Comparison of Approaches to Management of Large Marine Areas Robert Bensted-Smith Fauna & Flora International 4th Floor, Jupiter House Station Road Cambridge CB1 2JD, United Kingdom [email protected] Hugh Kirkman 5a Garden Grove, Seaholme, Victoria, 3018 Australia [email protected] ABOUT FAUNA & FLORA INTERNATIONAL (FFI) www.fauna-flora.org FFI protects threatened species and ecosystems worldwide, choosing solutions that are sustainable, based on sound science and take account of human needs. Operating in more than 40 countries worldwide – mainly in the developing world – FFI saves species from extinction and habitats from destruction, while improving the livelihoods of local people. Founded in 1903, FFI is the world’s longest established international conservation body and a registered charity. ABOUT CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL (CI) www.conservation.org CI’s Mission Building upon a strong foundation of science, partnership and field demonstration, CI empowers societies to responsibly and sustainably care for nature, our global biodiversity, for the well-being of humanity. CI’s Vision We imagine a healthy prosperous world in which societies are forever committed to caring for and valuing na- ture, our global biodiversity, for the long-term benefit of people and all life on Earth. Conservation International is committed to helping societies adopt a more sustainable approach to develop- ment – one that considers and values nature at every turn. Every person on Earth deserves a healthy environment and the fundamental benefits that nature provides. But our planet is experiencing an unprecedented drawdown of these resources, and it is only by protecting nature and its gifts – a stable climate, fresh water, healthy oceans and reliable food – that we can ensure a better life for everyone, everywhere. © Cover photo by Robin D. Moore PREFACE The ocean makes up the Earth’s primary life support system, comprises 70 percent of our planet’s surface and is essential to human well-being and prosperity. Ocean ecosystems are threatened by unsustainable fishing, global change, habitat destruction, invasive species, and pollution - the combined effects of which are far more destructive than individual threats on their own. Effectively addressing these threats requires comprehensive ocean management at large scales. Several models exist for achieving such large scale marine management, each of which tackles a broad range of issues with its own suite of inputs, objectives and methodologies. Often, more than one of these frameworks are applied to the same or similar geographies by different institutions. Over the past five years CI, together with a multitude of partners, has developed the Seascapes model to manage large, multiple-use marine areas in which government authorities, private organizations, and other stakeholders cooperate to conserve the diversity and abundance of marine life and to promote human well-being. The definition of the Seascapes approach and the identification of the essential elements of a functioning Seascape were built from the ground up, informed by the extensive field experience of numerous marine management practitioners. In order to learn more about the different approaches to managing large-scale marine areas, their comparative merits, and the synergies and overlaps between them, CI commissioned this independent analysis of several widely applied models. Although the report was commissioned by CI, the views expressed in this report are those of the authors; they were charged with providing a critical examination of all the assessed approaches, including the Seascapes approach. This analysis provides a comprehensive understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. This will help us – and, we hope, other readers – to identify ways to work together to achieve even greater results through synergistic efforts. We are delighted to publish this report and intend to use its recommendations to further strengthen our work and expand our partnerships. Together, we will secure a new future for the world’s oceans. Keith Lawrence Ginny Farmer Seascapes Director Seascapes Manager Conservation International Conservation International i Executive Summary Large marine areas, based partly or wholly on biogeographic and ecological criteria, are widely held to be the preferred way to define areas for Ecosystem Based Management (EBM). We took five com- monly used approaches to defining and intervening in Large Areas for Marine Management (LAMMs) and compared their success in developing countries in four aspects: achieving marine conservation outcomes; generating donor funding and private investment; being widely applied, and becoming sustainable in financial, institutional, social and political terms. In reviewing outcomes we used Olsen (2003)’s framework of 1st Order (enabling conditions such as legal instruments, policies, plans, social context, capacities), 2nd Order (changes in behaviour, enforcement, changing catch levels, treatment of waste), and 3rd Order (results in terms of biodiversity, species populations, water quality, income, social benefits) outcomes. To keep the study manageable, we restricted our study to the coastal and marine environment, and did not compare the approaches in terms of how they address connectivity between marine and terrestrial environments, including watershed management. The purpose of our study was to generate, through literature review, case studies and interviews with people knowledgeable about the programmes, observations and ideas that might be useful for conservation practitioners. We first characterised the five approaches: Marine Ecoregions, Seascapes1, Large Marine Ecosystems, Regional Seas Programmes and Integrated Coastal Management. Major differences in nature and purpose of the five approaches highlighted the fact that we were not comparing like with like, nevertheless we considered that the comparison could still generate useful conclusions. In the case of Marine Ecoregions it was apparent that the main use of the biogeographic classification, which has evolved a great deal over the years, is in identifying conservation targets, representative of the Earth’s habitats and ecosystems. WWF and TNC use Marine Ecoregions for this purpose but their chosen programme geographies are usually a larger cluster of Ecoregions and their approaches to strategy development and implementation thereafter vary between institutions and between locations, with Ecoregions being of only marginal relevance. Both institutions are moving towards a holistic, multi-level approach to marine conservation, with planning methodologies strongly influenced by the local context. WWF’s strategies start with a Biodiversity Vision exercise but combine interventions at multiple levels, from local sites up to global programmes, such as influencing fisheries markets. In adopting EBM, TNC has piloted multi-objective planning and the use of the ecoregional assessment to develop a decision-support tool rather than produce a blueprint for conservation. The resulting marine programmes of WWF and TNC have attracted substantial funding from diverse sources and have achieved an array of outcomes, though the 3rd Order outcomes generally involve either specific sites or large, migratory species and are the result of thematic interventions, rather than the EBM approach. Strengths of the Ecoregional programmes are that they work with national and local partners and that the NGOs concerned are committed to the kind of long-term, e.g. 15-20 year, intervention usually needed to achieve sustainability. On the other hand, the continuing dominant role of the NGO in setting the agenda, albeit through a consultative process, and in deciding the use of funds may impede the emergence of sustainable governance. Conservation International launched the Seascapes programme only recently (2004) and the concept has been defined and refined through the experiences of the pilot programmes. Consequently, the statement that the geographic area of a Seascape is determined on a combination of biological and strategic criteria is more applicable to new Seascapes in the pipeline than to the existing ones. In fact, in the Coral Triangle there is no significant difference between the two Seascapes and 1 We have used “Seascapes”, with capital S, as the approach adopted by Conservation International, as distinct from the term “seascapes”, used loosely by Wildlife Conservation Society, World Wildlife Fund and others to describe clusters of sites, usually within an Ecoregion. ii the multi-Ecoregion geographies within which WWF and TNC work. The Seascape programmes emphasise the development of sustainable, multi-level governance, which could prove to be a powerful approach, although the technical capacity of CI and partners in this discipline needs to be strengthened to achieve this goal in practice. The Seascapes have attracted considerable funding, mainly from the Walton Family Foundation, and have benefited greatly from the flexibility of the funding from this source and the ability to maintain communication and collaboration between the three pilot Seascapes. The delivery of outcomes in the first four years of the programme has been remarkable and is a result of the nature of the funding and the mobilization of numerous national and local partner organisations. As with Ecoregions, the 3rd Order outcomes tend to be site- or species- specific. The Papuan Bird’s Head Seascape is notable for its potential as a model for