Embedding community reality in marine spatial planning: can communities and their experiences be better captured in MSP?

Marine spatial planning (MSP) is a process for identifying conflicting uses and ecosystem threats, detecting sites where management interventions may be most prudent, and facilitating coordinated decision-making in management.... [ view full abstract ]

Marine spatial planning (MSP) is a process for identifying conflicting uses and ecosystem threats, detecting sites where management interventions may be most prudent, and facilitating coordinated decision-making in management. MSP has traditionally relied on secondary socio-economic data to quantify social systems; however, such an approach has been acknowledged as being insufficient in conducting socially-grounded MSP that should also reflect communities’ reality. This approach may yield recommendations for management that are less feasible within a local community, and therefore possibly less effective. 

Here we discuss an approach to MSP that is informed by the use of community-centric data, incorporating the ability and willingness of communities to participate in management interventions. This allows decision-makers to strategically invest in interventions where compliance is likely high, and interventions are likely effective.  Embedding community reality early in the MSP process is a step toward bridging the research-implementation gap. 

This talk explores the use of community-centric social data in MSP research and considers possible improvements to management interventions via the inclusion of this data. Through comparison of quantitative and qualitative methods among MSP literature, common themes for the current use of social data in MSP are discussed and recommendations for a stronger inclusion of community-centric data are made.