Regional Document on Gender Integration in the Fisheries Workplace

This regional document includes a compilation of gender-related policies and legal frameworks across ASEAN member countries, and reflects the experiences and lessons of contributors in fisheries workplaces operating across Southeast Asia and the Coral Triangle region. Between 2017 and 2020, this regional technical guidance document on the integration of gender within fisheries workplaces within fishery supply chains was collaboratively developed between USAID Oceans, the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC), Coral Triangle Initiative for Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security (CTI-CFF) Women Leaders’ Forum (WLF), and SEAFDEC/CTI-CFF member country representatives from the USAID Oceans Human Welfare and Gender Equality (HWGE) Technical Working Group. This document is available for the use of SEAFDEC and CTI-CFF member countries, including governmental and non-governmental staff and technical personnel as a reference to ensure that gender aspects are appropriately integrated into fisheries and coastal resource management

The benefits of heterogeneity in spatial prioritisation within coral reef environments

Coral reefs are highly vulnerable habitats, threatened by climate change and local anthropogenic impacts. Management is imperative, and spatial prioritisation apportions the area of interest to inform investments of scarce conservation resources. Spatially delineated planning units used to make management decisions are typically large enough to contain significant natural variabilities, but the ecological significance of such variance is seldom considered in planning decisions. On coral reefs, the patchiness of habitat quality within planning units matters both ecologically and functionally. Here, we show that considering within-planning unit variance in spatial prioritisation influences the location and design of reserve networks. Studying Timor-Leste, we statistically model the average and variance in coral cover. We compare conservation priority areas for scenarios informed by coral cover and variance to a baseline scenario with the spatial prioritisation software Marxan. To further explain these differences, and to show the value of including coral variance as a metric in spatial prioritisation, we created a reserve quality score. We show that the similarity between reserve networks was only 57% for protection, and 44% for restoration objectives. For both objectives, the inclusion of cover variance improves the conservation benefit of management. This project has shown a novel way to target areas for restoration. These results demonstrate that not only is mean coral cover (and, by extension, reef condition) a key criterion in selecting marine conservation actions, but its variance must be considered in spatial conservation prioritisation to improve both the efficiency and benefit of management actions within marine reserve networks

Developing marine protected area networks in the Coral Triangle: good practices for expanding the Coral Triangle Marine Protected Area System

The Coral Triangle Marine Protected Area System aspires to become a region-wide, comprehensive, ecologically representative and well-managed system of marine protected areas (MPAs) and MPA networks. The development of this system will proceed primarily through the implementation of ecological, social, and governance MPA networks at the sub-national scale. We describe six case studies that exemplify different approaches taken to develop MPA networks in the Coral Triangle region at different scales: Nusa Penida in Indonesia; Tun Mustapha Park in Malaysia; Kimbe Bay in Papua New Guinea; Verde Island Passage in the Philippines; The Lauru Ridges to Reefs Protected Area Network in Choiseul, Solomon Islands; and Nino Konis Santana Park in Timor Leste. Through synthesis of these case studies, we identify five common themes that contributed to successful outcomes: (1) the need for multi-stakeholder and cross-level management institutions; (2) the value of integrating cutting-edge science with local knowledge and community-based management; (3) the importance of building local capacity; (4) using multiple-use zoning to balance competing objectives; and (5) participation in learning and governance networks. These lessons will be invaluable in guiding future efforts to expand the Coral Triangle Marine Protected Area System, and provide important insights for MPA practitioners elsewhere