Effective marine protected areas require a sea change in compliance management

[Extract] Conservationists continue to put forth international milestone goals for preserving the world’s oceans (e.g. 30%; World Parks Congress, 2014) while assuming that this protection will be effective. However, most of the world’s “protected” oceans are plagued with persistent poaching problems and inadequate management capacity that render these reserves ineffective (Kelleher et al., 1995; Mora et al., 2006; Gill et al., 2017). Although the term marine protected area can encompass a range of protections, I focus here on no-take marine reserves (NTMRs), and define effectiveness as the ability to reduce or eliminate fishing mortality within their boundaries. There is no doubt that NTMRs can deliver substantial outcomes when effectively managed to ensure high compliance (Graham et al., 2011; Edgar et al., 2014; Cinner et al., 2016; Gill et al., 2017), but this is more often the exception, rather than the rule. For instance, my colleagues and I recently demonstrated that poaching by recreational fishers in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) is significant, and regularly occurs in areas previously thought to be among the best protected (Bergseth et al. 2017)

Effectiveness of interventions to shift drivers of roving banditry and reduce illegal fishing by Vietnamese blue boats

Illegal fishing via roving banditry, or fishing illegally in other countries’ territorial waters, continues to threaten the security, sustainability, and biodiversity of global marine resources. Yet, little is known about the behavioral drivers of banditry, and whether interventions can shift these. We address this critical knowledge gap by quantitatively surveying 82 fishers in two known port havens (Da Nang and Sa Ky, central Vietnam) for roving banditry by Vietnamese “blue boats,” before and after interventions aimed at reducing illegal fishing. We present three key findings: (1) displacement from the South China Sea and degraded local resources were primary behavioral drivers, (2) interventions increased perceptions of risk and shame if apprehended, and (3) the source of bail money (i.e., family vs. business) was highly predictive of whether fishers saw punishment as an adequate deterrent to illegal fishing. Lastly, we discuss the implications of these findings for regional policy and management strategies

Countering avoidance strategies used by fishers to avoid detection during illegal fishing

Non-compliers typically avoid detection by authorities, benefiting from increased catch and income. While detection-avoidance strategies (e.g., secret compartments to hide illegal catch) are commonly used in the nature conservation context, they remain largely unstudied. We address this knowledge gap in three sections. First, we introduce and hypothesize the likelihood of non-compliers adopting detection-avoidance strategies in the broader conservation context. Second, we identify and categorize detection-avoidance strategies used by small-scale fishers. Third, we provide recommendations for countering detection-avoidance strategies (i.e., countermeasures). Because countermeasures are context-specific, they should be informed through systematic processes such as the intelligence cycle. If used properly, enforcement activities and countermeasures can help build voluntary compliance, particularly through procedural justice, or acting in a way that users perceive as fair and just

Understanding the perceived conservation benefits of shark-marine tourism in the Global South

Shark and ray populations are declining due to the expansion of both target and non-target fisheries. Shark-marine tourism (SMT) has been advocated as a conservation approach to reduce pressure on shark populations by increasing their non-consumptive value and providing a potential livelihood option. However, diversification via tourism can create complex issues relating to the environment, policy, and local well-being. Additionally, little is known about the ecological or socio-economic effectiveness of shark-based marine tourism operations. This study explores how SMT programs may contribute to shark conservation by exploring practitioner perceptions of SMT and (a) its desired outcomes, success, and factors facilitating success; (b) how those outcomes were measured; (c) its effectiveness as a conservation tool; and (d) how alternative livelihoods or social engagement programs supported positive conservation gains. Semi-structured interviews (n = 15) were conducted with tourism operators and non-governmental organization (NGO) staff. NGOs measured success through population/impact studies or economic valuations of tourism, while operators cited conservation gains or skills training as success indicators. Project effectiveness was either unmeasured or inactively pursued due to insufficient capacity or resources. Tourism effectiveness is perceived to be highly dependent upon the local contexts and increases with active stakeholder engagement. Social and human capital enhancement was viewed as an important mechanism to increase tourism’s benefits beyond species protection. This study demonstrates that conservation requires a shift from a species-focus to one that engages effectively with those reliant on elasmobranch resources. Furthermore, it highlights the potential of SMT to generate innovative opportunities for improving elasmobranch conservation

A synthesis of the prevalence and drivers of non-compliance in marine protected areas

