Fisheries management in the Seychelles involves a combination of gear restrictions and closed area management. However, scientists warn that as a result of climate induced losses on the structural complexity of the coral reefs both in and out of the marine protected areas, a lag effect is yet to be felt, which will result in even greater pressures on the fisheries. The conservation and sustainable use of these natural and biological resources are of vital importance to the Seychelles with the main engine of growth resting on only tourism and fishing (UNEP). For conservation measures to be sustainable in the absence of continual monitoring, the values held by a community needs to be incorporated with scientific knowledge. In this way conservation practices can be developed for social welfare. If management is based on the values held by the resource users, strategies can focus on rebuilding areas thought to influence the ability of a community to collectively organise and manage their resources.

This project aims to establish, how differing social structures contribute to differing values for ecological goods and services and how these values in turn affect our ability to sustainably use our natural resources.

To address this we intend to:

i) conduct a Total Economic Valuation of the coral reef fisheries associated with differing management structures;

ii) identify which goods and services are driving the economic values;

iii) examine relationships between the ecosystem goods and services and key socioeconomic variables;

iv) examine in detail, trends in sites and values, aside from the driving dominant values.

We have developed collaborations with the Seychelles fishing authority, together we aim to combine existing fisheries knowledge with the results of this study to link resource use, values and social capital in developing fisheries management plans for the Seychelles targeted to specific fisheries.