Exploring adaptive capacity in a co-management regime to develop and maintain a community-based conservation program: a case study of Arnavon Community Marine Park, Solomon Islands

Abstract

<p>Tribal landowners, women leaders, conservation managers, conservationists, scientists, and policy makers in the Arnavon Community Marine Park (ACMP) communities of the Solomon Islands have used community-based conservation (CBC) as an approach to biodiversity conservation to protect against accelerating biodiversity loss and improve community livelihoods and wellbeing. Biodiversity loss stands to impoverish and further marginalise communities who depend on the environment for sustenance. To develop, maintain and simultaneously manage conservation conflicts is important for CBC sustainability. However, the capacity of supporting organisations and individuals to develop and maintain a local conservation programme, and simultaneously manage intra-community conflicts around conservation, has not been fully understood. In this thesis I argue for a CBC approach that incorporates a detailed account of the capacities of support organisations and individuals in achieving sustainable CBC programmes. The research used a case study approach and conducted 45 key informant interviews, nine focus group discussions and participant observations from August to November 2019. The emergent themes are organised using an integrated theoretical framework informed by complex adaptive systems theory and adaptive capacity theory. Data interpretation and analysis adopted a thematic analysis approach.</p> <p>In the context of persistent poaching in the conservation park, the thesis explores the capacities of local and non-local supporting organisations and individuals to manage conservation conflicts, in order to maintain sustainability in the conservation programme. The thesis concludes that success in the ACMP conservation model to manage threats successfully centres on a robust co-management regime that facilitated multi-scalar, adaptive capacities. This was demonstrated in three ways: 1) the successful reconciliation of the ecological needs of endangered turtle species and social needs of communities in the context of intra-community conflict; 2) the work of support organisations and individuals, dispersed across scales, that sustained co-management with autonomous adaptation against multiple threats; and 3) the coevolution, firmed up between eco-tourism and women’s network development, that enhanced household livelihoods and established a missing feedback loop between community and conservation to manage socio-cultural threats better and restore community trust in the comanagement model. To reach this conclusion, I have drawn in large part from complex adaptive system theory and adaptive capacity theory. This thesis contributes original knowledge to the body of literature on community-based conservation in enhanced understanding in areas of comanagement engagement; unburdening of shame; and negotiation skills of women as effective changemakers across scale. To this end, the research has important implications for policymaking, locally led conservation practice and theory formulation in the area of community-based conservation. </p>