Finding Common Ground: A Seminar for Marine Protected Area Managers and Fishing Communities
June 2004
Implemented by CANARI
Photo courtesy: Nicholas Drayton. |
The Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI), together with the Negril Coral Reef Preservation
Society and the University of Puerto Rico’s Sea Grant College Program, organised a meeting in Negril,
Jamaica in June 2004 to explore ways that Caribbean marine protected areas (MPAs) can make a
more meaningful contribution to sustainable development of coastal communities. The meeting
brought together managers of MPAs and representatives of fishing communities from throughout
the Caribbean to discuss the conflicts that have divided them, look at options for increasing local benefits
from MPAs, and search for ways to create more positive relations between MPAs and coastal communities.
The discussions revealed that in the ten to twenty years that MPAs have been used as a tool for coastal management
in the Caribbean, the reality of experience has made most MPA managers increasingly sensitive and responsive to local
issues and needs. Fishers, who were often marginalised in the initial stages of MPA planning, have become important
management partners because of their large stake in the success of management measures that affect fisheries.
Many MPAs in the Caribbean have made a positive difference for fishers, but they cannot address all the threats
that fishers face, especially those that come from the transformations of coastal areas as a result of tourism development.
These new uses also threaten the sustainability of coastal resources, making MPA managers and fishers, along with more
enlightened elements of the tourism sector, natural allies. The seminar drew on participant experience to develop guidance on
how MPAs, fishing communities, and others can work together to assure the sustainability of coastal resources and livelihoods that depend on them.
For a full report on the seminar, click here.
|
|