Catalyzing sustainable fisheries management through behavior change interventions.

Small-scale fisheries are an important livelihood and primary protein source for coastal communities in many of the poorest regions in the world, yet many are overfished and thus require effective and scalable management solutions. Positive ecological and socioeconomic responses to management typically lag behind immediate costs borne by fishers from fishing pressure reductions necessary for fisheries recovery. These short-term costs challenge the long-term success of these interventions. However, social marketing may increase perceptions of management benefits before ecological and socioeconomic benefits are fully realized, driving new social norms and ultimately long-term sustainable behavior change. By conducting underwater visual surveys to quantify ecological conditions and by conducting household surveys with community members to quantify their perceptions of management support and socioeconomic conditions, we assessed the impact of a standardized small-scale fisheries management intervention that was implemented across 41 sites in Brazil, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The intervention combines TURF reserves (community-based territorial use rights for fishing coupled with no-take marine reserves) with locally tailored social-marketing behavior change campaigns. Leveraging data across 22 indicators and 4 survey types, along with data from 3 control sites, we found that ecological and socioeconomic impacts varied and that communities supported the intervention and were already changing their fishing practices. These results suggest that communities were developing new social norms and fishing more sustainably before long-term ecological and socioeconomic benefits of fisheries management materialized.

Catalización del Manejo de Pesquerías Sustentables por medio de Intervenciones de Cambio de Comportamiento Resumen Las pesquerías a pequeña escala son un sustento importante y la principal fuente de proteína para las comunidades costeras en muchas de las regiones más pobres del mundo, sin embargo, muchas sufren de sobrepesca y por lo tanto requieren soluciones de manejo efectivas y escalables. Las respuestas ecológicas y socioeconómicas positivas al manejo generalmente se retrasan con respecto a los costos inmediatos asumidos por los pescadores a partir de las reducciones de la presión ocasionada por la pesca necesarias para la recuperación de la pesquería. Estos costos a corto plazo son un reto para el éxito a largo plazo de las intervenciones. Sin embargo, la mercadotecnia social puede incrementar las percepciones de los beneficios del manejo antes de que se conozcan por completo los beneficios ecológicos y socioeconómicos, lo que genera nuevas normas sociales y finalmente un cambio en el comportamiento a largo plazo. Realizamos censos submarinos visuales para cuantificar las condiciones ecológicas y censos domésticos a los miembros de la comunidad para cuantificar sus percepciones del apoyo al manejo y de las condiciones socioeconómicas. Con esto, evaluamos el impacto de la intervención de manejo para pesquerías estandarizadas a pequeña escala que fue implementada en 41 sitios de Brasil, Indonesia y las Filipinas. La intervención combina las reservas TURF (derechos de uso de pesca territorial basados en la comunidad acoplados con reservas marinas con restricción de pesca) con campañas de mercadotecnia social para el cambio de comportamiento ajustadas al contexto local. Con la movilización de datos a lo largo de 22 indicadores y cuatro tipos de censos, junto con los datos de tres sitios de control, encontramos que los impactos ecológicos y socioeconómicos variaron y que las comunidades apoyaban la intervención y ya se encontraban cambiando sus prácticas de pesca. Estos resultados sugieren que las comunidades ya estaban desarrollando nuevas normas sociales y pescando de manera más sustentable antes de que los beneficios ecológicos y socioeconómicos a largo plazo del manejo de las pesquerías se materializaran.

Body size shifts in philippine reef fishes: interfamilial variation in responses to protection.

As a consequence of intense fishing pressure, fished populations experience reduced population sizes and shifts in body size toward the predominance of smaller and early maturing individuals. Small, early-maturing fish exhibit significantly reduced reproductive output and, ultimately, reduced fitness. As part of resource management and biodiversity conservation programs worldwide, no-take marine protected areas (MPAs) are expected to ameliorate the adverse effects of fishing pressure. In an attempt to advance our understanding of how coral reef MPAs meet their long-term goals, this study used visual census data from 23 MPAs and fished reefs in the Philippines to address three questions: (1) Do MPAs promote shifts in fish body size frequency distribution towards larger body sizes when compared to fished reefs? (2) Do MPA size and (3) age contribute to the efficacy of MPAs in promoting such shifts? This study revealed that across all MPAs surveyed, the distribution of fishes between MPAs and fished reefs were similar; however, large-bodied fish were more abundant within MPAs, along with small, young-of-the-year individuals. Additionally, there was a significant shift in body size frequency distribution towards larger body sizes in 12 of 23 individual reef sites surveyed. Of 22 fish families, eleven demonstrated significantly different body size frequency distributions between MPAs and fished reefs, indicating that shifts in the size spectrum of fishes in response to protection are family-specific. Family-level shifts demonstrated a significant, positive correlation with MPA age, indicating that MPAs become more effective at increasing the density of large-bodied fish within their boundaries over time.