Optimal siting, sizing, and enforcement of marine protected areas

The design of protected areas, whether marine or terrestrial, rarely considers how people respond to the imposition of no-take sites with complete or incomplete enforcement. Consequently, these protected areas may fail to achieve their intended goal. We present and solve a spatial bio-economic model in which a manager chooses the optimal location, size, and enforcement level of a marine protected area (MPA). This manager acts as a Stackelberg leader, and her choices consider villagers’ best response to the MPA in a spatial Nash equilibrium of fishing site and effort decisions. Relevant to lower income country settings but general to other settings, we incorporate limited enforcement budgets, distance costs of traveling to fishing sites, and labor allocation to onshore wage opportunities. The optimal MPA varies markedly across alternative manager goals and budget sizes, but always induce changes in villagers’ decisions as a function of distance, dispersal, and wage. We consider MPA managers with ecological conservation goals and with economic goals, and identify the shortcomings of several common manager decision rules, including those focused on: (1) fishery outcomes rather than broader economic goals, (2) fish stocks at MPA sites rather than across the full marinescape, (3) absolute levels rather than additional values, and (4) costless enforcement. Our results demonstrate that such naïve or overly narrow decision rules can lead to inefficient MPA designs that miss economic and conservation opportunities

Formação para merendeiras: uma proposta metodológica aplicada em escolas estaduais atendidas pelo programa nacional de alimentação escolar, em Salvador, Bahia Professional training for school lunch cooks: a methodological experiment done in state schools supported by the National School Feeding Program in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

OBJETIVO: Descrever uma experiência de formação desenvolvida para merendeiras de escolas atendidas pelo Programa Nacional de Alimentação Escolar. MÉTODOS: Trata-se de um estudo descritivo, cujo objeto de análise foi um curso realizado para merendeiras de 97 escolas estaduais, em Salvador (BA). A definição e a implementação da formação apresentou três etapas: sondagem de conteúdos e metodologias junto às merendeiras, desenvolvimento das atividades de formação e avaliação da metodologia do curso pelas merendeiras. RESULTADOS: A consulta às merendeiras possibilitou a indicação dos conteúdos de maior interesse e a metodologia a ser utilizada. O curso teve duração de 20 horas, em turmas de aproximadamente 35 pessoas, e foi realizado em unidades escolares. O programa da atividade apresentou conteúdos diferenciados, incluindo: o Programa Nacional de Alimentação Escolar, a merendeira no sistema da alimentação escolar, princípios de nutrição e alimentação e boas práticas de produção. Como recursos metodológicos foram adotados: teatro, exposição dialogada, oficinas, gincana, experiências práticas, jogos interativos, atividades em grupo, aplicação de formulários e um módulo que contemplava todas as apresentações. Ao final do evento, as merendeiras avaliaram o curso segundo os seguintes aspectos: explicação dos conteúdos, recursos utilizados, ritmo das atividades, atendimento às perguntas, apreensão dos conteúdos, aspectos positivos e negativos e sugestões. CONCLUSÃO: A experiência evidenciou a possibilidade de orientar a construção de um novo modelo de formação, mediante a contribuição e a valorização da consulta ao público-alvo, o que permitiu uma ressignificação das práticas tradicionais de formação e proporcionou maior chance de êxito, devido às demandas específicas apresentadas pelos próprios participantes.<br>OBJECTIVE: This study reports a professional training experiment directed at school lunch cooks in state schools supported by the National School Feeding Program. METHODS: This descriptive study was carried out among school lunch cooks from 97 state schools, in Salvador (Bahia , Brazil). Definition and implementation of the professional training consisted of three stages: a preliminary survey among the cooks in search of contents and methodology, professional training activities and the subjects' assessment of such activities. RESULTS: The preliminary survey pointed to both those contents of major interest among the cooks and the methodology. Professional training activities were designed as a 20-hour event for groups of about 35 people, taking place in school units. The activity program carried a number of different contents, including the National School Feeding Program, the school lunch cooks in the school feeding system, feeding and nutrition principles, and Good Manufacturing Practices. Methodological resources comprised dramatization, dialogued presentations, workshops, group contests, practical activities, interactive games, form completion, guided group activities and a printed brochure with all presentations. At the end of the event, an assessment was requested from the subjects as to the following features: content presentation, resources employed, pace of activities, question answering, content learning, positive and negative aspects as well as suggestions. CONCLUSION: The experiment showed the feasibility of building a new professional training model by using and valuing the contributions from the target subjects, thus allowing the reframing of traditional professional training practices and increasing the chances of success, since the subjects' specific demands were taken into account