Introduction

Coral reef ecosystems worldwide have suffered from the cumulative impacts of human activities, resulting in long-term declines (Pandolfi et al. 2003; Wilkinson 2008) that compromise the ability of reefs to provide important societal benefits (Moberg and Folke 1999; Norström et al. 2008; Nyström et al. 2008). Anthropogenic impacts include local stressors such as overfishing, land-based pollution, invasive species introductions, and global stressors such as climate change. These proximate human impacts are driven by underlying or distal factors such as changes in demography, economic markets, technological factors, and institutional dynamics (Kittinger et al. 2012b; Cinner et al. 2012; Brewer et al. 2012; Squires and Vestergaard 2013).

The increased recognition of coral reefs as essential sources of biodiversity (Roberts et al. 2002) and providers of benefits to human communities (Moberg and Folke 1999) has brought new focus to restoration efforts (Bullock et al. 2011). As restoration projects become increasingly prevalent, increased understanding of their ecological and social dimensions is needed to inform best practices for practitioners. Reef restoration projects range from local, community scale to international initiatives with varying approaches and results (Pickering et al. 1999; Rönnbäck et al. 2007; Rinkevich 2005; Epstein et al. 2003; Young et al. 2012). Despite this diversity, most restoration efforts share a central theme of restoring habitat quality, reef species populations, and other ecosystem services. Reef restoration strategies include (1) removal of invasive species, such as for crown-of-thorns starfish (Bos et al. 2013; GBRMPA 1995), invasive fish (Giddens et al. 2012), and invasive macroalgae (e.g., by hand or assisted through mechanical means or biocontrol agents) (Conklin and Smith 2005); and (2) a diverse and evolving set of practices for propagation and transplantation of native species, including coral gardening (Rinkevich 2006; Kaufman 2005; Richmond 2005; Harriott and Fisk 1988) and substrate manipulation (see Young et al. 2012 for a review). Associated indirect or passive measures include management of runoff and pollution, wastewater treatment, and restoration of coastal wetlands, mangroves, and estuaries (Elliott et al. 2007).

Coral reef restoration is a relatively young science compared to terrestrial restoration efforts (Epstein et al. 2003), and approaches are needed to identify economically and ecologically viable methods to inform restoration efforts. Recent literature has focused primarily on the ecological aspects of restoration, while considerably less attention has been given to the social, economic, and cultural dimensions of restoration efforts, which directly affect the stakeholders and communities these initiatives are meant to serve. For example, restoration efforts can generate significant economic benefits to local communities and maritime industries (Edwards et al. 2012). Similarly, restoration efforts can influence sociocultural values for community members and various stakeholder groups (Woolley and McGinnis 2000; McGinnis et al. 1999; Urgenson et al. 2013). Understanding these social benefits can help practitioners tailor initiatives toward communities and stakeholders they are intended to benefit (Lundquist and Granek 2005).

Here, we report results of community research assessing the social dimensions of a large-scale coral reef restoration project in Maunalua Bay, O‘ahu. To assess socioeconomic and cultural benefits associated with this restoration initiative, we interviewed 131 community stakeholders and analyzed quantitative and qualitative data on this invasive algae removal project. Below, we provide an overview of our study site and the methodological approach taken for this research. We then present the results of this interdisciplinary study and conclude by discussing lessons learned for engaging productively with communities in environmental restoration and stewardship.

Overview of the study site and restoration efforts

Maunalua Bay is an urbanized bay on the southeastern coast of the island of O‘ahu and is one of the largest bays in the Hawaiian archipelago (Fig. 1). Historically, the area was dedicated to agriculture and ranching (Cordy 2002; Thomas 1995; Franklin 2010), and it remained largely rural until the mid-twentieth century, when the Kalaniana‘ole Highway project facilitated access and commercial subdivision of land led to an increasing number of homes along the shoreline (Stevens-Gleason and Hammatt 2008). The area was historically rich in traditional Hawaiian fishponds (loko i‘a), many of which were altered or filled between 1940 and 1950 in order to accommodate urban development (Wolanski et al. 2009; Clark 1977).

