Steven Berkeley Marine Conservation Fellowship: 2020 Winners

The article is devoted to the results of a forecast study to identify scientific, technological, managerial and production potential of Ukraine at the regional level in terms of national objectives Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) No. 14 “Conservation and sustainable use of oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development”. The study is the next in a series of predictive studies on the conservation of marine resources. The study was carried out by the Forsyth method using expert panels. A survey of experts-scientists of scientific organizations and institutions of higher education on research and technology required for the implementation of the SDG No. 14, and a survey of experts-practitioners in public administration and production to assess the proposed areas of research and technology, were conducted. According to the results of the survey, scientific and technological, managerial and production potentials at the regional level for its possible use in the implementation of national tasks of the SDG No. 14 were determined.

The Earth's oceans are inherently 3‐D in nature. Many physical, environmental, and biotic processes vary widely across depths. In recent years, human activities, such as oil drilling, mining, and fishing are rapidly expanding into deeper frontier ocean areas, where much of the biodiversity remains unknown. Most current conservation actions, management decisions and policies of both the pelagic and benthic domains do not explicitly incorporate the 3‐D nature of the oceans and are still based on a two‐dimensional approach. Here, we review current advances in marine research and conservation, aiming to advance towards incorporating the third dimension in marine systematic conservation planning. We highlight the importance and potential of vertical conservation planning and zoning from the sea surface to the seafloor. We propose that undertaking marine conservation, management and environmental decisions in 3‐D has the potential to revolutionize marine conservation research, practice and legislation.

Preface. Marine Conservation Ecology: Concepts and Frameworks 1. Introduction: Why Marine Conservation is Necessary - Significance, Threats, and Management of the Oceans and Biodiversity 2. The Marine Environment: Physico-chemical Characteristics - Structures and Processes, Enduring and Recurrent factors 3. The Marine Environment: Ecology and Biology Pelagic and Benthic Realms and Coastal Fringing Communities 4. Approaches to Marine Conservation Traditional Strategies and Ecological Frameworks 5. Representative Areas: Global to Ecoregional - Marine Conservation at the Ecosystem / Habitat Level 6. Habitats and Communities: Ecoregional to Local - Reality, Variability and Scales of Relationships 7. Distinctive Areas: Species and Ecosystem Processes Ecosystem Processes - Ergoclines and Hotspots 8. Patterns of Biodiversity: Species Diversity - Theories and Relationships: Global, Regional, Local 9. Species and Focal Species - Keystones, Umbrellas, Flagships, Indicators and Others 10. Genetic Diversity Significance of Genetics: From Genes to Ecosystems 11. Coastal zones Components, Complexities and Classifications 12. High Seas and Deep Seas Pelagic and Benthic, Hydrography and Biogeography 13. Linking Fisheries Management with Marine Conservation Objectives through Ecosystem Approaches - Compatibility of Exploitation and Preservation 14. Size and Boundaries of Protected Areas - Rationale for Function, Location, Dimensions 15. Evaluation of Protected Areas - The Concept of 'Value' as Applied to Marine Biodiversity 16. Sets of Protected Areas - Integrating Distinctive and Representative Protected Areas 17. Networks of Protected Areas - Patterns of Connectivity in the Oceans 18. Approaches to the Establishment of Marine Monitoring Programs - Stabilizing the Baselines 19. Remaining Problems in Marine Conservation - Present Problems, Future Solutions. Index

