Using nexus thinking to identify opportunities for mangrove management in the Klang Islands, Malaysia

Abstract

Despite wide recognition of the multiple ecosystem services provided by mangroves, they continue to experience decline and degradation especially in the face of urbanization. Given the interplay between multiple resources and stakeholders in the fate of mangroves, mangrove management can be framed as a nexus challenge and nexus thinking used to identify potential solutions. Using the Klang Islands, Malaysia, as a case study site, this paper characterizes the mangrove nexus and stakeholders' visions for the future to identify potential options for future management. Through a series of stakeholder workshops and focus group discussions conducted over two years, results show that local communities can identify benefits from mangroves beyond the provisioning of goods and significant impacts to their lives from mangrove loss. While better protected and managed mangroves remained a central part of participants' visions for the islands, participants foresaw a limited future for fishing around the islands, preferring instead alternative livelihood opportunities such as eco-tourism. The network of influencers of the Klang Islands’ mangroves extends far beyond the local communities and many of these actors were part of the visions put forward. Stakeholders with a high interest in the mangroves typically have a low influence over their management and many high influence stakeholders (e.g. private sector actors) were missing from the engagement. Future nexus action should focus on integrating stakeholders and include deliberate and concerted engagement with high influence stakeholders while at the same time ensuring a platform for high interest/low influence groups. Fortifying existing plans to include mangroves more explicitly will also be essential. Lessons learnt from this study are highly relevant for coastal mangrove systems elsewhere in the Southeast Asian region.