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A Case Study of Politics Over Local Knowledge and Practices in Marine Protected Area Development and Management


This chapter looks into the mixture of Filipino politics that has either driven or hindered the promotion of marine protected area (MPA) as a conservation tool. Although this tool promises food security, some local poor fishers perceived it as “fencing the sea” that deprived them of their basic source of subsistence. Incidentally, some politicians have taken political advantage of this sentiment and rallied behind these fishers. Political turnovers and partisanship in local politics as well as the cultural politics of representations, evident in conflicting resource use, and conservation ethics of different stakeholders are contributory factors for potential MPA failure. This case study calls for transdisciplinary support, where social science can help natural science in navigating the waves and undercurrents of local political dynamics and in understanding the intricacies of local knowledge and practices in order to ensure MPA success and sustainability.

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