Non-compliance regularly negates the effectiveness of marine protected areas (MPAs) worldwide. Understanding and addressing non-compliance is critical given continued efforts to establish MPAs to meet international milestones (e.g., Aichi targets). We conducted a literature review and meta-analysis to address five key questions and research gaps for MPAs: 1) how is non-compliance best measured? 2) what are common drivers of non-compliance? 3) what is the overall prevalence of non-compliance? 4) how frequently is ecological failure of MPAs attributed to non-compliance? and 5) are there measurable management impacts on regulated fishing in MPAs (i.e., effective reduction of fishing)? We found 151 papers that had some focus on non-compliant resource extraction in MPAs and 96 that quantified it. Insufficient enforcement was the most cited driver of non-compliance, followed by several socio-economic drivers including lack of awareness, livelihood/economic gain, social norms, and ineffective governance. Prohibited fishing in MPAs was often reduced compared to outside areas, as shown by our meta-analysis. However, we found frequent reports and measures of non-compliance globally, and many cases of failed ecological performance attributed primarily to non-compliance (57% of 67 relevant studies). Overall, our synthesis demonstrates that non-compliance continues to be a prevalent issue for MPAs. Reducing non-compliance and ensuring effective MPAs will rely on continuous evaluation of non-compliance to inform adaptive management, as well as addressing the complex, interrelated drivers that arise throughout MPA planning, establishment, and management

Partitioning no-take marine reserve (NTMR) and benthic habitat effects on density of small and large-bodied tropical wrasses

No-take marine reserves (NTMRs) are increasingly implemented for fisheries management and biodiversity conservation. Yet, assessing NTMR effectiveness depends on partitioning the effects of NTMR protection and benthic habitat on protected species. Such partitioning is often difficult, since most studies lack well-designed sampling programs (i.e. Before-After-Control-Impact-Pair designs) spanning long-term time scales. Spanning 31 years, this study quantifies the effects of NTMR protection and changes to benthic habitat on the density of tropical wrasses (F. Labridae) at Sumilon and Apo Islands, Philippines. Five species of wrasse were studied: two species of large-bodied (40-50 cm TL) Hemigymnus that were vulnerable to fishing, and three species of small-bodied (10-25 cm TL) Thalassoma and Cirrhilabrus that were not targeted by fishing. NTMR protection had no measurable effect on wrasse density, irrespective of species or body size, over 20 (Sumilon) and 31 (Apo) years of protection. However, the density of wrasses was often affected strongly by benthic cover. Hemigymnus spp. had a positive association with hard coral cover, while Thalassoma spp. and Cirrhilabrus spp. had strong positive associations with cover of rubble and dead substratum. These associations were most apparent after environmental disturbances (typhoons, coral bleaching, crown of thorns starfish (COTS) outbreaks, use of explosives and drive nets) reduced live hard coral cover and increased cover of rubble, dead substratum and sand. Disturbances that reduced hard coral cover often reduced the density of Hemigymnus spp. and increased the density of Thalassoma spp. and Cirrhilabrus spp. rapidly (1-2 years). As hard coral recovered, density of Hemigymnus spp. often increased while density of Thalassoma spp. and Cirrhilabrus spp. often decreased, often on scales of 5-10 years. This study demonstrates that wrasse population density was influenced more by changes to benthic cover than by protection from fishing

Closing the compliance gap in marine protected areas with human behavioural sciences

Advocates, practitioners and policy-makers continue to use and advocate for marine protected areas (MPAs) to meet global ocean protection targets. Yet many of the worlds MPAs, and especially no-take MPAs, are plagued by poaching and ineffective governance. Using a global dataset on coral reefs as an example, we quantify the potential ecological gains of governing MPAs to increase compliance, which we call the ‘compliance gap’. Using ecological simulations based on model posteriors of joint Bayesian hierarchical models, we demonstrate how increased compliance in no-take MPAs could nearly double target fish biomass (91% increases in median fish biomass), and result in a 292% higher likelihood of encountering top predators. Achieving these gains and closing the compliance gap necessitates a substantial shift in approach and practice to go beyond optimizing enforcement, and towards governing for compliance. This will require engaging and integrating a broad suite of actors, principles, and practices across three key domains: (i)) harnessing social influence, (ii) integrating equity principles, and (iii) aligning incentives through market-based instruments. Empowering and shaping communication between actor groups (e.g., between fishers, practitioners, and policy-makers) using theoretically underpinned approaches from the behavioural sciences is one of the most essential, but often underserved aspects of governing MPAs. We therefore close by highlighting how this cross-cutting tool could be further integrated in governance to bolster high levels of compliance in MPAs

