Conservation Of Marine Ecosystems Research Articles

Understanding the impact of climate change on the oceanic circulation in the Chilean island ecoregions

Abstract The largest changes in the circulation of the South‐eastern Pacific resulting from global warming are associated with the southward shift and intensification of the anticyclone and with coastal surface warming. Coastal upwelling is projected to be increase off central Chile, due to an increase in equatorward winds, although increased oceanic stratification and associated enhanced nearshore turbulence will yield an onshore deepening/flattening of the thermocline. The overall increase in south‐easterly trade winds of the South‐eastern Pacific in a warmer climate are likely to increase the connectivity pattern between Juan Fernandez and Desventuradas islands, and along the Sala y Gomez ridge, through increasing wind‐driven mean ocean currents. Deoxygenation associated with the warmer temperatures and changes in ventilation are likely to modify marine habitat and the respiratory barriers of species in the seamounts located in the vicinity of the limits of the minimum oxygen zone. In the South‐eastern Pacific, the prevailing 2D understanding of the responses of marine life to climate change needs to be expanded to 3D approaches, integrating the vertical habitat compression of marine organisms as a result of ocean warming and deoxygenation, as climate velocities for temperature and oxygen have contrasting vertical and horizontal patterns. There is a need for regional biogeochemical‐coupled modelling studies dedicated to the Chilean islands in order to provide an integrated view of the impact of anthropogenic stressors (e.g. deoxygenation, increased stratification, and climate shift) at the scale required for addressing socio‐ecological interactions. A refined understanding of the large‐scale biogeography and spatial dynamics of marine populations through experimentation with high‐resolution regional ocean models is a prerequisite for scaling‐up regional management planning and optimizing the conservation of interconnected marine ecosystems across large scales.

Evaluating the social and ecological effectiveness of partially protected marine areas.

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a primary tool for the stewardship, conservation, and restoration of marine ecosystems, yet 69% of global MPAs are only partially protected (i.e., are open to some form of fishing). Although fully protected areas have well‐documented outcomes, including increased fish diversity and biomass, the effectiveness of partially protected areas is contested. Partially protected areas may provide benefits in some contexts and may be warranted for social reasons, yet social outcomes often depend on MPAs achieving their ecological goals to distinguish them from open areas and justify the cost of protection. We assessed the social perceptions and ecological effectiveness of 18 partially protected areas and 19 fully protected areas compared with 19 open areas along 7000 km of coast of southern Australia. We used mixed methods, gathering data via semistructured interviews, site surveys, and Reef Life (underwater visual census) surveys. We analyzed qualitative data in accordance with grounded theory and quantitative data with multivariate and univariate linear mixed‐effects models. We found no social or ecological benefits for partially protected areas relative to open areas in our study. Partially protected areas had no more fish, invertebrates, or algae than open areas; were poorly understood by coastal users; were not more attractive than open areas; and were not perceived to have better marine life than open areas. These findings provide an important counterpoint to some large‐scale meta‐analyses that conclude partially protected areas can be ecologically effective but that draw this conclusion based on narrower measures. We argue that partially protected areas act as red herrings in marine conservation because they create an illusion of protection and consume scarce conservation resources yet provide little or no social or ecological gain over open areas. Fully protected areas, by contrast, have more fish species and biomass and are well understood, supported, and valued by the public. They are perceived to have better marine life and be improving over time in keeping with actual ecological results. Conservation outcomes can be improved by upgrading partially protected areas to higher levels of protection including conversion to fully protected areas.

Aichi Target 18 beyond 2020: mainstreaming Traditional Biodiversity Knowledge in the conservation and sustainable use of marine and coastal ecosystems.

Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) have inhabited coastal areas, the seas, and remote islands for millennia, and developed place-based traditional ancestral knowledge and diversified livelihoods associated with the biocultural use of marine and coastal ecosystems. Through their cultural traditions, customary wise practices, and holistic approaches to observe, monitor, understand, and appreciate the Natural World, IPLCs have been preserving, managing, and sustainably using seascapes and coastal landscapes, which has been essential for biodiversity conservation. The international community has more than ever recognized the central role of IPLCs in the conservation of biodiversity-rich ecosystems, in particular, for the achievement of the Global Biodiversity Targets determined by the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity to tackle biodiversity loss. However, much remains to be done to fully recognize and protect at national levels IPLCs’ Traditional Biodiversity Knowledge (TBK), ways of life, and their internationally recognized rights to inhabit, own, manage and govern traditional lands, territories, and waters, which are increasingly threatened. At the 2018 4th World Conference on Marine Biodiversity held in Montréal, Canada, eight themed working groups critically discussed progress to date and barriers that have prevented the achievement of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets agreed for the period 2011–2020, and priority actions for the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Discussions in the “Application of Biodiversity Knowledge” working group focused on Targets 11 and 18 and the equal valuation of diverse Biodiversity Knowledge Systems (BKS). This Perspective Paper summarizes the 10 Priority Actions identified for a holistic biodiversity conservation, gender equality and human rights-based approach that strengthens the role of IPLCs as biodiversity conservation decision-makers and managers at national and international levels. Furthermore, the Perspective proposes a measurable Target 18 post-2020 and discusses actions to advance the recognition of community-based alternative conservation schemes and TBK to ensure the long-lasting conservation, customary biocultural use, and sustainable multi-functional management of nature around the globe.

Evaluating sustainable development policies in rural coastal economies

Sustainable development (SD) policies targeting marine economic sectors, designed to alleviate poverty and conserve marine ecosystems, have proliferated in recent years. Many developing countries are providing poor fishing households with new fishing boats (fishing capital) that can be used further offshore as a means to improve incomes and relieve fishing pressure on nearshore fish stocks. These kinds of policies are a marine variant of traditional SD policies focused on agriculture. Here, we evaluate ex ante economic and environmental impacts of provisions of fishing and agricultural capital, with and without enforcement of fishing regulations that prohibit the use of larger vessels in nearshore habitats. Combining methods from development economics, natural resource economics, and marine ecology, we use a unique dataset and modeling framework to account for linkages between households, business sectors, markets, and local fish stocks. We show that the policies investing capital in local marine fisheries or agricultural sectors achieve income gains for targeted households, but knock-on effects lead to increased harvest of nearshore fish, making them unlikely to achieve conservation objectives in rural coastal economies. However, pairing an agriculture stimulus with increasing enforcement of existing fisheries' regulations may lead to a win-win situation. While marine-based policies could be an important tool to achieve two of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (alleviate poverty and protect vulnerable marine resources), their success is by no means assured and requires consideration of land and marine socioeconomic linkages inherent in rural economies.

Conservation bottom-up initiatives in marine recreational spearfishing suggest the emergence of positive attitudes towards conservation

We show that marine recreational spearfishers voluntarily organize bottom-up conservation actions. The main goals of these actions are to provide support to research in monitoring fish assemblages, tracking biological invasions or mitigating impacts on the environment, such as those stemming from pollution and littering. We show that such initiatives started more than 20 years ago and are now facilitated by social media networking. We argue that the emergence of bottom-up conservation actions in marine recreational spearfishers should be encouraged, supported and integrated into participatory management plans. This is important to mitigate the potential negative impacts of marine recreational spearfishing and to catalyse broader civil actions for conservation of marine ecosystems.

Benchmarking DNA methylation assays in a reef-building coral.

Interrogation of chromatin modifications, such as DNA methylation, has the potential to improve forecasting and conservation of marine ecosystems. The standard method for assaying DNA methylation (whole genome bisulphite sequencing), however, is currently too costly to apply at the scales required for ecological research. Here, we evaluate different methods for measuring DNA methylation for ecological epigenetics. We compare whole genome bisulphite sequencing (WGBS) with methylated CpG binding domain sequencing (MBD-seq), and a modified version of MethylRAD we term methylation-dependent restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (mdRAD). We evaluate these three assays in measuring variation in methylation across the genome, between genotypes, and between polyp types in the reef-building coral Acropora millepora. We find that all three assays measure absolute methylation levels similarly for gene bodies (gbM), as well as exons and 1Kb windows with a minimum Pearson correlation 0.66. Differential gbM estimates were less correlated, but still concurrent across assays. We conclude that MBD-seq and mdRAD are reliable and cost-effective alternatives to WGBS. The considerably lower sequencing effort required for mdRAD to produce comparable methylation estimates makes it particularly useful for ecological epigenetics.

