| Summary: | Coral reef ecosystems are some of the most biologically diverse systems in the world, and provide a number of ecosystem services that humans depend on for their wellbeing. Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a social-ecological intervention that while conserving these ecosystems, also have significant impacts on the communities that depend on them for their wellbeing. Community-based MPAs are growing in popularity with the assumption that by putting communities at the forefront of their planning and management, more participation will occur, ensuring positive social and ecological impacts. This study, through mixed qualitative and quantitative methods, examines two community-based MPAs in coastal Kenya (called tengefus) to understand how each tengefu was incepted, and how resource users perceive the impacts of the tengefu on ecosystem services and human wellbeing. Participation in and donor support for the tengefu were found to influence how resource users perceived impacts. Individuals who were more engaged in the project or held some type of leadership position perceived more positive impacts on ecosystem services and human wellbeing compared to those not involved. In the two cases, tangible benefits (e.g. fisheries spillover and ecotourism) from the marine enclosure itself are too few to benefit the community as a whole. For tengefus to be social successes, more attention should be given to engaging all resource-dependent community members in their planning, implementation and management, and to understanding the multifaceted role of donor funding in supporting these initiatives.
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