Cost-effective methods for accurate determination of sea level rise vulnerability: A Solomon Islands example
- Albert, Simon, Abernethy, Kirsten, Gibbes, Badin, Grinham, Alistair, Tooler, Nixon, Aswani, Shankar
- Authors: Albert, Simon , Abernethy, Kirsten , Gibbes, Badin , Grinham, Alistair , Tooler, Nixon , Aswani, Shankar
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/422708 , vital:71971 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-13-00010.1"
- Description: For millions of people living along the coastal fringe, sea level rise is perhaps the greatest threat to livelihoods over the coming century. With the refinement and downscaling of global climate models and increasing availability of airborne-lidar-based inundation models, it is possible to predict and quantify these threats with reasonable accuracy where such information is available. For less developed countries, especially small island states, access to high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) derived from lidar is limited. The only freely available DEMs that could be used for inundation modeling by these nations are those based on data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). These data, with a horizontal resolution of ≈90 m and a vertical accuracy of ±5–10 m, are generally unsuitable for local-scale planning and adaption projects. To address this disparity, low-cost ground-based techniques were tested and applied to accurately determine coastal topography in the Solomon Islands. This method had a significantly improved vertical accuracy (±2 cm) and was readily learned by local community members, who were able to independently map and determine the vulnerability of their costal community to inundation from sea level rise. For areas where lidar is not economically viable, this method is intended to provide an important balance of cost, simplicity, accuracy, and local participation that can assist remote coastal communities with coastal planning decisions. The method can enhance local capacity and arguably promotes more meaningful local engagement in sea level rise planning and adaptation activities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Albert, Simon , Abernethy, Kirsten , Gibbes, Badin , Grinham, Alistair , Tooler, Nixon , Aswani, Shankar
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/422708 , vital:71971 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-13-00010.1"
- Description: For millions of people living along the coastal fringe, sea level rise is perhaps the greatest threat to livelihoods over the coming century. With the refinement and downscaling of global climate models and increasing availability of airborne-lidar-based inundation models, it is possible to predict and quantify these threats with reasonable accuracy where such information is available. For less developed countries, especially small island states, access to high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) derived from lidar is limited. The only freely available DEMs that could be used for inundation modeling by these nations are those based on data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). These data, with a horizontal resolution of ≈90 m and a vertical accuracy of ±5–10 m, are generally unsuitable for local-scale planning and adaption projects. To address this disparity, low-cost ground-based techniques were tested and applied to accurately determine coastal topography in the Solomon Islands. This method had a significantly improved vertical accuracy (±2 cm) and was readily learned by local community members, who were able to independently map and determine the vulnerability of their costal community to inundation from sea level rise. For areas where lidar is not economically viable, this method is intended to provide an important balance of cost, simplicity, accuracy, and local participation that can assist remote coastal communities with coastal planning decisions. The method can enhance local capacity and arguably promotes more meaningful local engagement in sea level rise planning and adaptation activities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Design of realistic hybrid marine resource management programs in Oceania
- Aswani, Shankar, Ruddle, Kenneth
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Ruddle, Kenneth
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70615 , vital:29681 , https://doi.org/10.2984/67.3.11
- Description: This review article synthesizes the authors' several decades of multidisciplinary natural and social science and applied marine resource management experience in the Asia-Pacific region to examine the strengthening of coastal and marine resource management and conservation using alliances between local communities and external institutions. The objective is to assist the design of resource management and conservation programs that enhance the capacity of coastal communities in Oceania to confront both diminishing marine resources and the effects of climate change by providing guidelines for protecting marine biodiversity and vulnerable ecosystem functions. This article describes a management framework that hybridizes local beliefs and institutions expressed in customary management (CM) with such modern management concepts as marine protected areas (MPAs) and ecosystem-based management (EBM). Hybrid management accommodates the social, political, economic, and cultural contexts of Oceanic communities and, compared with recent or conventional management approaches, can therefore better address fundamental local concerns such as coastal degradation, climate change, sea level rise, weak governance, corruption, limited resources and staff to manage and monitor marine resources, and increasing poverty. Research on the hybridization of management systems demonstrates opportunities to establish context-appropriate EBM and/or other managerial arrangements that include terrestrial and adjacent coastal-marine ecosystems. Formal and informal CM systems are widespread in Oceania and in some parts of Southeast Asia, and if appropriate strategies are employed rapid progress toward hybrid CM-EBM could be enabled.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Ruddle, Kenneth
