Have you seen the dolphins? Dolphin watching participatory monitoring in a Brazilian multiple-use Marine Protected Area
Macedo, H.S.; Flores, P.A.C.; Steenbock, W.; Medeiros, R.P. (2020). Have you seen the dolphins? Dolphin watching participatory monitoring in a Brazilian multiple-use Marine Protected Area, in: Humphreys, J. et al. Marine protected areas: Science, policy and management. pp. 361-378. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-08-102698-4.00019-8 |
| Keywords | | | Author keywords | Conflict analysis; Environmental management; Environmental policy; Human-cetacean interactions; MPAs; Marine boat tourism; Whale watching |
| Authors | | Top | - Macedo, H.S.
- Flores, P.A.C.
- Steenbock, W.
- Medeiros, R.P.
| | |
| Abstract | The Environmental Protected Area of Anhatomirim (EPAA) located in the Southern coast of Brazil, at Santa Catarina State, is a multiple-use Marine Protected Area (MPA), established to protect the southernmost population of the Guiana dolphin (Sotalia guianensis) and its habitats. Boat tourism is an important marine activity, carrying annually around 150,000 tourists, turning the EPAA into the most visited place to cetacean watch in South America. We describe the experience of managing boat tourism, highlighting the deployment of the Dolphin Monitoring Program. We discuss its strengths and limitations, considering the data from the participatory monitoring conducted since 2014, and from interviews made with all the boat owners. Our results indicate the conflicts among the main stakeholders were reduced, and the monitoring program was able to provide important short-term and intense time-series information on the dolphins' location and on the boat tourism activity previously unavailable. Notwithstanding, a series of constraints remain, and among others we indicate the need to go beyond the current focus on the commercial benefits of the activity and to combine the participatory monitoring data with those from scientific survey cruises. |
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