The Ecosystem Approach to Marine Planning and Management

Sue Kidd, Andy Plater, Chris Frid, Sue Kidd, Andy Plater, Chris Frid

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136538445
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze biologiche
• Subtopic: Ecologia

The marine environment is one of our most precious yet fragile natural resources. It provides a wide range of essential goods and services, including food, regulation of climate and nutrient cycling, as well as a setting for transport, recreation and tourism. This environment is however extremely complex and very sensitive to development pressures and other forms of human influence. Planning and management of the sea are similarly complicated, reflecting intricate legal, institutional and ownerships patterns. This creates a situation where marine ecosystems are vulnerable to over-exploitation or neglect.

The Ecosystem Approach to Marine Planning and Management describes how growing concern about the state of our seas is resulting in the development of new approaches to marine planning and management. For example, the United Nations Environment Programme has called for the widespread introduction of Marine Spatial Planning (MSP), and the European Union has recently been consulting on a new European Maritime Policy designed to stimulate economic growth but at the same time protect the resource base. Within the United Kingdom, the 2010 Marine Act draws upon the experience of town and country planning and brings into being a new system of Marine Spatial Planning. The authors show that a common feature of all these developments is an appreciation that more integrated forms of planning and management are required for our seas and that new arrangements must draw together understanding from natural science, social science and many other perspectives. Adopting such a trans-disciplinary and holistic (or 'ecosystems') approach, the book distils the expertise of these different disciplines and seeks to promote a broader understanding of the origins and practicalities of new approaches to marine planning and management.

Chapter 1

The Ecosystem Approach and Planning and Management of the Marine Environment

Sue Kidd , Ed Maltby , Leonie Robinson , Adam Barker and Chris Lumb

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This chapter aims to:

• Explain the origins, definitions and principles of the ecosystem approach (EA) and associated United Nations (UN) operational guidance;
• Review some of the lessons that can be drawn from existing experience of applying EA in non-marine and marine areas; and
• Provide a transdisciplinary discussion of key issues that require further attention in developing EA in planning and management of the sea in order to set the scene for the chapters that follow.

Introduction

We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in planning and management of the natural environment and the resources that are derived from the functioning of component ecosystems. This shift is based on a number of key premises which recognize that:

• sustainability of economic systems and the quality of human life is inevitably dependent on the maintenance of healthy ecosystems;
• humans are an integral part of ecosystems rather than separate from them; and
• a sectoral approach to planning and management is generally insufficient to deal with the complex interrelationships and diverse stakeholder priorities that exist in the real world.

Adoption of EA as a methodological framework for a more holistic style of planning and management that reflects these premises has been promoted in particular, but not exclusively, by the 1992 UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and has been incorporated into a growing number of other international conventions and policy documents such as the 2002 Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

It is therefore not surprising that EA is now regarded as a central concept shaping the development of new planning and management arrangements for the sea. In terms of the international legal framework related to the marine environment, the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, which came into force in 1982, played a pioneering role in the development of the Ecosystem Approach (Constable et al, 2000). Since that time, EA has featured in many successor marine conventions such as the 1992 Convention on Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area (Backer and Leppanen, 2008), the 1992 Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment in the North East Atlantic, and the 1995 amendment to the Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Coastal Region of the Mediterranean. It is also increasingly advocated as an organizing concept in a wide range of marine-related policy documents. For example, in 2006 the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 61/222 on ‘Oceans and the Law of the Sea’ which connected existing international instruments, in particular the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to EA. It also endorsed the call of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development Plan of Implementation to apply the ecosystem approach by 2010 in order to urgently restore fish stocks by 2015, establish representative networks of Marine Protected Areas by 2012 and achieve a significant reduction in the rate of loss of biological diversity by 2010 (Maes, 2008). This guidance has been a key factor prompting an unprecedented level of activity in marine planning and management across the globe and, in many instances, the ecosystem approach is being given prominence in associated policy documents. For example, the European Commission has identified EA as a key principle guiding the development of a new integrated Maritime Policy for the European Union (EU) (CEC, 2007). Similarly, the Interim Framework for Effective Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning in the United States, published in December 2009, emphasizes that such activity should fully reflect EA understanding (Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, 2009). EA is also cited as underpinning the high level marine objectives issued by the UK government in 2009 as a precursor to the production of the first national Marine Policy Statement (Defra, 2009). Similar commitments to EA are made in ocean policy documents published by Canada, Columbia, Norway, Portugal and others (Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, 2007).

However, despite these developments, there is still considerable debate about what is actually meant by EA and how it might be applied to marine planning and management practice. This uncertainty was highlighted at the seventh meeting of the Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea in 2006, which focused on EA and its application. Key conclusions of the meeting included the need to: demystify the concept and develop a clearer understanding of its implications; encourage more active implementation of EA in marine planning and management practice; and improve understanding and application of EA by sharing experiences and lessons learned (International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2006). This book responds to this agenda drawing on a combination of literature review, the authors’ own research and practice experience and transdisciplinary discussions at a series of research council-funded seminars held between 2007 and 2009 in the UK. This chapter sets the scene for following contributions by: explaining the origins, definitions and principles of EA and associated UN operational guidance; reviewing some of the lessons that can be drawn from existing experience of applying EA in nonmarine and marine areas; and providing a transdisciplinary discussion of key issues that require further attention in developing EA in future planning and management of the sea which will be explored further in subsequent chapters.

