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Marine Ecosystem-Based Management in Practice
Different Pathways, Common Lessons
By Julia M. Wondolleck, Steven L. Yaffee ISLAND PRESS
Copyright © 2017 Julia M. Wondolleck and Steven L. Yaffee
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61091-799-5
CHAPTER 1
Drawing Lessons from Experience in Marine Ecosystem-Based Management
In December 2011, managers from three states and two Canadian provinces celebrated twenty years of working hand in hand to advance marine conservation in the Gulf of Maine. Together, they have leveraged millions of dollars to enable restoration projects, advance scientific understanding, and coordinate monitoring and management on both sides of the border. When they began meeting twenty years earlier, federal officials suggested they were "incredibly naive" to think they could make a difference in what had become a highly contentious environment. The U.S. State Department discouraged their efforts. Recalling this skepticism, one of the group's co-founders laughs and says, "For some of us who are still around, we kind of smile and say, 'Here we are twenty years later!'" From its humble beginnings with the simple objective "to learn and network and share information so that we can all do our respective jobs better," the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment has become a model for transboundary marine conservation worldwide.
When the federal government established the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in 1990, outrage ensued. A coalition of fishermen, residents, treasure hunters, real estate interests, and others who despised federal regulation hung signs and banners denouncing the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The sanctuary's first superintendent, Billy Causey, was hung in effigy, twice in a single day. While all shared concern for the region's declining fisheries and frequent vessel groundings in sensitive coral reefs, many people feared a loss of control that would destroy the Keys' unique culture and way of life. Today, residents andfishermen work side by side with state and federal sanctuary managers to protect this iconic resource and the communities that depend on it. They are proud of their accomplishments. Populations of heavily exploited species are rebounding, and vessel groundings have dropped dramatically. As one fisherman recalled, "When we first heard about marine reserves, there was a lot of fear. But once people got involved ... the fear started to fade away."
Oregon's Port Orford Ocean Resource Team (POORT) received the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 2010 Award for Excellence in recognition of its innovative community-based approach to sustainable fisheries. In 2012, POORT received the Governor's Gold Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Greatest of Oregon, recognizing that the state's first marine reserve had been established at the behest of Port Orford's fishermen. Ten years earlier, fishermen in this community were in a very different place. They felt isolated and unable to influence management decisions that were profoundly affecting their livelihood. Leesa Cobb, a local fisherman's wife, understood the pain and challenges confronting local fishermen and began working tirelessly on their behalf, eventually helping them to establish POORT. "When we started the organization," she recalls, "fishermen were facing a lot of changes. There had been a salmon disaster coast-wide, collapse of our urchin fishery locally, and we were headed into a groundfish disaster. Nothing that was passing as fisheries management was working for us, that's for sure. People were ready for change." The process by which change emerged in Port Orford provides a model of effective community-based stewardship of marine resources.
Throughout the world, at scales large and small and through formal and informal processes, people are working together to advance ecosystem-scale considerations in marine conservation and management. Their task is not easy: marine ecosystems are complex, science is incomplete, stakes are high, and conflict is inevitable. Nonetheless, people in places as disparate as the Gulf of Maine, the Florida Keys, and Port Orford are persevering and making a difference. They are advancing scientific understanding, leveraging resources with which to restore habitats and ecosystems, raising awareness and concern, and demonstrating that progress is possible on seemingly intractable marine conservation issues. Although their stories unfold in unique ways, their experiences reveal remarkably similar lessons with broad relevance to the practice of marine ecosystem-based management (MEBM). What enables distinct places like these to make progress? What challenges do they encounter, and how are these challenges addressed? What advice do those involved offer to others hoping to follow in their footsteps?
Ecosystem-Based Management in Practice
To answer these questions, this book draws from the experiences of places that have been experimenting with MEBM. Few of the people in these places set out to practice MEBM. Rather, they wanted to solve problems like fisheries declines, coral collapse, or poor water quality, and traditional single-species, single-resource, or single-agency approaches had not succeeded. Most realized that they had to expand their focus to a regional scale in order to connect those people and organizations needed to make progress. They built relationships across boundaries to access scientific knowledge, resources, and authorities. Ultimately, most sought integration and balance between users and objectives so that management activity could produce more sustainable outcomes. At bottom, their desire to solve problems where other strategies had not been successful led participants to embrace ecosystem-based management principles.
