Abstract
There is considerable interest in New Zealand in establishing “Customary Management Areas” (taiāpure and mātaitai) and Marine Reserves to support Māori cultural practices and restore declining biodiversity and fish stocks. Allocation of near-shore marine areas for these management systems potentially benefits the larger public, but it has often been vigorously opposed by recreational and commercial fishers. This paper reports estimates of the relative values held by the public toward four potentially conflicting uses of near-shore marine areas. These estimates come from a web-based choice survey completed by 1055 respondents recruited from throughout New Zealand. The response rate was especially high at 60%. We present results weighted to the characteristics of the population and test the results against a variety of well-known sources of survey bias. Scenario development suggests that some reallocation of near-shore marine areas to any of the management systems under discussion alternative to the status quo is likely to yield a welfare gain. A combination of marine reserves and taiāpure is most preferred. The exercise supports the use of discrete choice experiments to provide crucial information about difficult-to-quantify public values for aspects of management of near-shore marine areas, such as proposed taiāpure, mātaitai, or marine reserves.
Highlights
IntroductionThere has been considerable public debate in New Zealand about how to balance recreational and commercial fishing interests with marine conservation and Māori customary fishing practices [1,2,3]
There has been considerable public debate in New Zealand about how to balance recreational and commercial fishing interests with marine conservation and Māori customary fishing practices [1,2,3].Some people advocate creation of more and larger Customary Protection Areas in near-shore marine areas as a way of encouraging the continuation of Māori culture and wellbeing [4]
This paper reports the results from a survey-based choice experiment aimed at valuing the socio-ecological attributes affected by management alternatives to near-shore fisheries in New Zealand
Summary
There has been considerable public debate in New Zealand about how to balance recreational and commercial fishing interests with marine conservation and Māori customary fishing practices [1,2,3]. Some people advocate creation of more and larger Customary Protection Areas (such as taiāpure or mātaitai) in near-shore marine areas as a way of encouraging the continuation of Māori culture and wellbeing [4]. Others argue for more and larger Marine Reserves (where all fishing is permanently banned) to protect existing and restore declining marine biodiversity [5]. Implementation of Customary Protection Areas or Marine Reserves has been vigorously opposed by recreational and commercial fishers. Even if any of these management alternatives is proven to be needed to maintain fish stocks and restore biodiversity, there will be vigorous debate about their size and location. Allocation of near-shore marine areas between all these interests has over the past decades become contested and acrimonious [6,7]
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