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70615 , vital:29681 , https://doi.org/10.2984/67.3.11
- Description: This review article synthesizes the authors' several decades of multidisciplinary natural and social science and applied marine resource management experience in the Asia-Pacific region to examine the strengthening of coastal and marine resource management and conservation using alliances between local communities and external institutions. The objective is to assist the design of resource management and conservation programs that enhance the capacity of coastal communities in Oceania to confront both diminishing marine resources and the effects of climate change by providing guidelines for protecting marine biodiversity and vulnerable ecosystem functions. This article describes a management framework that hybridizes local beliefs and institutions expressed in customary management (CM) with such modern management concepts as marine protected areas (MPAs) and ecosystem-based management (EBM). Hybrid management accommodates the social, political, economic, and cultural contexts of Oceanic communities and, compared with recent or conventional management approaches, can therefore better address fundamental local concerns such as coastal degradation, climate change, sea level rise, weak governance, corruption, limited resources and staff to manage and monitor marine resources, and increasing poverty. Research on the hybridization of management systems demonstrates opportunities to establish context-appropriate EBM and/or other managerial arrangements that include terrestrial and adjacent coastal-marine ecosystems. Formal and informal CM systems are widespread in Oceania and in some parts of Southeast Asia, and if appropriate strategies are employed rapid progress toward hybrid CM-EBM could be enabled.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Insights from experimental economics on local cooperation in a small-scale fishery management system:
- Aswani, Shankar, Gurney, Georgina G, Mulville, Sara, Matera, Jaime, Gurven, Michael
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Gurney, Georgina G , Mulville, Sara , Matera, Jaime , Gurven, Michael
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145437 , vital:38438 , DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.08.003
- Description: Cooperation is central to collective management of small-scale fisheries management, including marine protected areas. Thus an understanding of the factors influencing stakeholders’ propensity to cooperate to achieve shared benefits is essential to accomplishing successful collective fisheries management. In this paper we study stakeholders’ cooperative behavioral disposition and elucidate the role of various socio-economic factors in influencing it in the Roviana Lagoon, Western Solomon Islands. We employed a Public Goods Game from experimental economics tailored to mimic the problem of common pool fisheries management to elucidate peoples’ cooperative behavior. Using Ostrom's framework for analyzing social-ecological systems to guide our analysis, we examined how individual-scale variables (e.g., age, education, family size, ethnicity, occupational status, personal norms), in the context of village-scale variables (e.g., village, governance institutions, group coercive action), influence cooperative behavior, as indexed by game contribution. Ostrom's framework provides an effective window for conceptually peeling back the various socio-economic and governance layers which influence cooperation within these communities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Gurney, Georgina G , Mulville, Sara , Matera, Jaime , Gurven, Michael
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145437 , vital:38438 , DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.08.003
- Description: Cooperation is central to collective management of small-scale fisheries management, including marine protected areas. Thus an understanding of the factors influencing stakeholders’ propensity to cooperate to achieve shared benefits is essential to accomplishing successful collective fisheries management. In this paper we study stakeholders’ cooperative behavioral disposition and elucidate the role of various socio-economic factors in influencing it in the Roviana Lagoon, Western Solomon Islands. We employed a Public Goods Game from experimental economics tailored to mimic the problem of common pool fisheries management to elucidate peoples’ cooperative behavior. Using Ostrom's framework for analyzing social-ecological systems to guide our analysis, we examined how individual-scale variables (e.g., age, education, family size, ethnicity, occupational status, personal norms), in the context of village-scale variables (e.g., village, governance institutions, group coercive action), influence cooperative behavior, as indexed by game contribution. Ostrom's framework provides an effective window for conceptually peeling back the various socio-economic and governance layers which influence cooperation within these communities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Design of Realistic Hybrid Marine Resource Management Programs in Oceania
- Aswani, Shankar, Ruddle, Kenneth
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Ruddle, Kenneth
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/422721 , vital:71972 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.2984/67.3.11"
