- Email: [email protected]
Marine resource management: Culture, livelihoods, and governance
Applied Geography xxx (2015) 1e4
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Applied Geography journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apgeog
Marine resource management: Culture, livelihoods, and governance Arielle Sarah Levine a, b, *, Laurie Richmond c, David Lopez-Carr d a
Department of Geography, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182-4493, USA I.M. Systems Group contractor to NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program, USA c Department of Environmental Science and Management, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA 95521, USA d Department of Geography, U.C. Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060, USA b
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Available online xxx
The management of marine resources is a politically and culturally driven process, shaped by human livelihoods and perceptions, where notions of both space and place shape policies and decision-making in fundamental ways. An emerging sub-field within geography critically explores geographic aspects of marine resource management. However, there has been little work to fully articulate this field and to describe the contributions of geographic methodologies and lenses to understanding marine resource management processes. This special issue provides one of the first collections of geographic papers focused on the socio-cultural and socio-spatial dimensions of marine resource management, emphasizing research that has or can be applied to management and policy discussions. The papers in this issue cover critical topics within this emerging field, examining the combined influences of social, ecological, cultural, political, economic, historical, and geographic factors on how marine spaces and resources are used, perceived, and managed. Important themes include: emerging spatial approaches to marine resource management, human dimensions of marine protected areas, the roles of mapping and GIS, the integration of quantitative and qualitative data, and the varying ways in which marine spaces and places are conceptualized by marine resource users and managers. Issues of marine resource governance, community engagement, and vulnerability also play key roles in the future of marine resource management. The papers in this issue shed light on space, place, and human-environment interactions in coastal marine systems, making it clear that questions about stakeholder inclusion and representation, particularly in spatial forms, will continue to dominate the field for some time to come. Future research in this field will be fruitfully informed by core geographical heuristics of space, place, and humanenvironment dynamics. © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Keywords: Marine management Coastal management Marine protected areas GIS Marine spatial planning Human-environment dynamics
Geography is paramount to coastal and marine resource management. Although marine resource management is often viewed as a field that is rooted in the biophysical sciences, the management of marine resources is fundamentally a politically and culturally driven process, shaped by human livelihoods and perceptions, where notions of both space and place shape policies and decisionmaking in fundamental ways. A wide range of approaches are currently used to manage marine resources. These include centralized approaches, such as ocean zoning, limiting ocean access through permits or the establishment of marine protected areas, regulating gear use or species harvested, or enforcing fish catch limits. These also include community-based approaches and informal or traditional management regimes, as well as a hybrid of techniques dependent on local social-ecological contexts. * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 619 594 5600. E-mail address: [email protected] (A.S. Levine).
While geographers have long examined physical coastal processes, a sub-field within geography has emerged more recently that critically explores geographic aspects of marine resource management. However, there has been little work to fully articulate this field and to describe the contributions of geographic methodologies and lenses. This special issue provides one of the first collections of geographic papers focused on the socio-cultural and socio-spatial dimensions of marine resource management, emphasizing research that has or can be applied to management and policy discussions. The papers in this issue cover critical topics within this emerging field, examining the combined influences of social, ecological, cultural, political, economic, historical, and geographic factors on how marine spaces and resources are used, perceived, and managed. Increasingly, marine resource managers are embracing spatial approaches. Many management agencies now focus on ocean zoning and marine spatial planning (Agardy, 2010; Douvere, 2008), which emphasize the regulation of ocean spaces (such as protected
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2015.01.016 0143-6228/© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Please cite this article in press as: Levine, A. S., et al., Marine resource management: Culture, livelihoods, and governance, Applied Geography (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2015.01.016
2
A.S. Levine et al. / Applied Geography xxx (2015) 1e4
