Perceived benefits, level & support for community participation in marine protected area management in Pulau Perhentian Marine Park, Terengganu, Malaysia / Puteri Shahirah Megat Jamual Fawaeed

Marine Protected Area (MPA) has been designated as a tool for biodiversity conservation that amends either the kind of benefits or ecosystem services provided by the marine environment are being distributed among different groups of community. Local community is the group or individual who will get either direct or indirect benefits from the marine ecosystem. Indeed, it is important for local community to have awareness towards the values of biodiversity and the action they can take to participate in conserving and managing the marine ecosystem. This can lead to the sustainable use of the marine resources as stated in the National Policy on Biological Diversity 2016-2025 and achieve the Aichi Target and. In addition, this research will contribute towards achieving one of the main goals of SDGs (SDG 14). Where the goal 14 is seeks to promote the conservation and sustainable use of marine and coastal ecosystems, while prevent marine pollution and increase the economic. This study attempted to investigate local community perception on benefit, level and support of community participation in Pulau Perhentian Marine Park (PPMP), Terengganu as well as to develop a new framework of community participation in MPA management. A survey approach with face-to-face interview using structured questionnaire had been conducted to a total of 342 respondents consist of local community of PPMP. The questionnaire had been design to discover the different opinion of local community towards the benefits of community participation, current level of local community participation in PPMP and support for community participation in PPMP. Align with the objective of developing a new framework, this study used the Partial Least Square (PLS-SEM) analysis technique in order to test the development of model. The factors explored were from the benefits received in the aspect of: (1) economy, (2) social, (3) attitudinal, and (4) legal/institution. The result shows that all of the four benefits have their own strength and can be the parameter to guide how local community want to express their perception in order to valuing the MPA. Then, for level of community participation and support of community participation, the same variable from the participation theory was used to measure the construct. The findings indicate that the different between current level of community participation with their acceptance and willingness to participate in MPA management as support for conservation of marine biodiversity. These benefits are vital factors that influence local community’s values on MPA as well as to ensure their awareness on the importance of community participation in MPA management. Hence, the management of MPA in Pulau Perhentian will be more effective and efficient with the involvement of local community as a part of conservation of marine protected area.