Effective social and ecological interventions that can benefit both nature and people are needed to halt the degradation of ecosystems and subsequent negative impacts on human well-being. Marine protected areas (MPAs) are commonly used to foster the sustainability of coastal social-ecological systems. However, because MPAs are often proposed and implemented by external actors, ensuring they are fit to the local social and ecological context remains a challenge. Here, we introduce a framework to identify the place-based social and ecological goals for an MPA. We use a marine conservation project in the Philippines as a case study. We assess the perceptions of local communities and decision-makers across four categories: i) marine importance, ii) environmental stressors, iii) proposed management options, and iv) MPA goals and needs. Assessing these is a way to refine marine conservation goals locally, adapt the implementation of planned interventions, and monitor their future outcomes.

6. Supplemental items DATA S1: R code used and data analyzed to produce Figure 1.