Abstract
Oceans are governed by multiple policies at international, regional and national levels. National level policies have traditionally been sector-based, covering fisheries, tourism, environment etc. Recently more integrated and holistic National Ocean Policies (NOP) have been promulgated. The Pacific Ocean also has well-developed regional ocean-related policies spanning decades. The work presented here uses lexicometric analysis to map the interlinkages between regional and national policies to determine if they are evolving synergistically. Focusing on the Solomon Islands, due to its reliance on the ocean and producing a NOP in 2018, 13,622 expressions were extracted from the corpus of 8 national and 10 regional ocean-related policies. Network analysis displayed limited differentiation between the NOP, national sector-based policies and regional policies. Clustering of policies showed progressive splitting of policies from a single cluster, rather than by formation of a number of separate clusters. This behaviour reflects the thematic interlocking of policies: all share many themes, and the more integrative policies add a few additional sectoral themes. The themes rarely addressed in the corpus include energy, agriculture, pollution and education. The NOP was predominantly built on existing national or regional policies and their main themes rather than setting a new direction in ocean governance. The benefit of the NOP may be less about its content itself, but the creation of allied cross-ministerial architecture. With the intense pressure on the oceans and its resources in present times, there will be a growing need for more substantive policy evolution.
Highlights
IntroductionThe approach echoes the Preamble of United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) which states “the problems of ocean space are closely interrelated and need to be considered as a whole,” (UNCLOS, 1982)
The Emergence of the Regional OceanThe Regional Seas Programme, launched in1974 under the auspices of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) aimed to address the accelerating degradation of the world’s oceans and coastal areas through the sustainable management and use of the marine and coastal environment, by engaging neighboring countries in comprehensive and specific actions to protectOcean Policies of the Solomon Islands their shared marine environment (Ehler, 2006)
If we consider the Solomon Islands policy group on the one hand, and the regional policy group on the other hand, it is notable that several policies find in the other group the most similar policy, or on the contrary the most dissimilar one
Summary
The approach echoes the Preamble of United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) which states “the problems of ocean space are closely interrelated and need to be considered as a whole,” (UNCLOS, 1982). This consideration led to the development of policies related to marine resources and to the sea in general which contribute to the need for a multiscale and integrated approach to the ocean (Pyc, 2019). The implementation of multilateral environmental agreements such as the Convention on biological Diversity (CBD), CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) or CMS (Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals) as well as UNCLOS and the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development contain synergies at the regional level to foster implementation (UN General Assembly, 2003; UN ESCAP, 2020)
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