Abstract
Marine protected areas (MPAs) have largely proven to be effective tools for conserving marine ecosystem, while socio-economic benefits generated by MPAs to fisheries are still under debate. Many MPAs embed a no-take zone, aiming to preserve natural populations and ecosystems, within a buffer zone where potentially sustainable activities are allowed. Small-scale fisheries (SSF) within buffer zones can be highly beneficial by promoting local socio-economies. However, guidelines to successfully manage SSFs within MPAs, ensuring both conservation and fisheries goals, and reaching a win-win scenario, are largely unavailable. From the peer-reviewed literature, grey-literature and interviews, we assembled a unique database of ecological, social and economic attributes of SSF in 25 Mediterranean MPAs. Using random forest with Boruta algorithm we identified a set of attributes determining successful SSFs management within MPAs. We show that fish stocks are healthier, fishermen incomes are higher and the social acceptance of management practices is fostered if five attributes are present (i.e. high MPA enforcement, presence of a management plan, fishermen engagement in MPA management, fishermen representative in the MPA board, and promotion of sustainable fishing). These findings are pivotal to Mediterranean coastal communities so they can achieve conservation goals while allowing for profitable exploitation of fisheries resources.
Highlights
Management reforms to global fisheries are applied
Given the substantial proportion of unsuccessful marine protected areas (MPAs) (36% with overall management success (OMS) = 0 or 1), we highlight that establishing MPAs per se does not suffice to solve ecological, economic and social challenges related to small-scale fisheries (SSF) management
This study identified key attributes of MPA and SSFs that can achieve conservation goals while at the same time maintaining profitability in SSFs
Summary
Sixty-four percent of MPAs showed ecological effectiveness, 68% showed economic benefits for fishermen and 60% showed commitment of fishermen to the environment (hereinafter “fishermen environmental commitment”). Successful MPAs (i.e. OMS = 3) show high similarity in the five most important attributes (as denoted by their clear grouping in Factor Analysis of Mixed Data; Fig. 4) with moderate correlations among four attributes (i.e. fishermen engagement, presence of fishermen in management board, presence of a management plan and presence of activity promoting sustainable fisheries) (Supplementary Figure S1). SSF-MPA systems are highly complex, the large range of socio-ecological conditions we examined make it likely that our key attributes could prove beneficial to SSF in other geographical locations in the Mediterranean Sea. we can suggest that the allocation of some public expenditures from current fisheries subsidies (globally accounting for more than 30 billion US$/year56) to actions aimed at setting key attributes in MPAs (e.g. effective patrolling, stakeholders capacity building) will produce substantial ecological, economic and social benefits to society
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