Noted with Interest

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a useful tool for conserving biodiversity and managing fisheries. However, effective governance of MPAs is increasingly challenging in a busy, interconnected, and changing world. Governance is an umbrella term that refers to the structures, institutions (i.e., laws, policies, rules, and norms), and processes that determine who makes decisions, how decisions are made, and how and what actions are taken and by whom. Although the umbrella of governance facilitates (or undermines) effective environmental management, it can be differentiated from management by the resources, plans, and actions that result from the functioning of governance (Lockwood 2010). The objectives of both environmental governance and management are to steer, or change, individual behaviors or collective actions and, ultimately, to improve environmental and societal outcomes. Without good governance combined with effective management, MPAs are unlikely to succeed socially or ecologically (Bennett & Dearden 2014a). Scholarship on environmental governance has grown significantly over the last few decades, ranging in ecological scale from individual species (e.g., whales) to resources or ecosystems (e.g., forests, coral reefs) to global concerns (e.g., climate, oceans). Specific policy realms (e.g., fisheries, agriculture, or MPAs) are also the subject of governance analyses and planning. Environmental governance studies focus on 2 central and interrelated areas: governance design and implementation and governance performance. Normative commitments (i.e., collective understandings of what constitutes good processes or outcomes) underlie governance design and performance either implicitly or explicitly (Lockwood et al. 2010). Thus, environmental governance can be evaluated either or simultaneously on whether processes are fair and legitimate and whether outcomes are socially equitable or ecologically sustainable (Bennett & Dearden 2014a). For example, MPA governance (MPAG) might be judged by stakeholders, managers, or scientists based on levels of participation in decision making, impacts on local community livelihoods, or changes in the resilience of habitats or abundance of fish (Christie 2004; McClanahan et al. 2006; Bennett & Dearden 2014b). Yet disagreement remains about whether outputs of governance analyses should be descriptive or prescriptive. Questions and ideas that have been taken up by environmental governance scholars (Ostrom 1990; Young 2002; Berkes et al. 2003; Liverman 2004; Lemos & Agrawal 2006; Armitage et al. 2007, 2012; Poteete et al. 2010) and that either have or should be addressed in the context of MPAs include but are not limited to the following. How are individual and collective behaviors shaped by different governance institutions? What is the ideal governance structure for managing people and resources: community based, top down, or comanagement? How and why do governance institutions change and to what effect? What decision-making processes are more socially acceptable and lead to better ecological outcomes? What are the roles of different actors and organizations (e.g., governments, NGOs, private sector, local stakeholders, and resource users) in shaping governance processes and determining outcomes? How can governance address interconnected social-ecological systems and interactions across ecological, social, and institutional scales? How can governance be designed to fit different sociopolitical and ecological contexts? What limits are placed on governance by different social, political, and ecological factors? What norms or ideals (e.g., transparency, accountability, trust) should guide governance? What is the appropriate scale for governance to occur? How can collaboration and cooperation be facilitated most effectively? How can governance be designed to be stable and also to adapt to mounting social and ecological changes and unpredictable circumstances? These are not merely academic concerns. Insights provided by answers to these questions would help in the formulation of appropriate, acceptable, and supportive environmental governance policies and processes, enabling more effective management and ultimately enhancing the social and ecological outcomes of MPAs. Many of these ideas are taken up by Peter Jones in his book Governing Marine Protected Areas: Resilience though Diversity (Jones 2014). This book is impressive in theoretical and geographical scope and important because it is the most comprehensive look at MPAG to date. It contributes substantially to debates, policy documents, and literatures on the governance of protected areas—terrestrial and marine—that have flourished since the 2003 World Parks Congress in Durban, where governance was a central theme. This book traces the history and trajectory of development of MPAs globally and sets