Users’ satisfaction on coral restoration projects: The case of the Maldives

The worldwide degradation of coral reefs due to local and global threats has, in the past decade, sparked the diffusion of active coral restoration programs which aim at supporting the natural process of recovery. Yet, most coral restoration projects limit monitoring to few ecological factors. The ability of measuring the effectiveness of these projects, including their socio-economic dimensions, could increase their credibility and determine their further expansion through ease access to financial resources. Here, we measured the satisfaction and the relative importance of key characteristics of the reef or “reef attributes” for clients and residents of resorts in the Maldives through Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA). Results of the fieldwork show that reef users in two resorts were not satisfied about the color, the quantity and the variety of the coral present in the locations. On the same items, importance ratings were very high thus indicating that a gap between satisfaction and importance and possibly highlighting a need for intervention. Some results were also gender-specific: women were much less satisfied than men but more willing to participate to a local coral restoration project. We recommend that evaluation of coral restoration programs include reef users’ satisfaction to provide a measure of effectiveness and potentially to ensure initial and longer-term support to the initiative.