Social scientists monitor the types and levels of use of sanctuary resources and how changes in types and levels of use impact the lives and livelihoods of all stakeholders.
Socioeconomic monitoring requires integration with the biophysical/ecological monitoring to test for differences between actual resource conditions and people’s perceptions of those conditions.
In the context of adaptive management, socioeconomic monitoring can inform policy makers and sanctuary management in changing management strategies and/or regulations to achieve management goals and objectives. This could include addressing uncertainty over the impacts of policy/management on stakeholder’s lives and livelihoods and whether there is a need to compensate or assist those who might be negatively impacted by sanctuary management strategies and regulations.
Many of the socioeconomic elements identified under Characterization may be included in Monitoring, but the time periods of replication of measurements will vary according to management and stakeholder needs.
Currently, there are two socioeconomic monitoring programs in ONMS: Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS) and the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary (CINMS). FKNMS monitoring began in 1998 and CINMS monitoring began in 2003.