A Social Relational Network Perspective for MPA Science

Multilayer biological networks to upscale marine research to global change-smart management and sustainable resource use

Human activities are having a massive negative impact on biodiversity and ecological processes worldwide. The rate and magnitude of ecological transformations induced by climate change, habitat destruction, overexploitation and pollution are now so substantial that a sixth mass extinction event is currently underway. The biodiversity crisis of the Anthropocene urges scientists to put forward a transformative vision to promote the conservation of biodiversity, and thus indirectly the preservation of ecosystem functions. Here, we identify pressing issues in global change biology research and propose an integrative framework based on multilayer biological networks as a tool to support conservation actions and marine risk assessments in multi-stressor scenarios. Multilayer networks can integrate different levels of environmental and biotic complexity, enabling us to combine information on molecular, physiological and behaviour responses, species interactions and biotic communities. The ultimate aim of this framework is to link human-induced environmental changes to species physiology, fitness, biogeography and ecosystem impacts across vast seascapes and time frames, to help guide solutions to address biodiversity loss and ecological tipping points. Further, we also define our current ability to adopt a widespread use of multilayer networks within ecology, evolution and conservation by providing examples of case-studies. We also assess which approaches are ready to be transferred and which ones require further development before use. We conclude that multilayer biological networks will be crucial to inform (using reliable multi-levels integrative indicators) stakeholders and support their decision-making concerning the sustainable use of resources and marine conservation.

Indicators are Relational: Navigating Knowledge and Power in the Development and Implementation of Coastal-Marine Indicators

In many environment and resource management contexts (e.g., integrated coastal management, ecosystem-based fisheries management), indicator selection and development are perceived as a largely technical, bureaucratic, and scientific challenge. As such, choices about indicators and their application are often treated as external from everyday politics and dynamics of social power. Our aim here is to highlight the value of a relational perspective that weaves power and knowledge together in the context of indicator development and implementation. We highlight four critical dimensions of this relational perspective that may lead to better indicator process outcomes: 1) centering identity and positionality to reflect power differentials; 2) emphasizing the importance of indicator 'fit' and the politics of scale; 3) engaging rather than erasing social-ecological complexity; and 4) reflecting on social norms and relationships to foster adaptation and learning. These four dimensions are rarely considered in most indicator initiatives, including those that are more participatory in design and implementation. The dimensions we outline here emerge from the grounded experience of managers and practitioners, including indicator processes in which we are currently engaged, as well as a scoping review of the literature on indicators for coastal and marine governance and conservation specifically. However, the four dimensions and relational focus are relevant to a wide range of resource and environmental management contexts and provide a pathway to catalyze more effective indicator processes for decision-making and governance more generally.

Envisioning ocean governability transformations through network-based marine spatial planning

The globally accelerating environmental crisis calls for radical changes in the governance of ocean resources towards a more sustainable and socially equitable world. Transdisciplinary sustainability research and networked knowledge-to-action approaches are critical parts of this change. The effective application of such approaches still puzzles social actors (individuals and networks) willing to act in more transformative ways. We conducted twelve participatory network mapping activities to assess the perception of high-level federal government institutional entrepreneurs on the structure and dynamics of an emerging socio-political arena for marine spatial planning (MSP) in Brazil. Our informants, mostly cognizant of their own intra-governmental structures, anticipate the MSP arena to remain self-enclosed, with changes only occurring within the federal government structures in the coming years. Their perceptions were largely conservative, narrow, and unambitious and therefore unfit to generate regime transformations. The limited awareness of response capacities beyond the federal government potentially leads to the endurement of the low performance already present in the MSP arena. Results from the participatory network mapping informed a five-step functional ocean governability analysis pointing to key potential contributions to support a critical turn in MSP: 1. envision situated interactional narratives to leverage regime shifts; 2. build a shared understanding of and anticipating transformative coevolutionary dynamics; 3. build awareness of the potential synergies among disparate but innovative area-based responses; 4. specify inter-network-based limitations and the necessary changes underpinning potential leaps in performance levels of ocean governance orders; 5. make power asymmetries explicit to stir structurally tailored strategic action by less influential groups. We discuss the potential role of inter-network strategies and actions and how they may confront the symptoms of depoliticized MSP pathways and the risks of it becoming an instrument of further marginalisation and power asymmetry in Brazil.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40152-021-00250-1.

