Profiling and Isolating Management Practices of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Philippines through Cluster Analysis

Abstract

This study profiled and isolated the best management practices of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Philippines using Hierarchical Cluster Analysis. It is a multivariate interdependence technique which can segment MPAs into homogeneous clusters based on reported scores from nine management constructs identified by MPA Management Effectiveness Assessment Tool (MEAT). The cluster analysis creates four distinctly profiled MPA groups the same with the MPA classification in MEAT which distributions are the following: cluster 1 (n=28), cluster 2 (n=81), cluster 3 (n=6) and cluster 4 (n=35). These clusters are profiled as institutionalized, sustained, strengthened, and established respectively. The best practices from institutionalized cluster in nine management constructs are reported in this study. The study also identified management plan, management body, financing, information, education, and communication (IEC), enforcement, monitoring and evaluation (ME), and site development as management constructs that need attention from national and local MPA managers as they scored low in most of the MPAs.