Journal
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS
Volume 16, Issue 12, Pages -Publisher
IOP Publishing Ltd
DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac3439
Keywords
enforcement; environmental institutions; marine conservation; marine reserves; market-based interventions; sustainable financing; sustainable development goals
Funding
- Waitt Foundation
- Dirk and Charlene Kabcenell Foundation
- CONACyT (CVU) [669403]
- UCMexus-CONACyT
- Latin American Fisheries Fellowship Program
- University of Colorado Boulder
- Oceans 5
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Marine protected areas are important for conservation, but the increase in fish biomass within MPAs creates incentives for poaching. Fishing activities persist in most MPAs worldwide, raising concerns about monitoring and enforcement. A proposal for a Conservation Finance Area (CFA) utilizes leased fishing zones within MPAs to finance monitoring and enforcement, leading to greater conservation success.
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are an important tool for conservation but can be victims of their own success-higher fish biomass within MPAs create incentives to poach. This insight underpins the finding that fishing persists in most MPAs worldwide, and it raises questions about MPA monitoring and enforcement. We propose a novel institution to enhance MPA design-a 'Conservation Finance Area (CFA)'-that utilizes leased fishing zones inside of MPAs, fed by spillover, to finance monitoring and enforcement and achieve greater conservation success. Using a bioeconomic model we show that CFAs can fully finance enforcement, deter illegal fishing, and ultimately maximize fish biomass. Moreover, we show that unless a large, exogenous, and perpetual enforcement budget is available, implementing a CFA in a no-take MPA would always result in higher biomass than without. We also explore real-world enabling conditions, providing a plausible funding pathway to improve outcomes for existing and future MPAs.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available