Abstract
Systematic conservation planning increasingly underpins the conservation and management of marine and coastal ecosystems worldwide. Amongst other benefits, conservation planning provides transparency in decision-making, efficiency in the use of limited resources, the ability to minimise conflict between diverse objectives, and to guide strategic expansion of local actions to maximise their cumulative impact. The Coral Triangle has long been recognised as a global marine conservation priority, and has been the subject of huge investment in conservation during the last five years through the Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security. Yet conservation planning has had relatively little influence in this region. To explore why this is the case, we identify and discuss 10 challenges that must be resolved if conservation planning is to effectively inform management actions in the Coral Triangle. These are: making conservation planning accessible; integrating with other planning processes; building local capacity for conservation planning; institutionalising conservation planning within governments; integrating plans across governance levels; planning across governance boundaries; planning for multiple tools and objectives; understanding limitations of data; developing better measures of progress and effectiveness; and making a long term commitment. Most important is a conceptual shift from conservation planning undertaken as a project, to planning undertaken as a process, with dedicated financial and human resources committed to long-term engagement.
Highlights
The Coral Triangle, which encompasses the marine waters of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste, is the epicentre of marine biodiversity and widely recognised as a global conservation priority1
The CTI-CFF goals include the designation of priority seascapes, establishment of a Coral Triangle marine protected area (MPA) system, the protection of threatened species, coordinated action on climate adaptation, and implementation of an ecosystem approach to fisheries management4
Building local capacity for conservation planning Since the CTI-CFF was conceived, building capacity has been a priority for all six Coral Triangle countries, which are presently under-resourced to support the >1500 existing MPAs, let alone achieve ambitious goals of protecting 20% of marine and coastal habitats by 202012
Summary
The Coral Triangle, which encompasses the marine waters of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste, is the epicentre of marine biodiversity and widely recognised as a global conservation priority. The CTI-CFF goals include the designation of priority seascapes, establishment of a Coral Triangle marine protected area (MPA) system, the protection of threatened species, coordinated action on climate adaptation, and implementation of an ecosystem approach to fisheries management. We first outlined a vision: of conservation planning applied throughout the Coral Triangle, at spatial scales ranging from local to region-wide, to effectively inform management actions implemented to achieve objectives for biodiversity, fisheries, and food security. Making conservation planning accessible Historically, marine conservation planning in the Coral Triangle has typically been initiated and led by non-government organisations (NGOs) or academia, often through collaboration with local communities or governments18,21–23 These planning initiatives, valuable in demonstrating concepts, analyses and, at limited scales, applications to on-ground actions, have inevitably focused on specific areas within the Coral Triangle that constitute a very small proportion of the entire region. These biases led to earlier misconceptions amongst policy-makers and potential practitioners in developing countries
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