Fig. 1
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The invasive algae removal site—located in the Kuli‘ou‘ou watershed in east O‘ahu. The state-managed Paikō waterbird sanctuary, a semi-enclosed coastal lagoon, is immediately to the east of the removal site. Figure courtesy Impact Assessment, Inc

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Today, approximately 60,000 people live in 10 coastal watersheds directly adjacent to Maunalua Bay and along its 12 km of shoreline (Mālama Maunalua 2009). The bay is an important resource for recreation, fishing, and food gathering, but its marine resources are affected by numerous anthropogenic stressors, including land-based pollution, physical damage to productive nearshore habitat, and overfishing (Mālama Maunalua 2009; Wolanski et al. 2009).

Invasive alien algae also constitute a major threat to Hawai‘i’s coastal ecosystems (Godwin et al. 2006; Brostoff 1989; Smith et al. 2004; Smith et al. 2002). In Maunalua Bay, the invasive alga Avrainvillea amadelpha, or leather mudweed, was first observed in the Paikō area of bay following a large storm in 1987 that deposited a layer of terrestrial sediment on the reef flat. Leather mudweed effectively traps sediment, and its establishment triggered an ecological shift from a community dominated by native algae, seagrass species, and sporadic coral colonies, to one dominated by mud and invasive algae. By 2010, A. amadelpha dominated much of the Paikō reef flat, exceeding 90 % cover in some areas (Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources, unpub. data), and had spread to over 270 acres of reef in Maunalua Bay.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC), in partnership with Mālama Maunalua, a community organization, and Pono Pacific, a for-profit environmental restoration firm, undertook a 1-year restoration project to remove 1.32 million kg (3 million tons) of A. amadelpha from 11 hectares (90,000 m2, or 23 acres) of reef flat in the Kuli‘ou‘ou area of Maunalua Bay (Fig. 1). This large-scale invasive algae removal (IAR) effort was supported through $3.4 million USD grant awarded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.

To remove the invasive algae, workers waded through relatively shallow water (~1 m or less) and manually pulled (huki) the A. amadelpha from the soft sediment and placed it in net bags (Fig. 2). Once filled, bags were placed on kayaks and floated to the beach, where they were transferred by truck to a composting site. Over the period of more than 15 months, this resulted in a serial progression of algae removal (Fig. 3).

Fig. 2
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Restoration crews remove invasive Avrainvillea amadelpha from Maunalua Bay (a) and move it to the beach. From there, it is transferred in wagons (b) to a truck (c), for transport to a local farm that will use it for compost (d). This method was developed by community volunteers with assistance from The Nature Conservancy and State of Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources scientists over a period of several years prior to the ARRA-funded project

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Fig. 3
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Serial progression of the invasive algae removal at the Kuli‘ou‘ou site in Maunalua Bay. Figure courtesy of The Nature Conservancy

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Methods

We employed a collaborative social science research approach, working closely with the three partner organizations to assess the socioeconomic and cultural dimensions of the invasive algae removal project. We developed a semi-structured interview protocol, which was pre-tested through informal interviews with key informants. After revising the protocol, we subsequently conducted face-to-face interviews with key respondents lasting approximately 1–1.5 h over the course of several months in late 2010 and early 2011. Our interview protocol consisted of a series of structured questions targeting specific social dimensions of the invasive algae removal effort. Interviews followed accepted social science research methods and techniques.

We used a chain referral or “snowballing” sampling method coupled with a purposive sampling design to identify key respondents. Interviews were coupled with additional ethnographic methods, including participant observation and document analysis—information from these research activities was used to contextualize interview data. Respondents included stakeholders that were identified as having experienced the most direct economic benefits of the ARRA-funded IAR project, including principally the employees of the environmental restoration firm Pono Pacific. Other stakeholder groups included recreational users, farmers, long-time community members, researchers, educators, employees and volunteers at community organizations and institutions, and Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners. See the Electronic Supplementary Material (ESM) for details on our methods and approach.

Results

Stakeholder characterization

Interviewees comprised a broad array of ocean user groups and community constituencies that stood to benefit from the restoration effort (for a profile of interviewees, see ESM Demographic results). To categorize the full range of activities and human use patterns, respondents were asked to identify their ocean activities in a repetitive fashion. Ocean use categories were not mutually exclusive. As may be expected, most interviewees associated themselves with multiple uses of the bay and identified themselves as part of several stakeholder groups (Table 1). Maunalua Bay stakeholders were mobile and used multiple areas within the bay. Among all interviewees, 52.2 % reported that they had lived at some time in the Maunalua area and 31.9 % of interviewees responded that they had familial ties to the region. This lower overall percentage owes partially to the make-up of the Pono Pacific crew, many of whom were not from the Maunalua Area; other stakeholder groups targeted in the surveying effort included Maunalua area residents and ocean users (Table 1). 70.7 % responded that their employment was directly connected to the bay, of which the majority were Pono Pacific employees (n = 40) that were interviewed for the project. Other major groups in this category included members of community organizations, private business owners, and farmers.

