5 results
1 - The Symposium on Marine EBM in the Wider Caribbean Region
- Edited by Lucia Fanning, Robin Mahon, Patrick McConney, L. Verhart
-
- Book:
- Towards Marine Ecosystem-Based Management in the Wider Caribbean
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 22 January 2021
- Print publication:
- 15 July 2012, pp 13-26
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Introduction
Countries of the Wider Caribbean have committed to principled ocean governance through several multilateral environmental and fisheries agreements at both the regional (e.g., the Cartagena Convention's SPAW Protocol) and international levels (e.g., the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement, the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fishing). They have also committed to the targets for fisheries and biodiversity conservation adopted at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). However, the ongoing challenge is to put in place the measures required to give effect to these principles at the local, national and regional levels. The ecosystem-based management/ecosystem approach to fisheries (EBM/EAF) is prominent in these agreements and in the WSSD targets. Implementing an ecosystem-wide approach that encompasses both the human and natural dimensions of ecosystems is an essential component of principled ocean governance. This approach gives prominence to the principles of sustainability, participation and precaution that are needed to effectively govern the world's oceans.
The Wider Caribbean Region is the most geopolitically diverse and complex region in the world (Fanning et al. 2009a). Throughout the region, there are many local, national, subregional, regional and international organisations pursuing various aspects of ocean management. The challenge has always been to integrate or network these to improve their effectiveness and reduce duplication. At the outset of its development, the Caribbean Large Marine Ecosystem (CLME) and Adjacent Areas Project took up this challenge with a focus on institutional arrangements for good governance of living marine resources. After over 10 years of development, this multi-year initiative – funded by twenty-six countries in the region and the Global Environment Facility of the World Bank – began implementation in mid-2009 and is expected to pursue EBM/EAF for the Caribbean LME and adjacent areas as a basis for ensuring the sustainable use of the region's shared living marine resources (Fanning et al. 2009a). During the development of this project, it was evident that there was a lack of clarity and specificity within the Wider Caribbean about what moving towards EBM/ EAF means for governance processes at various institutional levels and geographic scales or for specific coastal and marine resources and ecosystems.
26 - Overall Synthesis and Future Directions for Marine EBM in the Wider Caribbean
- Edited by Lucia Fanning, Robin Mahon, Patrick McConney, L. Verhart
-
- Book:
- Towards Marine Ecosystem-Based Management in the Wider Caribbean
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 22 January 2021
- Print publication:
- 15 July 2012, pp 367-376
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Introduction
This chapter provides an overall synthesis of the findings of the four working groups – Reef Fisheries Ecosystems, Pelagic Fisheries Ecosystems, Continental Shelf Fisheries Ecosystems, and Governance – on a shared vision and implementation of ecosystem-based management (EBM) in the Wider Caribbean. Drawing on the outputs from each of the working groups (Chapters 22-25), a combined vision and network of strategic directions was identified that was underpinned by a suite of agreed principles that would serve as a guide for decision-making. The fact that these were developed through group processes using methods that allowed all participants to make an input is an important aspect of these outputs. In this regard they are thought to reflect the combined inputs of the full range of expertise and experience that was present at the symposium.
Principles
The importance of placing principles at the forefront of discussions about EBM was emphasised throughout the symposium. It was noted that making these explicit will ensure that all who are working in EBM/EAF in the Caribbean will be working from a common set of principles, or at least have a reference set against which to compare their working principles. Table 26.1 presents the relationship of the top 10 principles identified by the symposium participants at the beginning of the process (Chapter 2) to the vision elements emerging from the visioning process carried out with the four working groups. What is clear from Table 26.1 is that all top 10 principles are integral to the visions that emerged. Thus achieving EBM will require careful checking and rechecking of principles to ensure that there is adherence to them and that there is a balance among them.
The Combined Vision
The vision elements for EBM/EAF for the Wider Caribbean from each of the four groups was combined into an overall vision, as illustrated in the final column of Table 26.2. By incorporating the essential elements from each group as reflected in the first four columns of the table, the agreed vision was identified as: “Healthy marine systems that are fully valued and protected through strong institutions at local national and regional levels providing effective governance that involves everyone, is fully understood and supported by the public and enhances livelihoods and human wellbeing.”
7 - Why Incorporate Social Considerations into Marine EBM?
-
- By McConney P., S. Salas
- Edited by Lucia Fanning, Robin Mahon, Patrick McConney, L. Verhart
-
- Book:
- Towards Marine Ecosystem-Based Management in the Wider Caribbean
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 22 January 2021
- Print publication:
- 15 July 2012, pp 99-110
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Abstract
Socio-cultural factors play prominent roles in coastal and marine resource use and management in the Caribbean region. Approaches to marine ecosystem- based management (EBM) that ignore social considerations may have a higher risk of failure. The internationally agreed-upon twelve principles of the ecosystem approach form a useful starting point for identifying relevant social considerations (for the list of twelve principles, see http://www.cbd.int/ecosystem/principles.shtml). Some of these principles involve stakeholders, institutions, communities, power, participation, culture, adaptive capacity, livelihoods, poverty, knowledge and conflict. Incorporating social considerations into marine EBM, from design to evaluation, should be seen as an asset and not a liability. Addressing social issues, linked closely to the governance of social-ecological systems, may contribute significantly to the success of marine EBM initiatives in the Caribbean. Social considerations should be of high priority in all marine EBM situations, and the competence exists in the region for these to be taken into account.
Why Consider Social Aspects?
