Title
Incorporating feasibility and collaboration into
large-scale planning for regional recovery of coral
reef fisheries
Author(s)
Jones, Kendall R. ;Maina, Joseph M. ;Kark, Salit ;McClanahan, Timothy R. ;Klein, Carissa J. ;Beger, Maria
Published
2018
Publisher
Marine Ecology Progress Series
Abstract
Broad-scale overharvesting of fish is one of the major drivers of marine biodiversity
loss and poverty, particularly in countries with high dependence on coral reefs. Given the heterogeneity
of fishing effort and management success, and the scarcity of management resources, it is
necessary to identify broad-scale locations for promoting successful fisheries management and
conservation. Here, we assessed how fisheries management and conservation priorities in the
Western Indian Ocean would change if the objectives were to (1) minimize lost fishing opportunity,
(2) minimize the time for fish biomass to recover, (3) avoid locations of low management feasibility
based on historical management outcomes, and (4) incorporate international collaboration to optimize
the rate for achieving goals. When prioritizing for rapid recovery of fish biomass rather than
minimizing lost fishing opportunity, we found that the area of priority management zones changed
by over 60% in some countries. When locations of low management feasibility were avoided, the
recovery time of fish biomass across the region increased 4-fold. International collaborations prioritized
management zones in remote, high biomass, and low fishing pressure reefs and reduced the
recovery time of fish 5-fold compared to non-collaboration scenarios. Thus, many of these conservation
objectives favored wealthy and sparsely populated over poorer and natural resource dependent
countries. Consequently, this study shows how prioritization policies, incentives, decisions, and
conflicts will produce highly variable outcomes and challenges for sustainability.
Keywords
Africa;Conservation planning;Marine and fisheries policy;Marxan;Indian Ocean;Sustainable fisheries
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PUB24034