عنوان

Improving marine protected area planning processes through the transparent incorporation of fisher-derived data

TLets650316

Improving marine protected area planning processes through the transparent incorporation of fisher-derived data

[Thesis]

Yates, Katherine Lucy

Ulster University

2014

Ph.D.

Ulster University

2014

Northern Ireland, like many other nations, has made high-level commitments toimproving marine management and conserving biodiversity through thedevelopment of a representative network of marine protected areas (MPAs).However progress to fulfil commitments was found to be hampered by complexgovernance, poor interdepartmental cooperation and lack of political will.Stakeholder participation is a vital component of MPA planning and implementation,and the successes of MPA designation is greatly affected by fisher buy-in andcompliance. This Thesis presents a novel participatory mapping method, which wasused to directly engage fishers in the development of quantitative pre-planning dataon their spatial access priorities. Data on the perceptions of fishers' and theirthoughts on marine management, including MPA site suggestions, were alsogathered.Stakeholder engagement and the incorporation of stakeholder data should facilitatethe development of MPA planning solutions that have a reduced negative impact onstakeholders. This assertion was tested with the fisher-derived data. Multiple MPAplanning scenarios were developed and the benefit of incorporating bothquantitative and qualitative fisher data was clearly demonstrated on planningsolutions. A novel approach of transparent inclusion of stakeholder MPAsuggestions into decision-support software was also proposed.MPAs and fisheries face increasing competition for space from emerging ocean uses.Building upon previous strategic conservation planning-based approaches to oceanzoning, planning scenarios were developed to simultaneously optimise spaceallocations for MPAs, renewable energy generation and fisheries. The approachenabled explicit assessment of the trade-offs between competing uses, which shouldhelp increase the transparency and defensibility of planning decisions. It was alsoestablished that co-location of marine industries can significantly affect both thecost and the spatial configuration of marine planning solutions. The use of theinsights and tools developed in this Thesis should contribute to improved MPAplanning processes and help reduce the amount of conflict associated with planningsolutions.

Yates, Katherine Lucy

Ulster University

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y