Project: The true meaning of "success": Developing adaptive social-ecological frameworks for evaluation of marine protected areas

Description from NSF award abstract:
The project is supported under the NSF Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability Fellows (SEES Fellows) program, with the goal of helping to enable discoveries needed to inform actions that lead to environmental, energy and societal sustainability while creating the necessary workforce to address these challenges. Sustainability science is an emerging field that addresses the challenges of meeting human needs without harm to the environment, and without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. A strong scientific workforce requires individuals educated and trained in interdisciplinary research and thinking, especially in the area of sustainability science. With the SEES Fellowship support, this project will enable a promising early career researcher to establish herself in an independent research career related to sustainability. This project focuses on Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and biodiversity.

MPAs are widely prescribed to conserve marine biodiversity (by protecting marine habitats and species) and to ensure sustained production of marine resources. Currently, about 2.3% of the world's oceans are protected in MPAs. While there are recommendations to significantly increase this coverage, assessments suggest that existing MPAs have been largely ineffective at reaching ecological and social objectives. This project addresses the critical need to evaluate and promote MPA success.

This project incorporates interdisciplinary, multi-scale approaches to meaningfully contribute to the evaluation and management of MPAs as complex adaptive systems to:

1. Develop, test, and refine adaptable and informative social-ecological frameworks for evaluating MPA "success" at large- and local-scales;

2. Use frameworks to guide data collection and analyses of social-ecological attributes and MPA outcomes at sites in Baja California, Micronesia, and Myanmar;

3. Create metrics for comparably characterizing diverse MPA sites globally;

4. Collaborate with three open-access databases (MPAtlas, DataMARES, and the Information System for Small-scale Fisheries) on the presentation of final data and distribution of frameworks for future data collection;

5. Develop, test, and refine a streamlined, holistic toolkit and training module for collecting social and ecological data on selected priority indicators.

This effort builds upon and moves beyond previous MPA evaluation research, linking multiple disciplines and projects to develop conceptual frameworks and systematic, applied approaches for MPA evaluation and implementation that incorporate sustainability concepts. The SEES Fellow, Dr. Tara Whitty, works with host mentor Dr. Aburto Oropeza at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and with parnter mentor Dr. Ratana Chuenpagdee at Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland. NSF's International Science and Engineering (ISE) program has co-funded this project.