Counterpoint to Claudet

[Extract] Claudet presents six conditions that can erroneously lead people to consider marine protected areas (MPAs) ineffective. Here, I expand on a briefly addressed, yet critical consideration that Claudet raises. The essence of Claudet’s sixth condition (i.e. failing to account for poaching would lead to erroneous conclusions that MPAs are ineffective) is that MPAs are inherently effective, as long as poaching is accounted for. However, a more conventional outlook is that if an MPA is poached, it is ineffective (or at least less effective). Poaching is defined here as fishing in no-take reserves or zones of MPAs where extractive uses are prohibited—these reserves can comprise only a portion, or the entirety of an MPA, depending on its specific goals and definition (see Day 2017)

Poaching in marine protected areas: drivers of and responses to illegal fishing

Conservation is primarily reliant on people's compliance with rules and regulations. Yet, non-compliance is widespread throughout the world, and regularly negates expected conservation outcomes. The effects of non-compliance are especially apparent in protected areas, where even short bursts of poaching (defined in this thesis as fishing in no-take zones, or no-fishing marine reserves) can rapidly negate the effects of protection that often take decades to produce (e.g. Russ & Alcala 2010; Wittemyer et al. 2014). In addition, efforts to reduce poaching often fail due to a lack of capacity, resources, and/or general understanding of the drivers or influences on the behaviour (e.g. Gill et al. 2017). Thus, curtailing poaching depends on gathering detailed information to guide specifically targeted behavioural and management interventions. However, gathering information on poaching is inherently difficult because it is an illegal, clandestine, and often socially unacceptable activity. This thesis therefore addresses this considerable knowledge gap by applying specialized techniques to measure, assess, and understand poaching. Many methods and approaches can be used to assess and measure poaching, but no single method is a panacea, because each is limited in the information it can provide and subject to different types of bias (Gavin et al. 2010; Arias 2015; Bergseth et al. 2015). Reliably assessing and measuring poaching therefore necessitates a triangulation approach that utilizes complimentary methods to provide a holistic picture of poaching. Chapter 1 therefore provides a general introduction about the methods used to estimate compliance levels, as well as the different theoretical disciplines and approaches that can be used to understand poaching. The focus of Chapter 2 is to answer the first research question of my thesis: "How can poaching be measured given its cryptic nature?" In this chapter, I combine social surveys with a complementary field-based method to 'ground-truth' and assess the prevalence poaching by recreational fishers in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP). I use three specialized questioning techniques [Self-administered questioning (SAQ); the Randomised Response Technique (RRT; Warner 1965); the Unmatched Count Technique (UCT; Droitcour et al. 1991)] to estimate poaching rates. Concurrently, I develop and examine the potential of two theoretically grounded, proxy indicators of non-compliance (perceived prevalence of poaching and personally knowing a poacher). Both of these indicators yield higher estimates than those provided by specialised techniques, which suggests that specialised questioning techniques are still subject to underreporting. Furthermore, my findings indicate that the false consensus effect and social learning are causing poachers and their associates to overestimate the prevalence of poaching. I also quantify the accumulation rate of derelict fishing gears on fringing coral reefs inside and outside no-fishing reserves of two nearby inshore island groups. Surprisingly, I find no difference in the accumulation rate of derelict gears between areas open and closed to fishing. Overall, I demonstrate that a substantial amount of poaching is occurring in inshore island groups once thought to be among the best-enforced areas in the GBRMP, which has important management implications. Understanding the drivers or influences on recreational fisher's poaching decisions is a critical component of designing management and behavioural interventions to curtail poaching. While numerous disciplines explore the complexities of human decision-making and resultant behaviours, most investigations of poaching suffer from 'disciplinary silo-thinking' which inhibits a comprehensive understanding of poaching behaviours (Von Essen et al. 2014). Thus, the focus of Chapter 3 is to develop a multi-disciplinary approach to comprehensively examine the social dimensions of poaching. In this chapter, I integrate pertinent theories from a range of disciplines including sociology, criminology, wildlife biology, and psychology to develop 29 potential drivers of compliance behaviour. I then explore the prevalence and distribution of these potential drivers. I find that most fishers perceive high levels of legitimacy for management agencies and see poaching as personally and socially unacceptable. However, my research findings also suggest that two additional (mis)perceptions (pluralistic ignorance and a perceived lack of deterrence) are likely operative and at least partially responsible for the continuation of poaching in the GBRMP. Lastly, I