Community-Based Conservation and Restoration in Coastal Wetlands: A Review

Research has shown that conservation and restoration efforts that engage local communities are often more successful at meeting stated goals than those that are externally controlled. Such participatory management approaches have been increasingly applied in coastal wetland ecosystems, yet our collective understanding of the scope of methods applied and outcomes observed in these efforts is limited. In order to address this gap, we present a review of the published literature on community-based conservation and restoration in coastal wetlands. We summarize the current state of coastal wetland participatory management and provide suggestions for future conservation and restoration efforts, namely: expanding the ecosystem and geographic focus, incorporating additional approaches and outcome metrics, and increasing the post-conservation or restoration monitoring period. It is our hope that this work will encourage further implementation of community-based approaches to coastal wetland management for the collective benefit of both people and nature.