Abstract
The waters of Maui County are essential to the economic livelihood of Maui County’s residents. In addition to sustenance value, annual revenue from international tourism and marine activities along the coastlines of Maui County keeps the island's economy afloat. Ironically, it is this revenue that may lead to the demise of Maui’s coral reef ecosystems and booming tourism industry. Overuse of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), due to their appeal as aesthetically vivid, conservation districts, has potential to degrade the very systems that the MPAs are intended to protect. Maui Counties MPAs are exploited as ideal snorkel and dive destinations and potentially used to a higher degree than non-conserved areas and therefore are more prone to degradation than areas with no protected status. Marine ecotourism activities have been previously indicated as factors involved in coral reef degradation. Here, I attempted to establish whether or not there was a notable decline in benthic substrate biodiversity in the MPA-managed areas of Maui County relative to that of non-conserved areas. Based on biodiversity indices, I hypothesized that there would be lower benthic biodiversity at MPA sites (designated as “conserved”) relative to those sites with no such designations, within the boundaries of Maui County. It was my prediction that because of the high use of these marine protected areas, relative to control areas, a more-degraded, less-diverse substrate would be described in the MPAs of Maui County despite their designation as conservation districts. Photographic quadrats of benthic organisms and substrate from four tourist-accessible conservation sites and eight biogeographically similar controls were quantified and assessed through the use of biodiversity indices at two depth ranges. Using MANOVAs of Shannon diversity indices, Species Richness and percent cover, I found significantly lower biodiversity indices in MPAs relative to control areas. These results were consistent throughout the three assessed biodiversity indices in both site by site comparisons and an overall comparison of all MPA data points compared to all control data points. Given the lengthy establishment of MPAs in Maui County and the importance of marine preservation for the aesthetics, economy and biology of Maui county, these results suggest the need for change in the level of MPA usage and regulation of that usage.