Implementation of coral triangle initiative on coral reefs, fisheries, and food security (CTI-CFF) in Indonesia and Philippines

This study aims to discover and examine forms of implementation of the multilateral cooperation initiated by Indonesia in 2007 and agreed upon by five other nations located inside the Coral Triangle region in 2009 which was known as Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries, and Food Security (CTI-CFF) to safeguard the coral reefs and marine ecosystem inside the Coral Triangle region, to ensure sustainable fisheries practices and the achievement of food security in two of its members, Indonesia and Philippines. To achieve said objective, this study will exemplify the general situation in the Coral Triangle region, the circumstances being faced by Indonesia and Philippines in regard of their marine sector as a whole, and both legal proceedings and any supportive activities in relation to CTI-CFF that have been done in since its inception in 2009 by both nations. The result of this study indicates that the implementation of CTI-CFF inside the two countries was being based on a synthesis between recommendations inside CTI-CFF’s Regional Plan of Action (RPoA). The document serves as a policy and regulation blueprint in both countries, being used in the making of regulations and policies in regard to fisheries management, food security, and marine ecosystem conservation. The influence of RPoA is apparent in many regulations, policies, and activities inside both countries, in which some explicitly contain the very recommendations contained inside the RPoA document.

Progress, opportunities and challenges for marine conservation in the Pacific Islands

Abstract The people of the Pacific have long relied on the ocean for sustenance, commerce and cultural identity, which resulted in a sophisticated understanding of the marine environment and its conservation. The global declines in ocean health require new and innovative approaches to conserving marine ecosystems. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have been shown to be a highly effective means of conserving biodiversity and managing fisheries, while also restoring and preserving overall ecosystem function. Traditional ecological knowledge held by many island peoples in the Pacific is critical to the development, design and implementation of contemporary MPAs. Chile's offshore islands are among the few oceanic archipelagos along the west coast of South America. These islands have cultural and ecological connections to the broader insular Pacific, yet our scientific understanding of them is extremely limited. Chile has created several large‐scale MPAs around their offshore archipelagos. By protecting these unique ecosystems, Chile has established itself as a global leader in marine conservation. Effective management and a better understanding of social–ecological interactions are currently the biggest challenges facing MPAs in the Pacific Islands.

Important marine areas for the conservation of northern rockhopper penguins within the Tristan da Cunha Exclusive Economic Zone

The designation of Marine Protected Areas has become an important approach to conserving marine ecosystems that relies on robust information on the spatial distribution of biodiversity. We used GPS tracking data to identify marine Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) for the Endangered northern rockhopper penguin Eudyptes moseleyi within the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic. Penguins were tracked throughout their breeding season from 3 of the 4 main islands in the Tristan da Cunha group. Foraging trips remained largely within the EEZ, with the exception of those from Gough Island during the incubation stage. We found substantial variability in trip duration and foraging range among breeding stages and islands, consistent use of areas among years and spatial segregation of the areas used by neighbouring islands. For colonies with no or insufficient tracking data, we defined marine IBAs based on the mean maximum foraging range and merged the areas identified to propose IBAs around the Tristan da Cunha archipelago and Gough Island. The 2 proposed marine IBAs encompass 2% of Tristan da Cunha’s EEZ, and are used by all northern rockhopper penguins breeding in the Tristan da Cunha group, representing ~90% of the global population. Currently, one of the main threats to northern rockhopper penguins within the Tristan da Cunha EEZ is marine pollution from shipping, and the risk of this would be reduced by declaring waters within 50 nautical miles of the coast as ‘areas to be avoided’.

Increasing marine ecosystems conservation linking marine protected areas and integrated coastal management in southern Cuba

The southern archipelagos of Cuba comprise important ecosystems of mangrove, seagrass beds, and coral reefs of regional significance. Biodiversity and fisheries stocks in this area experienced a severe decline due to a combination of factors (overfishing, habitat degradation, climate change). This work presents the main impacts of the project “Southern Archipelagos”, led by the National Center of Protected Areas of Cuba and funded by GEF, between 2009 and 2015 and the trends of the indicators of success. The project contributed to the conservation of marine biodiversity in Cuba through the creation of 12 new marine protected areas (MPAs). “Southern Archipelagos” facilitated the inclusion of the new and existing MPAs in Integrated Coastal Management Zones (ICMZs), thus contributing to buffering the impacts of productive activities and strengthening the integration between the conservation and productive sectors. Studies were conducted to characterize the MPAs and monitoring programs for priority species and ecosystems were implemented, increasing the knowledge available for decision-making about marine species and ecosystems in the region. To guarantee the financial sustainability of MPAs, a strategy for sustainable tourism was developed and a series of studies on the economic value of the goods and services offered by ecosystems were conducted. Different training programs for local leaders, MPAs workers and workers of productive sectors were organized. Sustainable productive alternatives were implemented in several communities diversifying the economic activities of local people. As a result, revenues from a representative sample of 12 MPAs of the project increased in the two currencies that are managed in Cuba.

