It is a well known fact that community support is crucial for the success of any conservation initiative in the Pacific islands region and there are many documented cases within the existing literature. The recent article by Turang Teuea and Naohiro Nakamura (April 2020) examines community motivations to support marine conservation projects in North Tarawa, Kiribati, and adds to this growing body of knowledge.The findings of their research reveal that while local community members were aware overall of the significance of resource conservation, they did not always support or participate in conservation projects. Furthermore, that local community members’ motivation to participate in such projects were influenced by various factors, including their status in a household or community, village practices, the quality of community leadership, and their past experiences with similar projects. Their research also found that community members became unsupportive of conservation projects when their daily livelihood activities were restricted by the projects. This research once again highlights the need to thoroughly take into account community motivations during the design phase of proposed projects. It also highlights the need to consider a bottom up and/or co-management approach in engaging with affected communities during project implementation phase.
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The full article referred to above can be found at:https://pipap.sprep.org/content/motivations-support-marine-conservation-projects-north-tarawa-kiribati
related to community based conservation, below is the link to an interesting paper which documents the extent and scale to which ‘Marine Conservation Agreements’ (MCAs) between tourism operators and indigenous, resource owning communities are used in Fiji, and their contribution to biodiversity conservation and fisheries management.