Comparing and Integrating Community-Based and Science-Based Approaches to Prioritizing Marine Areas for Protection

We compared and integrated marine protected areas proposed through community and scientific assessments in 2 regions of British Columbia, Canada. The community priorities were identified during individual and group interviews with knowledgeable resource users. The scientific priorities were develope...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Conservation biology 2009-08, Vol.23 (4), p.899-910
Main Authors: BAN, NATALIE C, PICARD, CHRIS R, VINCENT, AMANDA C.J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal and plant ecology
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Applied ecology
Biodiversity conservation
Biological and medical sciences
British Columbia
Communities
Community based instruction
community-based conservation
conservación basada en la comunidad
conservación marina
Conservation biology
Conservation of Natural Resources
Conservation, protection and management of environment and wildlife
Decision support systems
Ecosystem
Fisheries science
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Habitat conservation
indigenous people
indigenous peoples
Marine Biology
Marine conservation
Marine ecology
marine protected areas
marine reserves
marxan
Parks, reserves, wildlife conservation. Endangered species: population survey and restocking
planificación sistemática de la conservación
pobladores indígenas
Prioritization
Protected areas
reservas marinas
Sea water ecosystems
Synecology
systematic conservation planning
Wildlife conservation
áreas marinas protegidas
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Summary:We compared and integrated marine protected areas proposed through community and scientific assessments in 2 regions of British Columbia, Canada. The community priorities were identified during individual and group interviews with knowledgeable resource users. The scientific priorities were developed with abiotic and biotic data in Marxan, a decision-support tool. The resulting maps of community-based and science-based priorities were very similar for the inshore areas, which lent credibility to both approaches. The resource users thought the science-based maps were fairly good at highlighting areas important for conservation, but preferred the scenarios that integrated the 2 maps to either constituent map. Incorporating spatial variation in human impacts on the marine areas and commercial fishing, which are both costs of protection, into our Marxan analyses led to scenarios that were different from either constituent map. Our results show the value of integrating community-based and science-based approaches in conservation planning to achieve community acceptance and conservation utility. They also reveal that people's assessments on the basis of their traditional ecological knowledge may serve as a reasonable proxy for scientific approaches in selecting areas of ecological value.
ISSN:0888-8892
1523-1739
DOI:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01185.x