Masters thesis on marine conservation, help/ideas?

[Bjornas]

Hello,

Spring of 2016 I will be writing my masters thesis in the ‘subject’ Sustainable Development. My background is social science, having a double major in political science and history. However as a diver (80 dives, AOW) and having a big interest in the (marine) environment, I have also gathered basic knowledge about biology, ecosystems and related subjects. The masters programme has given some formal education on these areas aswell.

I am definitely one of the shark/manta crazy guys on the boat, having had a fascination for them since I was a kid. For this reason, the shark fin/gill raker trade problems are close to my heart and I’ve dedicated various assignments to these issues in university. This summer I spent a month in Indonesia (Bali, Gili, Komodo, Lembongan) and hearing about the actions taken to halt the fin and gill trade, the idea struck me to conduct a field study on this subject for my thesis. Also a damn good excuse to go back to Indo and dive some more!!

What interested me was the complexity of the issue - fishermen get up to 500$ for a manta while to the eco-tourism industry they’re worth up to 1,4 million $ (mantatrust.org), therefore it is out of the question what’s more beneficial economically (not to mention environmentally!) to the country. I also read some positive news recently about new legislation being enforced and the military blowing up poaching boats. However, the incentives from the fishermen to continue fishing mobulids suggest that these 500$ represent a big bonus to them, which could mean that there are socio-economical consequences to the new legislations. Coming from a social science background, this sounds like something I’d like to investigate.

Ofcourse, I have more ideas on subjects: I am also interested in the career changes that I’ve heard some fishermen do, to local guides, with the following changes in their living standards and economic welfare. Studies on this, if I get any decent results, could perhaps be useful in further stating the case for marine preservation. Provided I am qualified (without any formal education in environmental science), I would also love to place more emphasis on marine preservation in my thesis, perhaps tie it to an ongoing project somewhere.

With the field study still being over a year away, I am still only in the planning stage. However, since I need to make a good case to be allowed to go, and I also WANT to make a good case, I figured I should start doing research on suitable issues straight away. This is why I am turning to you:

-Am I on to something here? Is there perhaps already research being done on this?
-Would any of you here know of any organizations or institutions that are or will be doing research on these issues (on the human OR marine part)?
-Do you know if they are, generally speaking, willing to include academic researchers in their work?

More questions will probably follow. I know Google (and Scholar) would help me alot on this, but as said it is still only in the planning stages and I figured this site would be a good start (since I got a lot of help here when I was planning my trip to Indonesia).

Best regards,

Björn Eriksson
Sweden (Uppsala University)

 

[tursiops]

The tradeoffs between an immediate $500 to feed one's family, versus an ephermeral $1.4M to support the future, are well-known and rarely dealt with. One good case study is Wakatobi; you might want to look at the methods they used to protect their area, and the economic and social consequences to those they worked with to do that protection. What are the lessons-learned that could be applied to other areas? I'd start by contacting the Wakatobi owners/managers and getting the full story. Good luck.

 

[sharkbaitDAN]

You are on to something, and there is lots of research being conducted in the general field, and in Indonesia.

Coral Triangle Initiative, The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, USAID, UNDEP, UNEP, Oceana, and FAO are all organizations working in the area.

Not only do they involve academics, I'm in a Master's program in Seattle with some of the academics who have been working on this. Look for papers by Alan White, Patrick Christie, and Marc Miller. They have papers on both the environmental and social sides.

What is your program? The University of Washington has a School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, which I'm currently in, that has had many thesis topics based in SE Asia.

 

[pelan-pelan]

There is a new government in Indonesia. A new minister whose remit covers the marine environment and I think tourism. I believe this minister is Susi who runs an airline - Susi Air - and she knows a thing or two about running a business. I wonder if an approach at government level to Susi might provide opportunity for introducing the interface between tourism (scuba diving) and the impact on local population and the establishment and maintenance of marine parks. Normally I would say run a mile away from political involvement, but the government is new, sworn to transparency, and Susi isn't your average minister.

