Towards adaptive management of the natural capital: Disentangling trade-offs among marine activities and seagrass meadows

This paper investigates the ecological, social and institutional dimensions of the synergies and trade-offs between seagrasses and human activities operating in the Natura 2000 protected site of San Simon Bay (Galicia, NW Spain). By means of a multidisciplinary approach that brings together the development of a biological inventory combined with participatory mapping processes we get key spatial and contextual understanding regarding how, where and why marine users interact with seagrasses and how seagrasses are considered in policy making. The results highlight the fisheries' reliance on seagrass meadows and the controversial links with shellfisheries. The study also reveals unresolved conflicts among those management plans that promote the protection of natural values and those responsible for the exploitation of marine resources. We conclude that the adoption of preplanning bottom-up participatory processes is crucial for the design of realistic strategies where both seagrasses and human activities were considered as a couple system. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.