While definitions of MEBM vary, most include the following five elements:
• Scale: An MEBM perspective encourages use of ecologically relevant boundaries rather than political or administrative boundaries, and often involves management at larger geographic scales and over longer time frames.
• Complexity: An MEBM perspective recognizes marine resources as elements of complex systems and seeks to employ strategies that acknowledge and use complexity in management.
• Balance: An MEBM approach seeks to balance and integrate the needs of multiple human user groups while maintaining the health of the underlying system that supports those needs.
• Collaboration: Since managing across boundaries involves the interests of more people and organizations, and managing complexity involves more areas of knowledge, an MEBM approach engages a diverse set of organizations and individuals.
• Adaptive management: Given the existence of uncertainty in what we know and the inevitability of change in the future, an MEBM perspective encourages adaptive approaches that involve monitoring and evaluation linked to changes in future management.
A number of scientific and policy factors have accelerated a push toward MEBM. Drawing from earlier efforts to shift from multiple-use to ecosystem-based management of public lands, marine resource policy began to promote ecosystem-scale management in the early 2000s. The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and the Pew Oceans Commission developed ocean policy guidance and recommended that MEBM should be a primary focus of future marine resource management. Many of the commissions' recommendations were later incorporated in an executive order signed by President Obama in 2010. It mandates ecosystem-based management as the first of nine priority objectives for U.S. ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes management. The National Ocean Plan, released in 2013, is grounded in an ecosystem-based management process. Coastal states have similarly adjusted ocean policy toward an ecosystem-based management approach. Both California and Massachusetts, for example, have enacted ocean protection laws that mandate an ecosystem-based management approach. Similarly, Canada's Oceans Act requires an integrated oceans management approach.
As federal and state agencies began to grapple with the implications of an ecosystem-based management perspective and approach, and philanthropic organizations with interests in ocean conservation began to fund science and regional processes, some policy makers, managers, and affected groups pushed back. They argued that there was too little scientific understanding and too much uncertainty to manage at an ecosystem scale. Some noted that different people mean different things when they argue for an ecosystem-based management approach. In response, the Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea (COMPASS) facilitated development in 2005 of a "consensus statement" on MEBM in which over two hundred scientists and policy experts agreed that "ecosystem-based management is an integrated approach to management that considers the entire ecosystem, including humans. The goal of ecosystem-based management is to maintain an ecosystem in a healthy, productive and resilient condition so that it can provide the services humans want and need. Ecosystem-based management differs from current approaches that usually focus on a single species, sector, activity or concern; it considers the cumulative impacts of different sectors."
Translating this general statement into action may seem challenging, and some proponents of ecosystem-based management have argued that specific steps are necessary. Some view legal mandates as essential. Others argue that an ecosystem-based approach must consider all issues simultaneously. Still others advocate for new regional institutions to cope with overlapping governmental jurisdictions. Many view comprehensive marine spatial planning — the application of land use planning and zoning approaches to the oceans — as the way forward.
Our observations of dozens of processes worldwide suggest that there is no single template for practicing MEBM. Instead, myriad pathways are being followed to advance ecosystem considerations in marine conservation; each is a function of its context, genesis, composition, and objectives. If no legal mandate exists, those involved find other ways to incentivize action. Smaller-scale initiatives find ways to connect with larger-scale activities, and vice versa. Comprehensive marine spatial planning is but one strategy among many.
Different Paths but Common Lessons
We have spent the last eight years listening to people tell their stories, share their struggles and accomplishments, and offer advice for others hoping to advance MEBM principles in places that matter to them. With support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, we identified dozens of cases worldwide that exhibited MEBM principles in action, regardless of whether those involved had explicitly adopted the MEBM label. We initially sought emblematic examples of ecosystem-based management as defined in the literature but quickly unearthed a tremendous variation in practice. There was no single model; instead there were many paths being followed.
We examined two dozen cases in detail, comparing and contrasting the key attributes that they shared in common and the notable ways in which they differed. They all adopted an ecosystem perspective and were collaborative and adaptive. They all functioned within existing laws and policies and found synergies that enabled them to work across scales. They all fostered coordination and enhanced communication that was previously weak or nonexistent. But they pursued different strategies, encountered unique challenges, and carefully tailored their governance structures to fit their particular context and objectives.