Having been involved with supervising Masters Degrees - do check out the marking scheme. You could be gaining marks from the breadth and type of your research sources and elements of initiative. Or put it another way - just contacting the Indonesian government would be interesting to you, and beneficial to your mark scheme. Of course, you then get marks for analysing and selecting your sources, so you could still gain more marks from rejecting the political facet if it was irrelevant or excessive to your project. Win win.

Good luck.

 

[Bjornas]

Thanks for the replies, and sorry for the delay in getting back - holidays taking time etc.

The tradeoffs between an immediate $500 to feed one's family, versus an ephermeral $1.4M to support the future, are well-known and rarely dealt with. One good case study is Wakatobi; you might want to look at the methods they used to protect their area, and the economic and social consequences to those they worked with to do that protection. What are the lessons-learned that could be applied to other areas? I'd start by contacting the Wakatobi owners/managers and getting the full story. Good luck.

I had a quick search on Wakatobi and it sounds really interesting: I want to focus on the fishery/ies in Lombok myself, which apparently is one of the most critical manta landing sites in Indonesia, making the Wakatobi case useful from a comparative perspective (even if it's not strictly related to mantas).

You are on to something, and there is lots of research being conducted in the general field, and in Indonesia.

Coral Triangle Initiative, The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, USAID, UNDEP, UNEP, Oceana, and FAO are all organizations working in the area.

Not only do they involve academics, I'm in a Master's program in Seattle with some of the academics who have been working on this. Look for papers by Alan White, Patrick Christie, and Marc Miller. They have papers on both the environmental and social sides.

What is your program? The University of Washington has a School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, which I'm currently in, that has had many thesis topics based in SE Asia.

Thanks, that's a lot of organizations I hadn't thought about contacting. Names on researchers are very useful, as I'm sure you understand! Great! I'm in a masters programme on Sustainable Development which is international as well as interdisciplinary, meaning I study with economists, biologists, engineers, you name it. It's really great actually since you get so many perspectives on the different sustainability topics.

There is a new government in Indonesia. A new minister whose remit covers the marine environment and I think tourism. I believe this minister is Susi who runs an airline - Susi Air - and she knows a thing or two about running a business. I wonder if an approach at government level to Susi might provide opportunity for introducing the interface between tourism (scuba diving) and the impact on local population and the establishment and maintenance of marine parks. Normally I would say run a mile away from political involvement, but the government is new, sworn to transparency, and Susi isn't your average minister.

Having been involved with supervising Masters Degrees - do check out the marking scheme. You could be gaining marks from the breadth and type of your research sources and elements of initiative. Or put it another way - just contacting the Indonesian government would be interesting to you, and beneficial to your mark scheme. Of course, you then get marks for analysing and selecting your sources, so you could still gain more marks from rejecting the political facet if it was irrelevant or excessive to your project. Win win.

Good luck.

Again - thanks for yet another perspective and some helpful tips. That is definitely an opening and the new minister/ministry could even be keen on assisting me with the research! I will afterall probably be needing translators and so on. I am planning on seeing a supervisor as soon as the next semester starts and brainstorm some more, this tip will come in handy.

Thanks alot, these tips are not only useful but motivational as well.
I will keep you posted.

/Björn

PS. Oh and in case someone's interested, in here are a couple of my vids from diving in Indo this summer:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChX73vqteLFvNViroaeichQ

 

[jamesdiving]

Misool Eco Resort might be worth a shout - they have done a huge amount for conservation in Raja Ampat and were largely responsible for the creation of the Raja Ampat shark/manta reserve I believe. Might be a useful case study for what could be achieved in Lombok?

 

[pelan-pelan]

Good luck Bjorn. Give a shout on this forum any time you need a bit of motivation. Being "alone" with a project like this can leave you a bit flat at times - so don't forget the team out here.