Navigating protected areas networks for improving diffusion of conservation practices

The Natura 2000 protected area network is the cornerstone of European Union's biodiversity conservation strategy. These protected areas range across multiple biogeographic regions, and they include a diversity of species assemblages along with a diversity of managing organizations, altogether making difficult to pool relevant sites to facilitate the flow of knowledge significant to their management. Here we introduce an approach to navigating protected area networks that has the potential to foster systematic identification of key sites for facilitating the exchange of knowledge and diffusion of information within the network. To demonstrate our approach, we abstractly represented Romanian Natura 2000 network as a co-occurrence network, with individual sites as nodes and shared species as edges, further combining into our analysis network topology, community detection, and network reduction methods. We identified most representative Natura 2000 sites that may increase the transfer of information within the national network of protected areas, detected clusters of sites and key sites for maintaining network cohesiveness, and highlighted the subsample of sites that retain the characteristics of the entire network. Our analysis provides implications for protected area prioritization by proposing a network perspective approach to collaboration rooted in ecological principles.

Using a social-ecological framework to inform the implementation of conservation plans

One of the key determinants of success in biodiversity conservation is how well conservation planning decisions account for the social system in which actions are to be implemented. Understanding elements of how the social and ecological systems interact can help identify opportunities for implementation. Utilizing data from a large-scale conservation initiative in southwestern of Australia, we explored how a social-ecological system framework can be applied to identify how social and ecological factors interact to influence the opportunities for conservation. Using data from semistructured interviews, an online survey, and publicly available data, we developed a conceptual model of the social-ecological system associated with the conservation of the Fitz-Stirling region. We used this model to identify the relevant variables (remnants of vegetation, stakeholder presence, collaboration between stakeholders, and their scale of management) that affect the implementation of conservation actions in the region. We combined measures for these variables to ascertain how areas associated with different levels of ecological importance coincided with areas associated with different levels of stakeholder presence, stakeholder collaboration, and scales of management. We identified areas that could benefit from different implementation strategies, from those suitable for immediate conservation action to areas requiring implementation over the long term to increase on-the-ground capacity and identify mechanisms to incentivize implementation. The application of a social-ecological framework can help conservation planners and practitioners facilitate the integration of ecological and social data to inform the translation of priorities for action into implementation strategies that account for the complexities of conservation problems in a focused way.

Evaluating the success of a marine protected area: A systematic review approach

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), marine areas in which human activities are restricted, are implemented worldwide to protect the marine environment. However, with a large proportion of these MPAs being no more than paper parks, it is important to be able to evaluate MPA success, determined by improvements to biophysical, socio-economic and governance conditions. In this study a systematic literature review was conducted to determine the most frequently used indicators of MPA success. These were then applied to a case study to demonstrate how success can be evaluated. The fifteen most frequently used indicators included species abundance, level of stakeholder participation and the existence of a decision-making and management body. Using the indicator framework with a traffic light system, we demonstrate how an MPA can be evaluated in terms of how well it performs against the indicators using secondary data from the literature. The framework can be used flexibly. For example, where no MPA data currently exist, the framework can be populated by qualitative data provided by local stakeholder knowledge. This system provides a cost-effective and straightforward method for managers and decision-makers to determine the level of success of any MPA and identify areas of weakness. However, given the variety of motivations for MPA establishment, this success needs to be determined in the context of the original management objectives of the MPA with greater weighting being placed on those objectives where appropriate.