A handful of marine scientists from townsville in North QLD were chosen this week to visit the United States to share their findings on the impact of local residents on green fishing area's.
Dr Josh Cinner from the Centre of Coral Reef studies is in San Diego this week to give the results to the American Board of Advancement of Science.
Josh Cinner has researched 56 different marine parks around the world and found local people need to be more educated when it comes to marine parks.
He stated "for example, in East Africa in the western Indian Ocean, we have seen large human populations were positively related to these marine reserves working" he said.
So reserves near population actually work better. In the Caribbean though we found that the opposite effect was being made by human population. And marine reserves were actually functioning poorly.
Fish numbers actually increase in places where locals felt a part of the earth friendly protection scheme.
There are different things that people can do to work voluntarily!
Enforcement and compliance with green zones and marine reserves isn't only about the number of patrols that you set out. It's about setting up the conditions that make people feel a part of the process. Community participation is having a major effect in East Africa and there is no reason it would not work in other parts of the world. |