areas), as opposed to ocean uses (such as catch or gear). There is also an increasing push to delimit spaces in the ocean for energy creation e whether it be from off-shore wind, wave, or offshore oil drilling e in ways that do not conflict with other ocean uses (Conway et al. 2010). These approaches require that managers have access to spatial information. While biophysical information regarding the ocean environment is often available, spatial information about human uses of and connections to marine places is generally limited. Given this need for improved spatial information and understanding, the field of geography can provide critical insight towards documenting and theorizing marine spaces to better inform management strategies. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), for instance, are a particularly central spatial management tool that has received increasing international emphasis over the past few decades, with an international goal of 10% ocean coverage by 2020 established by the Convention on Biodiversity (http://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/). MPAs have been promoted to conserve biodiversity and to safeguard sustainable fish harvests (Lubchenco et al., 2003; Toropova et al., 2010). Yet MPAs have not always been successful when applied without appropriate stakeholder participation (Mascia et al., 2010; McCay & Jones, 2011). Research is increasingly demonstrating that social factors are key determinants of MPA success (Rossiter & Levine, 2014). Human engagement in MPAs presents a fertile research opportunity for geographers, as spatial approaches to analysis present an opportunity to combine human dimensions with ecological research for a more integrated approach to research. Given the proliferation of efforts to develop marine protected areas throughout the globe, many papers in this special issue deal specifically with the human dimensions of MPA planning and with the resulting outcomes for marine-dependent communities following the development of MPAs. Richmond and Kotowicz (in this issue), for instance, examine the development of a large marine protected area in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI). They gathered oral histories to understand the cultural and economic connections that residents of the CNMI have with the protected waters and to consider the potential cultural impacts that the implementation of the MPA could have on the community. Similarly, Guenther et al. (in this issue) examine how the implementation of an MPA in the Channel Islands of California has changed the behavior of lobster fishermen, finding that their fishing effort is redirected in ways that were not expected based on a perception that fishermen would simply “fish the line” after MPAs were established. Chen and Lopez-Carr (in this issue) develop an index of sea urchin fishermen's vulnerability to the impacts of MPA establishment in California, examining how this varies across space. Levine and Feinholz (in this issue), Rossiter et al. (in this issue), and Quimby (in this issue) each advocate for an improved understanding of actual human perceptions, behavior, and use of marine spaces before management measures (such as MPAs) are implemented. Documenting and understanding the complex and nuanced ways that humans interact with, relate to, and rely on marine spaces and places is a cross-cutting theme of the articles in this issue. Mapping and GIS present one useful method for understanding spatial human use patterns, as well as for obtaining a sociocultural understanding of marine and coastal environments. While GIS is commonly used within the field of geography to illustrate spatial patterns, mapping marine spaces presents a unique set of challenges. Marine spaces are dynamic, and remotely sensed data cannot be easily used to document marine habitat, changes in resource status, or ocean uses. Levine and Feinholz (in this issue) posit that in data poor contexts (which is often the case for marine resources), resource users represent the best
source of data. Their work uses participatory mapping to engage local resource users and residents to document the range of human uses and activities taking place in areas deemed critical for coral reef management in Hawaii. Sullivan et al. (in this issue) also draw directly from resource user knowledge, combining information from existing GIS layers with information gathered from stakeholder interviews and focus groups to generate a more complete understanding of the complexity of marine space, diverse uses of the marine environment, and potential conflicts with proposed offshore energy development in coastal areas of the US mainland. Similarly, Guenther et al. (in this issue) incorporate information derived from fishermen interviews to better understand the reasons behind unexpected changes in use patterns observed in GIS data derived from fishermen's catch reports before and after the establishment of MPAs in the Channel Islands. Several authors in this issue take a novel approach of combining pre-existing or quantitatively derived data with more qualitative information obtained directly from marine resource users. Their work represents an effort to address an emergent tension in the field of marine resource management. A host of geographers, anthropologists, and social scientists critique contemporary fisheries management for its overreliance on technocratic and quantitative information that may oversimplify, misrepresent, and in some cases ignore human relationships to the marine environment (Campbell et al., 2009; Johannes, 1978; Nader, 1996; St. Martin, 2006, St Martin & Hall-Arber 2008). Yet many others are simultaneously developing methodologies and products that seek to represent human connections