The design and implementation of marine management strategies in Cambodia

This research examines marine management strategies in Cambodia, with the aim of addressing key issues relating to the design, implementation and management of marine protection systems. The establishment of marine protected areas in developing countries is perceived to solve many of the issues currently facing the marine environment. However, in reality this is not the case. A majority of the world's marine protected areas are considered ineffective, with issues relating to the environmental understanding and appropriate governance of such strategies. Implementing marine management is an extremely complex process, with many factors, stakeholders and individual site-specific variables and it has long been understood that an integrated social-ecological approach is preferable. This thesis aims to build a more comprehensive picture of the implementation of marine management strategies into developing communities and addresses a number of research gaps.This thesis provides key information on the current extent and health of coral reefs in the Koh Sdach Archipelago, and identifies changes in the health of those reefs between 2002 and 2013 in the absence of marine management. The socio-economic impacts of the current management programmes used to protect the Cambodian coastal zone have been examined, and identify the perceptions of community members relating to governance, change and threats surrounding marine management. This work highlighted issues relating to the effective governance of areas at multiple institutional levels, stressing the need for increased governmental support and communication within and between management organisations. Finally, the suitability of volunteer and community-based coral reef monitoring was assessed. Despite only being a preliminary study into the potential applications of such systems, the results suggested that the use of both volunteers and community members in the collection of coral reef health data could contribute to the current deficit in monitoring data