Abstract
This article endeavours to contribute to the growing body of scholarship on SDG linkages by placing at the centre of its focus SDG 14 on the “conservation and sustainable use of the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.” This article conceptualises the intricate interconnections between SDG 14 and other Goals based on the diverse benefits provided to humankind by marine ecosystems (in other words, through an ecosystem services lens). It explores how this understanding may facilitate the transition to an “environment for well-being” approach to development through marine spatial planning (MSP), on the basis of emerging international guidance under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). By bringing marine ecosystem services and MSP into the discussion on SDG linkages, this article seeks to investigate the role of the ecosystem approach, and of fair and equitable benefit-sharing within it, in fostering participatory knowledge production, data-gathering and -sharing, mapping, strategic assessment and area-based management in the context of intensifying uses, multiple scales, needs and values around the marine environment. The article will assess to what extent MSP, building upon these tools and drawing on ecosystem services mapping, should be used to promote equity and prevent conflicts between stakeholders with contradictory demands for marine space and ecosystem services, with a view to enhancing synergies between SDG 14 and other SDGs.
Highlights
17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets were integrated into the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda [4], intended as a driver for realizing and mainstreaming sustainability throughout the UN system as a whole [3, para 246]
In the case of SDGs 1 and 14, for instance, such an approach more readily reveals that healthy and resilient oceans and sustainable use of marine resources are a prerequisite for ocean ecosystem services to contribute to the alleviation of income poverty and multidimensional poverty, environmentally sustainable economic growth, and human well-being in coastal communities [40]. In response to this conceptual approach, this article argues that existing knowledge on the wide range of benefits that humans derive from the ocean, as well as the contribution of these benefits to sustainable development, can be incorporated into the discourse surrounding SDG linkages in a more concerted fashion
While SDG 14 explicitly mentions the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), because it provides the legal framework for the conservation and sustainable use of the ocean and its resources (SDG 14, MoI 14.c), we propose to focus on the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) due to the different degree to which the ecosystem approach and its equity dimensions have been advanced in the interpretation of these conventions
Summary
Agreed goals and targets are increasingly accepted as having a significant political and instrumental value, insofar as they provide a “globally shared normative framework” that complements international conventions and other tools of international law by catalysing action, mobilising stakeholders and fostering collaboration between the members of the international community [1, p. 9]. A representative depiction of the multifaceted interactions between the issues addressed [[9]; [10]; [12]] Some attributed this compartmentalisation to the manner in which the SDGs were negotiated, whereby constellations of relatively narrow actionable targets gradually formed around overarching, aspirational objectives, with little attention being paid to the latter’s inherent intersectorality [13]. A common thread running through many of these early commentaries is the view that the persistence of silos risks undermining the internal consistency of the 2030 Agenda and, by extension, its transformational potential, i.e. its ability to articulate a compelling “narrative of change” that captures the drivers of — as well as the systemic and structural barriers to — the transformation sought [10] This could jeopardise the capacity of the 2030 Agenda for serving as a normative framework to catalyse action towards sustainable development [[10]; [12]; [14]]. The article will assess to what extent MSP, building upon these tools and drawing on ecosystem services mapping, should be used to promote equity and prevent conflicts between stakeholders with contradictory demands for marine space and ecosystem services, with a view to enhancing synergies between SDG 14 and other SDGs
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