Table 1 Stakeholder characterization and human use patterns in Maunalua Bay among respondents interviewed from August 2010 to April 2011 (N = 86)
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Perceptions of environmental change

The vast majority of interviewees (85.6 %) responded that they had personally observed changes in the bay’s environment over their lifetime, and 96.7 % responded that the health of the bay was currently threatened. Most respondents reported that their first association with the bay was relatively recent; more than 30 % of respondents reported having first associated with the bay after 2000 (Table S6). Despite this, many respondents had long ties to the bay, including 7 respondents whose first association was as early as the 1950s (Table S6). Respondents were asked to quantify the condition of the bay at different times, including at the time of their first association, immediately before the start of the IAR project and at the time of the interview (during or immediately after completion of the IAR project). Generally, most interviewees perceived the bay to have been in better condition at the time of their first association than immediately before the IAR project was initiated (Fig. 4; Table S7). More interviewees also characterized the bay as healthy at the end of the IAR project versus before its initiation (Fig. 4; Table S7). These findings are consistent with long-term ecological monitoring data that show cover of mudweed 3 years post-removal was a quarter of its pre-removal level and the cover of native algae had exceeded that present prior to restoration (Fig. 5). These long-term monitoring trends are due in part to the continued actions of community volunteers that have worked to keep mudweed from recolonizing the area.

Fig. 4
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Respondents’ assessment of the condition of the bay at different phases of the invasive algae removal (IAR) project (N = 86)

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Fig. 5
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Percent of the coral reef benthic community in the restoration area covered by invasive mudweed (light blue) and native algae (dark blue) at monthly intervals following mudweed removal. Zero months represent pre-restoration. Bars are standard error of the mean. Data from The Nature Conservancy

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Economic benefits of the coral reef restoration project

The IAR project resulted in significant economic and monetary benefits to the community and the organizations involved. Over 51 % of respondents indicated that they had experienced direct economic benefits from the project, primarily through employment. This included primarily Pono Pacific workers, but benefits also accrued to some researchers and a few other employees of community organizations whose activities were supported by project funds. Our conservative estimate suggests that at least 63 enduring positions were created as a direct result of the IAR project (Table 2), and at least 97 positions were directly supported by ARRA funds over the duration of the restoration. Of these positions, 40 % were full time, 43 % were part time, and 17 % were attributed to positions outside of the major organizations that have been supplemented through outsourced contractual work. More than 13 different organizations (non-profit and for profit) benefitted from ARRA funding.

Table 2 Total employed positions supported by the ARRA grant, as determined through interviews with organization staff
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More than 40 Pono Pacific crew members and 4 supervisory positions received direct employment through the IAR project. The majority of workers (67.5 %) hired by Pono Pacific were either unemployed (50 %) or only held part-time positions (17.5 %) prior to their hiring (Table S10). Among new hires, 58.9 % reported that their income increased either moderately or substantially as compared to their previous employment (Table S11). Crew members reported that wages compared favorably with the current minimum wage in Hawai‘i and helped provide household financial stability; workers also noted the importance of medical benefits received from employment, reducing vulnerabilities.

Economic benefits extended beyond the individuals employed through ARRA funds and into household economies of the Maunalua community. More than 67 % of Pono Pacific employees, for example, reported that their income provided direct economic benefits to their household (Table S12). Using estimates of reported household size, we conservatively estimate that more than 250 individuals and 81 households benefited from ARRA funding for Pono Pacific employees (Table 3).

Table 3 Estimated numbers of individuals and households benefitting from ARRA funding of Pono Pacific employees
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Local farmers in the community also received economic benefits, in the form of algae, which was used as compost and fertilizer supplement (ESM Box 1). The exact monetary amount of the benefit was difficult for interviewees to determine, but one farmer estimated that over the previous 4–5 months, the algae may have saved 10 % of his costs for soil media, estimated in the range of “hundreds of dollars per month.” Another farmer noted that using algae offsets the costs of fertilizer and noted one advantage over traditional fertilizer was faster growth of plants, which could then be brought to the market more rapidly (see ESM Box 1).

