Making Waves: Myanmar's emerging marine conservation

Following decades of military rule, Myanmar has recently opened its borders, with democratic elections inaugurating in 2015. As the country emerges, opportunities are surfacing for conservation pitched against a tide of... [ view full abstract ]

Following decades of military rule, Myanmar has recently opened its borders, with democratic elections inaugurating in 2015. As the country emerges, opportunities are surfacing for conservation pitched against a tide of pressures from illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, poor land use practices, and environmentally damaging aquaculture to poor waste management. Strong commitments are being made to address biodiversity loss and to ensure biodiverse areas are managed sustainably. Central to this has been the development of the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, which, in alignment with Aichi Target 11, commits to have 10% of coastal and marine areas under effective, equitable management by 2020. While the target is ambitious, in the last several years Myanmar has made progress to gaining baseline marine knowledge through reviews of paper parks, broad-scale ecological surveys, identification of key biodiversity hotspots and threatened areas, and socio-economic assessments to understand resource use and livelihood vulnerabilities. Here we provide a summary of the wealth of biological and social data collected to date and how this is being used to guide management raise the profile of marine environments in Myanmar. Importantly we present how Myanmar’s move from top down to participatory approaches has led to active marine conservation. Most notably how this new equitable approach has driven the establishment of Myanmar’s first Locally Managed Marine Areas, promoted comprehensive consultations with local fishers and wider civil society for three new Marine Protected Areas and encouraged spatial planning for community based sustainable mangrove management.