A methodology to assess some socio-economic effects of marine protected areas

Jean-Yves Weigel (1)

1 PRODIG - Pôle de recherche pour l'organisation et la diffusion de l'information géographique

The assessment of socio-economic effects of marine protected areas on fishing activity points out some methodological difficulties. As a methodology we propose a selection of two components : the fishing unit profitability and the fishery household income distribution and a comparison between a marine protected area versus an “unprotected zone”. The methodology has been applied on a case study: the Chumphon National Park versus the Chumphon Province (Gulf of Thailand). Three phases have been implemented: a bibliographical analysis, the carrying out of village monographs, the carrying out of a sample-based survey. The sample-based survey results are presented as follows : the characterization of categories of the variable “marine protected area” by quantitative variables, a multivariate analysis, the performance of Chi-square tests on the relationship between a “profit per fishing day” variable divided into two categories (“in or around MPA” and “remote from the MPA”, the measurement of the concentration of income or operating profit per fishery household and the Lorenz curves.

Keywords: marine protected area; socio-economic impact; fishing unit profitability; fishery household income; methodological proposals; village monographs : sample-based survey; multivariate analysis; Chisquare tests; Lorenz curves

Domains: Geography

Jean-Yves Weigel. A methodology to assess some socio-economic effects of marine protected areas. Investing in Coral Reefs: Is it worth it?, Nov 2010, Noumea, New Caledonia. ⟨hal-00549031⟩