Co-Management as a Successful Strategy for Marine Conservation

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are a primary tool for conserving marine biodiversity. The literature presents a scattered picture regarding the extent to which co-management can be considered valuable. In this study we examine, what conditions are for co-management to make a contribution to conserving marine ecosystems (e.g., stopping coral bleaching and safeguarding fish populations). By combining data on MPA management practices with a novel source of global biodata collected by citizens (ReefCheck), we demonstrate that if co-management is part of a formal governmental strategy, coral reefs show up to 86% fewer bleached colonies and up to 12.2 times larger fish populations than co-managed MPAs lacking formalized governmental support.

The Use of Recreational Fishers’ Ecological Knowledge to Assess the Conservation Status of Marine Ecosystems

Fisheries scientists and marine resource managers are reluctant to incorporate Fishers’ Ecological Knowledge (FEK) into technical advice procedures to guide management decisions on marine ecosystems and fisheries. However, in data-poor scenarios FEK has proved to be useful to provide alternative references of biological changes. Moreover, despite recreational fishers are the main potential source of FEK, they have been scarcely incorporated in scientific investigations. In this study it has been evaluated for the first time the use of recreational FEK to assess the conservation status of marine ecosystems in Galicia (NW Spain), a region characterized by a highly complex marine socioecological system integrated by a worldwide commercial fleet and a powerful recreational sector, among other relevant stakeholders. Active spear fishers and anglers were recruited to provide their perceptions on the conservation status of fish stocks and on the impacts on marine ecosystems. The audio of face to face interviews were transcribed into text and analyzed by using text mining tools. Acknowledged key concepts were used to quantify fishers’ perceptions on changes in the conservation status of their target fish stocks and to identify and quantify the main impacts on marine ecosystems. Overfishing and habitat loss, followed by biodiversity impoverishment, pollution and ocean warming were blamed by the fishers as the main responsible of poor status of conservation of cephalopods and finfish stocks targeted by both commercial and recreational fisheries. Perceived temporal declines in fish stocks were consistent with available biological data, validating the use of recreational FEK to assess long-term ecological changes in the absence of ordinary scientific data. FEK researchers are encouraged to include inputs of different resource users, including fishers following familiar traditions in commercial and/or recreational fisheries because they were more sensible to detect impacts on natural and cultural community heritage. Conservation status of ballan wrasse Labrus bergylta and kelp beds are especially worrying due to their role as key species in coastal ecosystems. The creation of monitoring programs to assess the status of this fish and other commercially and/or recreationally relevant species, including kelps, are urgently needed to ensure the future conservation of marine ecosystems.

Corollary of Marine Eco-system Sustainability by Addressing the Issues of Bycatches

The issue of bycatch in fisheries sector has been a major concern for the marine biologists over few decades in terms of conservation of marine eco-system and sustainability of the fisheries sector and marine biodiversity. Bycatch generally include species of little commercial importance, which in most cases is dumped overboard either into the sea or after reaching the fish landing sites. The article discusses the ecological, economic, legal, social influences, and the importance in addressing the issue of bycatch. The concept of bycatch is relatively new in the horizon in Indian perspective as it is often considered major issues by developed nations which are characterised by highly mechanised and industrialised fisheries. The problem of bycatch is seen as the depletion of this food source for local consumption and therefore a threat to livelihoods and food security in general and it has environmental, economic, socio-cultural impacts. The adverse effects of by-catch can be mitigated through commercialisation of bycatch and making profits from the sale of bycatch, opening up of new markets for bycatch species or products, uses of fishmeal as feed in the poultry and aquaculture industries and application of bycatch reduction devices (BRDs). The revamping the present monitoring system used to collect fisheries data, strengthening technical know-how, bringing effective policy intervention, efficient co-management, and sincere and honest efforts in reducing bycatch and discards may provide a considerable impact towards sustainability of marine eco-system.