Broadly speaking, marine EBM encompasses a whole suite of arrangements, approaches, processes, methods, tools, activities and the like that concern very comprehensive ocean (here taken as both marine and coastal) resource governance. Familiar examples may include the ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF) or ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM), marine protected area (MPA) management, integrated coastal area management (ICAM), the ecosystem approach (EA) to biodiversity conservation, marine pollution control, sustainable tourism and more. Authors often make very fine distinctions among these terms based mainly on views of how and when ecosystem thinking gets integrated into management; see Christie et al. (2007) for an analysis. Since such fine distinctions are largely irrelevant to an examination of the social aspects, we will ignore them in this chapter and use marine EBM to include any of their components applied to marine ecosystems.
Marine EBM is part of principled ocean governance. Governance can be defined as the whole of public as well as private interactions taken to solve societal problems and create societal opportunities, including the formulation and application of principles guiding those interactions and care for institutions that enable them (Bavinck et al. 2005).
2 - Principled Ocean Governance for the Wider Caribbean Region
- Edited by Lucia Fanning, Robin Mahon, Patrick McConney, L. Verhart
-
- Book:
- Towards Marine Ecosystem-Based Management in the Wider Caribbean
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 22 January 2021
- Print publication:
- 15 July 2012, pp 27-38
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Abstract
Cumulative human impacts on oceans have gradually resulted in increased attention directed to ocean governance. Principled ocean governance (POG) seeks to place generally accepted principles front and centre in the governance process. These principles are derived from fundamental values and our beliefs about how humans should behave. They attempt to encode how values should be expressed in both decision-making and actions. Principles often considered as ‘substantial’, such as sustainability, efficiency, rationality, inclusiveness, equity and precaution are general in nature, and thus give rise to more detailed subsets, including ‘procedural’ principles that help to guide day-to-day activities. Ecosystem-based management (EBM) comes in a variety of forms. At one end of the spectrum, it is focused largely on ecosystem conservation. At the other end, it also includes aspects of social justice such as equity, preservation of livelihoods, and food security. The prominent role for EBM in POG is evolving and will vary from situation to situation. It is for stakeholders to determine its role through examination, adoption and incorporation of the principles that will guide their particular ocean governance situation.
Introduction
Attention to the sustainable use of the living resources of the oceans has lagged behind that given to terrestrial resources. In the 18th century, the oceans were considered inexhaustible and impervious to human impact. That view gradually gave way in the early 1900s to a grudging acceptance that indeed fishery resources could indeed be overfished. By mid-century it became clear that in addition to stock depletion, fishing was causing both direct and indirect changes on the ecosystems in which it was taking place (FAO 1995). Furthermore, there was the additional realisation that humans were degrading the oceans in other ways as well: through non-extractive uses in coastal areas and land-based impacts on watersheds and coastal zones (World Bank 2004; GESAMP 2001).
This lag in addressing oceans was due to a unique set of issues that are linked to the subject of sustainability: issues of scale, accessibility, jurisdiction and ownership of resources. The advent of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1982 was a major step forward in addressing jurisdictional issues and resulted in supplementary agreements regarding the deep seabed and highly migratory and straddling stocks (Rothwell and VanderZwaag 2006a).
23 - The Vision for EBM of Pelagic Ecosystems in the Wider Caribbean
- Edited by Lucia Fanning, Robin Mahon, Patrick McConney, L. Verhart
-
- Book:
- Towards Marine Ecosystem-Based Management in the Wider Caribbean
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 22 January 2021
- Print publication:
- 15 July 2012, pp 335-346
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Introduction
Pelagic ecosystems and their fisheries are of particular economic and social importance to the countries and territories of the Wider Caribbean for various reasons. In some countries (e.g. Barbados, Grenada) commercial pelagic fisheries already contribute significantly to total landings and seafood export foreign exchange earnings. Ports and postharvest facilities service the vessels, ranging from artisanal canoes to industrial longliners, and their catch which often reaches tourists as well as locals (Mahon and McConney 2004). In other places where the focus has previously been on inshore and demersal fisheries (e.g. Antigua and Barbuda, Belize) there is growing interest in the potential of pelagic fisheries development. This potential lies not only in commercial fisheries, but also in the high-revenue and conservation-aware recreational fisheries well established in a few locations (e.g. Puerto Rico, Costa Rica) and undertaken at a lower level in many others.
Underlying all of this is the complexity due to many of the valued pelagics being migratory or highly migratory shared and straddling stocks falling under the 1995 United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement and subject to several international instruments and management regimes, such as those of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). The web of linkages across Caribbean marine jurisdictions and organizations is complex (McConney et al. 2007). The related issues call for an ecosystem approach (McConney and Salas Chapter 7; Schuhmann et al. Chapter 8) and some progress has already been made at multiple levels (Fanning and Oxenford Chapter 16; Singh-Renton et al. Chapter 14).
This synthesis chapter presents the outputs of facilitated symposium sessions specifically related to achieving and implementing a shared vision for the pelagic ecosystem in marine ecosystem based management (EBM) in the Wider Caribbean. The methodology was described in Chapter 1 of this volume. This chapter first describes a vision for the pelagic ecosystem and reports on the priorities assigned to the identified vision elements. It then addresses how the vision might be achieved by taking into account assisting factors (those that facilitate achievement) and resisting factors (those that inhibit achievement). The chapter concludes with guidance on the strategic direction needed to implement the vision, identifying specific actions to be undertaken for each of the vision elements.