Effects of Marine Protected Areas

Jan Piter Renuth is the Raja (King) of Loorlobay, one of the three kings of Kei Besar, a small island in Indonesia’s Eastern Maluku Regency. At 86 years old, the Raja is deaf in both ears. As he greets us, he jokes that having lost both his hearing and his teeth, his eyes will be the next to go. He passes around a brass prayer box containing a coconut kernel, some tea leaves, a small bowl of water, and 17,000 rupiah (the equivalent of about US$1.25). He asks that everyone gathered stare into the prayer box for long enough to reveal his or her soul. He nods in approval as the box is passed from person to person. Behind him, a saltwater crocodile as long as a man is tall lies asleep in a cage; its presence is never explained.

We’re meeting with the Raja as part of a multiyear ecological and social monitoring project, for which WWF—in collaboration with a diverse team of experts (see below)—is gathering much-needed data on the impacts of marine protected areas (MPAs). Our conclusions will help inform local marine management decisions, shape global policy on when and where MPAs can be effective tools for conservation, and influence the design of new MPAs in Indonesia.

One of our tasks is to learn from the people who live here what they are doing to protect the marine resources they rely on. The Raja begins by describing sasi, a traditional resource management system that is common among coastal communities in eastern Indonesia. It is primarily a set of rules regarding the use—or restriction of use—of natural resources. To clarify the rules, the Raja displays an array of signs, made mostly from coconut palm, and explains the varying degrees of sasi prohibition that each denotes. Punishments for noncompliance start at a stern telling off, he claims, but escalate with astonishing quickness to capital punishment. He drives this last claim home with one of the many swords he has laid out on the table. The Raja is as theatrical as he is observant of tradition.

Sasi and related forms of customary property rights are just some of the many factors that make marine ecosystem management so complex in Indonesia. A bewildering patchwork of policies; more than 300 ethnic groups; and a mix of interconnected coastal systems (including mangroves, coral reefs, and seagrass beds) and oceanic ecosystems make a one-size-fits-all approach to conservation impossible.

That’s why WWF’s Gabby Ahmadia, senior marine scientist, and Louise Glew, lead scientist for monitoring and evaluation, have taken up the challenge of disentangling all the myths, half-truths, and unproven theories about the impacts of MPAs across the archipelago. It’s no small task. Glew jokes: “Since my wedding, I’ve spent more time with Gabby than with my husband.”

Five years into the monitoring study, almost half a million fish have been counted and more than 3,500 households have been interviewed, making it by far the largest study of its kind ever conducted.

“Getting to the right amount of data takes time and thoughtful planning,” says Glew.

“And the right amount of data is lots and lots,” Ahmadia adds with a smile.

Using a new, more rigorous approach, Glew and Ahmadia are matching MPA sites with suitable control sites outside of the MPAs with an eye toward identifying those unprotected settlements and reefs that are most similar to those inside the monitored and protected areas. To do this, the team collates preexisting data on key variables—such as exposure to wave action, reef type, distance to market, and social structure—that do, or likely will, influence where MPAs are established. Since preexisting data in eastern Indonesia are often scattered or hard to find, Ahmadia and Glew fill in the gaps and cross-reference by tapping into local experts and leading scientists.

The local field team then begins extensive baseline surveys, collecting data on the key variables that influence MPA establishment and outcomes, as well as important ecological and social variables that could be affected by MPA establishment (e.g., hard coral cover, biomass of key fisheries species, household food security, and the emotional bond between an individual and a particular place).

Together, these data yield the quantity and quality of information Glew and Ahmadia need to pair reefs and households inside the MPA with similar “control” reefs and households unaffected by the MPA, providing a critically important baseline against which to measure and anticipate future changes in ecosystems and human well-being. The rigor is important, both say, because it creates a real-world experiment that allows Ahmadia, Glew, and their partners to isolate the signature impacts of MPA establishment despite ever-changing social and ecological conditions.

SHIFTING THE DEBATE
Back in the village, Glew has been talking to Anolda Jamlean, who has been using the profits from seaweed farming to see her grandchildren through college. Jamlean seems to support the agreement not to hunt turtles, welcoming the cooperation between WWF and the community. And this sort of buy-in from local stakeholders is a crucial component of MPA design: In truth, a good chunk of conservation work is about listening to people and building consensus among different groups, from those at the village level to policymakers.

And this is where Ahmadia and Glew’s coordinated ecological and social monitoring really comes into its own. By isolating the impacts of MPAs from other extraneous variables, they are able to work toward what Glew terms “an evidence base for conservation,” which, in a field rich with debate about whether or not MPAs are the best strategy for protecting marine ecosystems, could prove to be a vital tool in empowering decision makers.

The hope, of course, is that policymakers will adopt Ahmadia and Glew’s findings, and that their work will spill over into MPA design and marine spatial planning. “We need a more balanced view of MPAs,” Glew says. “We need to move away from the polarizing conversations about whether MPAs are 'good' or 'bad,' and instead look at the nuances that can determine how we implement our findings to improve MPA design.”

This is at the crux of what Ahmadia, Glew, and their partners are pushing for: a new evidence-based dialogue about MPAs that will help us move beyond conjecture and subjective decision-making, and ultimately improve how MPAs are run.

But their ambitions don’t end there. Both Ahmadia and Glew believe that these field methods could easily be transitioned to terrestrial monitoring, applied to the development of certification standards, and used to inform community-based conservation strategies, among others. Having a rigorous, evidence-based approach across more areas of conservation would enable us to see what’s working and what’s not—and, most important, why.

LEAVING LOORLOBAY
As our boat chugs away, the Raja of Loorlobay—the king with the crocodile—starts to cry. The moment is as touching as it is telling, echoing a sentiment the Raja had previously shared—that it’s sad to see his culture changing and the ecosystem growing more vulnerable every day. Social change in Kei Besar is inevitable; sasi still holds strong for now, but young people are leaving the island in increasing numbers and with them goes the traditional sense of stewardship that could be handed down.

Throughout Indonesia, as communities undergo similar changes, there’s a real opportunity for the conservation community to help build a more workable foundation to advance and improve our care of natural resources. Glew, Ahmadia, and their partners hope that what they learn from their monitoring project will help fortify that advance.