Stakeholder Buy-In to Marine and Coastal Resource Management

Abstract

Many marine and coastal resources can be classed common pool resources and are thus challenging to manage, especially where central government capacity is limited. As a result, marine and coastal resource management often 1) depends on stakeholders’ cooperation with management efforts, and 2) involves systems of complex governance, in which multiple actors including resource users, local communities, local nonprofits, government across levels, and international non-profits and funders work together to undertake management. International non-governmental conservation organizations (INGOs) are prevalent in such settings, working across levels to increase the sustainability and conservation value of resource management, often with the explicit intent of increasing stakeholder buy-in – that is, attitudes towards, support for, willingness to engage in, and willingness to comply with management. Yet little research to date has examined how INGO involvement, and in particular INGO direct engagement with users and other stakeholders, influences buy-in. The three papers presented in this dissertation seek to address this gap by presenting research derived from a novel synthesis of common pool resource theory, theories of participation, and theories of NGOs. Paper 1 presents results of an experimental test of an INGO-supported decision-support tool, FishPath, which solicits stakeholder knowledge to better specify management options in data- and capacity-limited fisheries. Thirty-two Australian fishery stakeholders participated in the test. FishPath use significantly increased both the perceived ease and perceived effectiveness of management; stakeholders’ support for management trended upwards but the increase was not significant. Paper 2 presents content and process-tracing analysis of document (n=4) and original interview data (n=46) to examine how INGOs influence community-level incentives for the adoption and implementation of community-based marine and coastal resource management (CBM) in Fiji. INGO activities increase the perceived benefits of both adoption and implementation. However, implementation is experienced as much more costly by community members; INGO activities are not always sufficient to incentivize full implementation of CBM. Paper 3 applies process-tracing and content analysis to the same documents and original interviews analyzed in Paper 2, exploring how INGOs influence resource user participation in Fijian CBM decision making. Despite rhetorical support for increased participation, and the creation of new advisory and implementation structures, INGOs do not broaden user participation in decision-making, which remains in the hands of traditional elite decision-makers who may or may not be responsive to community needs. Furthermore, where community members perceive that they have been excluded from decision-making and their needs left unmet, implementation of CBM appears more likely to fail. Together, the three papers highlight ways in which INGOs successfully increase stakeholder buy-in to marine and coastal resource management, as well as gaps in current INGO efforts. Together, these papers demonstrate the benefits of focused inquiry into the activities of INGOs and other actors engaged in complex governance of marine and coastal resource management, how those activities are experienced by resource users, and how resource users’ experiences in turn influence management outputs and outcomes.