Healthy People
Cultural Vitality Indicators
Cultural indicators show the relationship between Mesoamerican Reef Ecosystem (MAR) health and human needs. In this context, the main purpose of cultural indicators is to evaluate how stakeholders value reef resources in non-monetary forms. These can include indicators on traditional practices, beliefs, customs, and activities that are tied to reef resources. Selected cultural indicators can be effective advocacy tools for protecting the reef environment. Too often, policies are developed without considering important cultural concerns, resulting in less respected and effective implementation. Cultural indicators with direct ties to the environment can help insert cultural priorities into policy development. However, cultural indicators can also represent the pressures that a society’s cultural beliefs have played (both positive and detrimental) in affecting reef ecosystem health.
Cultural values are tied to economy, governance, environment, and human health. Cultural beliefs, values, and behaviors are pressures (e.g., over-fishing owing to traditional subsistence activities), states (e.g., people’s value of fishing resource in material and non material forms) and responses (e.g., organize fishing co-op and restrictions to lessen fishing impact).
Specific issues include:
• How has reef health influenced cultural issues over time and today?
• How have indigenous or local communities changed in relation to reef health, particularly in relation to resource extraction/availability?
• How has internal/external migration been altered from country to country?
• What role has tourism in particular, (and any other activities that may attract people from other regions not familiar with local cultures), had on local people and reef health?