Horizontal and vertical movements of humpback whales inform the use of critical pelagic habitats in the western South Pacific

Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) are known for their nearshore distribution during the breeding season, but their pelagic habitat use patterns remain mostly unexplored. From 2016 to 2018, 18 humpback whales were equipped with depth-recording satellite tags (SPLASH10) to shed light on environmental and social drivers of seamount association around New Caledonia in the western South Pacific. Movement paths were spatially structured around shallow seamounts (<200 m). Indeed, two males stopped over the Lord Howe seamount chain during the first-ever recorded longitudinal transit between New Caledonia and the east coast of Australia. Residence time significantly increased with proximity to shallow seamounts, while dive depth increased in the vicinity of seafloor ridges. Most of the 7,986 recorded dives occurred above 80 m (88.5%), but deep dives (>80 m, max 616 m) were also recorded (11.5%), including by maternal females. Deep dives often occurred in series and were characterized by U-shapes suggesting high energy expenditure. This study provides new insights into the formerly overlooked use of pelagic habitats by humpback whales during the breeding season. Given increasing anthropogenic threats on deep sea habitats worldwide, this work has implications for the conservation of vulnerable marine ecosystems.

Characterizing marine ecosystems and fishery impacts using a comparative approach and regional food-web models

Conservation of marine ecosystems is important for the sustainable utilization of marine resources under environmental changes and anthropogenic impacts. In Japan, fishery management has been based on single-species stock assessments and little attempts have been made to assess and manage the impacts of multi-species multi-gear fisheries except for a few local case studies. In this study, we analyzed two local Ecopath food-web models constructed for Japanese waters (Northeastern Japan and Seto Inland Sea). We adopted a comparative approach to assess the ecosystem characteristics and fishery impacts through a comparison of these models with other published Ecopath models for various periods and regions of the world ocean. Among the metrics derived from Ecopath outputs, total biomass and total productivity represented the gross metabolic activities of the systems, and trophic level fractionation of biomass and catch reflected the trophic structure of the food webs and fishery removals. Loss of food for top predators, primary production required, and mean and variance of trophic level of catch were good indicators of the impacts and patterns of fishery removals. Our results illustrate the characteristics of food webs and fisheries in Japanese local ecosystems: The Northeastern Japan model showed the moderate productivity of the ecosystem, and fishery removals from lower and wider trophic levels. The Seto Inland Sea model indicated large impacts of fisheries on the low productivity neritic system. Such profiling of ecosystems and fisheries provides good overviews that will help initiate stakeholder discussion toward the set-up phase of ecosystem-based fishery management in Japan.

Development of real-time motion autonomous surface vehicle controlling for coral reef conservation and fisheries

Start Coral reefs are typical ecosystems with underwater beauty. In addition to beauty, there is a function to reduce abrasion, marine biota residence and as well as educational facilities. The current state of coral reef ecosystems in Indonesia is quite alarming, the condition of coral reefs that are in very good condition is 6.39%, good condition is 23.40%, sufficient condition is 35.06% and bad condition is 35.15%. So there needs to be special handling to deal with these damage by using technological developments. Based on these conditions many researches emerged for observation and conservation. One of them is research on the development of conservation aids, the floating of these tools is accompanied by the development of increasingly natural ways of user interaction and tools. Natural interaction is characterized by interactions that transform human movements into direct digital action. Motion Tracking (MT) is one of the implementations of markerless/natural interaction, in which to identify projects is no longer based on certain symbols. MT reads body parts then converted into digital movements. This study aims to develop Real-Time Motion Autonomous Surface Vehicle (ASV) Controlling for Coral Reef Conservation and Fisheries using Fuzzy Algorithms. The tools produced by the study are controlled naturally, so it is expected to facilitate users in operating ASV. This tool is expected to facilitate monitoring and observation for the conservation of marine ecosystems (coral reefs andfisheries).

An assessment of the representation of ecosystems in global protected areas using new maps of World Climate Regions and World Ecosystems