to the marine environment in technical and quantitative forms that can be integrated into current management practices (Kittinger et al. 2014; Klein et al. 2008; McLain et al. 2013). Levine and Feinholz (in this issue), Sullivan et al. (in this issue), and Guenther et al. (in this issue) all use methodologies to represent human connections to the environment in GIS-ready spatial formats that are easily combined with data collected on biophysical aspects of the marine realm. Chen and Lopez-Carr (in this issue) use a quantitative index to assess fishermen's vulnerability in ways that can be also be easily incorporated into technocratic approaches to management. While these approaches remain useful, many aspects of marine resource management prove difficult to quantify. For example, Beitl (in this issue) statistically analyzes return rates to both open access and commonly managed fishing areas in Costa Rica, but concludes that understanding resource use patterns is shaped by more than a simple optimization of returns. Marine spaces are socially produced, and many scholars document a culture of mutual respect and avoidance that can shape natural resource use patterns (Berkes et al., 1989; McCay & Acheson, 1990; Singleton, 1999; Woodhatch & Crean, 1999). Both Beitl (in this issue) and Quimby (in this issue) find an unspoken moral code and informal rules-in-use that must also be understood in order to predict fishermen behavior and determine appropriate management actions. Their work, as well as that of Barnett and Eakin (in this issue), highlights the importance of individual relationships and decision-making in understanding ocean use. While many authors in this issue document and communicate empirical information about the use of marine space, others focus more theoretically on the ways that marine space is conceptualized by managers and researchers. Rossiter et al. (in this issue), draw on new materialist theory to critique the way that United States fisheries legislation and management regimes conceptualize and manage marine space, arguing that fisheries managers oversimplify human uses of and connections to marine space, failing to account for the complex linkages and interactions between the human and nonhuman elements of what they refer to as “marine assemblages”. Both Rossiter et al. (in this issue) and Levine and Feinholz (in this
Please cite this article in press as: Levine, A. S., et al., Marine resource management: Culture, livelihoods, and governance, Applied Geography (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2015.01.016
A.S. Levine et al. / Applied Geography xxx (2015) 1e4
issue) communicate the need to examine intensive spaces of human activity and meaning within extensive spaces designated for marine management. Quimby (in this issue) and Beitl (in this issue) both highlight the importance of understanding socially produced spaces influencing the self-organizing properties of marine resource use and management systems. Governance of marine spaces represents another critical theme in this issue. Whitty (in this issue) examines governance institutions and activities for coastal and aquatic resource management in multiple case study sites in Southeast Asia, exploring their potential to contribute to mitigating cetacean bycatch in the region. Beitl (in this issue) illustrates the benefits of mixed property rights systems for shellfish harvesters in Ecuador's coastal mangrove swamps, which provides a safety net for fishermen and incentives for conservation. Barnett and Eakin (in this issue) illustrate the important ways in which actors in a multi-species fishery in Nova Scotia influence their institutional environment in a context of rapid change. Vulnerability is another important consideration in marine resource management, particularly in examining fishermen's livelihoods. Chen and Lopez-Carr (in this issue) and Barnett and Eakin (in this issue) take different approaches, using fishermen interviews to define and examine vulnerability from a fishermen's perspective. Chen and Lopez-Carr develop a quantitative index to assess vulnerability in response to the establishment of MPAs, using a framework based on exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Barnett and Eakin develop a qualitative assessment of vulnerability to economic fluctuations and the impacts of climate change. They take a novel approach, combining Ostrom's social-ecological systems framework (Ostrom, 2009), focused on institutions and resource exploitation, with political ecology, which incorporates the influences of social relations, power, agency, and larger scale political and economic processes. Each of the contributions to this issue highlights, in some way, the importance of community engagement in marine resource management. While marine resource management agencies commonly emphasize the importance of stakeholder involvement in management processes (Pomeroy & Douvere, 2008), they are generally silent on issues of power and whose voices are heard during participatory processes. Rossiter et al. (in this issue) problematize stakeholder involvement of fishing communities called for under National Standard 8 of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, specifically the power dynamics and cultural practices that continually inform and negotiate community identities. The research conducted by Sullivan et al. (in this issue) and Levine and Feinholz (in this issue) actively tries to engage local communities in coastal and marine mapping to inform ocean planning, but these authors also note the challenge of gaining community