- Description: This review article synthesizes the authors' several decades of multidisciplinary natural and social science and applied marine resource management experience in the Asia-Pacific region to examine the strengthening of coastal and marine resource management and conservation using alliances between local communities and external institutions. The objective is to assist the design of resource management and conservation programs that enhance the capacity of coastal communities in Oceania to confront both diminishing marine resources and the effects of climate change by providing guidelines for protecting marine biodiversity and vulnerable ecosystem functions. This article describes a management framework that hybridizes local beliefs and institutions expressed in customary management (CM) with such modern management concepts as marine protected areas (MPAs) and ecosystem-based management (EBM). Hybrid management accommodates the social, political, economic, and cultural contexts of Oceanic communities and, compared with recent or conventional management approaches, can therefore better address fundamental local concerns such as coastal degradation, climate change, sea level rise, weak governance, corruption, limited resources and staff to manage and monitor marine resources, and increasing poverty. Research on the hybridization of management systems demonstrates opportunities to establish context-appropriate EBM and/or other managerial arrangements that include terrestrial and adjacent coastal-marine ecosystems. Formal and informal CM systems are widespread in Oceania and in some parts of Southeast Asia, and if appropriate strategies are employed rapid progress toward hybrid CM-EBM could be enabled.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Ruddle, Kenneth
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/422721 , vital:71972 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.2984/67.3.11"
- Description: This review article synthesizes the authors' several decades of multidisciplinary natural and social science and applied marine resource management experience in the Asia-Pacific region to examine the strengthening of coastal and marine resource management and conservation using alliances between local communities and external institutions. The objective is to assist the design of resource management and conservation programs that enhance the capacity of coastal communities in Oceania to confront both diminishing marine resources and the effects of climate change by providing guidelines for protecting marine biodiversity and vulnerable ecosystem functions. This article describes a management framework that hybridizes local beliefs and institutions expressed in customary management (CM) with such modern management concepts as marine protected areas (MPAs) and ecosystem-based management (EBM). Hybrid management accommodates the social, political, economic, and cultural contexts of Oceanic communities and, compared with recent or conventional management approaches, can therefore better address fundamental local concerns such as coastal degradation, climate change, sea level rise, weak governance, corruption, limited resources and staff to manage and monitor marine resources, and increasing poverty. Research on the hybridization of management systems demonstrates opportunities to establish context-appropriate EBM and/or other managerial arrangements that include terrestrial and adjacent coastal-marine ecosystems. Formal and informal CM systems are widespread in Oceania and in some parts of Southeast Asia, and if appropriate strategies are employed rapid progress toward hybrid CM-EBM could be enabled.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Insights from experimental economics on local cooperation in a small-scale fishery management system
- Aswani, Shankar, Gurney, Georgina G, Mulville, Sara, Matera, Jaime, Gurven, Michael
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Gurney, Georgina G , Mulville, Sara , Matera, Jaime , Gurven, Michael
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/422746 , vital:71974 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.08.003"
- Description: Cooperation is central to collective management of small-scale fisheries management, including marine protected areas. Thus an understanding of the factors influencing stakeholders’ propensity to cooperate to achieve shared benefits is essential to accomplishing successful collective fisheries management. In this paper we study stakeholders’ cooperative behavioral disposition and elucidate the role of various socio-economic factors in influencing it in the Roviana Lagoon, Western Solomon Islands. We employed a Public Goods Game from experimental economics tailored to mimic the problem of common pool fisheries management to elucidate peoples’ cooperative behavior. Using Ostrom's framework for analyzing social-ecological systems to guide our analysis, we examined how individual-scale variables (e.g., age, education, family size, ethnicity, occupational status, personal norms), in the context of village-scale variables (e.g., village, governance institutions, group coercive action), influence cooperative behavior, as indexed by game contribution. Ostrom's framework provides an effective window for conceptually peeling back the various socio-economic and governance layers which influence cooperation within these communities. The results of our research show that the most important resource user characteristics influencing cooperative behavior were age, occupation and beliefs about giving access to others to fish for commercial gain. Through elucidating the factors affecting stakeholders’ propensity to cooperate to achieve shared benefits, our analysis provides guidance in understanding cooperation in relation to collective management of marine resources.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Insights from experimental economics on local cooperation in a small-scale fishery management system
