Knowledge Integration and Good Marine Governance: A Multidisciplinary Analysis and Critical Synopsis

Abstract

Our research addresses knowledge integration for the good governance of the environment and the oceans: (a) through a comprehensive legal, political science, and anthropological analysis; and (b) by providing an examination of crucial research foci and research gaps in the fields of environmental and marine governance, along the North–South divide. Our subsequent critical synopsis reveals how existing research within each discipline offers complementary insights for future research. We concludes with a call for further testing of tools, approaches, and methods to enable comprehensive research on the conceptualization of knowledge integration.

Marine Protected Area Expansion and Country-Level Age-Standardized Adult Mortality

“…In addition to encouraging completion of a larger retrospective multinational dataset that could include more years through greater knowledge-sharing (Poto et al, 2022 ), our analysis is also limited to the coverage of MPAs and does not consider quality dimensions (e.g., age, enforcement, isolation) that have been deemed important for the effectiveness on conservation outcomes (Edgar et al, 2014 ); the size of a protected area (be it in absolute terms like square kilometers, or relative terms such as % of territorial waters) is not the only axis for measuring quality of an MPA (Chape et al, 2005 ); and the MPA framework has been criticized as not consistent across all sites in attaining conservation goals (Jameson et al, 2002 ; Agardy et al, 2003 ; Sale et al, 2005 ). There is a growing body of work on predicting success for conservation goals (Fox et al, 2012 ; Edgar et al, 2014 ), including the importance of an appropriate governance structure for each MPA (McCay and Jones, 2011 ); and there is notable variation in the quality of habitat to be protected such that replacing under-performing protected areas with better areas of the same size can improve conservation outcomes (Fuller et al, 2010 ).…”

Blue Food Sovereignty Benefits Social-Ecological Resilience: A Case Study of Small-Scale Fisheries Co-Management and Mariculture in Samoa

“…However, evaluations of the CBFMP and similar comanagement programs have traditionally conceptualized fisheries primarily as natural resources rather than food, undervaluing, and potentially disrupting, the benefits of blue foods to participating communities, including cultural meaning and value, women's livelihoods, and equity. The incorporation of food sovereignty into fisheries co-management can also enable the integration of Indigenous and traditional knowledge (Poto et al, 2022), specifically about preferred or valued blue foods. In all, integrating food sovereignty frameworks with co-management design and evaluation can support principles of equity and resilience.…”

Contested Community Participation in the Governance of Marine Resources in the Mafia Island Marine Park, Tanzania: A Political Chicanery

“…The idea that local communities had little and sometimes no knowledge of marine resources and, therefore, needed to be undemocratically governed contradicts the doctrine of good governance preached in the new conservation architecture. This ethnocentrically-loaded and unfounded viewpoint has been a source of tension between managers and users (Poto et al, 2022). The apparent outcome has been an increasing rate of carelessness towards marine resources, thus, their depletion.…”