Relationship between food security and material assets in villages inside and outside five Indonesian marine protected areas (MPAs)

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are expected to have effects on local communities, including affecting food security levels and local economic conditions. Past studies in terrestrial villages indicate these parameters may... [ view full abstract ]

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are expected to have effects on local communities, including affecting food security levels and local economic conditions. Past studies in terrestrial villages indicate these parameters may influence each other. This study aims to see if this is also present in villages within and nearby MPAs. The study uses baseline data from a WWF-Indonesia led large scale and long-term socio-economic monitoring on the impact of MPAs, sampling 109 villages both inside and outside five MPAs within Indonesia’s Sunda Banda Seascape. Analysis results indicate no significant difference (α=0.05) in means of baseline food security and material assets indexes between villages inside and outside MPAs. This lack of difference is expected for a baseline data and the MPAs are newly established. Analysis results also indicate a significant relationship (α=0.05) between material asset index and food security index levels for all sampled villages. This was also detected when only villages located within MPAs was analyzed, while no significant effect (α=0.05) was detected when only villages outside MPAs was analyzed. This suggests that the level of household economic conditions significantly affects a household’s access to food resources, which seems more significant in villages located within MPAs, possibly in relation to differing main sources of income between the villages. Further investigation is needed to flesh out the relationships between different socio-economic parameters in coastal villages, and that continuous monitoring would be needed to ascertain whether the MPAs significantly impacts the socio-economic conditions of local communities.