Shankar Aswani

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• Shankar Aswani
• Associate Professor
• University of California, Santa Barbara
• Department of Anthropology and
• Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Marine
  Science
• Main Research Interests Ecological Anthropology,
  Human Behavioral Ecology, Property Rights of
  insular coastal groups, indigenous ecological
  knowledge of populations in Melanesia and the
  Insular Pacific in general and tropical marine
  ecology.
• Areas of research Solomon Islands, Marquesas,
  Tonga, and Hawaii

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Research Objectives (1992-to date)

• 1. The transformation of regional demographic
  patterns and their impact on common-property
  institutions (regional census, ascertaining
  coefficients of relatedness, and genealogical
  demography)
• 2. Regional spatial patterns of settlement and
  their resulting tenurial configurations
  (interviews and GIS)
• 3. The impact of changing consumption patterns on
  common-property institutions (income-expenditure
  analysis, time-allocation studies, nutritional
  surveys, Public goods games,)

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• 4. Regional differences in cultural knowledge
  regarding tenure rules and their social and
  environmental consequences (questionnaires,
  interviews, and cultural consensus analysis)
• 5. Documentation and integration of specialized
  indigenous ecological knowledge with Western
  science (questionnaires, structured and
  open-ended interviews, various marine science
  methods UVC, Reef Check Surveys, and GIS)
• 6. A longitudinal analysis of marine harvesting
  patterns in the region (focal follows and
  foraging diaries/Creel surveys)

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Integrating Social and Natural Science for MPA
Network Implementation and Rural Development in
the Western Solomon Islands (1999-to date)

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Benthic Mapping Using Local Aerial Photo
Interpretation and Resident Taxa Inventories For
Designing Marine Protected Areas

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Converted marine ecological knowledge into geo-
spatial information

• First, we established a base map layer by
  digitizing a set of 91 photographs
• Next, we collected GCP so that the aerial
  photographs could be geo-rectified

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Benthic Mapping

• Informants were selected to be the photo
  interpreters based on their knowledge of the
  marine environment and their overall fishing
  experience.
• The informants then selected the most
  knowledgeable person from their group and
  cooperatively drew the boundaries of abiotic and
  biotic substrates using a felt-tip marker
  directly on the photograph.
• The resulting paper map, with the respective
  benthic types drawn on it by local informers, was
  scanned, and the image files were loaded into the
  GIS for geo-rectification

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• After geo-referencing, each of the boundaries was
  traced using on-screen digitizing techniques that
  created polygons (shape files) of each of the
  benthic substrates
• Conventional quadrat field dive surveys were
  utilized to measure the accuracy of substrate
  identification by local informants
• In our point-to-point comparison for the accuracy
  assessment, we compared the dominant abiotic
  and/or biotic benthic attributes (not entire
  habitats) identified by local informants and
  divers for each area

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Taxa Inventory

• Interviewing fishermen and mapping the seascape
  as they conceptualised their marine environment
• Recorded (and ranked) the presence and
  distribution of common fish species and the
  locations of spawning, nursery, burrowing, and
  aggregating sites for particular species within
  each recognized ground and associated benthic
  areas
• The spatial extent of the area (represented as
  polygons) and the location of particular
  biological characteristics (represented usually
  as points) collected with the Global Positioning
  System (GPS)
• For ground thruthing, we conducted visual counts.
  We selected eleven locally identified species
  that were easily recognizable during visual
  surveys (non-cryptic species)

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• Cognitive Map of the Seascape

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Mixed with Scleractinian corals of all
functional groups (massive, sub-massive,
digitate, foliose, etc.) It is possible that
some dead coral (DC) may have been identified
as rock (RC) by the student-researcher and
local divers conducting the visual survey
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• Equivalence rates between indigenous aerial photo
  interpretations of dominant benthic substrates
  and in situ dive surveys ranged between 75 and 85
  percent for a moderately detailed classification
  scheme of the benthos, which included 9 locally
  defined abiotic and biotic benthic classes for
  the MPA seabed.
• The taxa inventory study showed a strong
  correspondence between the qualitative
  predictions of local fishermen and the
  quantitative analysis of non-cryptic species
  distribution, including their relative abundance
  and geophysical locations. Indigenous peoples
  predictions about the presence or absence of fish
  in different benthic habitats corresponded 77
  and 92 of the time (depending on scoring schema)
  with in situ visual measurements.

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Integrate GIS-IEK aids in spatially identifying
(1) habitat diversity (or lack thereof), (2)
biogeographical representation (3) vulnerable
habitats and life-stages (4) sites of rare
and/or endangered species, and (5) locations of
exploited species.
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Other applications include the GIS mapping of
fishing behaviour
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Fishing behaviour was displayed geo-spatially

• The data was gathered by means of a regional
  creel survey
• Focal Follows (around 1000)
• Diary Method (over 10000 fishing events)
• Both used to estimate mean net return rates

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Geo-referencing of fishing behaviour permits the
visualization of(1) spatio-temporal human
resource exploitation patterns, (2) human
responses to inter- and intra-habitat relative
productive variability and its influence on
fishing strategies, and (3) human threats to
particular marine habitats.
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Conclusions

• 1. These examples show the power of geomatics in
  revealing site specific spatio-temporal patterns
  of human and ecological dynamics
• 2. Demonstrate how using local knowledge and
  activities for building a GIS and management plan
  is a cost-effective way of attaining missing
  scientific data that is essential for selecting
  biodiversity conservation priority areas

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3. Participatory GIS has the double benefit of
empowering indigenous peoples to map their lands
and sea territories while furnishing a research
context for them to contribute important insights
about their environment. 4. Integrative natural
and social science approaches can yield positive
social and biological results when local people
participate directly in MPA design and
implementation
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• The popularity of MPAs as a fisheries management
  tool calls for design principles which integrate
  various research approaches more comprehensively.
  
• It is also essential that we offer the
  stakeholders who are going to have to accept or
  reject a marine protected area an equal voice in
  its design, demarcation, implementation, and
  monitoring process.
• Management regimes that are truly participatory
  and which may sustain social and biological
  resources in the long term are achievable.