Science

Linking Governance, Biodiversity Conservation, and Poverty Alleviation

WWF’s Conservation Science Program and its partners are poised to improve conservation practice by more rigorously evaluating Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). The impact of MPAs on local communities is the focus of a contentious policy debate: advocates tout MPAs as a win-win strategy for conservation and poverty alleviation, while opponents deride MPAs for placing welfare of fish above the well-being of impoverished fishing communities.   In fact, evidence suggests that both perspectives may have merit.  Under certain conditions, MPAs provide both biodiversity and social benefits; in other settings, tradeoffs exist between biodiversity conservation and social welfare.  Scientists have not yet developed a convincing explanation for these variations in social and biological performance.  As a result, decision makers set marine resource policy in ignorance, not knowing whether their choices will benefit people, the environment, or both.

© Taylor Ricketts/WWF

WWF’s research initiative

To address this policy dilemma, the WWF Conservation Science Program (CSP) is launching a multi-institution, multi-country research initiative to examine the links among MPAs, biodiversity conservation, and poverty alleviation.  We propose to measure the conservation and poverty impacts of MPAs, explain why some MPAs provide benefits to both people and marine biodiversity (and other MPAs do not), and identify key elements in developing win-win MPAs.  This research will help WWF to develop the next generation of place-based marine conservation strategies in the Coral Triangle, Gulf of California, Coastal East Africa and elsewhere.  It will also inform WWF’s work on small-scale fisheries-dependent communities around the world.  Results from this research have the potential to improve government action, development policy, and the welfare of coastal communities.

This interdisciplinary research initiative will examine how MPA governance shapes the behavior of local fishermen, the condition of the marine environment, and, ultimately, conservation and social outcomes.  Specifically, we propose to conduct comparative analysis of 10-20 MPAs in 2-3 different tropical regions where WWF works.  We are starting by developing and testing data collection methods and research instruments for MPA socioeconomic data through household surveys and key informant interviews in MPAs in the Bird’s Head Seascape of West Papua, Indonesia, in collaboration with UNIPA, CI, TNC, WWF-Indonesia, and the University of Michigan.    We will then tease apart the complex relationships between MPA governance and resource use patterns, between these use patterns and the ecological conditions within and outside the MPA, and between these ecological conditions and human well-being and poverty (i.e., moving left to right in Figure 1). 

Protocols (Household instrument and Governance instrument) and Publications available upon request.

Learn more about WWF’s Conservation Impact Initiative

Related papers:

• Mascia, M.B., C.A. Claus, and R. Naidoo.  2010.  Impacts of Marine Protected Areas on Fishing Communities. Conservation Biology 24(5):1424-1429.
• Mascia, M.B., and C.A. Claus. 2009. A Property Rights Approach to Understanding Human Displacement from Protected Areas: The Case of Marine Protected Areas. Conservation Biology 23(1): 16-23. 
• Haisfield, KM, HE Fox, S Yen, S Mangubhai, P J Mous (2010) An ounce of prevention: cost-effectiveness of coral reef rehabilitation relative to enforcement. Conservation Letters 3: 243–250.