Earlier this month in Honolulu at an event co-organized by the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs’ Patrick Christie and Nathan Bennett, more than 100 participants met for the first-ever major discussion of challenges associated with how people interact with large marine protected areas.

University of Washington, Big Ocean, NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, and other academic and policy institutions hosted the Think Tank on Human Dimensions of Large-Scale MPAs (LSMPAs) from Feb. 8 to Feb. 10, 2016. It provided an opportunity for academics and conservation practitioners to work together at the intersection of marine conservation science and political, social, and economic pressures pertaining to the creation and long-term maintenance of LSMPAs.

“Generally, marine conservation is designed with ecological science inputs,” Christie said. “Rarely is the human side considered scientifically.”

In response to growing scientific evidence that shows the global-scale impacts of human activity on the oceans, LSMPAs have been offered as a tool that meets the scale of contemporary marine conservation challenges by protecting areas of 100,000 km2 or more that contain entire food chains and ecosystems.

One of the first of these protected marine areas, Hawaii’s Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, was established in 2006. Today, 15 LSMPAs have been formally declared and 10 others have been proposed. The LSMPA designation restricts human activity for conservation purposes, sometimes with no-take areas and sometimes with traditional fishing areas. Unless managers take into account social, cultural, governmental and economic conditions of communities within the LSMPA, those restrictions—such as closing areas to all fishing—can devastate local people. As the number of LSMPAs grows, it’s increasingly critical for stakeholders to develop proactive methods for assessing and incorporating local needs into management plans.

Attendees representing 17 countries and 18 universities, including Christie, several School of Marine and Environmental Affairs masters’ students and faculty members, staff from the world’s largest MPAs, and indigenous community leaders, collaborated to proactively identify solutions to overcoming those challenges.

“We created an event where some very difficult decisions happened in a space that was well-informed by human dimensions research. Hardcore proponents of these massive areas met and discussed agendas with Pacific Island leaders, managers, and scientists who raise fair questions about these massive no-take areas. Definitely not your typical science meeting!” Christie said.

Think Tank participants made progress on drafting a human dimensions research agenda, best practices guidelines, and a code of conduct for LSMPA management. Several institutions agreed to form a community of practice that will reconvene later this year, at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Hawaii, to take a closer look at the issue areas they identified at the Think Tank.