Doing marine spatial zoning in coastal marine tropics: Palawan’s Environmental Critical Areas Network (ECAN)

Zoning is an important tool in marine spatial planning (MSP) for balancing the multi-uses of the marine environment. Whilst mainly developed conceptually and implemented in Europe and North America, marine zoning is becoming a popular tool for addressing diverse coastal marine issues in the tropics. However, we know little about how it is being implemented in practice in that context. In this study, we analysed the factors and strategies that enable and hinder the establishment of marine zoning in the low-income tropics through a case study of the 26-year history of the development of the Environmental Critical Areas Network (ECAN) in Palawan, Philippines. We employed two participatory methods: Innovation Histories to investigate how implementation barriers and opportunities change over time, and the Net-Map method to reveal the social relations and power distributions that enabled, blocked, and stalled its implementation. We found that MSP can be durable in these contexts when institutionalised in national law and adopted by local co-coordinative bodies, yet it remains an externally-driven agenda. Our study shows that the scaling up of zoning does not necessarily help resolve conflicts around marine and coastal space, and highlights the importance and influence of the political economy on MSP implementation and outcomes. We conclude that MSP’s insensitivity to contextual power relations and politics raises concerns over social inclusivity, equity and justice. Moving forward, MSP implemented in the tropics needs to make conflicts, trade-offs and power distributions explicit at the outset through participatory decision-making that involves and empowers all stakeholders from the early stages of initiatives.