**4. Discussions**

## *4.1. Awareness and Utilization of Blue Carbon Ecosystems*

The residents of Busuanga have a high recognition of mangroves because of their tangible benefits. Field observations and oral accounts documented that locals collect fish and shells in mangrove areas when their financial capacity to buy food is limited. This scenario is very common among coastal communities in the Philippines. Some locals are getting paid for assisting recreational activities such as firefly watching and paddling in mangrove areas. Moreover, coastal residents have first-hand experience with the protection services of mangroves when the super typhoon Haiyan hit the country in 2013. Ref. [33] have documented that mangrove services are highly recognized by the people when they are directly benefited by them; the more services they can get or observe, the higher they value the ecosystem. As for seagrass awareness, provisioning services are well acknowledged by the locals compared to other services (i.e., regulating, cultural). Unlike mangroves, seagrass ecosystem services are not well streamlined in coastal programs or often grouped with other ecosystems because the priorities for research and development activities are usually directed towards coastal resources with immediate economic impacts [34,55]. However, C3 Philippines, an NGO, is changing this trend. This group has already conducted several seagrass awareness campaigns (including blue carbon functions) on the island as part of their thrusts on the Dugong conservation program (program coordinator of C3 Philippines, personal communication, 19 July 2019).

The utilization frequency of BCE services in Busuanga is generally low despite residents' proximity to these resources (see Figure 3). Using correlation and multiple regressions, awareness level and sociodemographic characteristics of the locals were explored to determine whether these have an influence or none on their utilization behaviors (see Supplementary Materials). This study shows that the effect of social profile on the local's utilization behavior is inconclusive. As pointed out by [56], socio-demographics as predictor variables do not always influence their behavior. However, to some degree, the occupation of the residents influences their utilization behavior (as hypothesized); fishers are more active in using the BCEs services meanwhile others (i.e., farmers, employed individuals) are less active. Fishing in BCEs, though, is low in Busuanga since they utilize coral reefs more [57]. Harvesting mangroves for charcoal-making has reduced due to strict implementation of local ordinances and the establishment of marine protected areas on the island [57]. Moreover, cultural services offered by the BCEs are not used since most of the tourism-related activities on the island feature other ecosystems like coral reefs, beaches, and small islands.

The awareness level of BCE services in Karimunjawa reflects an overall low trend that agrees with previous perception studies on the island (i.e., [58,59]). Provisioning benefits are poorly received while cultural functions of BCEs are well perceived (see Figure 2). Regulating services like the blue carbon functions are generally unrecognized, while coastal protection and natural buffer services are acknowledged by the locals. To date, there are now different blue carbon opportunities in Indonesia [29], however, blue carbon related works are mainly focused on the carbon potential of BCEs (i.e., [60]) rather than on BCE awareness and capacity building among coastal communities.

Looking at the possible factors affecting their perceptions, the occupation of the locals is negatively associated with their awareness and utilization behaviors. Based on the 2017 population of Karimunjawa, fishers comprise 47.0% of the residents [45] thus, it is expected to document high utilization frequency (positive correlation). However, this study shows low utilization frequency (negative correlation); 59.6% to 68.1% of the locals do not perform fishing/gleaning activities. This may be due to the smaller number of fishers (21.3%) in the respondents and more (34.0%) salaried individuals. Accessibility to BCEs could potentially influence resident's usage rate [58]; however, despite the proximity of the respondents to BCEs, utilization yields are still low. This is because most of the fishers on the island are pelagic fishers [45]. Another factor that could influence their utilization is the level of awareness. Similar to Busuanga, the awareness and utilization in Karimunjawa correlate with each other. Residents who utilized the services (i.e., food source) are typically those who only recognized the benefits of BCEs. The work of [59] on the island also captured fewer fishing activities in mangroves because of their low awareness while gleaning activities in seagrass beds depend on the awareness of the abundance of associated organisms [58]. Interestingly, activities related to cultural activities are also low (see Figure 3) despite Karimunjawa becoming a popular tourism site [59].
