Society for Conservation Biology

Ethan Prall worked with colleagues at a local conservation organization in Mombasa, Coastal and Marine Resource Development (COMRED)

Ethan Prall, winner of a 2024 Graduate Student Research Award, sat down with us to share a bit about his research project, Diverse values and policies to conserve coral reefs and reef fish in Kenya. Ethan is a Ph.D. candidate in environmental science and policy at the University of Miami, holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School, and is based in Washington, D.C., U.S.A.

With an educational background in ethics, law and philosophy, and experience practicing environmental law, Ethan brings an unusual set of skills to bear in conservation. He's been interested in ocean conservation and marine protection for a long time, and his legal background allows him to ask different kinds of questions and explore ideas in ways that those with more traditional training might not. In particular, right now he is interested in the question: why do people care about nature, and how do their values motivate their policy preferences?

This experience and interest led Ethan to develop an "expert elicitation project, where I talked with people that have a lot of experience and expertise on coral reef values and management, in order to understand how they perceive" the value of coral reefs and reef fish in coastal Kenya. Over the course of almost 6 weeks, he conducted over 40 interviews with experts in coastal Kenya, where he has spent time before and has a long-standing interest. He interviewed leaders in the tourism industry, fishers, academic researchers, and officials, among others. The intention behind these interviews is to "draw connections between people's values about surrounding ecosystems and non-human animals, and how these values might relate to policy preferences for solutions like marine protected areas, alternative livelihoods for fishers, or increased pollution regulation."

Taken in Mombasa, where Ethan interviewed many experts who focused on managing coral reefs and related ecosystems

"Part of my work is focused on continuing to build and develop a partnership with people in Kenya and East Africa, in order to understand and reach mutual lessons on conservation and environmental protection," Ethan shared. "Over the course of 6 months, I developed contacts through mutual connections to researchers in Kenya, as well as received support from COMRED," a local organization that is deeply involved in marine conservation and sustainability there. COMRED, or Coastal and Marine Resource Development, was established in Mombasa in 2006 as a non-profit organization, with the mission to nurture practical solutions to problems facing coastal and marine environments and communities for sustainable development. COMRED's headquarters are in Mombasa, but they work along Kenya's coast and beyond Kenyan borders into the Western Indian Ocean region. Ethan worked to co-produce the study with his colleagues at COMRED, including setting up a network of interviewees, finding translation, and obtaining reliable transportation and accommodations in Mombasa for the duration of the interviews. "[COMRED] was so helpful in connecting me with people and networking, which proves that the right people on your team makes a big difference. It was a process, and it took a significant amount of time, but the way I view it is that these relationships are going to stay throughout my career, so it is worth spending that time to build those relationships."

He spent time in coastal communities, like this fishing village in Shimoni, learning about their values

Ethan's interviews allowed him to dig deeper into his research question. "I was inspired to go talk to people who are experts to try to understand what motivates them to conserve coral reefs and fish, what do they care about, and what values are animating them. We know from recent research that values do motivate policies in many cases - we can't necessarily draw a causal relationship between values and policies, but they seem to be very important." Ethan asked his interviewees about how they value coral reef ecosystems as a whole, but also about how they value coral reef fish specifically. "A lot of conservation research traditionally has paid too little attention to people's values and what motivates them, and too much attention to the economic value of ecosystems. In this project, the novelty is that I'm trying to understand a broader range of people's values."

Ethan interviewed local experts along the coast, including here in the touristy town of Watamu

As always with science, good and bad surprises come up along the way. Ethan was pleasantly surprised by how interested people were in doing interviews and talking about their values and the reefs. "People really liked talking," he said, "and sometimes they'd go on quite a bit, meaning I sometimes had to reschedule other interviews, but it was really fun and interesting." For example, many of the fishers we spoke to were not as focused on the economic value of fishing as he'd expected, which might be for various reasons, but they often emphasized the intrinsic and relational value they felt when out in nature. He says that one lesson is that, "People think issues of conservation are very important and should get more attention than they have."

Coral reefs like this one in Kisite-Mpunguti Marine Park face major climate change and other stressors

On the other hand, the heat in November posed a bit of a challenge. "Coming from Washington, D.C., it was hard to adjust in the first week or two as Mombasa is very hot," he says. "Driving around for a couple of hours in cars without air conditioning was something I hadn't expected to be so challenging. I sometimes needed to take breaks and be a bit cautious. I aimed for 40 interviews, and somehow we made it, but I had to reschedule one or two in order to respect my boundaries."

Ethan thinks that this project can help researchers to understand how people value marine ecosystems outside of their instrumental value, or what services they can provide for humans, including for example whether non-instrumental values support policy ideas like rights of nature. The work draws from recent assessments of how people value nature by the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). "I'm hoping this kind of work can start discussions and help people to understand what types of values are conducive to conservation. The goal is to promote a richer understanding of people's values, as well as figuring out how those values can support policies that enhance our coexistence with and conservation of nature."

Reef animals like reef fish, seen here in Kisite-Mpunguti Marine Park, are threatened by a combination of impacts and local experts expressed concern with improving their conservation

The 2024 Graduate Student Research Awards provided USD$1,000 to 10 students to support their research - Ethan combined his Graduate Student Research Award funding with funding from the University of Miami to support this project. "Organizations like the Society for Conservation Biology are really important, because they provide a voice for nature, which is not always a well-represented constituency," Ethan says. "When we think about the world as a democracy, oftentimes nature does not have a voice. How we talk about nature and what language we use is important."