Sociocultural benefits of the coral reef restoration project

We documented a wide range of sociocultural and non-monetary benefits of the IAR project. These benefits are commonly defined as cultural ecosystem services in the scientific literature (see Chan et al. 2011 for a review) and include aesthetic, artistic, educational, and spiritual dimensions, as well as other values that arise from human–environment interactions (Daily 1997; Costanza et al. 1997). Here, we categorize these cultural ecosystem services of the IAR project to the Maunalua Bay community as including (1) health and psychosocial benefits that accrued directly to restoration workers; (2) Native Hawaiian cultural practices among community members and long-term local families; and (3) recreational benefits for ocean users.

Health and psychosocial benefits

Among Pono Pacific crew members, 80 % agreed or strongly agreed that their work made them healthier and physically fit, despite the work’s strenuous nature and demanding physical environment (Table S9). More than 97 % of respondents in this stakeholder group agreed or strongly agreed that their work resulted in a greater sense of accomplishment, and over 96 % reported personal gratification as a result of their work. These psychosocial benefits were often discussed with greater alacrity than economic benefits by the crew, indicating a high level of importance among respondents.

Crew members maintained tight social ties that were facilitated by their work, causing one community member to observe that Pono Pacific was “a community on the water.” Much of the positive psychosocial aspects of their job were linked by respondents to physical proximity entailed in the work and to specific work policies that emphasize good relationships. One respondent described how the cold water conditions in particular encouraged workers to huddle together and how this close physical proximity facilitated an emotional sense of togetherness.

Native Hawaiian cultural practices

Many of the sociocultural benefits highlighted as significant among respondents relate to Native Hawaiian concepts and practices (Table 4). Major benefits described by community elders (kūpuna) and long-term local (kama‘āina) families were the increased sharing of knowledge between elders and younger generations (intergenerational knowledge transfer) about the history of the bay and its ecosystems and the importance of teaching the next generation about the history of Maunalua. Additional benefits include the revitalization of traditional and Native Hawaiian cultural practices of land-to-sea (uka-to-kai) stewardship, and the giving back of time and resources to the bay (see ESM Box 1). Respondents also tied the IAR project to broader cultural revitalization projects, such as the restoration of Pahua heiau, a historical Hawaiian temple and cultural landmark dedicated to agriculture, and the restoration of Paikō Lagoon, a state-managed waterbird sanctuary immediately to the east of the IAR site (Fig. 1). Respondents described how awareness and use of traditional place names of the region (including Maunalua) had also increased. The restoration of fishponds (e.g., http://maunaluafishpond.org/) and importance of local farms were also characterized by these stakeholders as part of the revitalization of community. Respondents explicitly connected the restoration of the bay with specific Native Hawaiian cultural concepts, suggesting that among these stakeholders, the effort relates to a more holistic set of cultural norms and practices.

Table 4 Native Hawaiian concepts and terms used by respondents to describe sociocultural dimensions of the IAR project
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Recreational benefits for ocean users

Recreational ocean users in the Maunalua community perceived better water quality conditions, remarking the water was clearer and the sandy bottom more prevalent. Surfers, in particular, made use of the sandy bottom areas and channels cleared by the IAR project for easy access to surf spots. Paddlers were also active in the bay, but these users noted their access points were too far from the IAR site to be affected. Fishers in the area perceived clearer water, and more tenured fishers with a longer history of experience in the bay remarked that the current conditions reminded them of how the bay looked decades ago. In a separate study, some fishers reported negative impacts associated with a recreational bonefish fishery (‘ō‘io, Albula spp.); however, results show that prey for bonefish increased as a result of the algae removal, and 85 % of anglers interviewed noted an increase in ‘ō‘io post-removal, with 40 % noting increased catches (Okimoto and Friedlander 2011). All respondents commented on enjoying the cleaner sand on the beach and observed that the areas near the IAR project site were more “family friendly” as a result. Generally, recreational users were positive about the IAR project and the efforts to improve the condition of the bay.

Organizational and community capacity building and awareness

The IAR project benefited community organizations and strengthened community awareness of, and capacity for, environmental stewardship through multiple activities, including engagement of educational programs and curricula with the huki effort, research and scientific inquiry, traditional and Native Hawaiian cultural practices and customs, sustainable agriculture, community events, and recreational activities.