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Gurney, Georgina G , Mulville, Sara , Matera, Jaime , Gurven, Michael
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/422746 , vital:71974 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.08.003"
- Description: Cooperation is central to collective management of small-scale fisheries management, including marine protected areas. Thus an understanding of the factors influencing stakeholders’ propensity to cooperate to achieve shared benefits is essential to accomplishing successful collective fisheries management. In this paper we study stakeholders’ cooperative behavioral disposition and elucidate the role of various socio-economic factors in influencing it in the Roviana Lagoon, Western Solomon Islands. We employed a Public Goods Game from experimental economics tailored to mimic the problem of common pool fisheries management to elucidate peoples’ cooperative behavior. Using Ostrom's framework for analyzing social-ecological systems to guide our analysis, we examined how individual-scale variables (e.g., age, education, family size, ethnicity, occupational status, personal norms), in the context of village-scale variables (e.g., village, governance institutions, group coercive action), influence cooperative behavior, as indexed by game contribution. Ostrom's framework provides an effective window for conceptually peeling back the various socio-economic and governance layers which influence cooperation within these communities. The results of our research show that the most important resource user characteristics influencing cooperative behavior were age, occupation and beliefs about giving access to others to fish for commercial gain. Through elucidating the factors affecting stakeholders’ propensity to cooperate to achieve shared benefits, our analysis provides guidance in understanding cooperation in relation to collective management of marine resources.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Indigenous People’s Detection of Rapid Ecological Change
- Lauer, Matthew, Aswani, Shankar
- Authors: Lauer, Matthew , Aswani, Shankar
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124811 , vital:35699 , https://doi.10.1111/cobi.12250
- Description: When sudden catastrophic events occur, it becomes critical for coastal communities to detect and respond to environmental transformations because failure to do so may undermine overall ecosystem resilience and threaten people’s livelihoods. We therefore asked how capable of detecting rapid ecological change following massive environmental disruptions local, indigenous people are. We assessed the direction and periodicity of experimental learning of people in the Western Solomon Islands after a tsunami in 2007. We compared the results of marine science surveys with local ecological knowledge of the benthos across 3 affected villages and 3 periods before and after the tsunami. We sought to determine how people recognize biophysical changes in the environment before and after catastrophic events such as earthquakes and tsunamis and whether people have the ability to detect ecological changes over short time scales or need longer time scales to recognize changes. Indigenous people were able to detect changes in the benthos over time. Detection levels differed between marine science surveys and local ecological knowledge sources over time, but overall patterns of statistically significant detection of change were evident for various habitats. Our findings have implications for marine conservation, coastal management policies, and disaster-relief efforts because when people are able to detect ecological changes, this, in turn, affects how they exploit and manage their marine resources.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Lauer, Matthew , Aswani, Shankar
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124811 , vital:35699 , https://doi.10.1111/cobi.12250
- Description: When sudden catastrophic events occur, it becomes critical for coastal communities to detect and respond to environmental transformations because failure to do so may undermine overall ecosystem resilience and threaten people’s livelihoods. We therefore asked how capable of detecting rapid ecological change following massive environmental disruptions local, indigenous people are. We assessed the direction and periodicity of experimental learning of people in the Western Solomon Islands after a tsunami in 2007. We compared the results of marine science surveys with local ecological knowledge of the benthos across 3 affected villages and 3 periods before and after the tsunami. We sought to determine how people recognize biophysical changes in the environment before and after catastrophic events such as earthquakes and tsunamis and whether people have the ability to detect ecological changes over short time scales or need longer time scales to recognize changes. Indigenous people were able to detect changes in the benthos over time. Detection levels differed between marine science surveys and local ecological knowledge sources over time, but overall patterns of statistically significant detection of change were evident for various habitats. Our findings have implications for marine conservation, coastal management policies, and disaster-relief efforts because when people are able to detect ecological changes, this, in turn, affects how they exploit and manage their marine resources.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Globalization, Pacific Islands, and the paradox of resilience
- Lauer, Matthew, Albert, Simon, Aswani, Shankar, Halpern, B.S, Campanella, Luke
- Authors: Lauer, Matthew , Albert, Simon , Aswani, Shankar , Halpern, B.S , Campanella, Luke
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/422735 , vital:71973 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.10.011"
