Equitable access to ecosystem services in coral reef social-ecological networks

Coral reefs provide a host of benefits, also called ecosystem services (ES), to human communities, including food, tourism, and nutrient cycling. Coastal stakeholders’ ability to access ES is critical for alleviating poverty and ensuring wellbeing.

Marine policy should acknowledge the complex social-ecological interactions that generate ES, manage for multiple values, balance trade-offs among alternate priorities and ensure that ES are distributed equitably among diverse stakeholders.

Developing the scientific basis for such policy is complicated by a scarcity of data for many reefs, the complex social-ecological structures of reefs and a lack of integrated models that account for this social-ecological complexity.

In this project, we will use a new dataset of global reef ES to ask: 1) what are the archetypes of reef social-ecological systems; 2) how do the network structures of reef social-ecological systems, i.e., patterns of relationships between stakeholders and reefs differ across archetypes; and 3) how do these structures affect equitable access to reef ES for diverse stakeholders?

We will combine ecosystem service bundles analysis, focus groups with stakeholders, and network modelling to analyse how the social-ecological networks of reef systems affect stakeholders’ access to multiple ES.

This work will contribute to global reef policy by identifying the network structures that result in equitable access to ES in multiple types of reefs around the world.