Title:
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Improving marine protected area planning processes through the transparent incorporation of fisher-derived data
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Northern Ireland, like many other nations, has made high-level commitments to
improving marine management and conserving biodiversity through the
development of a representative network of marine protected areas (MPAs).
However progress to fulfil commitments was found to be hampered by complex
governance, poor interdepartmental cooperation and lack of political will.
Stakeholder participation is a vital component of MPA planning and implementation,
and the successes of MPA designation is greatly affected by fisher buy-in and
compliance. This Thesis presents a novel participatory mapping method, which was
used to directly engage fishers in the development of quantitative pre-planning data
on their spatial access priorities. Data on the perceptions of fishers' and their
thoughts on marine management, including MPA site suggestions, were also
gathered.
Stakeholder engagement and the incorporation of stakeholder data should facilitate
the development of MPA planning solutions that have a reduced negative impact on
stakeholders. This assertion was tested with the fisher-derived data. Multiple MPA
planning scenarios were developed and the benefit of incorporating both
quantitative and qualitative fisher data was clearly demonstrated on planning
solutions. A novel approach of transparent inclusion of stakeholder MPA
suggestions into decision-support software was also proposed.
MPAs and fisheries face increasing competition for space from emerging ocean uses.
Building upon previous strategic conservation planning-based approaches to ocean
zoning, planning scenarios were developed to simultaneously optimise space
allocations for MPAs, renewable energy generation and fisheries. The approach
enabled explicit assessment of the trade-offs between competing uses, which should
help increase the transparency and defensibility of planning decisions. It was also
established that co-location of marine industries can significantly affect both the
cost and the spatial configuration of marine planning solutions. The use of the
insights and tools developed in this Thesis should contribute to improved MPA
planning processes and help reduce the amount of conflict associated with planning
solutions.
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