New research is being conducted by a King’s College London PhD student to look at the role of equity in marine protected area management and the Solway Firth is one of the study areas chosen.
Equitable conservation is vital to ensuring effective protection of natural resources while maintaining human well-being, yet equity may be overlooked in protected area assessments.
The research within the Solway is looking for responses from the Scottish and the English sides of the Firth for the area covered by the inner firth, which has various designations.
In this fully anonymous survey, participants will be asked to respond to questions about how fairly they believe they are being treated as a stakeholder (e.g. fisher, aquaculture, recreational user, local resident, etc.) of the Solway Firth. Please note that Solway Firth Partnership does not have a management role for protected sites within the Solway Firth.
This survey takes approximately 10-15 minutes to complete and can be done on a computer or smartphone. At the end of the survey, participants will be asked if they’d like to participate further by being interviewed (this can be done on the phone or via Skype to ensure social distancing measures). Interviews will give participants the chance to elaborate on any issues they feel are most important to them regarding how the Solway Firth is being managed and protected. Since the online survey is fully anonymous, participants’ identities will not be revealed in the study results if they choose to be interviewed. All participants who complete the survey can choose to be entered into a prize draw to win 1 of 3 Amazon gift cards, worth up to £100. The link to the survey can be found here.
