Effective public participation is fundamental for marine conservation - lessons from a large scale MPA

Abstract

The Representative Areas Program (RAP)

Connecting to the oceans: supporting ocean literacy and public engagement

“…It is no longer enough to ‘simply do the science and publish an academic paper’ (Barnosky et al 2016 ), and the science communication efforts and initiatives that many authors of this collaborative paper have contributed to (Example 5, 10, 12, 13, 16) exemplify the need and possibility of developing and sharing research further to achieve community and policy impact outside of ‘the Ivory Tower’ (Kelly et al 2018 ). Scientists can also communicate research in indirect ways, such as supporting citizen science projects that increase community trust in science and conservation (Principles 2, 3) (Bonney et al 2016 ; Kelly et al 2019 ), engaging with remote learners in ocean-focused massive open online courses (MOOCs) (Fielding et al 2019 ), or by collaborating with ‘ocean champions’, community leaders or celebrities who can deliver marine science messages to wider audiences (Principles 4, 8, 10; Examples 12, 13, 14) (Day 2017 ).…”

Small-scale fishers as allies or opponents? Unlocking looming tensions and potential exclusions in Poland's marine spatial planning

“…In short, planners should be 'seen' by various stakeholders as planning with and assisting them in making tradeoffs. This kind of 'visible' planning proved useful in unlocking the disengagement of fishers in German local MSP processes (Saunders et al, 2017) and in the development of a zoning plan in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Protected Area (Day, 2017).…”

Research advances and gaps in marine planning: towards a global database in systematic conservation planning

“…Future improvements should include enriching the information about stakeholder participation to include lessons learned about which stakeholders to involve in planning (and when and how), to facilitate planning and implementation in different contexts (e.g., Day, 2017;Fox et al, 2013). Likewise, documentation of planning outputs can be enriched by providing functionality to match and compare the configuration of initial designs with the implementation of conservation actions, such as protected areas registered in the World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA) (Juffe-Bignoli et al, 2014).…”

“…Further, efforts to narrow the planning-implementation gap (Jarvis et al, 2015;Knight et al, 2008) would benefit from better understanding of where planning has led to on-ground actions (or not), and information about the governance, socioeconomic, and political conditions under which plans have been developed (Fox et al, 2012;Pomeroy and Douvere, 2008). For example, understanding how planning processes are adjusted to work under legal "head of power" or other binding commitments (e.g., local cultural protocols) can facilitate effective implementation (Day, 2017). …”

“…However, 33% of these studies did not provide any evidence of stakeholder participation in the planning process. Studies that did involve stakeholders documented a range of types and levels of participation (see Day, 2017;Pomeroy and Douvere, 2008), including informing stakeholders (16%), consultation (20%), dialogue (11%), concertation (e.g., jointly define objectives and actions) (7%), and negotiation (13%). Although this apparently limited stakeholder participation was likely related to our focus on the peer-reviewed literature, it is still concerning given that numerous studies make claims regarding the relevance of their findings to inform on-ground conservation actions.…”