Gendering Marine Conservation: The Politics of Marine Protected Areas and Fisheries Access

ABSTRACT

Drawing on ethnographic case studies from Madagascar, this research shows that multiple marine conservation projects have institutionalized inequitable access to marine recourses along gendered lines. Despite discursive and institutional shifts toward more “collaborative” and “community-based” conservation programing, there is a deficiency of women’s nominal as well as effective participation in community management organizations. This research shows that conservation organizations’ focus on proximate drivers of marine resource use, or a politics of picking the “low-hanging fruit,” over ultimate drivers such as global commodity chains, places disproportionate emphasis on marine spatial enclosures and restricting specific, and gendered, harvest methods. To address gender bias concerning access to and control over natural resources, we must go beyond the rhetoric of “community involvement” to address gendered inequalities in conservation decision making, and whose interests are served by conservation projects.

KEYWORDS:

• Community-based natural resource management
• conservation
• fisheries management
• gender
• Madagascar
• marine protected area

Acknowledgments

This research would not have been possible without the field-based work of Razafindravelo Miza, Lahiko Charlotte, Rahasimanana Gabriel, Gauthier Felicien, Tinahindrazany Emma, Fagnahy Rolande, Ramamonjisoa Gaustin, Ravelomanana Silvère, and Rafidison Olive, and support of Totoa Mence, Totoa Vola, Solange, BeLeonor, and Boobiko Naunau. I also extend my deep gratitude to Louise Fortmann, Claire Kremen, Nancy Peluso, Myron Baker, Alice Kelly, Clare Gupta, Mike Sheridan, and two anonymous reviewers for their invaluable critiques and suggestions.

Notes

Kobalava and all other names of people and places here are pseudonyms.

Age breakdown of these data (by years) is: 18–20 = 9%, 21–30 = 29%, 31–40 = 33%, 41–50 = 14%, 51–60 = 11%, and over 61 = 4%. Informants under the age of 18 were not surveyed. Given the relative fluidity of ethnicity in Madagascar, we instead asked informants their place of origin. If their place of origin was not the target village, we also collected the length of time the informant had lived in the village and the distance traveled from their place of origin. Forty-seven percent of women surveyed were not from the target village, came from an average 48 km away, and have lived in the target village on average 14 years. Thirty-seven percent of men surveyed were not from the target village, came from on average 42 km away, and have lived in the target village on average 12 years.

Defined as “any area of intertidal or subtidal terrain, together with its overlying water and associated flora, fauna, historical and cultural features, which has been reserved by law or other effective means to protect part or all of the enclosed environment” (Resolution 17.38 of the IUCN General Assembly 1988).

The Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi Target 11 states that countries should have at least 10% of marine and coastal environments protected by 2020.

“Tsy mila ampela/viavy rozy/zare” and/or “Viavy/ampela tsy mahazo.”

WWF also launched in 2016 its Markets Institute Initiative, which is dedicated to “optimizing global food sector sustainability.” While the program is still in its initial stage, it promises to address marine resource decline with a multiscalar, multisector approach. See http://www.worldwildlife.org/press-releases/wwf-launches-markets-institute-to-advance-sustainable-food-production.

To put these 8 fisheries in context, WWF works in approximately 100 countries. More than 70 of these countries (corresponding to hundreds of fisheries worldwide), contain marine conservation initiatives.