Including Marine Protected Areas Research Articles

Beyond equilibrium thinking: dynamic area-based management tools in a changing ocean

Area-based management tools (ABMTs), including marine protected areas (MPAs) are often static and fail to reflect the dynamic realities of marine ecosystems. Marine ecosystems are characterized by their embodiment of constant change, which is further amplified by anthropogenic stressors, particularly climate change. ABMTs and MPAs are, however, premised on an implicit assumption of environmental equilibrium as their boundaries and management framework are often fixed and difficult to adjust. This article seeks to lay bare the tension between static conservation strategies and the deeply and inherently dynamic nature of marine ecosystems. It further seeks to advance the notion of dynamic ABMTs, proposing an integrated conceptualization of ABMT governance, one that is more apt to respond to the type of challenges that the dynamism of complex marine ecosystems presents. Dynamism, in this context, is broadly construed as encompassing three dimensions: spatial, with fluid and adjustable conservation measures; normative, denoting a volatile and adaptive management framework that utilizes ecological and management thresholds as an initiator for adaptive, timely, and prospective approaches to enhance management outcomes; and institutional, i.e., sufficiently flexible and dynamic institutional machinery overseeing ABMT implementation. Following a comprehensive conceptualization of dynamic ABMTs, the article addresses the question whether the legal frameworks governing the ocean can sustain such a dynamic mode of ocean governance.

After the Dust Settles: Selected Considerations about the New Treaty on Marine Biodiversity in Areas beyond National Jurisdiction with Respect to ABMTs and MPAs

The recent adoption of a new agreement on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction has been welcomed as a historic achievement that will herald a new era of marine conservation and global ocean governance. This article aims to raise and discuss some questions, as the dust settles, and to analyze selected aspects of the text of the new Agreement, with particular respect to Part III of the BBNJ agreement, dedicated to area-based management tools (ABMTs), including marine protected areas (MPAs), which are arguably crucial for the operationalization of the Agreement but remain ambiguous or underarticulated, and may thus reduce its effectiveness and ambition. These questions concern the relationship with other relevant instruments, frameworks, and bodies (IFBs); relatedly, the issue of recognition of area-based measures adopted under other IFBs; and the so-called opt-out question, that is, the right to make objections to an ABMT and/or MPA adopted under the BBNJ agreement.

Dynamic Ocean Management in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction

Law and space are intimately connected. In the ocean, the natural environment is divided into maritime zones. Such a division neglects the interconnected nature of the ocean and its inhabitants. Since this zonal approach relies on geographically stable boundaries, it also limits the opportunities to manage a fluid ocean. Area-based management tools, including marine protected areas (MPAs), address some of the limitations of zonal management. However, MPAs are also static from a geographical point of view. The deteriorating state of many marine species and ecosystems indicates a failure of traditional management approaches and puts a renewed emphasis on adapting legal scales to “natural scales,” such as ecosystems. In this article, we argue that there are positive trends and new tools that could be developed within the current legal order to face the challenges that nature is facing in the Anthropocene. One such tool is dynamic ocean management, which moves away from the static rationale of traditional ocean management illustrated here by MPAs, toward a management system focused on the temporal and spatial dynamism of the marine environment. In order to understand how such a management tool could be developed and used within the current legal system, we show how traditional ocean management rests on the notion of delimited and static boundaries and temporarily fixed measures. We discuss this in terms of fixity and simplification. Then we analyze dynamic ocean management and its potential to capture more of the complexity of the marine environment. This analysis is followed by an overview of MPAs and networks of MPAs in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), where we discuss the impact of the Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Treaty) in the development of dynamic ocean management. This overview provides information about both the possibilities and challenges of area-based management in ABNJ. We argue that MPA networks and large marine ecosystems (LMEs), coupled with the establishment of coordination mechanisms between existing institutional structures, are necessary first steps to secure dynamic ocean management.

