INREEF: Resilience of the Richest Reefs

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Tourism is a double-edged sword for marine protected areas (MPAs). Visitors put pressure on coral reefs through crowding, sewage and pollution, yet tourism revenues can also pay for conservation and support local livelihoods. INREEF, an interdisciplinary research and education programme funded by the Wageningen Interdisciplinary Research and Education Fund (INREF), brings together Indonesian, Dutch and Caribbean researchers, conservation organisations and policymakers to understand how fluctuating tourism, together with climate change, fishing and pollution, affects the health of coral reefs, the livelihoods and cohesion of coastal communities, and their capacity to govern their reefs. Its aim is to develop tools to assess and monitor the resilience of MPAs, and to design governance measures that protect coral reefs in an era of changing tourism and climate.

Low tide near Nusa Lembongan, Bali, where tourism, local livelihoods and coastal ecosystems meet. March 2024.

EconSES focuses on the human side of reef resilience, through several PhD projects. They ask how policy can govern pollution flows as tourist numbers rise and fall, who bears the costs and who reaps the benefits of MPAs, how these effects play out along local food chains and between women and men, how land and sea tenure can secure stable, long-term support for conservation through tourism, and how tourism, MPAs and reef health are linked in the Dutch Caribbean.

INREEF researchers and local partners discussing during fieldwork at the mangroves of Nusa Lembongan, Bali, March 2024.

More about the programme, the full team and its publications is available on the INREEF website.

Intan Adhi | EconSES

INREEF: Resilience of the Richest Reefs