- Description: On April 2nd, 2007 a 12 m tsunami struck Simbo, a relatively remote island in Western Province, Solomon Islands. Although Simbo's population continues to depend on their own food production and small-scale governance regimes regulate access to resources, the island's way of life over the last century has increasingly been affected by processes associated with globalization. In this context of a rapidly globalizing world, this article examines the island's resilience and vulnerability to the tsunami and the adaptive capacities that enabled the response and recovery. The tsunami completely destroyed two villages and damaged fringing coral reefs, but casualties were low and social–ecological rebound relatively brisk. By combining social science methods (household surveys, focus group and ethnographic interviews) and underwater reef surveys we identify a number of countervailing challenges and opportunities presented by globalization that both nurture and suppress the island's resilience to high amplitude, low-frequency disturbances like tsunamis. Analysis suggests that certain adaptive capacities that sustain general system resilience come at the cost of more vulnerability to low-probability hazards. We discuss how communities undergoing increasingly complex processes of change must negotiate these kinds of trade-offs as they manage resilience at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Understanding the shifting dynamics of resilience may be critical for Pacific Island communities who seek to leverage globalization in their favor as they adapt to current social–ecological change and prepare for future large-scale ecological disturbances.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Lauer, Matthew , Albert, Simon , Aswani, Shankar , Halpern, B.S , Campanella, Luke
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/422735 , vital:71973 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.10.011"
- Description: On April 2nd, 2007 a 12 m tsunami struck Simbo, a relatively remote island in Western Province, Solomon Islands. Although Simbo's population continues to depend on their own food production and small-scale governance regimes regulate access to resources, the island's way of life over the last century has increasingly been affected by processes associated with globalization. In this context of a rapidly globalizing world, this article examines the island's resilience and vulnerability to the tsunami and the adaptive capacities that enabled the response and recovery. The tsunami completely destroyed two villages and damaged fringing coral reefs, but casualties were low and social–ecological rebound relatively brisk. By combining social science methods (household surveys, focus group and ethnographic interviews) and underwater reef surveys we identify a number of countervailing challenges and opportunities presented by globalization that both nurture and suppress the island's resilience to high amplitude, low-frequency disturbances like tsunamis. Analysis suggests that certain adaptive capacities that sustain general system resilience come at the cost of more vulnerability to low-probability hazards. We discuss how communities undergoing increasingly complex processes of change must negotiate these kinds of trade-offs as they manage resilience at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Understanding the shifting dynamics of resilience may be critical for Pacific Island communities who seek to leverage globalization in their favor as they adapt to current social–ecological change and prepare for future large-scale ecological disturbances.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Understanding characteristics that define the feasibility of conservation actions in a common pool marine resource governance system
- Mills, Morena, Pressey, Robert L, Ban, Natalie C, Foale, Simon, Aswani, Shankar, Knight, Andrew T
- Authors: Mills, Morena , Pressey, Robert L , Ban, Natalie C , Foale, Simon , Aswani, Shankar , Knight, Andrew T
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70603 , vital:29680 , https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12025
- Description: Effective conservation requires people to make choices about how they interact with the environment. Social characteristics influence the likelihood of establishing conservation actions with strong compliance (hereafter “feasibility”), but are rarely considered in conservation planning. Our study makes two contributions to understand feasibility. First, we explicitly test the associations between social characteristics and the presence and form of resource management. Second, we compare the ability of different types of data to elucidate feasibility. We use Ostrom’s (2007) thinking on social–ecological systems and literature on resource management in Melanesia to create a context-specific framework to identify social characteristics that influence feasibility for conservation management. We then apply this framework and test for associations between the presence and form of management on one hand and social characteristics on the other, using data collected at different resolutions. We found that conservation feasibility was associated with characteristics of the governance system, users, and the social, economic, and political setting. Villages with different forms of management were more similar to each other socially than to villages without management. Social data collected at the resolution of households accounted for over double the variation in the form and presence of management compared to data at the resolution of villages. Our methods can be adapted to conservation planning initiatives in other socioeconomic settings.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Mills, Morena , Pressey, Robert L , Ban, Natalie C , Foale, Simon , Aswani, Shankar , Knight, Andrew T