Negotiations to implement area-based management tools beyond national jurisdiction: the scientific community’s view

A new international legally-binding instrument, under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS), for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction has recently been agreed on– the BBNJ agreement. Area-based management tools (ABMTs), including marine protected areas (MPAs) have an important role in maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services in the current context of multiple threats to the ocean and are one of central elements of new instrument. In this work, we assessed the perspective of the scientific community, throughout the period of negotiations, on the potential of the BBNJ treaty to promote the creation of new area-based management tools, including MPAs, and fulfil acknowledged gaps in ocean governance. A systematic literature review was conducted, resulting in 80 publications then analysed in detail. From these, a total of 608 key messages were retrieved and classified into: 1) Strengths (S), Weaknesses (W), Opportunities (O) or Threats (T) for a SWOT analysis and 2) one of six categories that cover crucial aspects for the successful implementation of the ABMTs in areas beyond national jurisdiction. A Sentiment Analysis (SA) to these key messages shows that the instrument has been perceived by the scientific community as an opportunity for conserving and achieving sustainable use of biodiversity. However, the scientific community also feels that agreement needs stronger provisions to ensure effective measures, which is reflected by the small number of identified strengths. An overall decrease in sentiment score over the negotiations period, i.e. a growing pessimism, was also observed, which is supported by an increase of weaknesses and threats identified in the final stages of the negotiations. Our results suggest that despite its potential to promote conservation in areas beyond national jurisdiction, the instrument should include a unified definition of MPA, address fishing activities and clarify conflicting terms in its provisions, such as the term “not undermine”. Further, we show that sentiment analysis is a useful tool to evaluate opinion trends and facilitate the integration of different and subjective perspectives into final provisions of complex social-political-environmental agreements, identifying positive and negative attitudes that can enable better solutions to address existing governance challenges in international waters.

Remaking the Future Studies of Global Small-Scale Fisheries; Bibliometric Analysis Findings Between 1965 and 2020

Small-scale fisheries (SSF) have long been recognized as critical to many facets of human life. SSF-related bibliometric studies have focused on specific topics, including marine protected areas and sustainable utilization. Since SSF is associated with numerous dimensions of life, a comprehensive bibliometric study is required. This study aims to analyze and visualize state of the art in SSF research using bibliometric analysis on articles published between 1965 and 2020 obtained from the Scopus database in August 2021. Harzing's Publish or Perish, VOSviewer, and Microsoft Excel software were used to fulfill the objectives. The findings indicate that SSF research, more prevalent in the areas of Agricultural and Biological Sciences, grew slowly from 1965 to 1997 before increasing. Initially, the publication themes were bio-ecological before associated with management concerns and evolving into a more socio-economic tone. With an average of 35.75 citations per year, Allison and Ellis's 2001’s article was the most cited paper. In terms of total publication, Brazil and The University of British Columbia were the most productive countries and affiliations (210 and 42 articles, respectively). SFF's future research should prioritize local fisheries ecology and resources assessment, as well as addressing cross-disciplinary issues such as socio-ecological system resilience. Collaborations between authors from different countries and institutions are also more expected.

Shake it Off: Negotiations suspended, but hope simmering, after a lack of consensus at the fifth intergovernmental conference on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction

The process for formulating a new treaty for ‘Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction’ (BBNJ) has been long. Since informal discussions began in 2004, the international community has devoted nearly 20 years to setting the agenda, circumscribing the issue areas, and negotiating the terms of a legally binding BBNJ instrument. The fourth and fifth inter-governmental conferences (IGCs), which both occurred in 2022 after a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19, were supposed to be the last. But despite major movement, altered modalities, and three versions of the draft treaty texts circulated during IGC-5, another round of negotiations ended without consensus on a new agreement. This paper explores the relationships between the pace and content of the emerging treaty, on the one hand, and the dynamics of process, interests, power, and ideology, on the other. After an overview of the negotiation format and apparent progress, subsequent sections consider in turn the issue areas of marine genetic resources (MGRs), area-based management tools, including marine protected areas (ABMTs/MPAs), environmental impact assessments (EIAs), and capacity building and transfer of marine technology (CBTMT). Institutional arrangements and cross cutting issues are also highlighted as key areas where obstacles remain, but where there is simmering hope.

