Can Habitat Protection Lead to Improvements in Human WellBeing

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Can Habitat Protection Lead to Improvements in
Human Well-Being?
Evidence from Marine Protected Areas in the
Philippines
Heidi Gjertsen April 24, 2003 Rural Livelihoods
and Biological Resources Seminar
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Introduction

• Causal relationships between poverty and
  environment are unclear
• Are there measures that can both alleviate
  poverty and halt environmental degradation, or
  are tradeoffs inevitable?
• When are win-win situations possible?
• Analysis of marine protected areas in the
  Philippines for coral reef protection

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Outline

• Introduction
• Study Area
• Data
• Ecosystem Health Indicators (coral reef surveys
  and interviews)
• Poverty Indicators (child anthropometric data)
• Environment/Poverty Outcomes
• MPA Design and Contextual Variables
  (interviews)
• Regression Analysis
• Conclusions
• Further Study

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The Study Area

• Philippines is located in center of marine
  biodiversity gt 400 species of hard corals, 1000
  species of fish
• Reef fisheries provide livelihoods for gt 1
  million people and contribute 1 billion to
  Philippine economy
• Less than 5 of Philippine reefs in excellent
  condition

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Damage
Images from ReefBase (www.reefbase.org)
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Poverty in the Philippines

• In 2001,
• 26 of population lives below national poverty
  line
• Infant mortality 31 per 1,000 live births
• 32 of children under 5 years old are
  malnourished
• (World Bank, 2002)

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Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)

• MPAs can provide protection against destructive
  fishing and overfishing, damage from divers,
  boats
• ? 500 MPAs in Philippines, representing variety
  of designs and levels of enforcement
• Only 20-25 of MPAs in Philippines are successful
  (Crawford et al., 2000)
• Can MPAs meet conservation objectives without
  trading-off development objectives?

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Coral Reef Surveys
Images from Remote Sensing Handbook for Tropical
Coastal Management http//www.unesco.org/csi/pub/s
ource/rs_plate_14.htm
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Measuring Coral Reef Health
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FishermenInterviews
Photo courtesy of Paulette Apurado
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Ecosystem Health Indicators
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Poverty Indicators
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Comparing Coral Reef Health and Childrens Health
Figure 1 Scatterplot between CHUWTOT2 (change in
percent underweight children) and CHMORT (change
in percent coral mortality)
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MPA Committee Interviews
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MPA Management and Local Context Variables
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MPA Management and Local Context Variables
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Effect of MPA Design on Outcomes
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Effect of MPA Design on Outcomes
Change in Predicted Probability of Improvement in
Resource Conditions Due to Change in Level of
Success Factors (1 standard deviation centered on
mean)
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Conclusions

• No simple, mechanistic relationship between coral
  reef health and childrens health --context
  matters
• Win-win situations are possible and some
  instruments may increase this likelihood, e.g.
  alternative income projects, paying patrollers
• Other instruments may impede poverty alleviation
  while having no positive effect on coral reefs,
  e.g. large fines
• In some cases, tradeoffs may be inevitable, e.g.
  boundary demarcation

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Further Study

• Investigate pre-MPA to 2002 time period
• Use factor analysis to combine several indicators
  into a single explanatory variable
• Longer time-series and additional sites

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Acknowledgments
AEM, Graduate School, Southeast Asia
Program Mario Einaudi Center for International
Studies
Miguel Castrence
Richard Pollnac R.A.s
Paulette Apurado Connie Miro Janet Moriles
Jonathan Apurado Martin Langevoord