I have reached my last day with internet for the foreseeable future. The thought of the absence of any technical support, combined my lack of solid research design, sent me into a tizzy last night. I sat despondent on the steps outside my hotel room, Skyping with Tom, in tears. Pieter, a mentor at the University of Amsterdam who has done many a study like this, helped me think through some of the research design aspects yesterday afternoon. During our conversation, I realized a number of things: (i) that my original scope was way too large; (ii) that my experience doing this type of valuation work is way to thin; (iii) that I should freak out.

After the short meltdown, Tom’s pep talk, and a night’s sleep, I spent today writing up what I hope is a reasonable research plan. It is much narrower in scope than what I had originally set out to accomplish, but it answers the question that needs answering right now: Are these octopus no-take zones a narrowly efficient (e.g., direct benefits outweigh direct costs) solution to the over-harvesting problem? The first hypothesis to test is: NTZs have a positive effect on the income of the harvesters, middlemen, and distributors. Focusing on the direct costs is only part of the benefits and costs, of course, and the least interesting economically. That said, these NTZ are already being replicated all over the SW (through an African Development Bank Project being implemented with WWF) and we have no empirical evidence that they don’t increase poverty or inequities. So I have prioritized trying to prove/falsify this hypothesis first. Hopefully the biologists have been carefully collecting data (before and after the NTZs, in areas with and without NTZs) because those data, along with net revenue data that I will collect, will be the basis of my analysis.

It might be that the net market benefit seems to justify the NTZ. Still, I need to ensure that there aren’t non-market costs that the approach ignores. On the other hand, it may be that the NTZs actually cost more than they generate. But that, too doesn’t necessarily mean that they are not efficient. I need to also include the “softer” benefits. So the second priority is to determine the indirect costs and benefits of the NTZs on the communities. (I focus on the communities because I think they are the ones who will bear most of the costs and benefits – to be confirmed during interviews.) For the short-term, I am going to present these data in non-monetary terms. This is where Pieter really pushed me technically: in order to get reliable values for the “softer” benefits of NTZs, we need to do what is called a choice experiment. Designing and analyzing these experiments is, for now, beyond what I think I can accomplish without technical support. I am disappointed that I cannot monetize these impacts because I worry that leaving them as descriptive will mean they are ignored in policy. I would also like to learn the new tool.

The final priority is to quantify the additional revenue generated by tourism of the NTZ. In many studies, the tourism benefit of marine protected areas ends up being quite significant. Here, though, the marginal benefit of protecting these small areas of disturbed reef flat is likely very small. I am going to do some back-of-the-envelope calculations to confirm this hunch, but the effort required to poll tourists is likely not well spent.

So what does my approach leave out? A lot. In terms of the “provisioning” benefits of these NTZ, I won’t have results about spill-over effects to other fisheries, marine products or biodiversity, I won’t include “regulating” benefits of the reef (wave energy dissipation, resilience to change), and I won’t have monetary expressions for the increased beauty, women’s employment, educational and scientific value, or community cohesiveness. The thing is that I have to see this initial study as a pilot. Luckily I have the coming 2 years to expand the valuations (and the time to work out more of the research design ahead of time – something that was impossible this time because I had no knowledge of the situation on-the-ground.)

But who cares about the project, right? How is Tulear?!? I think the best description I heard so far likened it to a city in the US or Europe 200 year ago. It is where all the people living in rural areas come to go to market, buy supplies, visit, drink, and get news. The city has about 300 thousand inhabitants, but the center of town extends across just 4 blocks square. There I found the market, hardware stores, groceries, street vendors, restaurants, hotels, an internet café, and just about everything I could need. Of course, the 200-year-old reference also refers to its infrastructure: open ditches with trash and wastewater, un-refrigerated meat market (gag), dirt roads, and rickety buildings. Small "shops" or "restaurants" line all the city streets and roads. These are little more than shanties selling whatever they can: eggs, fried dough, baguettes, found objects, pieces of wood, salvaged metal. Its pretty amazing.

A great feature of the town are the pousse-pousse (human-drawn rickshaws). The men who run them are amazing. They literally balance their bodies between the two long arms of the cart, elbows up in the air, and run. Everyone takes them around town. They are amazingly agile, weaving and bobbing the long arms through cattle, bikes, trucks, camions, pedestrians, children playing. Supposedly many Vaza (foreigners) have ethical scruples about them, but not me! This is a way to make good money (a trip across town costs about $1.50), with relatively little up-front capital investment, no operating costs aside from flip-flop replacements (= the brakes), little occupational hazard, and no environmental pollution. In fact, I think we should have more of these in US cities!

There are some good-ish restaurants. I’ve sought out salads because I have been told its rice and beans for the next month. I also bought a bunch of fruit in the market. WAY more than I can ever eat, but the woman selling them was so darling (having me try all the fruits) that I bought $2 worth (see photo). I also bought a little bottle of bleach that I used to soak the fruit (it is sold to treat water; and is highly subsidized – costs 200 Ariary or 8 cents.). I’ll share the spoils in the truck tomorrow as we bounce 8 hours towards Andavadoaka off-road.

Do I want to live here when we return? Probably not. I’m not sure how we will decide where to live, but I hope most of our time will be spent OUT of cities, near the marine resources we are studying. Of course, urban stresses on the marine environment are incredibly significant (sewage, trash, stormwater laden with oils). In fact, I heard a rumor that the petroleum logistics company (owned by Shell, Total, 2 other oil companies and the Malagasy government) simply open up the drains once a month to clean out the lines and sludge accumulated at the bottom of the enormous diesel tanks they have onshore. This, right next to “Le gran recife de Tulear” – the threatened and beautiful coral reef that is the source of food, tourism dollars, cultural pride, and coastal protection. A good story for my friendly local BBC reporter, don’t you think?

I will post again soon, but no more photos until I am back in Tulear in over a month. Lots of love to everyone. Remember, you can email me at personals@blueventures.org in the coming month.