Global natural capital - including marine ecosystem goods and services - sustain human wellbeing. The economic cost of environmental degradation is greater than the investment into conservation and management, resulting in a large and growing conservation finance gap. There is ongoing research in sustainable development and environmental finance, but much of this is focused on terrestrial ecosystems. Due to unique features of the marine environment, explicit focus on marine conservation finance is also needed. At the same time, literatures describe factors that constrain the success of marine conservation, e.g. governance, but a key constraint not adequately addressed in research or practice is finance. Gaps in the literatures include a systematic analysis of the reasons for and solutions to resolve the marine conservation finance gap, a rigorous analysis of how to engage with businesses to close the marine conservation finance gap, and how to integrate finance into marine conservation planning. The aim of this thesis is to investigate strategies and financial mechanisms to decrease impacts on marine resources and increase effective investment into marine resource management. This research is both interdisciplinary and cross-sector, and addresses the issue at both the global scale and at the scale of individual case studies. Chapter 2 reviews the relevant literature and articulates the need for and scope of the and emerging of marine conservation finance. The paper identifies five challenges associated with marine conservation finance, and proposes five potential ways forward. This piece of research illustrates how government, private, academic, and non-profit sectors can better collaborate to reduce the marine conservation finance gap, identifies specific priority research which was pursued in Chapters 3-5, and lays the foundation for many years of further research in this field. Chapter 3 focuses one example tool for engaging with profit-maximising businesses: marine biodiversity offsets in the Great Barrier Reef. Offsets are a regulatory mechanism to make companies compensate for permitted damage to the environment. The potential for and efficacy of marine biodiversity offsets is investigated in the case study site of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, Queensland, Australia. Chapter 4 investigates the use of a revolving loan fund to incentivise improvements in water quality in the Great Barrier Reef. Revolving loan funds are a mechanism whereby debt is used to create both environmental benefits and profits, which can be reinvested into loans. This study investigated if and how the creation of a concessionary (low-interest) loan fund could incentivise changes to agricultural practices, resulting in improved water quality for the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. Chapter 5 assesses the opportunities and challenges for using impact investing to achieve marine conservation outcomes. This chapter is a global review of the opportunities for and challenges to using impact investments to create marine conservation outcomes. A review of the impact investing literature is followed by a summary of existing marine impact investments and then an analysis of if and how the marine impact investing industry could grow to achieve both ecological and financial outcomes. Chapter 6 synthesises the findings from Chapters 2-5. This chapter summarises the orginal contributions and effectiveness of research for each chapter, followed by an analysis of two cross-cutting themes that emerged across all chapters. Limitations of the research and general conclusions are also presented herein. Results indicate that the marine conservation finance gap is large and growing, and that a systematic and rigorous focus on this new and emerging field is warranted. There are numerous finance mechanisms available to increase investment into marine conservation, but the type of mechanism must be suited to the ecological, social, political, and economic context of the site. When engaging with businesses, the finance mechanism or strategy must be suited to the objective of the business. Biodiversity offsets, for example, can be an effective tool to make businesses compensate for permitted damage to the marine environment, but numerous improvements to the assessment and implementation of offsets are needed to make them more effective, as illustrated by the Great Barrier Reef case study. As another example, loans can be used to deliver both marine outcomes and private profits for businesses so that they can account for the natural capital in their value chains. Impact investing - producing social or environmental outcomes alongside financial returns - has a large potential to deliver marine conservation outcomes, but is currently limited by the availability of investible deals to accept the available capital. Specialist capacity and transition capital are required to advance marine conservation finance. A balance of effort between preventing impacts and funding recovery / management is needed to squeeze the marine conservation finance gap from both sides. This research identifies actionable solutions for addressing both prevention and funding, and articulates how cross-sector partnerships and specialist capacity are needed to advance marine conservation finance.

Pirate is considered as one of the oldest professions in the world. The existence of pirates in the archipelago was first recorded in the 5th century AD. In the period of 15th to the 16th century, pirate activities increased due to political and economic changes in the archipelago. One of them was the arrival of European traders which made most people in the archipelago encouraged to do piracy, including those done by Bajo tribe. The tribe which is from Sulawesi was a respected pirate at that time who had a wide operations area in the archipelago. The piracy targets are Europeans and indigenous traders. Bajo tribe was not only good at piracy but also had a concern for marine and coastal conservation. The coastal areas Preservation can be seen from the efforts to preserve coral reefs, fish and mangrove.

BackgroundConservation activities and natural resource management interventions have often aimed to tackle the dual challenge of improving nature conservation and human well-being. However, there is concern over the extent to which this dual goal has been achieved, and an increasing recognition of trade-offs and synergies within and between aspects of each of the goals. The amount and scope of the available evidence on the success of conservation and management interventions in both arenas has lacked documentation, for a number of reasons, including limited resources for monitoring and evaluation and the difficulty in bringing together a disparate evidence base. This systematic map focuses on the interaction between marine conservation management and the health and well-being of coastal communities in South East Asia. MethodWe searched bibliographic databases to find published literature, and identified grey literature through institutional and organisational website searches and key stakeholders. Eligibility criteria were applied in two stages, title and abstract and full text, with consistency checks. We extracted meta-data on the design and characteristics of each study, from which we produced an interactive database and map, and a narrative summary. ResultsWe assessed 42,894 records at title and abstract from the main searches. 1,331 articles were assessed at full text (30 articles were not retrievable). 287 articles (281 studies) were included in the systematic map. Most studies were peer-reviewed publications (90%), and from the Philippines and Indonesia (72%). 31% of studies were solely qualitative, 45% were solely quantitative and 24% included both qualitative and quantitative research. Only 24% (31/127) of quantitative studies included a comparator.We identified knowledge clusters where studies investigated the links between the marine conservation interventions: Site Protection, Economic or Livelihood Incentives or Alternatives, or Habitat Management, and the human health and well-being outcomes: Economic Living Standards, Governance and Empowerment, or Social Relations. In addition, qualitative research clusters were identified exploring the links between the intervention Habitat Management, and the outcome Governance and Empowerment, and between the intervention Economic or Livelihood Incentives or Alternatives, and the outcomes of Governance and Empowerment, and Social Relations.We identified major knowledge gaps in evidence for the effect of marine conservation interventions on the outcomes Freedom of Choice and Action, Security and Safety, Subjective Well-being, Health, and Culture and Spirituality. There was a lack of studies involving Education, Awareness and Activism interventions that reported any human health and well-being outcomes. ConclusionWe present the first updatable, interrogable and comprehensive evidence map on this topic for South East Asia. Our work supports further, detailed investigation of knowledge clusters using systematic review and also serves to identify understudied topic areas. The lack of comparative, quantitative studies suggests that future research should include counterfactuals to strengthen the robustness of evidence base. Users of this systematic map should recognise that much evidence may be national or locally specific, and that we did not undertake an assessment of study quality. Thus, when considering implications for policy and decision-making, users should carefully consider the heterogeneity of available evidence and refer to original research articles to gain a full depth of understanding and context.

