Dr Joshua Cinner
Postdoctoral Fellow
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Research Interests
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Research Interests
I grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts, USA. I completed a Master’s degree in Marine Affairs from the University of Rhode Island in 2000 where he worked with Dr. Richard Pollnac, and a PhD from James Cook University in 2006. My research focuses on using social science to improve coral reef management. My interest in this field began in 1996 while working as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in the Montego Bay Marine Park in Jamaica, where I witnessed first hand how conventional conservation strategies were failing because they did not understand or reflect the social, economic, and cultural needs of resource users. I have since worked with coastal peoples in most major coral reef region of the world (Pacific Islands, South East Asia, East Africa, and the Caribbean) to better understand how socioeconomic factors influence the ways in which people use, perceive, and govern coral reefs. My work draws together a wide range of social science disciplines (including human geography, common property, anthropology, and conservation policy) and I often work closely with ecologists on interdisciplinary research topics. Increasingly my research is moving beyond the case study approach toward a ‘big picture’ comparative exploration of human-environment interactions. I am currently working in three broad areas of research.
The first is examining the role of sociocultural institutions in the contemporary conservation context. The aims of this research thread is to better understand how existing sociocultural institutions can be incorporated into contemporary marine conservation initiatives to improve the woeful success rate of many coral reef conservation projects. In this body of work, I compare customary management practices to contemporary conservation projects to examine how socioeconomic factors influence whether and how communities in the Indo-Pacific can employ or maintain customary fisheries management tools- including customary marine tenure and reef closures. My main interest in this field of research has been examining the resilience of these systems to socioeconomic pressures. In particular, I have examined how threshold levels of population, market integration, and dependence on marine resources make various types of customary institutions untenable for coastal communities. Despite the limitations of customary practices, I am increasingly interested in the lessons that customary management may have for contemporary conservation and the idea of integrating or hybridizing the two systems to help coastal communities cope with the scale of modern threats to coral reef ecosystems.
My second research thread examines societal responses to coral ecosystem change. The aim of this body of work is to better understand how ecosystems and human communities will respond to climate change. The scale of this project is extremely large and includes socioeconomic and ecological fieldwork in >50 communities across Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar, Seychelles, and Mauritius. In this work, my research team and I examine how conservation priorities should differ based on site-specific levels of environmental susceptibility to climate change and differing levels of how human communities adapt and respond to this change (adaptive capacity). We are also exploring how poorer fishers are caught in a ‘poverty trap’ and pursue different response strategies than wealthier fishers. Using funding from the World Bank, we are also in the process of developing a model to simulate how fishers and coral reef ecosystems will be affected by coral bleaching.
My third research theme, which is the focus of my recently awarded Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship, is examining the success of collaborative management institutions in conserving coral reef resources. Collaborative management is when communities partner with governments, NGOs, and/or universities to better manage resources. The aim of this body of research is to examine how the different aspects of success in co-management arrangements (e.g. economic, ecological, attitudinal, behavioural, and emically-derived) are influenced by different institutional designs and socioeconomic factors (population, market influences, etc.). This project involves fieldwork in Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar, Australia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. As a sub-component of this, we are exploring heterogeneity in how resource users, managers, and other stakeholders perceive the benefits and impacts of different coral reef conservation initiatives.
Select Publications
[1] Cinner, JE and Aswani, S (2007). Integrating customary management into marine conservation. Biological Conservation 140(3-4): 201-216.
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[2] Cinner, J, Marnane, MJ, McClanahan, TR and Almany, GR (2006). Periodic closures as adaptive coral reef management in the Indo-Pacific. Ecology and Society 11(1): 31.
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[3] Cinner, JE and McClanahan, TR (2006). Socioeconomic factors that lead to overfishing in small-scale coral reef fisheries of Papua New Guinea. Environmental Conservation 33(01): 73-80.
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[4] McClanahan, TR, Marnane, MJ, Cinner, JE and Kiene, WE (2006). A comparison of marine protected areas and alternative approaches to coral-reef management. Current Biology 16(14): 1408-1413.
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[5] Cinner, J (2005). Socioeconomic Factors Influencing Customary Marine Tenure in the Indo-Pacific. Ecology and Society 10(1): 36.
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[6] Cinner, JE, Marnane, MJ and McClanahan, TR (2005). Conservation and Community Benefits from Traditional Coral Reef Management at Ahus Island, Papua New Guinea. Conservation Biology 19(6): 1714-1723.
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[7] Cinner, JE, Marnane, MJ, McClanahan, TR, Clark, TH and Ben, J (2005). Trade, Tenure, and Tradition: Influence of Sociocultural Factors on Resource Use in Melanesia. Conservation Biology 19(5): 1469-1477.
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[8] Cinner, JE and Pollnac, RB (2004). Poverty, perceptions and planning: why socioeconomics matter in the management of Mexican reefs. Ocean & Coastal Management 47(9-10): 479-493.
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