Photograph credit: Matt Fortnam.
By Matt Fortnam, Tomas Chaigneau, Louisa Evans, and Liliana Bastian.
Conservation organizations lack the tools to understand the extent to which the costs and benefits, or winners or losers, of marine conservation are acceptable to different communities and stakeholders. Conservation organizations often sell marine conservation to local communities as a win-win for nature and people. However, research has shown that conservation results in winners and losers, or trade-offs, far more often than win-wins.
We interviewed thirteen senior marine technical advisors working for conservation organizations in Southeast Asia, asking them about the trade-offs they face in their work. They told us that trade-offs from their programs are unavoidable. For example, setting up a marine protected area is good for biodiversity and the sustainability of fish stocks. However, protected areas can prevent poor fishers from catching fish important for their food security and livelihood. Our interview subjects also face hard choices in how they implement projects. For example, should they prioritise women’s participation at the risk of irking male village leaders whose support is crucial for the success of a project?
The practitioners said they mainly rely on consultations to understand whether such trade-offs are acceptable to communities. But it is often the concerns of the most powerful that are heard loudest. The practitioners said that other tools for measuring trade-offs were too high-tech and only identify a limited range of trade-offs.
Many trade-offs can therefore remain invisible until it is too late. The marginalised members of communities tend to be impacted most and can cope the least. This is unfair, but community support for conservation can also be eroded – a lose-lose.
We conclude that marine conservation organizations should be more systematic in identifying potential trade-offs from their programs. We also recommend that they invite communities to transparently deliberate which trade-offs are acceptable or unacceptable, and why. Finally, they should consider what mitigation strategies or compensation could make the trade-offs more acceptable.
We suggest decision support tools to meet this challenge and ensure marine conservation produces more equitable and just outcomes for communities.
Relational Thinking 