Managing the Marine Wildlife Tourism Commons

Supervisors: Dr David Lusseau, Professor George Coghill, Dr Fiona Manson (Scottish Natural Heritage) and Dr Ben Leyshon (Scottish Natural Heritage)

Natural resource exploitation is a complex activity that involves the interaction of social, economic and ecological systems (3). In order to sustainably manage the exploitation of natural resources, we cannot look at economic and environmental aspects in isolation; doing this runs the risk of societal conflicts that are difficult to inform in a rational manner. We now recognise that we need to consider the sustainability of these socioecological systems as a whole when trying to develop better governance structures and management regimes for the exploitation of natural resources (6). Several empirical studies have now emerged to cover the effects of management regimes on the economic and environmental sustainability of natural resource exploitation. We have a good grasp of modelling approaches to understand the dynamics of exploited renewable resources and the micro- and macro-economics of the industries exploiting them. By contrast, we have no modelling approaches to determine the fate of socioecological systems under different management regimes (3). Crucially in most instances, we have to make managerial decisions in data poor circumstances. Marine tourism is growing at a fast pace and has become a major economic contributor for both developed and developing countries. Many communities, particularly in Scotland, are developing small-scale marine wildlife tourism ventures in a “post- small-scale fisheries era” as a way to generate local income and employment. There is now a large body of literature showing that wildlife tourism exploits the populations it targets and un-managed exploitation can lead to extirpation (4). Hence, marine wildlife tourism has the potential to affect the productivity of our seas via indirect effects on ecosystems. We therefore need to understand the management framework best tuned to each situation to ensure the sustainability of marine wildlife tourism and minimise its potential impact on marine productivity for other sectors. The pace at which marine tourism is growing means that we need to make decisions about governance and management structures in data poor conditions. This project will provide a testbed to develop qualitative and semi-quantitative modelling framework (1,2) to understand the dynamics of socioecological marine wildlife tourism systems and drivers of their sustainability – sustainability here is understood as a persistence of the social, infrastructure and ecological capitals. First, generalised qualitative models of marine wildlife tourism will be developed focussing on the type of multi-scale wildlife exploitations we see in Scotland. You will make predictions about drivers of the dynamics and stability of such systems. You will then use the Moray Firth dolphin-watching sector as a case study to test these predictions. Existing data and models are available to inform the ecological capital component of the system (5), the bottlenose dolphin population, and the way tourism influences this component. Data collection will be required to inform the microeconomic and social processes that are acting in this system. This project has a strong applied component and its outcomes will help shape policies. Hence, the candidate will need to be comfortable interacting with a range of stakeholders from Scottish government representatives, Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies, industry and local interest groups. One key deliverable of the project will be advice for the management of the growth in the whalewatching industry in Scotland.