Comparing and Integrating Community‐Based and Science‐Based Approaches to Prioritizing Marine Areas for Protection

Abstract

We compared and integrated marine protected areas proposed through community and scientific assessments in 2 regions of British Columbia, Canada. The community priorities were identified during individual and group interviews with knowledgeable resource users. The scientific priorities were developed with abiotic and biotic data in Marxan, a decision-support tool. The resulting maps of community-based and science-based priorities were very similar for the inshore areas, which lent credibility to both approaches. The resource users thought the science-based maps were fairly good at highlighting areas important for conservation, but preferred the scenarios that integrated the 2 maps to either constituent map. Incorporating spatial variation in human impacts on the marine areas and commercial fishing, which are both costs of protection, into our Marxan analyses led to scenarios that were different from either constituent map. Our results show the value of integrating community-based and science-based approaches in conservation planning to achieve community acceptance and conservation utility. They also reveal that people's assessments on the basis of their traditional ecological knowledge may serve as a reasonable proxy for scientific approaches in selecting areas of ecological value.

The Channel habitat atlas for marine resource management (CHARM): an aid for planning and decision-making in an area under strong anthropogenic pressure

“…This analysis successfully incorporated biological, economic, legal and anthropological datasome of which collected as part of the CHARM project -in a preliminary conservation assessment. This was an important first step in the development of the English Channel conservation planning system; however, additional steps, some of which involving stakeholders in the implementation strategy (Knight et al 2006;Ban et al 2009), need to be taken before this system can be used to make management decisions.…”

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

“…For example, Aswani and Lauer [150] show how MPA networks can be designed using a combination of anthropological and natural scientific methods to merge traditional knowledge and use patterns in GIS. Ban et al [151] compare the use of Marxan planning software with a community-based approach to MPA planning on the west coast of Canada showing that both methods produced similar results. Moreover, careful site selection based on a variety of social considerations and ecological factors "might be the most important things that MPA managers can do" [152].…”

Models and Approaches for Integrating Protected Areas with Their Surroundings: A Review of the Literature

“…However, in the 1990s, the model of Integrated Conservation and Development Projects attempted to link local communities to the decision-making authorities within the areas surrounding PAs. In the 2000s, the identification of priority areas model entailed the convergence of ecological information (area-oriented) and expert-based decisions (process-oriented), as well as the advocacy of Integrating Community-based and Science-based approaches [111] and the developing of Stakeholder mapping [72]. In the early 2010s, the management zoning designation model explored multi-criteria decision analysis (a participatory process involving multiple stakeholders and technical experts) by inviting local communities to participate in the designation of national park zones in Yunnan, China [77].…”