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The Perhentian Island located in the East coast of Peninsular Malaysia is well-known for its rich coral reef ecosystems. Marine resources of Malaysia have been overexploited due to overfishing and tourism activities. As such no-take marine protected area (MPAs) were established in Malaysia, including Perhentian Island Marine Park to enable overexploited marine resources to recover and to conserve coral reef ecosystems. This paper examines the current level of activities causing damage to coral reef habitats in the Perhentian MPA. This study used paired comparison method to elicit the perception of local stakeholders on activities harmful to the marine habitats. The results of the analysis showed that various respondent groups had similar preference rankings on the harmful activities: littering, discarding fishing equipment, excess fishing and too many divers that cause damage to habitats in the MPA area. The findings suggest that policy makers should take cognizance of the local stakeholders' concern in planning and designing of marine protected areas in Malaysia.

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The Perhentian Islands located in the East coast of Peninsular Malaysia. They are well-known for their rich coral reef ecosystems. Marine resources of Malaysia have been overexploited in general due to overfishing and other development activities. Such no-take marine protected areas (MPAs) were established in Malaysia including Perhentian Islands Marine Park to enable overexploited marine resources to recover and to conserve coral reef ecosystems. This paper examines the current level of activities causing damages to the coral reef habitats in the Perhentian MPA. This study used paired comparison method to elicit the perception of the local stakeholders on the activities harmful to the marine habitats. The results of the analysis showed that various respondent groups had similar preference rankings on the harmful activities: littering, discarding fishing equipments, excess fishing and too many divers that cause damage to the habitats in the MPA area. The findings suggest that policy makers should take cognizance of the local stakeholders' concern in planning and designing of marine protected areas in Malaysia.

The Community Based Fisheries Management (CBFM) approach has made a significant contribution towards improvement of fishers' empowerment of inland openwater fisheries in Bangladesh aiming to manage their resources efficiently. This arrangement introduced CBFM approaches named fisher-led, community-led and women-led approach. A wider range of local institutional arrangements as community based organizations (CBOs) have been established through participatory process with legal entity. Now, the CBOs as local institutions and fishers are more empowered in participation of fishery management under comanagement arrangement. The study reveals that there is still lack of institutional arrangement to be achieved at optimum level. This paper presents and assesses the empowerment status of the fisher communities in inland openwater fisheries under comanagement arrangement in Bangladesh through Factor analysis and regression model. This study might have policy implication to replicate the community based fishery management approach to promote empowerment for better management.

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The dynamics of fish stocks are an important consideration in determining appropriate fishery management policy. Equally crucial are the dynamics of fishing effort. Both these dynamics have been incorporated in a simulation model to analyze the bio-socioeconomic impacts of four alternative limited entry management policies for the multispecies, multigear small pelagic fishery of northwest Peninsular Malaysia. Fishing effort dynamics are determined by the difference in profits and opportunity costs. Several management alternatives are evaluated at equilibrium. Performance variables such as equilibrium catch, social profits, consumer surplus, social benefits, direct fishery employment and income of individual crew are used in the evaluation. The implications for policy makers are discussed.

Though Marine Parks in Malaysia are important to protect important marine resources, however, it is degraded due to human activities. In order to properly manage marine parks, economic valuation is necessary to understand the importance of marine resources conservation activities. In this study, tourist's willingness to pay (WTP) to protect marine resources at Pulau Perhentian Marine Park (PPMP) was carried out with contingent valuation method. Both single-bounded and double-bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation methods were used to estimate tourists WTP. A total of 250 tourists were interviewed. The results showed that median WTP ranged between RM17.98 to RM21.72 and based on the number of tourist's arrivals in 2011, the aggregate benefit at PPMP would be ranged from 1.62 to 1.96 million, respectively. The results of the study could be beneficial to the Marine Park authority in setting appropriate entrance fee at PPMP and taking the adequate conservation activities to protect marine environment and resources to deteriorate further.