Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation

Island communities, which rely on marine resources, are increasingly facing risks such as global climate change and overfishing, leading to lowered catch rates and biodiversity loss. This not only threatens ecosystems, but livelihoods as well; thus, sustainable ocean and fisheries management actions are critical in maintaining habitat integrity and increasing fish populations. Developing legal policy and restoring habitats are two important sustainability actions; however, these methods do not always ensure community buy-in or acceptance. A growing field in resource management involves the use of Behavior-Centered Design (BCD) and Community-Based Social Marketing (CBSM) to improve community involvement and adoption of management measures, working with communities to encourage behaviors that promote the sustainable use of ocean resources. BCD and CBSM combine how humans make decisions with steps to design programs to improve inclusion and collaboration, and enhance impact such as to increase successful adoption and implementation of conservation policies. It has been proven to be an effective tool, accelerating community support of sustainability initiatives. This project created a guidebook centered around implementing these behavioral approaches in the context of ocean and fisheries management, created with guidance from personale at the Waitt Institute, the Blue Azores Program, and the University of California San Diego. It will support conservation managers in their initiatives and outreach with communities by providing an easy-to-understand framework and knowledge base focused on behavioral approaches. The guide includes aspects such as successes and lessons learned in BCD throughout the industry, ethics and social justice,and strategies for implementation and testing for success. It presents a case study of São Miguel Island, a community with a rich culture of sustainability throughout history, as well as in current fisheries and ecosystem conservation programs. The island is in the Azores archipelago, an autonomous region located about 1000 miles off the coast of Portugal. A supplemental ArcGIS StoryMap web page was created to highlight the rich marine-based culture of communities on São, Miguel Island. The guide will act as a resource that can support marine managers in their initiatives, improving inclusion, equity, and increasing the chances of effecting long-term change.

Please see media created for this project here: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/a9faa311e62640a5b830b679cb80bb88