Do coastal communities in small islands value marine resources through marine protected areas?: Evidence from Kei Islands Indonesia with choice modelling

Abstract

The pressure on the coastal region in either a developing or developing country is relatively similar, where climate change, preserving marine resources in the surrounding area, the rapid development of infrastructure in the region, and boosting the economy are the main topics. The differences are in the resources needed to deal with those problems. For remote areas such as the small islands region in an emerging developed country like Indonesia, the challenge is way more complicated than in the metropolitan region. The effort must come from the coastal communities in the region to initiate the movement to maintain the marine resources in the region; by doing so, it can generate more sustainable income and prepare the area for the negative impact of climate change. Thus, the study aimed to measure the value of protecting the surrounding marine area to increase resilience against climate change and preserve marine resources by coastal communities in the Kei Islands, Indonesia. We utilize choice modelling (CM) to measure the perception of coastal communities toward proposed Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Data collected with choice cards and a questionnaire to check and tabulate the answer with a total of 655 respondents, three choices, and four levels of choices resulted in 26,975 datasets. The study found that most coastal communities support the idea of protecting marine resources, and the CM result showed that coastal protection is the main trigger for communities to implement MPA in the region. The result showed the importance of climate change in coastal regions.