trust, as well as problems inherent in generating static maps of mobile species, complex human behaviors, and cultural significance. A connecting thread in this emerging field, which runs through each of the papers in this issue, is the need to include resource users' voices and interests in marine management decision-making through improved information and a better understanding regarding their perspectives, behaviors and needs. The authors contributing to this issue, as well as the marine stakeholders who agreed to participate in their studies, are motivated by a central concern: if they do not develop tools to depict human relationships with the marine environment that are compatible with the ecological data relied upon by managers, will social and economic considerations then be ignored or overlooked in decision-making processes? In these papers we see a clear trend towards developing new quantitative indices, models, and technical spatial tools to bring information about resources uses to the management
3
arena. The effort to better map, quantify, and describe human cultures, livelihoods, and governance in relation to marine space has benefits in terms of ensuring that these aspects of the marine environment are given due consideration during management decision-making. However, as the field continues to develop it will be important for researchers and practitioners to consider what might be lost when nuanced information regarding human connections to marine spaces and places is converted into formats and terms that are largely dictated by scientists and managers who control the decision-making process, particularly when the scope and scale of human interactions with marine resources rarely fits neatly into the boundaries of management units. An important future direction in this field is examining how these new tools and products for depicting human uses of and relationships to marine space are utilized in decision-making, as well as how marine resource users and stakeholders perceive management processes and outcomes based upon these tools. The papers in this issue shed light on space, place, and human-environment interactions in coastal marine systems, making it clear that questions about stakeholder inclusion and representation, particularly in spatial forms, will continue to dominate the field for some time to come. Future research on coupled human-environment sustainability in marine and coastal environments will be fruitfully informed by core geographical heuristics of space, place, and humanenvironment dynamics.
References Agardy, T. (2010). Ocean zoning: Making marine management more effective. Earthscan. Barnett, A. J., & Eakin, H. C. (2015). “We and us, not I and me”: Justice, social capital, and household vulnerability in a Nova Scotia fishery. Applied Geography, in this issue. Beitl, C. M. (2015). Mobility in the mangroves: catch rates, daily decisions, and dynamics of artisanal fishing in a coastal commons. Applied Geography, in this issue. Berkes, F., Feeny, D., McCay, B. J., & Acheson, J. M. (1989). The benefits of the commons. Nature, 340, 91e93. Campbell, L. M., Gray, N. J., Hazen, E. L., & Shackeroff, J. M. (2009). Beyond baselines: rethinking priorities for ocean conservation. Ecology and Society, 14, 14. Chen, C., & Lopez-Carr, D. (2015). The importance of place: Unraveling the vulnerability of fisherman livelihoods to the impact of marine protected areas. Applied Geography, in this issue. Conway, F., Stevenson, J., Hunter, D., Stefanovich, M., Campbell, H., Covell, Z., et al. (2010). Ocean space, ocean place: the human dimensions of wave energy in Oregon. Oceanography, 23, 82e91. Douvere, F. (2008). The importance of marine spatial planning in advancing ecosystem-based sea use management. Marine Policy, 32, 762e771. Guenther, C., Lopez-Carr, D., & Lenihan, H. (2015). Differences in lobster fishing before and after MPA establishment. Applied Geography, in this issue. Johannes, R. E. (1978). Traditional marine conservation methods in oceania and their demise. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 9, 349e364. Kittinger, J. N., Koehn, J. Z., Le Cornu, E., Ban, N. C., Gopnik, M., Armsby, M., et al. (2014). A practical approach for putting people in ecosystem-based ocean planning. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 12, 448e456. Klein, C., Chan, A., Kircher, L., Cundiff, A., Gardner, N., Hrovat, Y., et al. (2008). Striking a balance between biodiversity conservation and socioeconomic viability in the design of marine protected areas. Conservation Biology, 22, 691e700. Levine, A. S., & Feinholz, C. L. (2015). Participatory GIS to inform coral reef ecosystem management: mapping human coastal and ocean uses in Hawaii. Applied Geography, in this issue. Lubchenco, J., Palumbi, S., Gaines, S. D., & Andelman, S. (2003). Plugging a hole in the ocean: the emerging science of marine reserves. Ecological Applications, 13, S3eS7. Mascia, M. B., Claus, C. A., & Naidoo, R. (2010). Impacts of marine protected areas on fishing communities. Conservation Biology, 24, 1424e1429. McCay, B. J., & Acheson, J. M. (1990). The question of the commons: The culture and ecology of communal resources. University of Arizona Press. McCay, B. J., & Jones, P. J. S. (2011). Marine protected areas and the governance of marine ecosystems and fisheries. Conservation Biology, 25, 1130e1133. McLain, R., Poe, M., Biedenweg, K., Cerveny, L., Besser, D., & Blahna, D. (2013). Making sense of human ecology mapping: an overview of approaches to integrating socio-spatial data into environmental planning. Human Ecology, 41, 651e665.
