CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015
| Author | Mata Lara, Mariana |
|---|---|
| Title | The Socio-Eco-Political Tangle Behind MPAs. The Challenge of Defining Success |
| Summary | Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are considered the most important and widely used tool for managing marine resources and for achieving conservation goals. Even though there is a world‟s target of designating MPAs that cover 10% of the oceans, its implementation is lagging behind for several reasons including the number of ineffective MPAs in existence worldwide. As a result, several guidelines and studies have focused on evaluating the success of MPAs based on their management practices. But a successful MPA may not necessarily need to be attributed only to its design and management, but also to its contextual factors. As each location has its own history and its unique social, economical, cultural, political and ecological contexts, the definition of success might vary for every place according to its different limitations, pressures and mainly the interconnections of the elements of the system (actors, rules, species, actions, etc.). Therefore, in order to understand how the contextual factors can influence the positive environmental outcomes of a MPA, this work analyzes the socio-economic, cultural and political local contexts of two marine reserves immersed in radically different conditions: the Ojo de Liebre Lagoon Complex in Baja California Sur, Mexico and the Channel islands National Marine Sanctuary in California, USA. A description of the elements that these MPAs should have in order to achieve success was compiled using the different stakeholders‟ perceptions. The work concludes with the description of the contextual factors that have helped each MPA to achieve positive environmental outcomes and it highlights the key elements that need to improve for fulfilling all the characteristics required for succeeding according to their actors. |
| Supervisor | Corliss, Jack; McGinnis Michael |
| Department | Environment Sciences and Policy MSc |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2015/lara_mariana.pdf |
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