Abstract
As part of an international collaboration to compare large-scale commons, we used the Social-Ecological Systems Meta-Analysis Database (SESMAD) to systematically map out attributes of and changes in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) in Australia. We focus on eight design principles from common-pool resource (CPR) theory and other key social-ecological systems governance variables, and explore to what extent they help explain the social and ecological outcomes of park management through time. Our analysis showed that commercial fisheries management and the re-zoning of the GBRMP in 2004 led to improvements in ecological condition of the reef, particularly fisheries. These boundary and rights changes were supported by effective monitoring, sanctioning and conflict resolution. Moderate biophysical connectivity was also important for improved outcomes. However, our analysis also highlighted that continued challenges to improved ecological health in terms of coral cover and biodiversity can be explained by fuzzy boundaries between land and sea, and the significance of external drivers to even large-scale social-ecological systems (SES). While ecological and institutional fit in the marine SES was high, this was not the case when considering the coastal SES. Nested governance arrangements become even more important at this larger scale. To our knowledge, our paper provides the first analysis linking the re-zoning of the GBRMP to CPR and SES theory. We discuss important challenges to coding large-scale systems for meta-analysis.
Highlights
Large-scale environmental problems are common but difficult to resolve – and study – due to their complexity
We focus on eight design principles from common-pool resource (CPR) theory and other key social-ecological systems governance variables, and explore to what extent they help explain the social and ecological outcomes of park management through time
This paper focuses on the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP), Australia
Summary
Large-scale environmental problems are common but difficult to resolve – and study – due to their complexity. A number of theories and frameworks have been developed to understand environmental change and management and, from these, variables or conditions associated with success or failure in governance have been identified. One of the first meta-analyses of community-based resource management systems identified eight broad conditions – the design principles – that were more likely than other factors to be associated with collective action and durable local institutions (Ostrom 1990). While the number of enabling conditions for the sustainability of the commons expanded as studies became more numerous and diversified across various resource systems (Agrawal 2003), the design principles remain a foundation of CPR theory. The eight design principles include (Ostrom 1990): clearly-defined boundaries (explicit delineation of the boundaries of the resource system and the resource user group to ensure clarity on who has rights to use and manage what); congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local conditions (appropriateness of both sets of rules to their local context and proportionality or congruence with each other); collective-choice arrangements (existence of arrangements where most of those affected by operational rules are involved in their formulation); monitoring (presence of monitors, who are accountable to resource users or who are resource users themselves and are in charge of auditing both resource status and the behaviour (compliance) of resource users); graduated sanctions (existence of penalties that differentially punish those who violate resource-use rules according to the seriousness and frequency of their violations); conflict resolution mechanisms (availability of low-cost conflict management arrangements to those who use and manage a resource system); minimum recognition of rights to organise (respect of resource-users’ rights to devise their own institutions by external government authorities); and nested enterprises (organization of various governance activities such as appropriation, provision, monitoring, enforcement, and conflict resolution across multiple levels or scales)
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