish biomass within MPAs. Hence, fishers’ compliance is critical for MPA effectiveness. However, there are few empirical studies showing what factors influence fishers’ compliance with MPAs. Without such information, conservation planners and managers have limited opportunities to provide effective interventions. By studying 12 MPAs in a developing country (Costa Rica), we demonstrate the role that different variables have on fishers’ compliance with MPAs. Particularly, we found that compliance levels perceived by resource users were higher in MPAs (1) with multiple livelihoods, (2) where government efforts against illegal fishing were effective, (3) where fishing was allowed but regulated, (4) where people were more involved in decisions, and (5) that were smaller. We also provide a novel and practical measure of compliance: a compound variable formed by the number illegal fishers and their illegal fishing effort. Our study underlines the centrality of people’s behavior in nature conservation and the importance of grounding decision making on the social and institutional realities of each location."
Perceived Benefits of Fisheries Management Restrictions in Madagascar
(2014) McClanahan, Tim R.; Cinner, Joshua; Abunge, Caroline; Rabearisoa, Ando; Mahatante, Paubert; Ramahatratra, Frederick; Andrianarivelo, Norbert
"Perceptions of the benefits of fisheries management restrictions were evaluated in coastal Madagascar to identify restrictions that are likely to be self- and community enforced. The survey focused on 24 Malagasy fishing villages adjacent to coral reefs. Resource users' perceptions of the benefits of restrictions were generally high and widespread, but some less positive perceptions were found in three villages located near marine protected areas. Perceptions of the benefits of gear restrictions had widespread support; closed areas, seasons, and minimum sizes of fish were less common; and restrictions on species were supported infrequently. We therefore advocate a management implementation approach that uses these scales of perceived benefits and prioritizes support for the most widely accepted restrictions most broadly, with the less accepted restrictions matched to specific supportive locations. At the village level, socioeconomic and wealth variables were not clearly associated with perceived benefits, which we suggest results from a stronger influence of village history than socioeconomic conditions. At the individual fisher level, however, there was evidence that experienced people involved in decision-making, having livelihood alternatives, and having permanent housing had more opinions and frequently were more supportive of management restrictions. Incorporating this information into forums and management plans is expected to increase the rate of adoption and compliance with needed fisheries restrictions."
Periodic Closures as Adaptive Coral Reef Management in the Indo-Pacific
(2006) Cinner, Joshua; Marnane, Michael J.; McClanahan, Timothy R.; Almany, Glenn R.
"This study explores the social, economic, and ecological context within which communities in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia use adaptive coral reef management. We tested whether periodic closures had positive effects on reef resources, and found that both the biomass and the average size of fishes commonly caught in Indo-Pacific subsistence fisheries were greater inside areas subject to periodic closures compared to sites with year-round open access. Surprisingly, both long-lived and short-lived species benefited from periodic closures. Our study sites were remote communities that shared many socioeconomic characteristics; these may be crucial to the effectiveness of adaptive management of reef resources through periodic closures. Some of these factors include exclusive tenure over marine resources, a body of traditional ecological knowledge that allows for the rapid assessment of resource conditions, social customs that facilitate compliance with closures, relatively small human populations, negligible migration, and a relatively low dependence on fisheries. This dynamic adaptive management system, in which communities manage their resources among multiple social and ecological baselines, contrasts with western fisheries management practices, centered on maintaining exploited populations at stable levels in which net production is maximized."
Socioeconomic Factors Influencing Customary Marine Tenure in the Indo-Pacific
(2005) Cinner, Joshua
"For generations communities in the Western Pacific have employed a range of resource management techniques (including periodic reef closures, gear restrictions, entry limitations, and the protection of spawning aggregations) to limit marine resource use. Localized control over marine resources, commonly known as customary marine tenure (CMT), is the legal and cultural foundation for many of these practices. Because of their perceived potential to meet both conservation and community goals, these traditional resource management techniques are being revitalized by communities, governments, and NGOs as an integral part of national and regional marine conservation plans in the Pacific. However, the viability of conservation strategies built on a foundation of marine tenure may be in question, as it remains unclear whether marine tenure systems will be able to withstand the profound social and economic changes sweeping the Pacific region. Numerous studies have suggested that changes in marine tenure are attributed to social and economic factors, however, specific relationships between socioeconomic conditions and marine tenure are still not well understood. This paper examines the social and economic characteristics of 21 coastal communities in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, and explores the characteristics of the communities that employ exclusive marine tenure to answer the following questions: Which socioeconomic factors are related to the presence of CMT regimes? How might socioeconomic factors influence the ability of communities to employ or maintain CMT regimes? Distance to market, immigration, dependence on fishing, and conflicts were found to be related to the presence of highly exclusive marine tenure systems. Exploring these relationships will help conservation practitioners better understand how future social changes may influence the foundation of conservation and development projects."
Trade-Offs in Values Assigned to Ecological Goods and Services Associated with Different Coral Reef Management Strategies
(2009) Hicks, Christina C.; McClanahan, Timothy R.; Cinner, Joshua; Hills, Jeremy M.
"Societies value ecosystems and the services they provide in a number of ways. These values can help inform the management of ecosystems such as coral reefs. However, the trade-offs in ecosystem goods and services associated with different social and management conditions are poorly understood. Consequently, we examined values assigned to the goods and services identified across three types of management on the Kenyan coast: (1) a government-imposed no-take area in the Mombasa Marine National Park; (2) co-management of gear between fishing communities and the governments fisheries department; and (3) community-initiated no-take area management, where a community independently initiated and controlled a small closed area. We compared the ecosystem goods and services and the broader total economic value to explore how the history of these sites, their social conditions, and different management choices were associated with these values. The highest total economic values were associated with government management interventions and were probably due to the governments priority to be involved in the high-value beach tourism destinations. This is, however, associated with losses in a range of local community-level values and the social capital of the resource-user community. For example, resource users near the government marine protected area had the lowest value for measures of biological knowledge. Sites displaying greater community-level values were characterized by high social capital, and users had the most confidence in their ability to manage the resource. This study suggests that trade-offs occur in values associated with the interests and responsibilities of the management. The ability to cope with disturbance and change will depend on these values and responsibilities, and local communities are less likely to respond when government management and interests are strong."