Community stewardship capacity

The hands-on nature of the IAR project, combined with a strong educational component, resulted in the effective diffusion of concepts of environmental awareness, responsibility for stewardship (kuleana) and caring (mālama) for the land and sea, among our respondent pool, with some evidence for uptake in the larger Maunalua community (Table 4). Telephone surveys on community awareness of the project showed that among O‘ahu residents, 70 % of residents surveyed (up to 11 percentage points from the baseline survey) indicated that they recall seeing or hearing something about invasive algae. Further, awareness of the algae problem was comparatively higher in impacted areas, with 75 % of Maunalua (East Honolulu) residents surveyed (up 4 percentage points) indicating that they were aware of invasive algae (Ward Research Inc. 2011). These results indicate that the IAR project was successful in raising community awareness among the larger community of residents in O‘ahu and in Maunalua about the state of the bay and threats to its resources and actions to increase stewardship efforts.

Among our respondent pool, all interviewees were aware of the IAR project in Maunalua Bay and more than 80 % of respondents had participated in a community IAR event. Over 52 % of respondents indicated that they had participated in supporting activities for the IAR project, and 74.1 % reported that the IAR project had resulted in more involvement on their behalf or among other community members in Maunalua Bay (Table S2). Most respondents were initially exposed to the project through word-of-mouth (58 %) or first-hand experiences with the project (17 %) (Table S8). This corresponds with the finding that 96.6 % of respondents had talked with other community members about the IAR project (Table S2). Media were responsible for less than 6 % of total initial exposures to the IAR project (Table S8).

Respondents reported positive perceptions of the effects of the IAR project to the Maunalua community (Table 5). The general consensus among respondents was that the IAR project has generated more discussion among community members about the bay, stronger awareness of the bay’s condition, and a greater understanding about the potential impacts to the bay (Table 5A–C). Similarly, over 94 % of respondents indicated agreement that the IAR project had stimulated a greater understanding of the history and heritage of the bay, and more than 89 % of interviewees indicated that they had learned more about native ecosystems of the bay (Table 5D, G). More than 82 % agreed that the IAR project had resulted in increased feelings of personal ownership and sense of place surrounding the bay and its resources. Over 84 % of respondents believed that the project had resulted in the community exhibiting a stronger sense of stewardship (Table 5E, F). Most respondents believed that both fisheries and native limu (algae) populations would benefit as a result of the project and that the bay looked cleaner as a result of the effort (Table 5L) and overwhelmingly rejected the notion that the project would result in negative ecological impacts (Table 5H–K). Finally, almost 80 % of respondents believed that the project was benefiting local businesses and economics, and more than 95 % of respondents agreed that the project had increased their interest in future habitat restoration and conservation projects in the Maunalua Bay area (Table 5M, N).

Table 5 Social perceptions of the invasive algae removal project and its benefits to the Maunalua ecosystem and respondent community (n = 87)
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Community organizational capacity

Two non-profit organizations (TNC and Mālama Maunalua) and one for-profit firm (Pono Pacific) received the bulk of funding and were intensively involved in the IAR project. Individuals associated with these institutions as staff or managers were interviewed to understand and characterize the impact of ARRA funding and involvement with IAR project on the capacity of their respective organizations. Interviewees described how the grant increased the capacity of the three organizations through increased staffing and enhanced operational capability, and better positioned the organizations to leverage funding for related projects.

For the community organization Mālama Maunalua, increases in staff positions and operational functions supported by the ARRA grant were perceived as highly beneficial for leveraging additional funding and other support. As a result of the grant, Mālama Maunalua was able to develop and maintain relationships with more than 30 partner organizations (e.g., other NGOs, schools, research institutions, clubs), businesses, and local, state and federal agencies, increasing their ability to implement programs focused on community building, mobilization and education.

The for-profit firm Pono Pacific experienced dramatic growth, hiring approximately 75 people over the course of the project. At any given time, approximately 35–40 individuals were working on the project, either on a part-time or full-time basis. According to one interviewee, the IAR project enabled Pono Pacific to “expand their capability and look for new projects.” As of 2011, the company had approximately 80 employees (up from 15), and they had offices in Moloka‘i and the island of Hawai‘i in addition to their main office on O‘ahu and managed numerous projects across the state. The scale and types of work undertaken for the IAR project led to the acquisition of new skills, including training, supporting, and managing crews, and the development of expertise in communication and mitigation. For Pono Pacific and its clients, the project resulted in a skilled and knowledgeable workforce, fueling the development of a local business dedicated to environmental restoration and social impact.

