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Perceptions of Rule-Breaking Related to Marine Ecosystem Health

Finding effective solutions to manage marine resources is high on political and conservation agendas worldwide. This is made more urgent by the rate of increase in the human population and concomitant resource pressures in coastal areas. This paper links empirical socio-economic data about perceptio...

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Autores principales: Slater, Matthew J., Mgaya, Yunus D., Stead, Selina M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3937321/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24586558
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0089156
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author Slater, Matthew J.
Mgaya, Yunus D.
Stead, Selina M.
author_facet Slater, Matthew J.
Mgaya, Yunus D.
Stead, Selina M.
author_sort Slater, Matthew J.
collection PubMed
description Finding effective solutions to manage marine resources is high on political and conservation agendas worldwide. This is made more urgent by the rate of increase in the human population and concomitant resource pressures in coastal areas. This paper links empirical socio-economic data about perceptions of marine resource health to the breaking of marine management rules, using fisheries as a case study. The relationship between perceived rule-breaking (non-compliance with regulations controlling fishing) and perceived health of inshore marine environments was investigated through face-to-face interviews with 299 heads of households in three Tanzanian coastal communities in November and December 2011. Awareness of rules controlling fishing activity was high among all respondents. Fishers were able to describe more specific rules controlling fishing practices than non-fishers (t = 3.5, df = 297, p<0.01). Perceived breaking of fishing regulations was reported by nearly half of all respondents, saying “some” (32% of responses) or “most” (15% of responses) people break fishing rules. Ordinal regression modelling revealed a significant linkage (z = −3.44, p<0.001) in the relationship between respondents' perceptions of deteriorating marine health and their perception of increased rule-breaking. In this paper, inferences from an empirical study are used to identify and argue the potential for using perceptions of ecosystem health and level of rule-breaking as a means to guide management measures. When considering different management options (e.g. Marine Protected Areas), policy makers are advised to take account of and utilise likely egoistic or altruistic decision-making factors used by fishers to determine their marine activities.
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spelling pubmed-39373212014-03-04 Perceptions of Rule-Breaking Related to Marine Ecosystem Health Slater, Matthew J. Mgaya, Yunus D. Stead, Selina M. PLoS One Research Article Finding effective solutions to manage marine resources is high on political and conservation agendas worldwide. This is made more urgent by the rate of increase in the human population and concomitant resource pressures in coastal areas. This paper links empirical socio-economic data about perceptions of marine resource health to the breaking of marine management rules, using fisheries as a case study. The relationship between perceived rule-breaking (non-compliance with regulations controlling fishing) and perceived health of inshore marine environments was investigated through face-to-face interviews with 299 heads of households in three Tanzanian coastal communities in November and December 2011. Awareness of rules controlling fishing activity was high among all respondents. Fishers were able to describe more specific rules controlling fishing practices than non-fishers (t = 3.5, df = 297, p<0.01). Perceived breaking of fishing regulations was reported by nearly half of all respondents, saying “some” (32% of responses) or “most” (15% of responses) people break fishing rules. Ordinal regression modelling revealed a significant linkage (z = −3.44, p<0.001) in the relationship between respondents' perceptions of deteriorating marine health and their perception of increased rule-breaking. In this paper, inferences from an empirical study are used to identify and argue the potential for using perceptions of ecosystem health and level of rule-breaking as a means to guide management measures. When considering different management options (e.g. Marine Protected Areas), policy makers are advised to take account of and utilise likely egoistic or altruistic decision-making factors used by fishers to determine their marine activities. Public Library of Science 2014-02-27 /pmc/articles/PMC3937321/ /pubmed/24586558 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0089156 Text en © 2014 Slater et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Slater, Matthew J.
Mgaya, Yunus D.
Stead, Selina M.
Perceptions of Rule-Breaking Related to Marine Ecosystem Health
title Perceptions of Rule-Breaking Related to Marine Ecosystem Health
title_full Perceptions of Rule-Breaking Related to Marine Ecosystem Health
title_fullStr Perceptions of Rule-Breaking Related to Marine Ecosystem Health
title_full_unstemmed Perceptions of Rule-Breaking Related to Marine Ecosystem Health
title_short Perceptions of Rule-Breaking Related to Marine Ecosystem Health
title_sort perceptions of rule-breaking related to marine ecosystem health
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3937321/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24586558
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0089156
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