Representation of ecosystems in protected area networks and conservation strategies is a core principle of global conservation priority setting approaches and a commitment in Aichi Target 11 of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) explicitly call for the conservation of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. Accurate ecosystem distribution maps are required to assess representation of ecosystems in protected areas, but standardized, high spatial resolution, and globally comprehensive ecosystem maps have heretofore been lacking. While macroscale global ecoregions maps have been used in global conservation priority setting exercises, they do not identify distinct localized ecosystems at the occurrence (patch) level, and instead describe large ecologically meaningful areas within which additional conservation planning and management are necessary. We describe a new set of maps of globally consistent climate regions and ecosystems at a much finer spatial resolution (250 m) than existing ecological regionalizations. We then describe a global gap analysis of the representation of these ecosystems in protected areas. The new map of terrestrial World Ecosystems was derived from the objective development and integration of 1) global temperature domains, 2) global moisture domains, 3) global landforms, and 4) 2015 global vegetation and land use. These new terrestrial World Ecosystems do not include either freshwater or marine ecosystems, but analog products for the freshwater and marine domains are in development. A total of 431 World Ecosystems were identified, and of these a total of 278 units were natural or semi-natural vegetation/environment combinations, including different kinds of forestlands, shrublands, grasslands, bare areas, and ice/snow regions. The remaining classes were different kinds of croplands and settlements. Of the 278 natural and semi-natural classes, 9 were not represented in global protected areas with a strict biodiversity conservation management objective (IUCN management categories I-IV), and an additional 206 were less than 8.5% protected (half way to the 17% Aichi Target 11 goal). Forty four classes were between 8.5% and 17% protected (more than half way towards the Aichi 17% target), and only 19 classes exceeded the 17% Aichi target. However, when all protected areas (IUCN management categories I-VI plus protected areas with no IUCN designation) were included in a separate global gap analysis, representation of ecosystems increases substantially, with a third of the ecosystems exceeding the 17% Aichi target, and another third between 8.5% and 17%. The overall protection (representation) of global ecosystems in protected areas is considerably less when assessed using only strictly conserved protected areas, and more if all protected areas are included in the analysis. Protected area effectiveness should be included in further evaluations of global ecosystem protection. The ecosystems with the highest representation in protected areas were often bare or sparsely vegetated and found in inhospitable environments (e.g. cold mountains, deserts), and the eight most protected ecosystems were all snow and ice ecosystems. In addition to the global gap analysis of World Ecosystems in protected areas, we report on the representation results for the ecosystems in each biogeographic realm (Neotropical, Nearctic, Afrotropical, Palearctic, Indomalayan, Australasian, and Oceania).

New Approach to International Legal Instruments on the Conservation of Marine Ecosystem and Integration of the Legislations in Korea

New Approach to International Legal Instruments on the Conservation of Marine Ecosystem and Integration of the Legislations in Korea

Local Governance Collaboration Model For Preserving Marine Ecosystem In The Coastal Area of Nusa Lembongan Island, Klungkung Regency, Bali

The marine ecosystem on the coast of Nusa Lembongan is one of the tourist attractions such as coral reefs, mangrove forests and others. The high number of tourist visiting the island also impacts tourism facilities. Increased tourism also has the opportunity to damage the marine ecosystem. Therefore needs a collaboration among stakeholders in maintaining the sustainability of the marine ecosystem .&#x0D; The purpose of this research is to find out and analyze also to find a collaborative model of stakeholders such as government, private sector, community and traditional institutions in preserving the marine ecosystem in Nusa Lembongan. The research is using a qualitative descriptive approach with determining informants technic is purposive sampling.&#x0D; Local government collaboration model in conserving marine ecosystems by strengthening the role of stakeholders at the local level such as: 1) signing memorandum of understanding for creating regional regulations as a policy of the Klungkung Regency; 2) writing in to a local wisdom (awig-awig) as a local policy of the local wisdom institutions (adat); 3) writing into the policy of the tour operator; 4) implement the Tri Hita Karana concept and creating a memorandum of understanding for all parties.

The Role of Indigenous Resurgence in Marine Conservation

Indigenous peoples’ efforts toward environmental conservation are indivisible from their cultural identity and their social and political organizations. Indigenous resurgence, including the reinvigoration and reestablishment of Indigenous ways of living, are linked to the management, restoration, and conservation of marine and coastal ecosystems around the world. However, there remains a significant gap in the recognition and support of Indigenous governance systems in international policy discussions regarding conservation work. As a way to address this gap, we offer an analysis of marine Indigenous community-led conservation initiatives from around the world that were recipients of the UNDP Equator Prize, framed by initial research on Indigenous-led conservation in British Columbia, Canada. We highlight specific Indigenous governance strategies undertaken by such communities that foster both marine resource conservation and stewardship. The strategies we identified included practicing Indigenous traditional resource management, protection of traditional territories, Indigenous-led actions of environmental conservation, and data collection and monitoring. We also identified networking and collaboration with non-Indigenous supporters, as was reinvestment into education and capacity-building within the community. We conclude with concrete policy suggestions drawn from these cases that can help strengthen the leadership and self-determination of Indigenous peoples on local resource and environmental issues, and aid in much broader conservation efforts globally.