Problem Scoping

MPAs are one of the most powerful tools that we have to conserve our marine environments and the livelihoods that depend on them, but only if they are achieving their ecological, socio-economic, and cultural objectives. Problem scoping helps to identify the problem that is being addressed or specific objective that is desired. It includes asking, “Is an MPA the right tool to achieve my objectives”. 

Often, MPAs are established for a specific objective but are designed or advertised to achieve different objectives. For example, an MPA established to support biodiversity protection and tourism, may not achieve fisheries objectives because the size or location does not support the recovery of target species populations. Additionally, if the MPA has been communicated to stakeholders as a tool to improve fish populations outside the MPA, it may not achieve this objective if it was initially designed to support tourism.

When sites and networks do not achieve their intended or perceived objectives over extended periods of time, we run the risk of contributing to the decline of ecological and socio-economic systems that MPAs are designed to protect. Additionally, we may also erode the trust of stakeholders who believe MPAs area tool to achieve their conservation and socio-economic objectives.

Understanding the Context of your MPA

Understanding what’s happening at your site and the external factors that will influence it prior to establishment, planning, or updating management plans will help ensure effectiveness and help you to make strategic decisions. Identifying enabling conditions, and ecological, socio-economic, cultural, and management baselines provides a foundation for developing strategic MPA design and actions that have a higher likelihood of supporting the objectives or purpose of the site. It also helps to identify and prioritize gaps that may need to be filled. 

Some factors are within the ability of a manager to identify and influence, such as threats to resources which can be reduced through regulatory or outreach initiatives. Other factors, including enabling conditions that support MPAs, may be beyond the control of managers such as:

• political will to provide funding and support for management

• local economic conditions that can reduce or modify dependence on marine resources

• policies that provide authority to relevant groups to manage a site 

While enabling conditions may be more challenging to assess and influence, they are necessary to support effective management.

Incorporating Management Effectiveness in Management Planning

During planning, information you’ve collected to understand the problem and context of the site, is used to make decisions that will ultimately guide your actions and the MPA’s management effectiveness. How the planning process is carried out and what is included in the plan and design of the MPA (or MPA network) will ultimately impact the success of the site. Therefore, planning or updating plans is a critical time to consider long-term effectiveness and how to get there. 

Plans are often perceived as long documents, but they don’t need to be. The best plan is the one that will be used! Even the simplest of plans however needs to be strategic – it needs to clearly identify the objectives of the site, the features and values that are to be protected and managed, and management actions that have the highest likelihood of conservation success. 

Planning processes can take a long time which can prohibit flexibility or adaptability to changing situations. To address this, a plan should include some components that remain the same over time (such as long-term objectives and desired outcomes), while other components can be reviewed and adjusted regularly (e.g., annually) to adapt to changing conditions. Strategies that may be adjusted include threat mitigation strategies and design elements of an MPA (e.g., zones that may need to be changed to accommodate changing climatic, ecological, or demographic conditions). Building flexibility into a management plan will help managers to adapt to both changing conditions and emerging issues.

Implementation of Management Actions

If the problem scoping, understanding your system, and MPA planning are done thoroughly and thoughtfully, then they should provide a roadmap for implementation. This is not to say that implementation is easy! Almost no site has enough resources to implement all the desired management actions. As such, activities being implemented should be determined through a planning or prioritization process to determine which actions have the greatest chance of meeting site objectives. Implementation activities may include: 

• stakeholder outreach and engagement; 

• compliance and enforcement activities; 

• actions to reduce threats; and 

• actions to build ecological and social resilience. 

Finally, implementing these actions often includes learning about good management practices, modifying them to fit the context of the site, and tracking progress to make necessary corrections as you go.

Evaluating and Adapting Management

Adaptive management is a widely used term in natural resource management today and is part of effective management practice. As defined by Salafsky et. al (2001) “Adaptive management incorporates research into conservation action. Specifically, it is the integration of design, management, and monitoring to systematically test assumptions in order to adapt and learn.” In other words, adaptive management provides an opportunity to identify what’s working well, what’s not, and decide on ways to modify site management to address challenges or emerging issues. 

No matter how limited resources may be, making time to reflect on the objectives or results that are expected to happen at the site and progress toward them, to make necessary changes is a useful and essential component of management effectiveness. Adaptive management can include a gathering of managers and stakeholders to discuss these aspects. If important questions about progress cannot be answered due to lack of data, finding ways to collect this data may become a new priority for management. This time also provides a critical opportunity to re-consider the objectives that the site was designed to address and consider whether the MPA alone is sufficient to achieve these objectives. If not, part of adapting management could include exploring ways to coordinate with management efforts outside the site such as MPA networks, fisheries management, or coastal zone management approaches.