Finally, TNC benefited through direct staff salary support and visibility to the organization in terms of its capability and commitment to restoration work, rather than only conservation. While TNC was the primary organization that received ARRA funding, they retained only 10 % of the total award, with the remainder disbursed to eight other organizations as subawards or contracted services.

See the ESM for additional results (Tables S1-13, Figure S1, Box 1).

Discussion

Our research on the IAR project in Maunalua Bay highlights the value of social assessments and participatory approaches, which can aid practitioners seeking to characterize social benefits associated with community-based stewardship initiatives and restoration projects. Our research identified several economic, organizational, and sociocultural benefits that extended “beyond the reef” in this community-based restoration effort. These include increased community involvement and awareness, development of green business and a skilled restoration workforce, and re-invigoration of important cultural practices and concepts. Below, we discuss several key findings from this research effort, including direct economic benefits of restoration projects, cultural ecosystem services evaluations, and the role of social networks and how diversity in resource user communities affects benefit capture.

Direct economic benefits of restoration projects

Our research documents substantial economic benefits associated with this community-based ecosystem restoration project, with over 63 positions created over the lifespan of the project (Table 2), supporting more than 250 individuals and more than 80 households (Table 3). By our estimates, the grant created 18.5 direct positions per million US dollars, which is lower than comparable estimates from other ARRA-funded projects by Edwards et al. (2012; Fig. 2), who report on average 27 direct jobs per million US dollars for invasive species removal projects. The Maunalua Bay invasive algae removal project also created long-term economic benefits to several businesses and organizations. The grant funded capacity building and development of a skilled workforce for an environmental restoration firm in the area, and built the capacity in training, skills, and partner engagement for several non-governmental organizations.

These results suggest that the ARRA grant was successful in creating green jobs in the local economy, and restoring marine and coastal habitats that function as ‘blue infrastructure,’ generating ecosystem services that benefit coastal communities and stakeholders (Edwards et al. 2012; Whitmarsh et al. 2008). Post-removal monitoring efforts document the lasting ecological effects of the IAR project (Fig. 5), pointing to the efficacy of such approaches in producing lasting ecological changes and potentially ecosystem service flows. While our results indicate significant short-term economic benefits, more research will be needed to assess the long-term economic impacts of the project, including for example, whether positions created under the ARRA grant have endured. Assessing the total economic value of services generated from this project and other similar efforts may also be complicated by the diverse set of ocean stakeholders included in this study, particularly since different benefits accrued to different stakeholders (e.g., benefits to recreational users, fishers, Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners, ocean homeowners). Fishers, for example, may benefit from recovery or return of some native species, but given the largely subsistence nature of fisheries in this area (Kittinger 2013), valuation methods would be required to estimate the value of non-market or subsistence uses.

Cultural ecosystem services and benefit capture

Approaches for assessing cultural ecosystem services have proven problematic (see review in Chan et al. 2011), as these services are often difficult to separate from other service portfolios (e.g., food provisioning services and cultural practices) (Garibaldi and Turner 2004; Kittinger 2013). Further, quantifying services may be unethical for a variety of reasons (Chan et al. 2011). We categorized three primary categories of cultural ecosystems associated with the IAR project, including health and psychosocial benefits for restoration workers, revitalization of Native Hawaiian cultural practices and concepts, and recreational benefits for ocean users. Our inclusive research approach identified these services in a non-structured interview format, allowing respondents to categorize these benefits outside of a formal framework. While this approach has advantages in that it did not a priori establish expected categories, the lack of a structured framework may mean that we missed some important cultural services. Additionally, our purposive sampling approach may limit the extension of these findings beyond our respondents.

Despite these limitations, we documented an important portfolio of cultural ecosystem services attributed to this restoration effort. These services accrued to different stakeholder groups, with variability in benefit capture. For example, recreational users benefited from cleaner water and access channels (e.g., for surfers), whereas increases in fish populations benefited the fishing community (Okimoto and Friedlander 2011). Further, some cultural ecosystem services such as Native Hawaiian practices and recreational uses appear to have recovered more quickly than others such as food provisioning, pointing to differential recovery timelines for different service flows. For restoration projects, ecosystem service evaluation approaches may benefit natural resource management by helping to document which services are associated with which stakeholder groups and understanding how restoration projects may influence service flows and the capture of these benefits.