Please cite this article in press as: Levine, A. S., et al., Marine resource management: Culture, livelihoods, and governance, Applied Geography (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2015.01.016
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Nader, L. (1996). Naked science: Anthropological inquiry into boundaries, power, and knowledge. Psychology Press. Ostrom, E. (2009). A general framework for analyzing sustainability of socialecological systems. Science, 325, 419e422. Pomeroy, R., & Douvere, F. (2008). The engagement of stakeholders in the marine spatial planning process. Marine Policy, 32, 816e822. Quimby, B. (2015). Emerging traditions: small-scale fishing practices in Aceh, Indonesia. Applied Geography, in this issue. Richmond, L., & Kotowicz, D. (2015). Equity and access in marine protected areas: the history and future of ‘traditional indigenous fishing’in the marianas trench marine national monument. Applied Geography, in this issue. z-Carr, D. (2015). Marine-space Rossiter, J. S., Curti, G. H., Moreno, C. M., & Lope assemblages: towards a different praxis of fisheries policy and management. Applied Geography, in this issue. Rossiter, J. S., & Levine, A. (2014). What makes a “successful” marine protected area? The unique context of Hawaii' s fish replenishment areas. Marine Policy, 44, 196e203. Singleton, S. (1999). Commons problems, collective action and efficiency past and present institutions of governance in pacific northwest salmon fisheries. Journal of Theoretical Politics, 11, 367e391.
St Martin, K., & Hall-Arber, M. (2008). The missing layer: geo-technologies, communities, and implications for marine spatial planning. Marine Policy, 32, 779e786. St Martin, K. (2006). The impact of “community” on fisheries management in the US Northeast. Geoforum, 37, 169e184. Sullivan, C. M., Conway, F. D., Pomeroy, C., Hall-Arber, M., & Wright, D. J. (2015). Combining geographic information systems and ethnography to better understand and plan ocean space use. Applied Geography, in this issue. Toropova, C., Meliane, I., Laffoley, D., Matthews, E. & Spalding, M. D. (Eds) (2010). Global ocean protection: present status and future possibilities. Agence des ge es, Brest, France; IUCN WCPA, Gland, Switzerland, aires marines prote Washington, DC and New York; United Nations Environment ProgrammeeWorld Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), Cambridge, UK; The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Arlington, USA; United Nations University (UNU), Tokyo, Japan; Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), New York. http://data.iucn. org/dbtw-wpd/edocs/2010-053.pdf. Whitty, Tara S. (2015). Governance potential for cetacean by catch mitigation in small-scale fisheries: A comparative assessment of four sites in Southeast Asia. Applied Geography, in this issue. Woodhatch, L., & Crean, K. (1999). The gentleman's agreements: a fisheries management case study from the Southwest of England. Marine Policy, 23, 25e35.
