Managing Marine Resources Sustainably – Ecological, Societal and Governance Connectivity, Coherence and Equivalence in Relation to Complex Marine Transboundary Regions

Abstract

This overview proposes a novel typology of characteristics required to ensure that marine assessment and management is connected, coherent and/or equivalent across boundaries, and irrespective of whether the boundaries are within or between national and international jurisdictions. Using recent examples, this gives the types of connectivity, coherence nature and equivalences as well as their meaning and relevance in a marine transboundary context. Subsequently, it gives the lessons learned needed to identify the impediments to be addressed to ensure that the management across marine boundaries is sustainable and adequate, and it also suggests the means of overcoming those impediments. The typology covers environmental, governance (policies, politics, administration and legislation), economic and management regimes. It further includes sectoral aspects and links across activity-, pressures-, effects- and management response-footprints and aspects within Maritime Spatial Planning. This in turn reflects the links in monitoring, assessment and reporting across boundaries and across the physico-chemical and ecological realms and the linkages between conservation and Marine Protected Areas-designation across boundaries. Finally, the connectivity, coherence and equivalence characteristics have to reflect wider societal and cultural aspects. Importantly, and especially, we consider and summarise the linkages required to ensure equivalence in governance approaches, principles and outcomes in countries (States) and regions bordering each other and summarised by the so-called 10-tenets for sustainable and successful marine management. In particular, while this typology uses practices in Europe or North America, it is proposed here for testing and validating with examples in other areas worldwide.

Keywords: footprints, Marine protected areas, Maritime Spatial Planning, ten-tenets, typology