Charging for Nature: Marine Park Fees and Management from a User Perspective

User fees can contribute to the financial sustainability of marine protected areas (MPAs), yet they must be acceptable to users. We explore changes in the fee system and management of Bonaire National Marine Park (BNMP) from the perspective of users. Responses from 393 tourists indicated that 90% were satisfied with park conditions and considered current user fees reasonable. However, only 47% of divers and 40% of non-divers were prepared to pay more. Diver willingness-to-pay (WTP) appears to have decreased since 1991, but this difference could be due in part to methodological differences between studies. Although current fees are close to diver maximum stated WTP, revenues could potentially be increased by improving the current fee system in ways that users deem acceptable. This potential surplus highlights the value of understanding user perceptions toward MPA fees and management

Quantitative criteria for choosing targets and indicators for sustainable use of ecosystems

The authors thank Simon Greenstreet, Cristina Herbon, Simon Jennings, Tiziana Luisetti, Lucille Paltriguera, and Christian Wilson for comments on previous versions of this paper. This work has resulted from the DEVOTES (DEVelopment Of innovative Tools for understanding marine biodiversity and assessing Good Environmental Status) project funded by the EU under the 7th Framework Programme, ‘The Ocean of Tomorrow’ Theme (No. 308392), www.devotes-project.eu. Further, A.G.R. was partially funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and the UK Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) within the Marine Ecosystems Research Program (MERP), C.P.L. by Defra (M1228), A.Z. by BIOsingle bondC3 within the joint Baltic Sea Research and Development Programme (EU 7th and Research Council of Lithuania, BONUS-1/2014), and M.C.U. by the Spanish Programme for talent and employability in I + D + i ‘Torres Quevedo’

Socio-cultural dimensions of marine spatial planning

Bringing together the complex social and cultural dimensions of marine spatial planning (MSP), this chapter examines how these two terms are applied (or not) in the context of MSP. Global marine and coastal planning continues to recognise that human activities must be considered in order to account for the dynamic interconnectivity between society and the sea. Many research fields explore the importance of the sea to identity, sense of place, health or community cohesion. However, these draw on a range of different assumptions to mainstream marine science and struggle to be incorporated into traditional policy processes, environmental assessments and large-scale planning processes. In this chapter, we interrogate the concept of ‘socio-cultural’, examining how this is being defined and applied across the MSP landscape

Community composition of hard-bottom macroinvertebrates in seven regional seas as measured using traditional and metabarcoding methods.

Community composition of hard-bottom macroinvertebrates in seven regional seas as measured using traditional and metabarcoding methods. •ASUs are promising devices to standardize sampling •Morphological identification at the class level can be easily and reliably done by a single person even for very different environments. It does not provide such discriminatory power as metabarcoding (at the species level) • Metabarcoding does not mimic traditional taxonomy but provides comparable results •We shall analyse the influence of environmental factors on this data se