Winners and Losers in Marine Conservation: Fishers' Displacement and Livelihood Benefits from Marine Reserves

Abstract

Marine reserves can create both benefits and costs to fishers. This article explores the perceptions of fishers in Kenya and Seychelles about displacement, spillover, and overall impacts of local marine reserves on their livelihoods. We test whether these perceptions are different among fishers from different geographic and socioeconomic conditions. Sixty-six percent of fishers had been displaced from marine reserves or coastal development and 90% believed they had caught fishes that spilled over from marine reserves. Poorer fishers in Kenya were both displaced from, and also felt like they benefited from, marine reserves. This highlights how people's experiences with marine reserves, both positive and negative, are affected by a range of social considerations that may not be incorporated in typical evaluations of ecological and economic marine reserve success.