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70603 , vital:29680 , https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12025
- Description: Effective conservation requires people to make choices about how they interact with the environment. Social characteristics influence the likelihood of establishing conservation actions with strong compliance (hereafter “feasibility”), but are rarely considered in conservation planning. Our study makes two contributions to understand feasibility. First, we explicitly test the associations between social characteristics and the presence and form of resource management. Second, we compare the ability of different types of data to elucidate feasibility. We use Ostrom’s (2007) thinking on social–ecological systems and literature on resource management in Melanesia to create a context-specific framework to identify social characteristics that influence feasibility for conservation management. We then apply this framework and test for associations between the presence and form of management on one hand and social characteristics on the other, using data collected at different resolutions. We found that conservation feasibility was associated with characteristics of the governance system, users, and the social, economic, and political setting. Villages with different forms of management were more similar to each other socially than to villages without management. Social data collected at the resolution of households accounted for over double the variation in the form and presence of management compared to data at the resolution of villages. Our methods can be adapted to conservation planning initiatives in other socioeconomic settings.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Incorporating surrogate species and seascape connectivity to improve marine conservation outcomes
- Olds, Andrew D, Connolly, Rod M, Pitt, Kylie A, Maxwell, Paul S, Aswani, Shankar, Albert, Simon
- Authors: Olds, Andrew D , Connolly, Rod M , Pitt, Kylie A , Maxwell, Paul S , Aswani, Shankar , Albert, Simon
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124722 , vital:35655 , https://doi.10.1111/cobi.12242
- Description: Conservation focuses on maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, but gaps in our knowledge of species biology and ecological processes often impede progress. For this reason, focal species and habitats are used as surrogates for multispecies conservation, but species-based approaches are not widely adopted in marine ecosystems. Reserves in the Solomon Islands were designed on the basis of local ecological knowledge to conserve bumphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum) and to protect food security and ecosystem functioning. Bumphead parrotfish are an iconic threatened species and may be a useful surrogate for multispecies conservation. They move across tropical seascapes throughout their life history, in a pattern of habitat use that is shared with many other species. We examined their value as a conservation surrogate and assessed the importance of seascape connectivity (i.e., the physical connectedness of patches in the seascape) among reefs, mangroves, and seagrass to marine reserve performance. Reserves were designed for bumphead parrotfish, but also enhanced the abundance of other species. Integration of local ecological knowledge and seascape connectivity enhanced the abundance of 17 other harvested fish species in local reserves. This result has important implications for ecosystem functioning and local villagers because many of these species perform important ecological processes and provide the foundation for extensive subsistence fisheries. Our findings suggest greater success in maintaining and restoring marine ecosystems may be achieved when they are managed to conserve surrogate species and preserve functional seascape connections.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Olds, Andrew D , Connolly, Rod M , Pitt, Kylie A , Maxwell, Paul S , Aswani, Shankar , Albert, Simon
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124722 , vital:35655 , https://doi.10.1111/cobi.12242
- Description: Conservation focuses on maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, but gaps in our knowledge of species biology and ecological processes often impede progress. For this reason, focal species and habitats are used as surrogates for multispecies conservation, but species-based approaches are not widely adopted in marine ecosystems. Reserves in the Solomon Islands were designed on the basis of local ecological knowledge to conserve bumphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum) and to protect food security and ecosystem functioning. Bumphead parrotfish are an iconic threatened species and may be a useful surrogate for multispecies conservation. They move across tropical seascapes throughout their life history, in a pattern of habitat use that is shared with many other species. We examined their value as a conservation surrogate and assessed the importance of seascape connectivity (i.e., the physical connectedness of patches in the seascape) among reefs, mangroves, and seagrass to marine reserve performance. Reserves were designed for bumphead parrotfish, but also enhanced the abundance of other species. Integration of local ecological knowledge and seascape connectivity enhanced the abundance of 17 other harvested fish species in local reserves. This result has important implications for ecosystem functioning and local villagers because many of these species perform important ecological processes and provide the foundation for extensive subsistence fisheries. Our findings suggest greater success in maintaining and restoring marine ecosystems may be achieved when they are managed to conserve surrogate species and preserve functional seascape connections.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
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