Application of Coral Reef Decision Models in Guánica Bay, Puerto Rico
Citation:
Fisher, W. AND J. Carriger. Application of Coral Reef Decision Models in Guánica Bay, Puerto Rico. National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, Ocean Studies Board, Washington, DC, Washington, DC, October 30, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
A project in Guánica Bay, Puerto Rico, to protect coral reefs from watershed stressors provided insight to several decision support tools that engaged local community stakeholders and generated transparency in the decision process. A structured decision approach served as the basic framework for identifying stakeholder objectives and values to inform alternative decision options. Participants in four community workshops discussed and developed alternative solutions for coral reef protection and weighed the tradeoffs among several social, economic and environmental objectives. The process was highly successful and adopted by the organizing agencies for subsequent coral reef protection efforts elsewhere in Puerto Rico.
Description:
Coral reefs worldwide have degraded during the last five decades. Protection of reefs is challenging because of the many watershed, coastal and oceanic stressors that affect them. There are numerous actions that can be taken to reduce coral reef stressors, but implementation necessitates stakeholder agreement on those that are best suited to the social, economic and environmental values of their region and community. Several tools are available to elicit and characterize those values from stakeholders and to incorporate them in the decision process. Stakeholders in the watershed of Guánica Bay, Puerto Rico, participated in a structured decision process to discuss management alternatives for protecting coral reefs in the nearby coastal zone. Four community workshops were held to strengthen the decision context, develop a transparent systems framework, elicit decision alternatives and identify and compare the tradeoffs among alternative actions in relation to multiple community objectives. Resulting information underscored a network of inter-related factors that must be considered in any environmental management decision. Evident was the need to couple or balance the needs of coral reef protection with other social and economic needs of the area. Nonetheless, engagement with stakeholders led to novel and useful management alternatives and greater insight into the tradeoffs for protecting and restoring coral reef ecosystems. It also raised answerable science questions that could directly inform the ultimate decisions.