Diversity is key to the more effective and equitable governance of marine protected areas

About the lecture

A target to conserve 30% of oceans by 2030 through designating marine protected areas (MPAs) has been agreed, yet the effectiveness of existing MPAs is often low, with few weakly implemented restrictions on impacting uses.

In this lecture, Emeritus Professor Peter Jones will look back at his research, looking at over 50 case studies of MPAs across 24 countries through the MPA governance empirical framework, drawing on the co-evolutionary governance of social-ecological systems concepts.

He’ll discuss how his work highlighted that:

1. There is a strong correlation between the effectiveness of MPAs and the number of governance incentives used.
2. Combinations of economic, legal, communication, knowledge and participatory incentives are shown to be employed in effective MPAs and mostly needed in less effective MPAs.
3. Whilst some incentives are frequently identified as being important to promote effectiveness, no particular ‘magic wand’ incentives guarantee this.

Professor Jones will explain how these findings show that effectiveness is not determined by any specific governance approaches or incentives, but rather the combination of a diversity of functionally integrated incentives, which interact with and support one another to promote MPA effectiveness, resilience and equity.

In simple terms, diversity is the key to resilience, both of species in ecosystems and incentives in governance systems.

About the speaker

Peter Jones joined UCL after completing his PhD in 1997. He specialises in research on the governance of human uses of marine ecosystems, with a focus on marine protected areas and marine spatial planning.

He takes an applied trans-disciplinary approach, critically building on common-pool resource governance through the concept of coevolutionary governance.

Throughout his career, he has advised many national and international organisations, including the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Convention on Biological Diversity, the European Commission and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Closer to his home, he chairs the Sussex Inshore Fisheries Conservation Authority.

UCL Department of Geography Open Lecture Series 2023/24

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