Human Well-Being and Marine Protected Area Planning: The Case Study of South Ari Marine Protected Area, Maldives

Abstract

Despite the growing number of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) globally, many remain only in legislation (as "paper parks") or are deemed ineffective. Inadequate understanding of relationships between people and proposed MPAs is understood as a major obstacle to effective MPA implementation and management. This thesis investigates how to leverage the concept of human well-being in MPA planning. In my literature review, I identify that, most MPA studies focus only on a narrow sub-set of well-being attributes associated with economic capital, such as income and employment, and focus on one type of stakeholder only. Few studies have also compared the relative importance of capitals and the associated attributes on MPA implementation. Limited studies have also considered the processes by which new MPAs are implemented - as many focus on post-implementation assessments. In individual chapters of this thesis, I fill each of these research gaps using a case study from the Maldives - South Ari Marine Protected Area (SAMPA).

In my first data Chapter, using empirical analyses of social surveys from four local communities adjacent to SAMPA, I investigate the extent of human, social and economic capitals on supporting the implementation of a management plan for the MPA. Results show that, support was only marginally influenced by attributes related to human and economic capitals: such as occupation, income, and education. Rather, support was strongly influenced by attributes associated with social capitals such as: locals' trust in community members to comply with management interventions, and their attitudes towards marine resources and conservation. In my second data Chapter, I conduct empirical analyses based on qualitative thematic content analysis of two stakeholder consultation workshops on SAMPA, to understand the key processes needed to engage with multiple stakeholders. I find that, lack of stakeholders' trust in government agencies, and lack of transparency by government agencies regarding the MPA were the main impediments to SAMPAs implementation. Disagreements on rights and access to the MPA across stakeholders, and lack of a sense of equity and inclusivity further diminished this trust on government agencies. Meanwhile, cross-sectoral support and creating a vision for SAMPAs' establishment were diminished by conflicts amongst tourism and local stakeholders regarding the preferred type of management in the area, lack of local agency due to legislative shortfalls and unresolved overlap of legislative powers within government authorities. Finally, I synthesise insights from the literature and the empirical investigations, to develop a conceptual framework as a way of thinking about MPA planning and implementation, particularly for practitioners wishing to integrate human well-being perspectives in MPA management contexts.

The findings of this thesis makes several important contributions to the literature. It demonstrates that there is a need for MPA assessments to consider a diverse range of well-being attributes across multiple capitals through utilising a combination of subjective and objective measures for more meaningful and context-specific results. It also shows that MPA practitioners should not rely exclusively on highly cited well-being attributes that are easily quantifiable; as such attributes alone may not be driving people's willingness to support conservation interventions. Additionally, it also shows that, to garner cross-sectoral stakeholder support to implement new MPAs, eliciting subjective preferences of stakeholders during MPA planning assessments are important. Thus, the ensuing framework presented in the thesis can be a useful way of showing practitioners a systematic way of using well-being in such assessments. Show more