This paper examines the social impact of a large-scale marine conservation project (Marine Park) in the coastal region of Mtwara, southeastern Tanzania, following displacement and the enforcement of restrictions on fishing and extracting marine resources. Through an analysis of interviews and focus group discussions with residents in six villages, the paper illustrates how the undesired effects of the Marine Park have become part of people’s everyday discourse regarding hardships and their experiences of the violence of everyday life. Elicited narratives provide insights into how the Marine Park, in combination with a multiplicity of factors leading to displacement, dispossession, and social dislocation, has intensified hardships, especially among female-headed households, due to their increasing poverty, marginalization, and food-related insecurity. The narratives shed light on people’s lived experiences of disempowerment, feelings of humiliation, anger, despair, low self-esteem, and extreme resentment—in essence, their social suffering. The paper makes a case for addressing the human dimensions of marine biodiversity and conservation interventions as a key step in making them genuinely collaborative and sustainable in terms of social equity and ecological effectiveness.

The study attempted to identify the challenges and threats to coastal and marine conservation and assessed the effectiveness of the existing legal, policy, and institutional frameworks in this regard. This multidisciplinary research used both primary and secondary data. It was revealed that in the protected areas, both conservations and degradations go hand in hand, indicating the ineffectiveness of regulatory schemes. Ironically, many destructive activities like wetland poisoning, onslaught wildlife poaching, and clear felling of mangrove tree species threaten conservation initiatives in the coastal habitats. There is no specific law and policy which can effectively regulate marine and coastal resource management and conservation. Instead, many fragmented laws and policies created jurisdictional overlapping, followed by interest conflicts in most cases. The study recommends legal and institutional reforms to abolish jurisdictional overlapping and establish effective marine governance. The study proposed a model of an evidence-based national marine policy based on stakeholders’ perceptions.

Chapter 21 - The Big Role of Coastal Communities and Small-Scale Fishers in Ocean Conservation

Despite increased efforts from government agencies, scientists, and non-government organizations over the past few decades, anthropogenic sources of sea turtle mortality continue to threaten the survivorship of sea turtle species around the globe. More recent efforts to engage local people with community-based sea turtle conservation programs have been based primarily on economic incentives and less on cultural and social traditions. But there is growing evidence that informal institutions such as taboos can be extremely effective at promoting wildlife conservation. Ghana is a culturally diverse country where local traditions have shown to improve protection for primates, crocodiles, and many bird species. This study explores the presence of a sea turtle taboo in fishing communities to demonstrate that traditional practices make residents more receptive to sea turtle conservation and more willing to follow government regulations. Fishers in the communities that are aware of the taboo are also more willing to adjust fishing methods to better protect sea turtles. The traditional taboo and national laws appear to be working synergistically to enhance sea turtle conservation in some regions of Ghana. This paper extends the argument that sea turtle conservation strategies succeed when the cultural and social traditions of local communities are integrated with management activities.

