The governance of marine resources continues to evolve. Hardin’s [2] The Tragedy of the Commons is widely criticized as an oversimplification for managing common resources, particularly his argument that centralized government and private property institutions (i.e. rights-based institutions) were needed for successful management. More recently, marine resource managers and scholars have began designing and studying cooperative management, or co-management, institutions that involve power sharing and intensive participatory decision making arrangements between government(s) and marine resource users [3]. Not surprisingly, most of the theoretical literature on the commons is similar to the literature on collective action [4•]. These co-management arrangements for marine resources emerged as a result of the perceived, and sometimes real, failures of government-led management systems [5], and one of the earliest references to ‘co-management’ of a fishery resource was made in the late 1970s by the U.S. Treaty Tribes in Washington State [6].
Although marine resource co-management has its roots in the Pacific Northwest, the discussion about its relevance to coral reef ecosystems in the scholarly literature has focused largely on places in the Asia-Pacific, parts of coastal Africa, and the Caribbean, where management arrangements have been transferred to or traditionally held by municipal authorities [7,8•]. Here, we review Ostrom’s social-ecological systems (SES) framework, review recent studies that use the framework to evaluate marine co-management arrangements with an emphasis in coral reef ecosystems, and comparatively review the findings and importance of these studies.
6].
Marine resources are declining at an alarming rate [1,2], with more than half of the oceanic area exploited by industrial fishing [3]. In response, marine protected areas (MPAs) have been established in an effort to conserve biodiversity and sustain fisheries [4–7]. Yet, only 3.7% of the ocean is presently covered by MPAs and less than 2% by no-take MPAs (referred to as marine reserves [8]) specifically (mpatlas.org; [9]). Despite the recent establishment of large-scale MPAs (>100 000 km2) [10], the current trend of protection is not keeping pace with the increasing human footprint on marine resources [11,12]. In particular, the Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 established by the Convention of Biological Diversity to protect at least 10% of the ocean by 2020 is unlikely to be achieved [9,13,14]. In consideration of the ever-growing human population, fishing technological developments and per capita consumption rates, a new target of 30% protected area by 2030 was proposed at the 2016 International Union for Conservation Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress in line with scientific advice [6,15]. There is thus an urgent need to better understand the full range of benefits provided by marine reserves to optimize future conservation efforts.
