Opportunities to overcome the Ocean Decade Challenges in Brazil's ocean and coastal governance system

Abstract

The United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, aka Ocean decade (OD), was established with the slogan “The ocean we need for the future we want''. This great effort aims to strengthen the knowledge, health and management of the ocean, as well as to articulate various organizations, public and private entities involved in this matter. Established in the Ocean Decade Implementation Plan, the Ocean Decade Challenges (ODCs) represent the immediate priorities for the OD. Although OD national strategies already integrate different agencies and organizations, it is often done without a full consideration of existing knowledge from different national management programs and tools. This paper reviews the existing opportunities from Brazil's governance system that can contribute to ODCs. To carry out this investigation we applied the Decalogue for Coastal Management (DCM), which is recognized as a framework for describing key aspects of a public management system. Our analysis indicates that the country is taking actions linked to all of the ODCs, in which the ODC 2, 9 and 10 are the ones with better scores, and ODC 3 and 7 with lower scores. In the DCM analysis, Brazil showed strong policy and management tools that contribute to the ODCs, with relevant capacity building initiatives. In contrast, citizen participation and economic resources were key limiting aspects. While Brazil has many initiatives that deal with ODCs issues, the lack of integration and coordination can be a great challenge to overcome in the OD actions. Our paper highlights the need to integrate data and knowledge, advance transparency, and the importance of implementing policy into the management process.