Browsing by Subject "Marine conservation"

Open‐ocean fisheries expanded rapidly from the 1960s and currently represent the largest direct stressor on high seas biodiversity and ecosystems. Open-ocean ecological research and the implementation of management actions to mitigate the impacts of fisheries has lagged behind those of coastal and deep-sea environments. I investigate opportunities to enhance a wholistic ecosystem-based approach to high seas fisheries management by: reviewing our understanding of the impacts fisheries across ecological scales, evaluating the gaps and opportunities in the mandates of existing and future governance frameworks and developing methodologies for creating dynamic spatiotemporal management tools to reduce bycatch. Results demonstrate that fisheries are impacting the open-ocean across ecological scales. Results also show that the population trajectories of most non-target species in the high seas are not being monitored by fishing nations, nor relevant fisheries management organizations. A new implementing agreement under the UN to sustainably manage high seas biodiversity could complement the mandates fisheries bodies. There is an opportunity for new technologies and modeling approaches to contribute to the implementation of an ecosystem-based approach to management by generating knowledge on the spatial ecology commercial fisheries and high seas biodiversity. My results show that the distribution of target and non-target species, as well as longline fishing activities are correlated with environmental conditions and that these can be predicted across spatial and temporal scales to inform spatial management of high seas pelagic fishing activities. Implementing an ecosystem-based approach will require embracing a precautionary approach to reduce the bycatch of non-target species, which can be accomplished through spatiotemporal avoidance and improving our monitoring of fisheries impacts across ecological scales.

As an important form of conservation programming, marine protected areas (MPAs) are now positioned as a key global strategy to protect and conserve marine biodiversity. This context has resulted in a rapid increase in the number and geographic extent of MPAs worldwide. While the benefits derived from MPA establishment are often optimistically framed as beneficial for both marine biodiversity and human wellbeing, this assumption is challenged for several reasons, including the fact that current science and practice frequently fail to account for the full impact of MPAs on human wellbeing. Current science and practice remain focused on a few easily quantifiable indicators in the material dimension. This context poses a danger that the context specific, place based aspects of wellbeing, such as social relations and connections to the marine environment, will not be examined, nor reported in evaluation and decision-making processes related to MPAs. It also reflects a growing need for improved in-depth studies on what wellbeing does and does not mean for particular people, in particular places, to better reflect the diversity in social and cultural constructions of human wellbeing (White 2016).

This dissertation contributes to growing social science scholarship on MPAs and human wellbeing by employing a qualitative, case study design to examine how one’s relational wellbeing can be transformed and challenged by an MPA. It does this by focusing on select small-scale fishing communities living in Mnazi Bay-Ruvuma Estuary Marine Park (MBREMP), located in southern Tanzania. Data collection occurred over 2019-2020 and primarily included 140 semi-structured interviews, which were transcribed, translated, and qualitatively coded for analysis. To explore the range of relationships important to one’s wellbeing, this dissertation engages with relevant literature in development studies, human geography, as well as social science research in fisheries.

Results demonstrate the complex and dynamic nature of human wellbeing, including the fundamental role culture, place, and history have in shaping diverse understandings and constructions of wellbeing. Accounts of wellbeing were found to be woven into the material and emotional realities of everyday life, illustrating how the material, subjective, and relational dimensions of wellbeing are inseparable and co-constituting. Results also show how the construction of one’s wellbeing is formed in and through a history of interactions with others and the environment, which in turn shaped one’s relational values, associated norms and behaviors, and perceptions of the MPA.

Overall, this dissertation contributes to a growing body of social science literature that investigates how one form marine conservation programming, MPAs, interacts with human wellbeing. It presents an empirical case study that advances understanding of the social and cultural constructions of wellbeing, as well as the diverse and nuanced ways people connect with others and their environment. Results from this dissertation have the potential to address persistent tensions between obtaining international targets for marine conservation and the need to ensure the implementation of equitable and just MPAs, including securing the rights of coastal communities.

In recent decades, habitat degradation and loss, transboundary pollution, resource overexploitation, and a rapidly changing climate have contributed to significant declines in global marine biodiversity. This global environmental crisis has inspired international environmental regimes, such as the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), to manage human activity and ensure the long-term persistence of biodiversity by establishing large-scale networks of marine protected areas (MPAs). Conservation scientists have developed systematic methods for identifying where it is most efficient to establish MPAs, but the design and implementation of effective MPAs has been hindered by limited resources, conflict over altered access to natural resources, and insufficient spatial data. Prior research has shown that incorporating social, economic, and political considerations into the design, negotiation, and establishment of MPAs can help to overcome these challenges and more effectively achieve conservation objectives. Here, I contribute to the field of conservation planning in three ways. First, I use collaborative governance theory as a framework for analyzing the CCAMLR and identifying the key factors that lead to successful agreements to designate MPAs in the Southern Ocean. Second, I build a methodological framework that operationalizes conservation opportunity theory and enables the collection of spatially referenced social, economic, and political data. Third, I use forecasting techniques to predict the likelihood that various geographic areas along the Western Antarctic Peninsula are successfully designated and suggest how these methods can inform conservation planning. My work suggests that theories and methods from other fields have the potential to improve conservation planning efforts by structuring the integration of novel spatial data, highlighting barriers to progress, identifying structural or procedural gaps in international environmental regimes, and more broadly informing conservation decision-making. Strengthening these planning approaches is increasingly critical to the success of international conservation efforts focused on protecting biodiversity and the ecological integrity and function of the global environment.