Please cite this article in press as: Levine, A. S., et al., Marine resource management: Culture, livelihoods, and governance, Applied Geography (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2015.01.016
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Applied Geography journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apgeog
Marine resource management: Culture, livelihoods, and governance Arielle Sarah Levine a, b, *, Laurie Richmond c, David Lopez-Carr d a
Department of Geography, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182-4493, USA I.M. Systems Group contractor to NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program, USA c Department of Environmental Science and Management, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA 95521, USA d Department of Geography, U.C. Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060, USA b
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Available online xxx
The management of marine resources is a politically and culturally driven process, shaped by human livelihoods and perceptions, where notions of both space and place shape policies and decision-making in fundamental ways. An emerging sub-field within geography critically explores geographic aspects of marine resource management. However, there has been little work to fully articulate this field and to describe the contributions of geographic methodologies and lenses to understanding marine resource management processes. This special issue provides one of the first collections of geographic papers focused on the socio-cultural and socio-spatial dimensions of marine resource management, emphasizing research that has or can be applied to management and policy discussions. The papers in this issue cover critical topics within this emerging field, examining the combined influences of social, ecological, cultural, political, economic, historical, and geographic factors on how marine spaces and resources are used, perceived, and managed. Important themes include: emerging spatial approaches to marine resource management, human dimensions of marine protected areas, the roles of mapping and GIS, the integration of quantitative and qualitative data, and the varying ways in which marine spaces and places are conceptualized by marine resource users and managers. Issues of marine resource governance, community engagement, and vulnerability also play key roles in the future of marine resource management. The papers in this issue shed light on space, place, and human-environment interactions in coastal marine systems, making it clear that questions about stakeholder inclusion and representation, particularly in spatial forms, will continue to dominate the field for some time to come. Future research in this field will be fruitfully informed by core geographical heuristics of space, place, and humanenvironment dynamics. © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Keywords: Marine management Coastal management Marine protected areas GIS Marine spatial planning Human-environment dynamics
Geography is paramount to coastal and marine resource management. Although marine resource management is often viewed as a field that is rooted in the biophysical sciences, the management of marine resources is fundamentally a politically and culturally driven process, shaped by human livelihoods and perceptions, where notions of both space and place shape policies and decisionmaking in fundamental ways. A wide range of approaches are currently used to manage marine resources. These include centralized approaches, such as ocean zoning, limiting ocean access through permits or the establishment of marine protected areas, regulating gear use or species harvested, or enforcing fish catch limits. These also include community-based approaches and informal or traditional management regimes, as well as a hybrid of techniques dependent on local social-ecological contexts. * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 619 594 5600. E-mail address: [email protected] (A.S. Levine).
While geographers have long examined physical coastal processes, a sub-field within geography has emerged more recently that critically explores geographic aspects of marine resource management. However, there has been little work to fully articulate this field and to describe the contributions of geographic methodologies and lenses. This special issue provides one of the first collections of geographic papers focused on the socio-cultural and socio-spatial dimensions of marine resource management, emphasizing research that has or can be applied to management and policy discussions. The papers in this issue cover critical topics within this emerging field, examining the combined influences of social, ecological, cultural, political, economic, historical, and geographic factors on how marine spaces and resources are used, perceived, and managed. Increasingly, marine resource managers are embracing spatial approaches. Many management agencies now focus on ocean zoning and marine spatial planning (Agardy, 2010; Douvere, 2008), which emphasize the regulation of ocean spaces (such as protected
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2015.01.016 0143-6228/© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Please cite this article in press as: Levine, A. S., et al., Marine resource management: Culture, livelihoods, and governance, Applied Geography (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2015.01.016
2
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areas), as opposed to ocean uses (such as catch or gear). There is also an increasing push to delimit spaces in the ocean for energy creation e whether it be from off-shore wind, wave, or offshore oil drilling e in ways that do not conflict with other ocean uses (Conway et al. 2010). These approaches require that managers have access to spatial information. While biophysical information regarding the ocean environment is often available, spatial information about human uses of and connections to marine places is generally limited. Given this need for improved spatial information and understanding, the field of geography can provide critical insight towards documenting and theorizing marine spaces to better inform management strategies. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), for instance, are a particularly central spatial management tool that has received increasing international emphasis over the past few decades, with an international goal of 10% ocean coverage by 2020 established by the Convention on Biodiversity (http://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/). MPAs have been promoted to conserve biodiversity and to safeguard sustainable fish harvests (Lubchenco et al., 2003; Toropova et al., 2010). Yet MPAs have not always been successful when applied without appropriate stakeholder participation (Mascia et al., 2010; McCay & Jones, 2011). Research is increasingly demonstrating that social factors are key determinants of MPA success (Rossiter & Levine, 2014). Human engagement in MPAs presents a fertile research opportunity for geographers, as spatial approaches to analysis present an opportunity to combine human dimensions with ecological research for a more integrated approach to research. Given the proliferation of efforts to develop marine protected areas throughout the globe, many papers in this special issue deal specifically with the human dimensions of MPA planning and with the resulting outcomes for marine-dependent communities following the development of MPAs. Richmond and Kotowicz (in this issue), for instance, examine the development of a large marine protected area in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI). They gathered oral histories to understand the cultural and economic connections that residents of the CNMI have with the protected waters and to consider the potential cultural impacts that the implementation of the MPA could have on the community. Similarly, Guenther et al. (in this issue) examine how the implementation of an MPA in the Channel Islands of California has changed the behavior of lobster fishermen, finding that their fishing effort is redirected in ways that were not expected based on a perception that fishermen would simply “fish the line” after MPAs were established. Chen and Lopez-Carr (in this issue) develop an index of sea urchin fishermen's vulnerability to the impacts of MPA establishment in California, examining how this varies across space. Levine and Feinholz (in this issue), Rossiter et al. (in this issue), and Quimby (in this issue) each advocate for an improved understanding of actual human perceptions, behavior, and use of marine spaces before management measures (such as MPAs) are implemented. Documenting and understanding the complex and nuanced ways that humans interact with, relate to, and rely on marine spaces and places is a cross-cutting theme of the articles in this issue. Mapping and GIS present one useful method for understanding spatial human use patterns, as well as for obtaining a sociocultural understanding of marine and coastal environments. While GIS is commonly used within the field of geography to illustrate spatial patterns, mapping marine spaces presents a unique set of challenges. Marine spaces are dynamic, and remotely sensed data cannot be easily used to document marine habitat, changes in resource status, or ocean uses. Levine and Feinholz (in this issue) posit that in data poor contexts (which is often the case for marine resources), resource users represent the best
source of data. Their work uses participatory mapping to engage local resource users and residents to document the range of human uses and activities taking place in areas deemed critical for coral reef management in Hawaii. Sullivan et al. (in this issue) also draw directly from resource user knowledge, combining information from existing GIS layers with information gathered from stakeholder interviews and focus groups to generate a more complete understanding of the complexity of marine space, diverse uses of the marine environment, and potential conflicts with proposed offshore energy development in coastal areas of the US mainland. Similarly, Guenther et al. (in this issue) incorporate information derived from fishermen interviews to better understand the reasons behind unexpected changes in use patterns observed in GIS data derived from fishermen's catch reports before and after the establishment of MPAs in the Channel Islands. Several authors in this issue take a novel approach of combining pre-existing or quantitatively derived data with more qualitative information obtained directly from marine resource users. Their work represents an effort to address an emergent tension in the field of marine resource management. A host of geographers, anthropologists, and social scientists critique contemporary fisheries management for its overreliance on technocratic and quantitative information that may oversimplify, misrepresent, and in some cases ignore human relationships to the marine environment (Campbell et al., 2009; Johannes, 1978; Nader, 1996; St. Martin, 2006, St Martin & Hall-Arber 2008). Yet many others are simultaneously developing methodologies and products that seek to represent human connections to the marine environment in technical and quantitative forms that can be integrated into current management practices (Kittinger et al. 2014; Klein et al. 2008; McLain et al. 2013). Levine and Feinholz (in this issue), Sullivan et al. (in this issue), and Guenther et al. (in this issue) all use methodologies to represent human connections to the environment in GIS-ready spatial formats that are easily combined with data collected on biophysical aspects of the marine realm. Chen and Lopez-Carr (in this issue) use a quantitative index to assess fishermen's vulnerability in ways that can be also be easily incorporated into technocratic approaches to management. While these approaches remain useful, many aspects of marine resource management prove difficult to quantify. For example, Beitl (in this issue) statistically analyzes return rates to both open access and commonly managed fishing areas in Costa Rica, but concludes that understanding resource use patterns is shaped by more than a simple optimization of returns. Marine spaces are socially produced, and many scholars document a culture of mutual respect and avoidance that can shape natural resource use patterns (Berkes et al., 1989; McCay & Acheson, 1990; Singleton, 1999; Woodhatch & Crean, 1999). Both Beitl (in this issue) and Quimby (in this issue) find an unspoken moral code and informal rules-in-use that must also be understood in order to predict fishermen behavior and determine appropriate management actions. Their work, as well as that of Barnett and Eakin (in this issue), highlights the importance of individual relationships and decision-making in understanding ocean use. While many authors in this issue document and communicate empirical information about the use of marine space, others focus more theoretically on the ways that marine space is conceptualized by managers and researchers. Rossiter et al. (in this issue), draw on new materialist theory to critique the way that United States fisheries legislation and management regimes conceptualize and manage marine space, arguing that fisheries managers oversimplify human uses of and connections to marine space, failing to account for the complex linkages and interactions between the human and nonhuman elements of what they refer to as “marine assemblages”. Both Rossiter et al. (in this issue) and Levine and Feinholz (in this
