Rethinking marine conservation strategies to minimize socio-economic costs in a dynamic perspective

How to minimize socio-economic costs placed on local fishing communities by marine reserves is a widespread concern in the global conservation planning practices. One prevailing solution is to generate cost-minimizing marine conservation strategies using static spatial prioritization tools. However, there is a need to understand the social-ecological impacts of considering dynamics. We applied a grid-based dynamic model with biological and fleet sub-models, and examined the social-ecological effects of three cost-minimizing conservation strategies over a 20-year planning horizon (medium term), incorporating dynamics in fish populations and fisher behaviors, and associated uncertainties. This study shows a trade-off among cost minimization conservation strategies between conservation and socio-economic benefits. Estimated opportunity costs were different between static and dynamic methods, highlighting the necessity to include dynamic costs as an extra source in decision-making. We caution that relying solely on opportunity costs as the criterion to guide conservation practices can be misleading as it may fail to reflect overarching social-ecological objectives. The study contributes to a further understanding of prevailing strategies' potentials and limitations, and equips practitioners with a dynamic perspective to choose the best conservation strategy.