EAPSI: Assessing Potential for Adaptive Governance and Joint Knowledge Production in the Presence of Rapid Environmental Change

Datta Amber, Missoula MT

Investigators

Abstract

This project assesses the potential for coastal communities to adapt to rapid environmental changes. Rising ocean temperatures, coral bleaching and overfishing threaten coastal ecosystems and the communities that rely on them. This project focuses on a case study carried out in the Solomon Islands where the Solomon Islands Fishery Management Act is assessed for its potential to increase the ability of their coastal communities to adapt to currently occurring environmental changes. The Solomon Islands are impacted by rising ocean temperature and increasingly frequent coral bleaching, which are compounded by overfishing and coastal development. The resulting loss of marine resources threatens coastal ecosystems and the communities that rely on them. Flexible forms of marine governance are needed to ensure that stakeholders and decision-makers are able to adapt to these effects. Previous research suggests that engaging communities, and creating space for shared learning between managers, researchers, and local people, are important components of a flexible governance system. This project will use policy analysis and interviews with regional experts to assess the potential of the fisheries act to create such a system. This research will be conducted at Australia National University (ANU) with Dr. Lorrae van Kerkhoff, a noted knowledge governance researcher. Canberra is a hub for Pacific island research, making it ideal for interviews with fisheries governance professionals. The results of this work will be relevant to the Oceania region and to U.S. Pacific islands facing similar threats. This project applies environmental governance as a lens to evaluate the Solomon Islands Fishery Management Act as a potential example of emerging adaptive governance. Specific attention will be given to the potential for this act to foster knowledge coproduction between stakeholders in the Solomon Islands. Adaptive governance has been proposed as a system well-suited to the complexity of rapidly changing social-ecological systems. Little is known about how adaptive governance integrates with existent knowledge systems, especially those of Pacific Island communities. This study employs a deductive policy analysis and semi-structured interviews with Pacific fisheries policy experts to better understand how adaptive governance may create space for knowledge coproduction and transmission between indigenous systems and Western science. This award, under the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes program, supports summer research by a U.S. graduate student and is jointly funded by NSF and the Australian Academy of Science.