Please cite this article in press as: Levine, A. S., et al., Marine resource management: Culture, livelihoods, and governance, Applied Geography (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2015.01.016
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issue) communicate the need to examine intensive spaces of human activity and meaning within extensive spaces designated for marine management. Quimby (in this issue) and Beitl (in this issue) both highlight the importance of understanding socially produced spaces influencing the self-organizing properties of marine resource use and management systems. Governance of marine spaces represents another critical theme in this issue. Whitty (in this issue) examines governance institutions and activities for coastal and aquatic resource management in multiple case study sites in Southeast Asia, exploring their potential to contribute to mitigating cetacean bycatch in the region. Beitl (in this issue) illustrates the benefits of mixed property rights systems for shellfish harvesters in Ecuador's coastal mangrove swamps, which provides a safety net for fishermen and incentives for conservation. Barnett and Eakin (in this issue) illustrate the important ways in which actors in a multi-species fishery in Nova Scotia influence their institutional environment in a context of rapid change. Vulnerability is another important consideration in marine resource management, particularly in examining fishermen's livelihoods. Chen and Lopez-Carr (in this issue) and Barnett and Eakin (in this issue) take different approaches, using fishermen interviews to define and examine vulnerability from a fishermen's perspective. Chen and Lopez-Carr develop a quantitative index to assess vulnerability in response to the establishment of MPAs, using a framework based on exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Barnett and Eakin develop a qualitative assessment of vulnerability to economic fluctuations and the impacts of climate change. They take a novel approach, combining Ostrom's social-ecological systems framework (Ostrom, 2009), focused on institutions and resource exploitation, with political ecology, which incorporates the influences of social relations, power, agency, and larger scale political and economic processes. Each of the contributions to this issue highlights, in some way, the importance of community engagement in marine resource management. While marine resource management agencies commonly emphasize the importance of stakeholder involvement in management processes (Pomeroy & Douvere, 2008), they are generally silent on issues of power and whose voices are heard during participatory processes. Rossiter et al. (in this issue) problematize stakeholder involvement of fishing communities called for under National Standard 8 of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, specifically the power dynamics and cultural practices that continually inform and negotiate community identities. The research conducted by Sullivan et al. (in this issue) and Levine and Feinholz (in this issue) actively tries to engage local communities in coastal and marine mapping to inform ocean planning, but these authors also note the challenge of gaining community trust, as well as problems inherent in generating static maps of mobile species, complex human behaviors, and cultural significance. A connecting thread in this emerging field, which runs through each of the papers in this issue, is the need to include resource users' voices and interests in marine management decision-making through improved information and a better understanding regarding their perspectives, behaviors and needs. The authors contributing to this issue, as well as the marine stakeholders who agreed to participate in their studies, are motivated by a central concern: if they do not develop tools to depict human relationships with the marine environment that are compatible with the ecological data relied upon by managers, will social and economic considerations then be ignored or overlooked in decision-making processes? In these papers we see a clear trend towards developing new quantitative indices, models, and technical spatial tools to bring information about resources uses to the management
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arena. The effort to better map, quantify, and describe human cultures, livelihoods, and governance in relation to marine space has benefits in terms of ensuring that these aspects of the marine environment are given due consideration during management decision-making. However, as the field continues to develop it will be important for researchers and practitioners to consider what might be lost when nuanced information regarding human connections to marine spaces and places is converted into formats and terms that are largely dictated by scientists and managers who control the decision-making process, particularly when the scope and scale of human interactions with marine resources rarely fits neatly into the boundaries of management units. An important future direction in this field is examining how these new tools and products for depicting human uses of and relationships to marine space are utilized in decision-making, as well as how marine resource users and stakeholders perceive management processes and outcomes based upon these tools. The papers in this issue shed light on space, place, and human-environment interactions in coastal marine systems, making it clear that questions about stakeholder inclusion and representation, particularly in spatial forms, will continue to dominate the field for some time to come. Future research on coupled human-environment sustainability in marine and coastal environments will be fruitfully informed by core geographical heuristics of space, place, and humanenvironment dynamics.
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