Investigation of state-society synergy in the development management of the Apo Island Marine Reserve

Abstract

Apo, a tiny island nestled at the Sulu sea of the Philippines, is world-renown to have one of the best community-managed marine protected area in the whole world. It is often used as an example by organizations such as Greenpeace to exemplify best practices of marine conservation through bottom-up approaches that enabled socioeconomic improvements of the community. As its success grew, especially through tourism, the management of the marine reserve was handed over to the national government under the National Integrated Protected Area Systems (NIPAS) act. An initial study done by Hind, Hiponia and Grey in 2010 showed resentment, loss of agency and sovereignty felt by the local population after this management change. Hence, this inspires a research update, to investigates the reasons for the conflict through the analysis of state-society synergy of this community, given its rich social capital that facilitated the initial development of the marine reserve. The study highlights the ways in which the local community and the provincial government worked together to circumvent the problems created by the national government.