Direction, not detail: Progress towards consensus at the fourth intergovernmental conference on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction

After a two year delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the fourth intergovernmental conference (IGC-4) in the negotiations for a new UN treaty to address the conservation and sustainable management of biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) took place in March 2022. This meeting differed substantially from previous IGCs in terms of process, with much of the discussions occurring in ‘informal informals,’ or off-the-record meetings open only to delegates and registered observers. Additionally, in-person participation was extremely limited and observers only had access to web broadcasts, i.e., no in-person interactions with delegates. A draft text of the treaty was circulated in advance and provided the basis for discussion and negotiation at the meeting. This paper examines IGC-4 in line with previous analyses of the first three IGCs, tracing the process and outcomes to date, aiming to understand the factors and players that are building a new BBNJ agreement. Key themes explored include marine genetic resources (MGRs), area-based management tools, including marine protected areas (ABMTs/MPAs), environmental impact assessment (EIA), and capacity building and transfer of marine technology (CB/TMT). Some progress toward consensus has been made, buoyed by intersessional discussions, but several sticking points remain with regard to definitions, content, and processes enshrined in the draft treaty, and a fifth IGC is scheduled to take place from 15 to 26 August 2022.

The Status of Marine Megafauna Research in Macaronesia: A Systematic Review

Marine megafauna serve valuable ecological and economical roles globally, yet, many species have experienced precipitous population declines. The significance of marine megafauna is particularly evident in Macaronesia, a complex of oceanic archipelagos in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean. Macaronesian islands provide important habitats for marine megafauna species, in turn supporting considerable regional economic activity (e.g., ecotourism and fisheries). Despite this, concerted efforts to manage marine megafauna throughout Macaronesia have been limited. This systematic review provides the first description of the trends in marine megafauna research in this unique insular ecosystem, to provide a better understanding of taxa-specific research needs and future directions for conservation. We identified and validated 408 peer-reviewed publications until 2021 following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) criteria. Literature was dominated by marine mammal research conducted in the northern archipelagos (Azores, Madeira, and Canary Islands) and marine turtle research conducted in Cabo Verde. Much less research focused on large-bodied fish, especially in Madeira and Canary Islands, leaving some of the most vulnerable species regionally data deficient. Research across scientific disciplines focused more on biological studies than management and policy, and anthropogenic impacts were quantified more frequently on mammals or turtles and less on fishes. By identifying gaps in our knowledge of megafauna in relation to threats faced by these organisms, we offer taxa-specific recommendations for future research direction. Although, overall our results indicate that determining population level connectivity should be a major research priority among many marine megafauna species as this information is vital to numerous management strategies, including marine protected areas. In this review, we present a basis of understanding of the current work in Macaronesia, highlighting critical data gaps that are urgently needed to guide the next steps toward establishing conservation priorities for marine megafauna in the region.

CORAL DISEASES IN NORTHEASTERN BRAZILIAN REEFS

In the last decade, corals from northeastern Brazil have experienced bleaching events linked to thermal anomalies, the consequences of which have been the appearance of disease outbreaks affecting different species. As a way to explain and monitoring diseases progression and other characteristics regarding the identification in the field for coral diseases, this article aimed to demonstrate the particularities that follows each diseases symptom. This study presents the results of an assessment of the presence of coral diseases on six coastal reefs in northeastern Brazil, including marine protected areas. After 300 hours of visual censuses, a total of 875 colonies were observed; of these, 114 colonies had some disease, representing 13.02% of the colonies analyzed. Five diseases/syndromes were recorded in four host coral species: white syndrome, white plague, red band, dark spots, and white band. This is the first record of white band on the Brazilian coast. The massive coral Siderastrea stellata showed colonies with all registered diseases, which arouses great concern for conservation of the Brazilian coast.

Alien corals in a Brazilian seaport and perspectives for improving marine bioinvasion detection and management in commercial ports

Two invasive coral species, Tubastraea coccinea and T. tagusensis, were identified on underwater artificial structures during a routine inspection at the Port of São Sebastião in southwestern Brazil in 2019. Both species were previously recorded in natural and artificial substrata in the region since 2008, including marine protected areas, but never found in the Port area. Tubastraea spp. are highly invasive species that outcompete native and endemic species, trigger seascapes changes, and modify ecosystem functions. Although it is uncertain if the São Sebastião Port was the primary source of these bioinvasion, ports' activity might enhance secondary dispersion, collaborating to spread the invasive species. This finding triggered a request by the Brazilian Institute of Environment (IBAMA) to the implementation of a specific plan to control the Tubastraea invasion attached to the invasive species monitoring program, which was one of the conditions to renew the operation license of the São Sebastião Port in 2020. Here, we recommend that commercial seaports consider including biota monitoring programs focusing on detecting marine non-indigenous species. Furthermore, we provided some subjects that should be incorporated in monitoring programs and highlight the need for evaluation of underwater artificial structures additionally to adjacent rocky shores. If a potentially invasive species is detected, a specific plan to control the invaders should be developed, as well as strategies to control invasive species dispersion. The monitoring program should be planned under the guidance of environmental agencies and incorporate the scientific community and general society, stimulating partnerships and discussions focusing on better understanding biological invasions in seaports and improving their management.

