A guide for planners and managers - IUCN

PART I
Strategies and Tools
Marine conservation is often unacceptable to local coastal communities, especially
those who have been displaced or whose productive opportunities have been reduced as
a result of an area gaining protected status. The development of new products and
markets, geared specifically towards replacing unsustainable activities and adding value
to marine protection, can provide a strong positive incentive for supporting conservation,
or for avoiding degradation. For example in the Bazaruto Archipelago of Mozambique,
one of the country’s most valuable and fragile marine ecosystems, a number of activities
have been started which aim to stimulate sustainable use by local communities (Reina,
1998). These are focused on eco-tourism and artisanal resource utilisation, which are being
promoted specifically to compensate local villagers for the loss of land and fishing
resources resulting from the establishment of a National Park. Simultaneously a range
of new activities are being promoted, including permaculture and vegetable farming, which
aim to take pressure of marine resources.
A broad range of economic instruments have been suggested for the Seychelles which
have the goal of encouraging commercial and industrial producers to avoid marine
biodiversity degradation in the course of their economic activities (Emerton, 1997). It is
proposed that beach waste deposits be levied on hoteliers, refundable against cleanup,
and that a mooring bond could be set for tour operators against the use of designated
anchors and buoys so as to guard against reef degradation. A variable scale of fishing licence
fees according to target species and fishing methods aims to promote sustainable fishing
practices, and a series of tax concessions and waived import duties on waste disposal
equipment and clean technologies are proposed for industries operating in the coastal
strip.
Financing mechanisms: making marine protected areas sustainable
Proving the total economic value of marine ecosystems and setting in place
economic incentives for marine conservation, although necessary, do not usually by
themselves provide sufficient conditions to ensure that marine protected areas are
practically viable, or can be sustained over the long-term. Showing that marine
protected areas benefit the wider economy and society, or can be made to be profitable
to individual producers and consumers, is not the same thing as capturing these benefits
as real cash values. The establishment and maintenance of marine protected areas
incurs tangible cash expenditures, as well as giving rise to more intangible opportunity
costs in terms of resource uses and productive opportunities foregone or diminished.
Making sufficient funds available to cover these costs is a major issue in marine
protected area management.
It is commonly and optimistically, but often mistakenly, assumed that a
combination of central government subventions, donor grants and loans and tourist
revenues will provide adequate funds to cover the costs of running marine protected
areas. This is rarely the case (see Box I-14). Just as many of the economic benefits
associated with marine protected areas have traditionally been underestimated and
underemphasized, so have many more of the more imaginative and sustainable ways
of raising finance also been ignored.
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