Place-based approaches such as ours have much potential to illuminate these ‘hidden’ or hard-to-value cultural ecosystem services, which are often the most important to community members. Thus, even our coarse-level characterization of these non-material or non-use values may prove valuable for decision-making by documenting these services and their associated constituencies (Chan et al. 2012). For example, in the short term, understanding the diversity of stakeholder groups and which benefits accrue to which resource user groups can be beneficial for practitioners seeking to maximize benefit capture and incentives for a particular stakeholder group, or alternatively, to distribute benefits more equitably across resource user groups in a given region. Such information may also help evaluate the success of projects and allow practitioners to shift strategies in an adaptive manner to ensure benefits accrue to target stakeholder groups. In the longer term, restoration projects can help build capacity among local organizations and subsidize the development of local business operations with a skilled and knowledgeable restoration workforce. The development of capacity among local organizations and businesses, and the strengthening of partnerships among these institutions and stakeholders, is likely to outlive the shorter-term economic impacts and lay the foundation for more enduring social and environmental change.

Social capital and diverse resource user communities

Social capital and social networks have become increasingly recognized as critical in natural resource management and conservation initiatives (Bodin and Prell 2011; Bodin and Crona 2008; Marín et al. 2012; Barnes-Mauthe et al. 2013). Social capital and social networks provide mechanisms through which human actors exchange information and knowledge, and organize collective action around natural resource initiatives. Our research indicates that many project activities became integrated through the social capital of key individuals and their network of relationships with other stakeholders in the Maunalua community. For example, word of mouth was identified as the primary mechanism by which respondents became connected to the IAR project (Table S8). Similar to other research (e.g., Grafton 2005; Bodin and Crona 2008), this points to social capital as an important factor in disseminating information about community-based initiatives and projects, and generating collective action among stakeholders, which can be particularly challenging in diverse resource user communities.

In this case study, community awareness about the condition of the bay and consensus about the benefits of the project were strong (Table 5), due in part to the collective efforts of key individuals as well as local institutions. From an applied perspective, key community individuals with high levels of social capital may also provide entry points for practitioners seeking to develop other stewardship initiatives and build ties among social actors for collective action. It should be noted, however, that this result may be an artifact of the purposive sampling approach utilized in the research, as 84 % of respondents had local ties and we may have been preferentially directed toward individuals with higher social capital, as a result of our chain referral approach. Our results thus may only hold for the social networks that we accessed through our chain referral sampling protocol, and may not be representative of the broader and more diverse Maunalua Bay community as a whole.

Conclusion

As community-based initiatives increasingly become a focus in conservation projects around the world, social assessments can play a valuable role, providing critical information to inform a range of future interventions and strategies for practitioners (planners, managers, and local leaders) and for program monitoring and evaluation efforts. For community-based initiatives, social assessments can also help community organizations and their partners define target stakeholder groups and evaluate the success of ongoing or proposed management actions. When conducted in a participatory manner, assessments can add value to community initiatives by engendering greater communication and buy-in among resource users, and providing a mechanism to disseminate findings through existing stakeholder networks (Chuenpagdee and Jentoft 2007; Whyte et al. 1989; Wiber et al. 2004).

Our research reveals a broad array of social benefits associated with this community-based restoration project that extended “beyond the reef” and had the broader effect of restoring a sense of community around the bay. As one community member put it, “We are not just restoring an ecosystem, but a community. The project has become a symbol of hope for Maunalua.” Evaluating the success of community-based restoration efforts through place-based assessments may aid practitioners seeking to (1) expand local involvement in future restoration efforts and ongoing care for natural resources; (2) assess or develop the collective capacity of communities to manage the natural resources in their areas; and (3) design restoration projects to maximize social, cultural, and economic benefits for community members. Our results show that the human patterns of resource use and the knowledge systems and social relationships that have developed are critical elements to consider in site-based planning and implementation of conservation and restoration projects. Restoration projects that explicitly incorporate efforts to build community awareness, involvement, and a shared responsibility for a site may ultimately create the long-term capacity for sustainable stewardship programs.