Understanding and valuing conflicts in marine protected areas: The best way to develop innovations?

Abstract

Abstract Marine protected areas face numerous conflicts associated with the implementation of conservation measures. These conflicts generate costs, prevent progress, make cooperation between stakeholders difficult and create risks of ineffectiveness. Although they are often concealed or circumvented, they also offer opportunities for new connections and collective innovation. Rather than leaving them to these kinds of avoidance strategies, conflicts were the subject of a Knowledge Café event at the Fourth International Marine Protected Area Congress to compare the perspectives of managers, decision‐makers and scientists on dealing with conflict. This contribution presents the conceptual framework for discussions during and after the Fourth International Marine Protected Area Congress and the operational and research avenues they open up. Cross‐referencing the results of this collective approach and research contributions makes it possible to characterize the diversity and complexity of conflicts in marine protected areas and the driving forces behind them and analyse resolution strategies. Instead of avoidance strategies, the causes and consequences of the idea of understanding and valuing conflicts is explored, along with operational approaches to achieving this.