Creating Inclusive and Successful Global MPA Networks

Social ecological research around the world demonstrates that marine protected areas are more likely to succeed when based on participatory implementation and equitable benefit distribution. Ambitious MPA networks, which currently tend to overlook these planning elements, run the risk of local resistance leading to unintended negative impacts for society and ecosystems. Drawing from extensive quantitative and qualitative data, examination of successes and failures in the USA and the Philippines demonstrates that inclusion of varied stakeholder worldviews and expectations is essential to MPA success. This examination will highlight the imperative of participatory and equitable benefit distribution for the realization of MPA ecological goals. Creating such planning processes will require a re-organization of current planning and implementation processes in many contexts. The talk will conclude with an examination of barriers to planning reform. Possible barriers include biases intrinsic to influential scientific-conservationist epistemic communities and a poor understanding of feedbacks between social and ecological systems.