Project
Beyond the reef: assessing societal impacts arising from coral reef restoration in Shimoni, Kenya
Coral reefs are crucial marine ecosystems providing varying ecosystem services and goods to the coastal communities. The increasing human-and climate-induced threats have triggered coral reef restoration interventions worldwide to restore degraded reefs. Coral restoration is perceived as a new conservation intervention and on trial with limited understanding of societal impacts. This study aspires to assess societal impact arising from reef restoration efforts and how they are perceived by locals and other reef stakeholders in Shimoni, south coast of Kenya.
Coral reefs are crucial marine ecosystems providing varying ecosystem services and goods to the coastal communities. Coral reefs are increasingly faced with myriad threats ranging from unsustainable fishing practices to coral bleaching due to climate change. Coral reef restoration has become a popular conservation intervention worldwide among conservationists, scientists and managers trying to restore and accelerate recovery of the degraded reef ecosystems. Coral restoration is still a new conservation practice and young science on trial. The focus remains bias on short-term ecological effectiveness, rather than the broader socio-economic aspects and community involvement. This bias limits the effectiveness of coral restoration and its societal impact as perceived by reef stakeholders, although improving wellbeing and livelihoods are often mentioned.
The PhD research focus and interest is to address this gap and understand the societal impact of reef restoration, based on the restoration project in Shimoni, southern coast of Kenya. The guiding research objectives are: 1) determine whether coral reef restoration enhances coral reef ecosystem services, 2) examine reef stakeholders’ involvement, their motivation and capacity in reef restoration, 3) assess socio-economic benefits of coral reef restoration as perceived by the reef stakeholders, and 4) investigate potential alternative and sustainable livelihood opportunities for reef stakeholders and reduce the currently unsustainable fishing pressure on the reef. A combination of social science research methods ranging from semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, participant observation, to systematic literature review are used to collect relevant primary and secondary data.
The desired result is to understand societal impact of reef restoration and its opportunities as perceived by reef stakeholders with intentions to contribute to the limited scientific knowledge available on this topic. In addition, it offers the opportunity to build a marine conservation framework to advance locally embedded decision making process on management and long-term sustainable solutions towards improving livelihoods.