reveal that fishers perceived two primary motivations to poach: better fishing in no-fishing reserves, and a low probability or risk of detection. These results suggest that extolling certain benefits of no-fishing reserves (i.e. they hold bigger and more fish) where enforcement capacity is low could actually lead to the perverse outcome of encouraging noncompliance. Based on these results, I highlight tools such as social norms approaches, strengthened coercive deterrence, and fear arousing communication that can be used to address these misperceptions and increase compliance. In Chapter 4, I ask: "how are different poaching measure or proxies related to the potential drivers of compliance behaviour?" Specifically, I collated and condensed 29 potential influences and drivers of poaching that were identified in Chapter 3, and empirically examined their influence on three indicators or proxies of poaching: the RRT, perceived levels of poaching, and personally knowing a poacher. The RRT model performed particularly poorly at identifying behavioural drivers of poaching, likely because the admitted level of poaching was lower than the intentionally introduced statistical noise (to obscure respondent's answers and ensure confidentiality). However, 66% of the drivers that were significant for one proxy indicator of poaching were also significant for the second proxy. When considered in light of the results from Chapter 2, this suggests that these proxies could be further integrated to estimate and understand poaching, especially in contexts where poaching is socially unacceptable and fairly rare. Yet, many of the worlds marine protected areas suffer from a critical lack of capacity (Gill et al. 2017) and subsequent low levels of compliance, which negate expected outcomes. Accordingly, natural resource management agencies are increasingly attempting to bolster compliance by engaging the latent surveillance and enforcement potential of resource users (GBRMPA 2016; Green 2016; Kohn 2016). However, little is known about the conditions or institutions that encourage this behaviour. In Chapter 5 I fill this knowledge gap by collating and analysing more than 2000 fisher surveys from 55 MPAs in 7 countries to fill this knowledge gap by answering four research questions: 1) How many fishers have previously observed poaching?: 2) How do they respond to observed non-compliance?; 3) Why do fishers remain inactive?; and 4) What are the effects of institutions and conditions on fisher's responses to poaching? I found that nearly half of these fishers had previously observed poaching, but the most common response was inaction, typically due to conflict avoidance, a sense that it was not their responsibility or concern, and the perception that poaching was a survival strategy. Furthermore, I quantified how institutional design elements relate to fisher's responses to poaching, and highlight avenues to responsibly engage fishers while mitigating risk. This body of work advances the current state of knowledge in compliance management, particularly in regard to the approaches necessary for fully measuring and understanding the prevalence and drivers of poaching. The findings provided by my multidisciplinary approach advance our understanding and management of human behaviour in four concepts that are critical for effective conservation: 1) further consideration of how people process information; 2) re-conceptualizing how people behave; 3) developing communication strategies to bolster compliance; and 4) designing rules and interactions to shape behaviour. In addition, this thesis demonstrates the necessity of triangulating sources of compliance information, and delivers findings that have been directly adapted for communication and outreach strategies employed by one of the world's most iconic marine parks

Discerning the culture of compliance through recreational fisher's perceptions of poaching

Compliance is critical for effective conservation, and non-compliance regularly negates the desired outcomes of the world's marine protected areas. To increase compliance, practitioners must understand why resource users are breaking the rules, why these behaviours continue to occur, and how to effectively confront non-compliance. This study interviewed 682 recreational fishers of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) to examine the social components of compliance management. These components included fisher's perceptions of non-compliance, or poaching (defined here as fishing in no-take zones), as well as the beliefs, attitudes, normative influences, consumptive orientation and perceived behavioural controls that may influence fisher's decisions to poach. Encouragingly, most fishers had high perceptions of the legitimacy of management agencies and thought poaching was socially and personally unacceptable. However, these findings suggest that four (mis)perceptions or mechanisms are likely operative and at least partially responsible for continued non-compliance by fishers. These included pluralistic ignorance, false consensus, social learning, and a perceived lack of deterrence. Numerous tools can be used to address and correct these perceptions, including social norms and influence approaches, strengthened coercive deterrence measures, fear-arousing communications, and social outreach. If properly implemented, these tools and approaches should not only increase compliance but also reduce support (whether active or passive) for a culture of non-compliance