Browsing by Author "Ruano-Chamorro, Cristina"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    An experimental look at trust, bargaining, and public goods in fishing communities
    (2021) Rojas, Cristian A.; Cinner, Joshua; Lau, Jacqueline; Ruano-Chamorro, Cristina; Contreras-Drey, Francisco J.; Gelcich, Stefan
    Pro-social behavior is crucial to the sustainable governance of common-pool resources such as fisheries. Here, we investigate how key socioeconomic characteristics influence fishers' pro-social and bargaining behavior in three types of experimental economic games (public goods, trust, and trade) conducted in fishing associations in Chile. Our games revealed high levels of cooperation in the public goods game, a high degree of trust, and that sellers rather than buyers had more bargaining power, yet these results were strongly influenced by participants' socioeconomic characteristics. Specifically, gender, having a secondary income source, age, and being the main income provider for the household all had a relationship to multiple game outcomes. Our results highlight that engagement in pro-social behaviors such as trust and cooperation can be influenced by people's socioeconomic context.
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    Closing the compliance gap in marine protected areas with human behavioural sciences
    (2023) Bergseth, Brock J.; Arias, Adrian; Barnes, Michele L.; Caldwell, Iain; Datta, Amber; Gelcich, Stefan; Ham, Sam H.; Lau, Jacqueline D.; Ruano-Chamorro, Cristina; Smallhorn-West, Patrick; Weekers, Damian; Zamborain-Mason, Jessica; Cinner, Joshua E.
    Advocates, practitioners and policy-makers continue to use and advocate for marine protected areas (MPAs) to meet global ocean protection targets. Yet many of the worlds MPAs, and especially no-take MPAs, are plagued by poaching and ineffective governance. Using a global dataset on coral reefs as an example, we quantify the potential ecological gains of governing MPAs to increase compliance, which we call the 'compliance gap'. Using ecological simulations based on model posteriors of joint Bayesian hierarchical models, we demonstrate how increased compliance in no-take MPAs could nearly double target fish biomass (91% increases in median fish biomass), and result in a 292% higher likelihood of encountering top predators. Achieving these gains and closing the compliance gap necessitates a substantial shift in approach and practice to go beyond optimizing enforcement, and towards governing for compliance. This will require engaging and integrating a broad suite of actors, principles, and practices across three key domains: (i)) harnessing social influence, (ii) integrating equity principles, and (iii) aligning incentives through market-based instruments. Empowering and shaping communication between actor groups (e.g., between fishers, practitioners, and policy-makers) using theoretically underpinned approaches from the behavioural sciences is one of the most essential, but often underserved aspects of governing MPAs. We therefore close by highlighting how this cross-cutting tool could be further integrated in governance to bolster high levels of compliance in MPAs.
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    Disparities in the impacts of co-management on fishers' livelihoods
    (2023) Ruano-Chamorro, Cristina; Gurney, Georgina G. G.; Barnes, Michele L. L.; Gelcich, Stefan; Cinner, Joshua E. E.
    Natural resources are widely managed through collaborative governance arrangements (e.g., co-management) which often result in the uneven distribution of costs and benefits among fishers. Discrepancies in how a fisher is impacted by co-management relative to other fishers or others in the community (i.e., disparity) can negatively affect fishers' wellbeing, their support for management, and subsequently, ecological outcomes. Yet, disparities in the distribution of social impacts from co-management have rarely been assessed. We address this gap by examining disparities (losses and gains) in perceived livelihood impacts from co-management. Losses (or gains) occur when a fisher experiences a more negative (or positive) impact on their livelihood relative to other fishers or others in the community. We used data from interviews with 1191 fishers associated with 48 coral reef co-management arrangements across Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea to examine how socioeconomic and institutional characteristics were associated with losses and gains from co-management. Overall, we found that more fishers perceived equality than disparities in the distribution of co-management impacts. Of those that perceived disparities, more fishers perceived losses than gains. We also found that disparities could be predicted by a range of socioeconomic characteristics, including distance to markets and wealth, and institutional characteristics of the co-management regime, such as gear, access, and area restrictions. This study provides insights on potential entry points that could be used by managers and policy-makers to promote equitable co-management of small-scale fisheries, such as the reduction of losses by increasing participation in decision-making processes, fostering conflict resolution mechanisms, prioritizing gear restrictions over area restrictions, and reducing poverty.
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    Human dimensions of marine hydrokinetic energies : Current knowledge and research gaps
    (2018) Ruano-Chamorro, Cristina; Castilla, Juan Carlos; Gelcich, Stefan
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    Initial assessment of coastal benthic communities in the marine parks at Robinson Crusoe Island
    (2014) Fernández, Miriam; Rodriguez-Ruiz, Montserrat; Andreu-Cazenave, Miguel; Ruano-Chamorro, Cristina; Ramirez, Fabian; González Gálvez, Catherine Michel; Carrasco, Sergio; Pérez Matus, Alejandro A.; Fernández, Miriam