Human Dimensions MPAs

Photo: Chanan Weiss

This research project is groundbreaking in its aim to challenge current resource-oriented approaches to Marine Protected Area (MPA) and small-scale fisheries governance in South Africa. While ecological and fisheries science knowledge is often prioritised in terms of informing resource management objectives and decisions, this research project aims to clarify and understand the human dimensions of fisheries systems and how to integrate this information with ecological objectives in order to develop a more integrated approach to governance.

Increasingly, international literature and experience indicates that social factors, not ecological or physical variables, are the primary determinants of both MPA success and sustainable fisheries. It is argued that the ecological and fisheries management objectives of marine protection and conservation will not be achieved, nor sustained, without adequate understanding and integration of the human dimensions of fisheries systems. Thus, an investigation of MPAs, in relation to small-scale fisheries, will be the focus of this research in order to understand the human dimensions of such systems and to develop a more integrated approach to fisheries planning, management and implementation.

This focus on understanding and integrating the human dimensions in all aspects of MPA planning and implementation is reflected in a range of international, regional and national legislative and policy instruments that emphasise that attention to the human dimensions is not a matter of choice, but is an imperative consistent with key human rights and environmental commitments, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg Plan of Action) and the Millennium Development Goals. This project, therefore, aims to develop a conceptual framework and a set of guidelines for understanding and integrating human dimensions into MPA planning and management in relation to small-scale fisheries governance in South Africa.