What's Fair and Why? Empirical equity and customary marine management in Papua New Guinea

Justice is both ethically mandatory and a key ingredient for conservation success. Unfair conservation interventions and marine management can cause conflict, distrust and fail to produce biodiversity outcomes. Environmental... [ view full abstract ]

Justice is both ethically mandatory and a key ingredient for conservation success. Unfair conservation interventions and marine management can cause conflict, distrust and fail to produce biodiversity outcomes. Environmental justice provides a theoretical framework for investigating distributional, procedural, and recognitional justice in conservation. However, studies of empirical equity (i.e. what is considered fair on the ground) remain nascent, particularly in marine contexts. To fill this gap, I apply an environmental justice lens to two case studies of customary management of coral reefs in Papua New Guinea. Both cases have historical customary reef management systems and different ecological outcomes (one thriving, one struggling). Specifically, I examine what is considered fair in the distribution of benefits from and governance of coral reefs, and how governance manifests in practice. I then explore how marine conservation can identify and apply plural understandings of justice.

I find that social values and relationships shape conceptions of justice around reef management. For instance, unequal distributions of benefits are not necessarily considered unfair, and are tied to beliefs and values about luck, need, and hard work. In addition, deliberative decision-making is a key practice for negotiating the terms of just management. I argue that marine conservation must recognise that what counts as justice in one place may not count in another. To achieve socially just conservation, marine conservation needs to go beyond dichotomies of costs and benefits, or winners and losers, to identify what is fair, why, and the gap between these ideals and practice.