Gathering Local Knowledge, Building Transparency
Place matters in the marine environment.
Marine creatures seek out specific habitats, and fishermen value specific fishing grounds. A spatial understanding matters for marine policies as well. Around the world, Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have succeeded in protecting sensitive ecosystems by restricting human activities in designated waters. But with many communities dependant upon the near-shore environment for their livelihoods, the creation of Marine Protected Areas can become a contentious process.
Ecotrust’s OCEAN (Ocean Communities “3E” ANalysis) toolkit enables managers, scientists and communities to consider economy, ecology and equity in an integrated, spatially specific approach to fisheries management. OCEAN builds transparency into the MPA designation process, enabling dialog among diverse stakeholders. Looking forward, we anticipate that the OCEAN toolkit will be able to similarly support decision making for other types of “ocean zoning” projects.
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