Policy instruments for coral reef management and their effectiveness

The various issues affecting the health of coral reefs in the tropical world are many and complex, yet they can be grouped for analysis and policy formulation into "local" or "global". The local issues generally include physical destruction caused by fishing gear, mining, boats, anchors, divers, etc., over-extraction and use by fishers and/or visitors, and pollution or sedimentation from local sources (shoreline development, boats, people and other causes). The global issues generally include warmer water and climate change, pollution from distant sources (rivers, upland areas, ships, industry), and storms, disease, crown-of-thorns and others. As issues become better understood and causes better known, it becomes easier to determine appropriate and effective policies, strategies and actions to address them. Policies supporting coral reef protection and management are grouped into three categories-governance, regulatory (limits to access or use) and economic (incentives or disincentives) - and discussed in relation to local and global scales. Policies that support localized management mostly revolve around decentralization of authority to local government and communities, use of marine protected areas and integrated coastal management regimes, various types of regulations governing use of an area or the resource, education, and appropriate economic incentives such as user fees, trust funds or compensation payments. Policies that support global (national and international) protection of reefs include international or national marine parks, transnational or national integrated coastal management programs, legal frameworks that recognize local management regimes, long-term lease agreements and management rights, education, valuation tools to raise awareness, privatization of common property, various national laws, bans on import/export of vulnerable species, pollution taxes, conservation tax write-offs, market entry fees, debt-for-nature swaps, carbon emission taxes and others. The relative effectiveness of various policies and strategies is discussed in relation to management of coral reefs in several Philippine case studies. Marine protected areas are analyzed as management approaches that can work in a supportive approaches that can work in a supportive policy context. Institutional arrangements that facilitate coral reef management in the Philippines and other countries are presented. Finally, a matrix analysis compares various, mostly successful, coral reef management projects or areas, with the whole range of potential policies and strategies in order to determine the relative effectiveness and importance of the policy/strategy/mechanisms.