384 S. Lovell et al.
Chelonia mydas populations are estimated to be ,1%of their historical abundance (McClenachan et al., 2006), ef- fective local conservation has resulted in local population re- covery (Hays, 2004; Troëng & Rankin, 2005). Parrotfish recovery has been documented after a ban on fish traps (O’Farrell et al., 2016), giving hope for broader ecosystem re- covery, as these grazing fish facilitate coral growth (Cramer et al., 2017). In marine reserves where parrotfish and other herbivores are protected, coral recovered frombleaching sig- nificantly faster compared to coral in unprotected areas (Mumby&Harborne, 2010). Diadema urchins have also re- covered locally, facilitating coral recruitment and in- creased abundance of juvenile coral on Caribbean reefs (Edmunds&Carpenter, 2001; Carpenter&Edmunds, 2006). Although both long-term declines and recent recoveries
in the Caribbean have been documented, the ways in which resource users view these changes have not been well stud- ied. Here, we use local ecological knowledge to understand how residents on the Caribbean islands of Montserrat, Antigua and Barbuda perceive the timing and extent of long-term and recent changes in a suite of marine taxa, and the causes of these changes. Our results illuminate per- ceptions about ecosystem change and the implications of those perceptions on development and implementation of conservation measures.
Methods
We conducted in-person interviews with fishers and divers on the islands of Montserrat,Antigua and Barbuda in January 2016. Interviewees were identified and introductions facili- tated by the Waitt Institute’s Blue Halo Initiative (Waitt, 2016), and by approaching fishers as they returned from fishing and/or were selling their catches. After each inter- view we asked the interviewee if he or she knew of any other fishers or divers we should speak with, a technique known as snowball sampling. This approach was intended to target knowledgeable community members, to assess the perception of those most likely to be aware of changes. We identified 10 marine animal taxa of historical, cultural
or economic importance to the islands. Four were individual species: spiny lobster Panulirus argus, common octopus Octopus briareus, queen conch Strombus gigas and barracuda Sphyraena barracuda. Sixwere broader taxonomic groupings: sharks (Carcharhinidae), groupers (Epinephelinae), sea turtles (Chelonia mydas and Eretmochelys imbricata), snappers (Lutjanidae), parrotfish (Scarus spp.), and hard coral (Scleractinia). For each of the 10 taxa of interest we asked in- terviewees to indicate abundance as absent, rare, common, abundant or superabundant in January 2016, 10 years earlier and 20 years earlier. Interviewees with ,10 or ,20 years of experience were only asked to describe change over a time frame that corresponded to the duration of their experi- ence, and interviewees only provided descriptions of taxa
they had personally observed. During interviews on Montserrat we asked about abundance before and after the eruption of the Soufriére Hills volcano (1995)because the eruption and resulting ash caused large-scale damage to the marine environment surrounding the island. We also asked interviewees to identify additional species whose abundance they perceived to be increasing or de- creasing over these same time scales. Responses were re- corded on a categorical scale, with absence equivalent to 1 and superabundant equivalent to 5.We then compared the mean perceived abundance ranking for each taxon over time and among islands. To confirm trends derived from ranked abundances we also asked interviewees if they had perceived a change in abundance over time in these key taxa. Finally, we asked interviewees about any additional changes they had observed in these taxa (e.g. geographical range or body size), and causes of any perceived changes. To evaluate evidence for shifted baselines, we compared
both the perceived extent and degree of depletion of marine taxa to interviewees’ years of experience fishing or diving. Extent of depletion was measured as the number of species perceived as declining; degree of depletion was measured as the perceived current abundance of the five speciesmost com- monly cited as declining. For any species determined to be in- creasing, we identified conservation policies that would have affected thepopulations of these species, comparing the timing of implementation of these policies to the generation time of each species, to determine if protection had been in place long enough for a change to have resulted. To put these changes into an ecological and historical context we also compared interviewee perceptions of change to all available ecological and historical information on changes in those taxa.
Results
We conducted a total of 40 interviews: 20 on Montserrat, 15 on Barbuda and five on Antigua (Supplementary Table 1). The mean age of interviewees was 43 years (range 19–74), and the mean experience fishing or diving was 23 years (range 2–60). We grouped interviewees into three age categories:#35 years (14 interviewees), 35–55 years (14 inter- viewees), and $55 years (12 interviewees) and three experi- ence categories: low experience, #15 years (12 interviewees), medium experience, 15–30 years (14 interviewees), and high experience with $30 years (12 interviewees). Thirty-seven interviewees were men, and three women.
Perceptions of the timing, extent and drivers of change in marine taxa
Across the 40 interviews, 33 taxa were identified as declin- ing by at least one interviewee, which included all 10 of the taxa of interest and an additional 23 taxa (Supplementary Table 2). Individual interviewees cited a median of 3.98
Oryx, 2020, 54(3), 383–391 © 2018 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605318000169
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