Most of the cases we examined are best described as experiments. Those involved were iteratively molding their efforts to fit their place, organizations, and objectives; they tailored their process and strategies to the issues, institutions, and capabilities that were within their grasp. Many of those we interviewed would laugh or challenge our judgment when we said we were studying their work because their stories seemed promising and could provide a model for others to emulate. "We're still trying to figure it out," was a common refrain. But in their sustained experiments at "figuring it out," they have unveiled some notably similar and valuable lessons that transcend scale, scope, or sociopolitical context.
Five Types of Marine Ecosystem-Based Management Initiatives
While the many initiatives we examined shared important characteristics, they nonetheless varied in notable ways, depending on their context and objectives, as well as the manner in which the process was initiated. Some were top down; others were bottom up. Policy makers initiated some; others arose through the efforts of managers, community members, or nongovernmental organizations. Some have complex, highly formalized governance structures; others have simpler organizational forms. They also varied depending on the nature of the authorities they possessed. While some can manage resources and regulate uses, most are limited to planning, coordinating, or advisory roles. This book describes five different types of MEBM initiatives and the unique challenges associated with each.
Large-Scale, Transnational Initiatives
Formalized by high-level cooperative agreements, this type of MEBM initiative links nations across political boundaries. These initiatives recognize common interests and concerns for a shared marine ecosystem but also honor national sovereignty and institutions. Like many international agreements, these initiatives have no authority to require a nation to undertake specific actions; all engagement and activity is voluntary. These large-scale, transnational initiatives are challenged by the need to navigate different cultural, political, and legal systems.
Examples of transnational initiatives include the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment and the Puget Sound Georgia Basin International Task Force, which independently arose to foster MEBM between the United States and Canada and the states and provinces bordering the two marine systems. Similarly, the Trilateral Cooperation on the Protection of the Wadden Sea encourages collaboration between the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark to conserve their shared United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site in the North Sea. The Benguela Current Commission, established in 2007 by Angola, Namibia, and South Africa, advances integrated management of the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem.
Multistate, Regional Initiatives
Somewhat smaller in political and institutional scale, but not necessarily in size, are multistate, regional initiatives in a single country. Established by cooperative agreements or national policy, these efforts link individual states and/or the federal government in joint endeavors to advance marine conservation. Largely voluntary arrangements with no authority to require action, they are established to acknowledge shared objectives, coordinate activities, find synergies or efficiencies within their independent programs, pool science and expertise, and attract funding that otherwise would be difficult to acquire individually. Often initiated by elected officials, they must find ways to move beyond initial political directives to develop on-the-ground traction to weather transitions in political administrations that can undercut commitment.
Examples of multistate voluntary initiatives include the federal Gulf of Mexico Program and the state-initiated Gulf of Mexico Alliance. The West Coast Governors Alliance on Ocean Health, and the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Regional Ocean Councils, are similar regional initiatives designed to encourage multistate collaboration. They seek to ensure that broad ecosystem perspectives are considered when states take individual action.
Top-Down, Regulatory and Management Initiatives
Some MEBM initiatives have teeth. Established by law and possessing explicit authority to manage marine resources, these efforts are often under the control of a single federal or state agency with the power to establish enforceable marine protected areas or regulate use in management zones. Examples in North America include the U.S. National Marine Sanctuary Program, marine protected areas created by the California Fish and Game Commission under authority of the California Marine Life Protection Act, the Eastern Scotian Shelf Integrated Management Initiative under Canada's Oceans Act, and regional Fisheries Management Councils established by the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority in Australia, the Galapagos Marine Reserve in Ecuador, and the Mafia Island Marine Park in Tanzania are all initiatives that embodied the same objectives and faced similar challenges despite their widely dispersed locations and diverse institutional contexts.
While these formal government initiatives have the force of law, they nonetheless all reside in a sociopolitical context that affects what they are able to do. Cooperation and coordination are often critical because stakeholder-based conflict can be intense. Additionally, in order to deal with overlapping state-federal jurisdictions, these initiatives often must establish formal agreements delimiting the reach of their authority.
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Excerpted from Marine Ecosystem-Based Management in Practice by Julia M. Wondolleck, Steven L. Yaffee. Copyright © 2017 Julia M. Wondolleck and Steven L. Yaffee. Excerpted by permission of ISLAND PRESS.
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