مقدمه : چارچوب تجربی برای شالوده شکنی واقعیت های حاکم بر مناطق حفاظت شده دریایی

Debates surrounding governance strategies for marine protected areas (MPAs) have to date largely focused on top-down, bottom-up or market-based approaches. Whilst co-management approaches for governing MPAs are widely accepted as a way forward for combining these three strategies, many interpretations of this concept exist and it is applied in many different ways in MPAs in different contexts. This study aimed to explore governance through a case-study approach based on a specifically developed empirical framework – the marine protected area governance (MPAG) analysis framework – to increase understanding of how to combine the three governance approaches. A dialogue with MPA practitioners in 20 case studies helped shape the MPAG analysis framework as it developed, and an international workshop was held on ‘Governing MPAs’, bringing the practitioners together to compare results and further develop the framework. This paper provides an overview of the topic and research methodology and briefly introduces the case studies further explored in this special issue.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) defines a marine protected area (MPA) as “a clearly defined geographical space, recognised, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values” [1]. Whilst the international community continues to push for protected area targets, including the Convention on Biological Diversity's target for 10% of marine areas under national jurisdiction to be protected by the year 2020, a wider and highly important question remains as to whether MPAs are effective in achieving their conservation objectives, and if not, whether and how this failure is related to the way(s) in which they are governed. Debates on the merits and downfalls of different approaches to governance have evolved with civilisation, and many influential thinkers have put forward arguments concerning the relative importance of top-down (regulation by the state), bottom-up (community-based), and market (economic incentives) approaches. There is a vast literature on the relative merits of these approaches and many definitions of governance. Indeed, the word ‘governance’ is derived from Plato's use of the Greek verb ‘to steer’ (The Republic, 360 BC), and another way to consider these debates is to examine how different ways of steering human affairs (Table 1) can be combined in order to achieve strategic societal objectives. For the purposes of this project, the following definition of governance was thereby considered most appropriate: “steering human behaviour through combinations of people, state and market incentives in order to achieve strategic objectives”. This definition is consistent with the growing recognition in governance debates that there is a need to move beyond ideological arguments as to which approach is ‘right’ or ‘best‘, and instead, develop governance models, frameworks and approaches that combine the steering role of states, markets and people [2]. Table 1. Three perspectives on sources of governance steer. Steer type Decisions taken by Characteristics State steer Governments and regulatory agencies Top-down decisions by state through laws and regulations, drawing on expert advice Market steer Markets and economic systems Decisions on basis of economic rationality through markets and/or implemented through economic incentives, including property rights People steer Civil society: people, social networks and related organisations Bottom-up decisions through deliberations amongst individuals, community/non-governmental organisations and social/family networks Table options Many social and political scientists have taken these debates forward through studies of natural resource governance approaches. However, many governance analyses, particularly those from a common-pool resource (CPR) perspective, drawing on neo-institutional theories, remain primarily focused on the role of people and civil society in self-organising social-ecological systems e.g. Ostrom [3], and resistant to the potential role of some degree and form of state coordination, control and/or regulation. This is consistent with Kjær's [4] observation that whilst governance analyses should consider the role of the government and state steer, since the 1980s governance has increasingly been considered by many analysts as being distinct from government in its focus on people and civil society. The research upon which this paper is based aims to move these debates forward through analyses of MPA case studies that are based less on theories and underpinning ideals, and more on the realities of such case studies, including an acceptance of the potential contribution of the state towards addressing the many challenges raised by MPAs in effectively achieving strategic conservation objectives [5]. Collaborative management (hereafter co-management) is a common concept or narrative that is employed in natural resource and protected area governance, whereby local communities and the state work on a partnership basis to sustainably manage natural resource use and/or conserve biodiversity, potentially involving all three of the governance approaches listed above. However, co-management arguably simply serves as a new framing device as to the relative emphasis that should be placed on the three approaches, rather than representing an answer to these debates. MPAs are an important focus for debates concerning how these different approaches can be combined in co-management. It is widely accepted that co-managing MPAs is the way forward, but there are many different interpretations of this concept and it is applied in many different ways amongst MPAs in different contexts. One way of considering the challenges of co-managing MPAs is to consider the question: what does the recommendation that the “design and management of MPAs must be both top-down and bottom-up” [6] actually mean in practice? The research upon which this paper draws was conceived to address this question by examining how different governance approaches are combined, through a detailed analysis of a range of MPA case studies. In examining the relative roles of top-down, bottom-up and market approaches to governance in these case studies, this project sought to explore the proposition that these approaches are applicable to different challenges in different contexts, and hence a combination of governance approaches is necessary to effectively achieve strategic conservation objectives. The initial proposal for this project was circulated amongst the membership of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA), and a pre-conference workshop was held at the second International Marine Protected Area Congress (IMPAC2) in Washington, DC in May 2009. Prior to the workshop, a governance analysis framework was developed as a proposal for analysing the case studies. This framework (discussed in more detail below) was subsequently refined, both in the light of discussions at the workshop and of feedback received from international MPA practitioners. During 2009–2010, project participants utilised the framework to analyse governance approaches in their case study MPAs, and in October 2010 a case study workshop was held in Lošinj, Croatia, hosted by the Blue World Institute and supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). This workshop focused on case study presentations based on applying the analytical framework, and a resulting UNEP technical report based on these analyses was published in 2011 [2].