The Bay of Bengal (BoB) region is under severe threat of marine pollution because of unsustainable management of human activities for the exploration of marine resources. The emergence of the concept of Blue Economy fuels the coastal states to explore more marine resources that will cause much more marine pollution in the region. Therefore, a balance between the exploration and conservation of marine resources is essential for the prevention of unsustainable use and marine pollution. Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) may be a tool for the balance between exploration and conservation of the marine resources in the BoB region. This balance approach will also facilitate to develop a sustainable Blue Economy for the coastal states of the Bay region through sustainable management and use of the marine resources. However, the current regional legal arrangements for management of ocean resources of the BoB do not provide any explicit provisions for the development of MSP in the Bay region. The current regional conventions, agreements, declarations, organisations, programmes and plans have different provisions for management of the marine resources of the BoB. Those legal regimes have several provisions that are relevant and cover different aspects of MSP. However, the current regional arrangements for the management of marine resources are not adequate for the development of MSP for sustainable use and prevention of marine pollution in the BoB. This inadequacy has significantly impacted the objective of sustainable Blue Economy in the Bay region. A uniform agreement among the coastal states is essential to develop a regional MSP in the BoB region. Development of MSP in the BoB will be an effective tool for greening the Blue Economy by sustainable use and protection of the marine environment in the Bay region.

A few times a year, volunteers fan out along the causeway that links the South Carolina mainland with the seashore community of Folly Beach to clean up plastic bottles, straws, bags, and other debris from along the road and the salt marsh. Some of this debris has come from cities miles away. On windy days, litter is often blown off city streets into waterways. During rainstorms, debris floats into drains that empty into rivers. Other trash probably came from places closer to home. “I see bags and other plastic flying off the beds of pickup trucks going down the causeway,” says Marty Morganello, who organizes the cleanups for the Charleston-area chapter of the nonprofit Surfrider Foundation. “I see them coming out the open windows of cars and out the backs of garbage trucks and even recycling trucks. This material is lightweight, and if you don’t secure it, it will fly away.” By one estimate, the volume of plastic debris going into the world’s oceans could more than double by 2025, assuming current trends in coastal development and plastics use. Some countries have begun identifying ways to improve management of plastic ... Beach cleanups yield enormous amounts of trash, with plastic items a major constituent.1 Although the human health impacts of this marine plastic pollution remain poorly characterized, it is widely seen as an emerging problem that deserves much more research attention.2 Likewise, there is a growing urgency among industry, government, nongovernmental organizations, and environmental groups to develop tools and policies to track, capture, and recycle plastic waste before it reaches the ocean.

Blue grabbing: Reviewing marine conservation in Redang Island Marine Park, Malaysia

Indigenous Peoples have stewarded marine environments since time immemorial. Due to colonialism, Indigenous Peoples suffered impacts to their rights and abilities to holistically manage ocean systems. We situate the value systems embedded within manifest destiny and colonialism as the root systems that generated a plague of conservation issues that impact Indigenous Peoples today (e.g., fortress and green militarized conservation praxes). This paper is written by Indigenous scholars using Two-Eyed Seeing, reflexivity, and decolonizing methods (e.g., symbology, storytelling, and Indigenous beading) to unsettle the ways that marine conservation should be facilitated. Our framework operationalizes Indigenous value systems embedded within "the seven R's": respect, relevancy, reciprocity, responsibility, rights, reconciliation through redistribution, and relationships. This framework underlines the need for marine conservation efforts to center Indigenous voices and futures and Tribal management of marine systems. Marine system managers can use this paper as a guide for decolonizing marine conservation approaches, operationalizing Indigenous value systems in marine management, and building decolonial relationships with Indigenous Peoples and waters.

This paper aims to analyse the current situation resulting from the Marine Conservation Area (MCA) in Indonesia in terms of the legal framework, institutional conflicts and the response of the local people. A case study of the centralised and decentralised MCA in West Lombok is presented, and the process of establishing the MCA and its institutional performance are reviewed. The performance of a centralised system is still questioned because this system marginalises the local people that leads to the rise of conflict and eventually weakens the institution of an MCA. Therefore, strengthening a decentralised system is necessary to increase the sense of stewardship of the local people over the resources, and to shape a new paradigm of the relationship of poor people-environment and conservation-fisheries, so marginalisation of the local people can be avoided and finally a robust institution can be created. Nevertheless, the case of Awig-awig as a type of community-based coral reef management in Gili Indah shows that a decentralised system does not assure achievement of more robust institutional performance. This means that the success of decentralisation is not taken for granted, but there is a prerequisite to be considered. At the community level, the prerequisite is a creation of better institutional arrangement including increasing equitability among resource users, a better representation system during process of consensus building and a well-defined property right system. Furthermore, the improvement of legal frameworks at a national level is necessary to create more harmonious legal products related to the marine conservation with an emphasis on how to recognise and enhance the capacity of the local institution, which may belong to the local government or the local people, in the marine conservation. Thus, community-based management or co-management system can be officially recognised and promoted. In addition, the decentralisation of marine conservation also requires the local governments to have adequate capacity building including the following aspects: administration skill, political savvy, adaptability and expertise skill.