*3.3. Respondents' Utilization of Blue Carbon Ecosystem Services*

Generally, the provisioning and cultural services of BCEs are poorly utilized by the residents in both study sites (Figure 3). In Busuanga, 27.6% of the respondents have collected fishes and other seafood in mangrove areas at least once a week and 23.5% have done it once a month while the majority (33.7%) have never done it. About 25.5% of the respondents have collected seafood as an income source once a week, although a bigger portion (48.0%) have never utilized mangroves as an income source. Moreover, 75.5% of the sample size has never harvested mangroves as firewood materials. In terms of cultural services, only 22.4% of them have visited this habitat once a month for bird or bat watching while 75.5% have never utilized it for other recreational activities like paddling. Roughly 90.8% of the locals have never accessed the mangrove areas for research or educational purposes. Accessing seagrass meadows for its provisioning and cultural services has been observed to be very low, 53.1% to 92.9% of the respondents in Busuanga.

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**Table 2.** Comparison of respondents' awareness level between Busuanga and Karimunjawa.

Notes: <sup>a</sup> Measured on a five-point Likert scale ranging from "not aware" (1) to "extremely aware" (5). Values with \* (*p <* 0.05), \*\* (*p* < 0.10) are statistically different based on the Mann–Whitney U test.

**Figure 3.** Utilization frequency of Busuanga (n = 98) and Karimunjawa (n = 47) respondents of provisioning and cultural services of BCEs. The frequency is based on a five-point Likert scale (1 = never use, 2 = once a year, 3 = once a month, 4 = once a week, 5 = every day).

Similar trends were observed in Karimunjawa, 23.4% of the respondents have collected fish and other seafood in mangroves once a week for their own consumption and income source while more than half (59.6%) have never utilized it (Figure 3). Harvesting mangroves for firewood materials was never done by 85.1% of the respondents while a few of them (10.6%) have harvested them at least once a year. For cultural services, bird or bat watching in mangrove areas is done every day by 29.8% of the sample size, 12.8% for once a week, 14.9% for once a month, and 19.1% for once a year while 23.4% have never done it. Meanwhile, 68.1% and 74.5% of the respondents have never accessed this habitat for paddling and educational purposes, respectively. Moreover, seagrass utilization is also low, more than half (51.1% to 74.5%) of the sample size has never accessed this ecosystem to collect seafood, as livelihood options, and as recreational sites. However, it is noteworthy that at least 25.5% of the respondents have gleaned in seagrass beds once a week and 23.4% of the respondents have observed birds in this habitat every day.

Although both utilization patterns in the study sites are relatively low, the comparison of weighted means through the Mann–Whitney U test showed significant differences in the results (Table 3). Higher values were obtained in Busuanga for using mangrove to collect food (M = 2.6) and firewood materials (M = 1.7) while Karimunjawa has a weighted mean of 2.1 and 1.2 for fishing (own consumption) and harvesting for firewood materials, respectively. Conversely, accessing seagrass beds for their cultural benefits is higher in Karimunjawa than in Busuanga. For instance, using this habitat as a site for bird watching and snorkeling activities are done at least once a year (M = 2.3 and M = 1.9, correspondingly) in the former while the respondents in the latter never used it for bird watching (M = 1.3) and snorkeling (M = 1.3).


**Table 3.** Comparison of respondents' utilization frequency of provisioning and cultural services between Busuanga and Karimunjawa.

Notes: <sup>a</sup> Measured on a five-point Likert scale (1 = never use, 2 = once a year, 3 = once a month, 4 = once a week, 5 = everyday). Values with \* (*p* < 0.05), \*\* (*p* < 0.10) are statistically different based on the Mann–Whitney U test.
