Accelerating ecosystem degradation has spurred proposals to vastly expand the extent of protected areas (PAs), potentially affecting the livelihoods and well-being of indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) worldwide. The benefits of multiuse PAs that elevate the role of IPLCs in management have long been recognized. However, quantitative examinations of how resource governance and the distribution of management rights affect conservation outcomes are vital for long-term sustainability. Here, we use a long-term, quasi-experimental monitoring dataset from four Indonesian marine PAs that demonstrates that multiuse PAs can increase fish biomass, but incorporating multiple governance principles into management regimes and enforcing rules equitably are critical to achieve ecological benefits. Furthermore, we show that PAs predicated primarily on enforcing penalties can be less effective than those where IPLCs have the capacity to engage in management. Our results suggest that well-governed multiuse PAs can achieve conservation objectives without undermining the rights of IPLCs.
The Bird's Head Seascape (BHS), Papua, Indonesia is located within the epicenter of global marine biodiversity and has been the focus of recent conservation efforts to protect marine resources. Here, we provide an overview of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) progress in the BHS over the past decade, including establishment history, changes in management effectiveness and ecosystem health, as well as examining trends in tourism growth. While generally viewed as a conservation success story, we reflect on both successes and challenges in the BHS, identifying where we need to continue to improve and adapt in response to rapid economic and environmental change. As of 2020, BHS MPAs cover 5.1 million ha across 23 MPAs. As expected, management effectiveness is steadily increasing in BHS MPAs-although newer MPAs face Purwanto and Dominic A. Andradi-Brown should be considered joint first authors.
Multiuse marine protected areas (MPAs) that utilize a mosaic of no-take and sustainable use zones are an increasingly common tool for promoting fish population recovery while minimizing socioeconomic conflict. However, significant gaps remain in our understanding of the effects of multiuse MPAs on reef-fish populations, and how protection from fishing may interact with biophysical gradients to drive ecological outcomes. Here, we examine changes in fish assemblages inside and outside of two multiuse MPAs in Raja Ampat, Indonesia, over the first four to five years after their implementation. We use linear models to assess the impact of protection status, anthropogenic pressure, and biophysical gradients on changes in four biological metrics: abundance, biomass, mean size, and size-spectra. In addition, we use multivariate analyses to assess whether fish assemblages in protected and unprotected reefs diverged after MPA establishment. We find that both fish abundance and biomass were driven equally or more by benthic characteristics than protection status and that these environmental impacts were decoupled from the effects of MPAs. Contrary to expectations, increases in abundance were more pronounced in unprotected reefs, where fish assemblages diverged from protected reefs through an increase of herbivorous parrotfishes (Subfamily Scarinae) likely driven by increased algal production on hard-bottom reef areas. However, mean size and size-spectra improved in sustainable use zones compared to unprotected reefs, demonstrating that non-exclusionary management can provide ecological benefits, especially when combined with nearby no-take areas. Increased mean size was also associated with lower human population sizes, suggesting a strong influence of fishing pressure, which is mediated by MPAs. Our findings suggest that multiuse MPAs can quickly achieve some fisheries management objectives and that these effects are likely to increase over longer timescales. However, biophysical context can have significant impacts on reef-fish assemblages that are distinct from the effects of overlying fisheries management. Keywords Marine protected areas Á Marine conservation Á Biophysical context Á Coral reef fisheries Á Indonesia Topic Editor Andrew Hoey
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