Marine protected areas for whom? Fisheries, tourism, and solidarity in a Philippine community

From measuring outcomes to providing inputs: Governance, management, and local development for more effective marine protected areas

“…Environmental education on ecosystem functioning and ecology, the impacts of human activity and how to mitigate the negative impacts of these activities, and the rationale behind MPAs should be done prior to MPA consultations if this knowledge is not already present [119]. Often there is a lack of local understanding of the definition and implications of MPAs [134]; however, it is also important not to create overzealous expectations for MPA outcomes as these can be detrimental to later support [135]. The linking of communities with other communities and outside organizations at this stage allows for the sharing of knowledge, experiences, resources, and responsibility and creation of social networks and alliances in support of the MPA [136].…”

“…Structures for the management of MPAs can be visualized as top-down (i.e., centralized management), bottom-up (i.e., community-managed or common property regimes), or cooperatively managed (i.e., community-based, co-management) which lie on the continuum between the two extremes. Every management approach comes with potential risks and benefits; however, co-management is broadly viewed as the most effective and acceptable approach [73,122,139,140,153]. Though a top-down approach may be suitable where there is no resident population, centralized management has often been criticized for alienating local people, increasing local conflict, resulting in limited levels of local benefit, and even resulting in failure [73,96,100,118,139]: "The unpopularity of the top-down regime [lies] in its failure to respect local sensibilities" [88].…”

“…Development policies that restrict the scale and type of developments can also ensure that development is kept within ecologically and socially sustainable limits [127]. Mechanisms to ensure that benefits are shared equitably and that leakage of financial and employment benefits is minimized need to be put into place [69,74,75,89,153,173,174]. A wide variety of organizations at various scales can have important roles to play in ensuring that development programs are successful [73,111]-including international NGOs acting as intermediaries in PES projects [126], businesses identifying development opportunities [76], and community and user associations advocating for local people [55].…”

Fishing for Fairness : Poverty, Morality and Marine Resource Regulation in the Philippines

“…In particular, a subset of this literature has addressed the potential relationship between dive tourism and MPAs (Arin and Kramer 2002;Oracion et al 2005;Depondt and Green 2006;Majanen 2007). In one exploratory study, Arin and Kramer (2002) found that SCUBA divers in the Philippines would be willing to pay a user fee of US$4 in selected marine sanctuaries.…”

“…: vi). Elsewhere, Oracion et al (2005) point to the impact of MPAs on the livelihood of fishers. They identified significant tensions between the fishery and tourism sectors in Mabini, Batangas, an area of the Philippines where numerous MPAs have been set up to work with dive tourism.…”