Protected Marine Areas: Striking A Balance Between Ocean Conservation And Peoples Livelihood

By Femi Akinola

Marine protected areas in Africa and across the world have an identity crisis, though for some, they are the answer to all marine conservation challenges.

Marine protected areas are a critical tool in ocean conservation. Without them, humanity stands to lose biodiversity and economic opportunities. Oceans are critical in every human being’s survival.

Protected areas prevent habitat destruction and unsuitable resource extraction, and provide resilience against climate change.

However, to others, they epitomise all that is wrong in conservation. They can deprive people of livelihoods and rights. People may lose income, food and social opportunities.

The middle of the road is hard to find. How then can both people and nature be accommodated in Marine Environment?

Reports have it that South Africa has an impressive record of marine biological research in protected areas, but the country has not been paying due attention to the human aspects.

The study on the country’s protected marine areas highlighted the very different perceptions people have of the value of marine protected areas.

Recently, a research conducted into the subject by the trio of Judy Mann-Lang and Bruce Quitin Mann, of Oceanographic Research Institute (South African Assocition for Marine Biological Research), and George Branch of University of Cape Town, gave an insight into effectiveness of South Africa’s marine protected areas for people’s understanding.

The extensive ecological research carried out in South Africa on marine protected areas revealed there are currently 41 marine protected areas around mainland South Africa. They protect a total of 5.4% of its ocean territory.

The ecological research showed that, together, these protected areas provide 87% of the marine ecotypes found round South Africa.

While the researchers knew quite more about the ecological effectiveness of marine protected area, far is less known about the social and economic effects.

NatureNews found out that this gap in knowledge is not restricted to South Africa alone but the world at large..

According to the research paper made public by these researchers,, ”It’s only recently that socio-economic issues have been considered more formally. But there’s increasing evidence of the close correlation between the ecological performance of marine protected areas and local social factors.

The evidence highlights the importance of building social and economic considerations into the planning, design, implementation and monitoring of these areas.

”Our analysis showed that most marine protected areas declared before 2019 didn’t include any specific objectives directly related to people or their needs. But more recently declared areas all have either social or economic objectives, or both.

”We also found that social or economic research had been undertaken in less than half of the country’s 23 costal parks. This means their managers know very little about the people who stand to benefit or lose from the marine protected areas.”

This research reveals that conservationists and managers are yet to understand the complex interactions between people and protected areas. These protected areas usually have social, ecological and governance objectives.

An understanding of these must be integrated into conservationists and environment manager’s consciousness to enhance benefits to both people and the environment.

The researchers opined that when human and biological considerations are uncoupled, it leads to frustration and anger, which undermines conservation efforts. Without a better understanding of people, why they do what they do, and how to communicate effectively, many of the challenges facing conservation management will remain unresolved.