Origins of EA

The current focus on EA to environmental planning and management reflects not only contemporary understanding of environmental processes and the environmental challenges that need to be addressed, but also recognition of the shortcomings of current institutional frameworks and practices in dealing with these. For example, since Alfred George Tansley first coined the term in 1935 (cited in Wang, 2004), ecosystems have come to be a central focus in the study of ecology and environmental management. However, as understanding of the functioning of ecosystems has developed, so too has appreciation of the close interaction between humans and the environment. This has been reflected in successive UN’s Earth Summits that, since 1972, have drawn international attention to the ways in which rapid population growth, increased economic activity and improved standards of living are resulting in unprecedented levels of demand for natural resources and are causing significant environmental, as well as related social and economic stress in many parts of the world. At the Earth Summits particular attention has been drawn to the impact of human pressures on the marine environment (UNEP, 2002). As awareness of these critical interconnections has increased, the inadequacies of existing environmental management arrangements have become all too apparent. Fragmented administrative structures in which policy and operational responsibilities are divided between a disparate array of organizations, narrow sectoral decisionmaking systems with competing and contradictory objectives, a disconnection between national, regional and local level activities and between natural and administrative boundaries, are typical features of governance in countries all over the world and particularly so in relation to marine areas. This situation both aggravates environmental problems and impedes efforts to adopt more sustainable management practices. It is within this context that EA is emerging as the dominant paradigm for tackling environmental concerns.

The origins of EA can perhaps be traced back as far as the early 20th century and the work of visionary ecologists such as Patrick Geddes, who championed the place of ecological understanding as the underpinning of sound regional planning (Allen, 1976; Kidd, 2007), and Aldo Leopold and his radical thinking about system-based approaches to land management (Bengston et al, 2001). However, as Bengston et al suggest, it wasn’t until the late 1960s and early 1970s that ecosystem management approaches began to be widely advocated in the US and elsewhere, and not until the 1990s that such thinking had gained widespread support among environmental policy-makers and managers. Even by this stage its core features remained loosely defined and indeed it was argued by some (for example, More, 1996) that a single definition or model was inappropriate as the concept was too complex to be codified as a result of rapidly changing scientific understanding, professional expertise and social values. What emerged instead was a number of interrelated characteristics (including environmental, social and economic dimensions) which in differing combinations, in different contexts, were generally considered to constitute ecosystem management (see Box 1.1).

Box 1.1 Characteristics of ecosystem management

• Maintain ecosystem health (for example, maintain and protect ecosystem integrity and functions, restore damaged ecosystems).
• Protect and restore biodiversity (protect native genes, species, populations, ecosystems).
• Ensure sustainability (for example, incorporate long time horizons, consider the needs of future generations, include both ecological and economic sustainability).
• Systems perspective (for example, a broad, holistic approach to management; manage at multiple scales and consider the connections between different scales; coordinate across administrative, political and other boundaries to define and manage ecosystems at appropriate scales).
• Human dimensions (for example, incorporate social values and accommodate human uses within ecological constraints, view humans as embedded in nature).
• Adaptive management, in which management is conducted as a continuous experiment.
• Collaboration, in which planning and management are joint decision-making processes that involve sharing power with key stakeholders.

Source: Based on Bengston et al (2001, p473)

Table 1.1 Characteristics of traditional and ecosystem management approaches

Characteristic	Traditional approach	EA	Benefits of EA
Management structure	Isolationist	Horizontal/inclusive	More holistic (addresses multiple problems)
Management objectives	Single issue focus	Ecosystem focus	Reduces chance of cumulative effects and opposing objectives
Overarching objective	Economic/environmental tradeoffs	Maintaining ecological integrity	More science-focused decisions
Management boundaries	Constitutionally defined	Ecologically defined	Reduces overlap between multiple jurisdictions
Management approach	One-size fits all	Place-specific	Objectives are relevant to particular system
Citizen engagement	Limited consultations	Extensive collaboration	Decisions are more transparent to local stakeholders and more likely to receive lasting support
Decision-making process	Linear, top-down	Integrative (both top-down and bottom-up) and circular	Better integration of multiple values increasing the likelihood of consensus
Follow-up	Limited	Adaptive management	Increased opportunity to learn from experiences

Source: Lamont (2006, p9)

Lamont (2006) provides a helpful analysis of how an ecosystem management approach differs from traditional management practices and here again highlights the importance of the human dimension (see Table 1.1).

However, following the ratification of the Convention on Biological Diversity at the UN’s Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, there has been increasing pressure to develop a more formal definition of EA and its main features. This process has been facilitated by a series of meetings of international experts who comprise the Subsidiary Body on Science, Technology and Technical Advice (SBSTTA) to the CBD and by associated decisions by the Conference of the Parties (COP) of the CBD. Together these activities have gradually elaborated the detail of EA and more recently urged more active implementation at national and local levels. Key steps in this process are illustrated in Table 1.2.

Table 1.2 Key steps in the development of EA under the CBD

SBSTTA1 (Paris, 1995)

Recommendation I/3: Recommends that a holistic approach be taken towards conservation and su...