Model of two competing populations in two habitats with migration: Application to optimal marine protected area size

The standard model of a single population fragmented into two patches connected by migration, was first introduced in the 1970s by Freedman and Waltman, since generating long-term research interest, though its full analysis for arbitrary values of migration rate has only been completed relatively recently. Here, we present a model of two competing species in a two-patch habitat with migrations between patches. We derive equilibrium solutions of this model for three cases of migration rate resulting in isolated, well-mixed and semi-isolated habitats. We evaluate the full range of effects of habitat, life-history and migration parameters on population sizes. Finally, we add harvesting mortality and define conditions under which introduction of a no-harvesting (protected) area may lead to increased maximum sustainable yield. The results have applications in mixed fishery management and the design of wildlife protection zones, including marine protected areas (MPAs).

Unity or Fragmentation in the Deep Blue: Choices in Institutional Design for Marine Biological Diversity in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction

Delegations are in the final stages of negotiating the proposedAgreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction(BBNJAgreementorAgreement). TheAgreementwill have tremendous scope. Geographically it covers all ocean areas beyond national jurisdiction, meaning approximately 60 percent of the earth’s surface. Substantively it deals with a range of complex topics necessary for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, including marine genetic resources, sharing of benefits, measures such as area-based management tools, including marine protected areas, environmental impact assessments and capacity-building and the transfer of marine technology. Existing scholarship primarily explores the substantive choices for theAgreement; little examines its proposed institutional structure. This article critically assesses the competing positions advanced during negotiations for theAgreement’sinstitutional structure – the ‘global’ and ‘regional’ positions – and reviews the middle, or ‘compromise’ position adopted by the draft text. It suggests that both global and regional actors will be necessary to conserve and sustainably use marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, and that some form of coordinating mechanism is required to allocate responsibility for particular tasks. Two principles are proposed for use in combination to provide a mechanism to help coordinateAgreementorgans (global) and regional or sectoral bodies, namely, the principles of subsidiarity and cooperation. These principles are found in existing international and regional structures but are advanced here in dynamic forms, allowing for temporary or quasi-permanent allocation of competences, which can change or evolve over time. This position is also grounded in the international law of treaties and furthers dynamic views of regional and global ocean governance by offering practical coordinating principles that work with the existingAgreementtext.

Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ): Indonesian Perspective as an Archipelagic State

Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) is the proposed new international agreement on the sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction. It will be an international, legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The road to the development of a new international agreement has been started. The issue of BBNJ has been discussed for the past 15 years since the adoption of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution A/Res/59/24 on November 17, 2004. This paper addresses the issue of the development of BBNJ from the Indonesian perspective as an Archipelagic State. Analysis of available publications related to all activities’ legal standing in the Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) is conducted in this paper. The article starts with definitions and the legal standing of BBNJ. This paper specifically elaborates the package deal components as the basis for drafting an international legally binding instrument (ILBI). The package deal comprises marine genetic resources and access to benefits sharing, area-based management tools, including marine protected areas, environmental impact assessment, capacity-building, and marine technology transfer. The paper will then elaborate on the policy implication of BBNJ for Indonesia, including the adverse and its benefits. Finally, the article concludes with Indonesia’s recommendations to anticipate the entry into force of the new agreement of BBNJ.

The Voice of Science on Marine Biodiversity Negotiations: A Systematic Literature Review

Over one hundred governments are currently negotiating a new legally binding instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ). The new agreement is to address four broad themes: marine genetic resources (MGRs); area-based management tools (ABMTs), including marine protected areas (MPAs); environmental impact assessments (EIAs); and capacity building and the transfer of marine technology (CB&TT). Although a large corpus of scientific BBNJ literature exists, a comprehensive overview and critical analysis of the academic debate is currently missing. This systematic review seeks to fill this gap by examining the main priority topics and recommendations in a sample of 140 multidisciplinary, geographically diverse publications. As an up-to-date summary and analysis, it is intended for researchers from diverse academic disciplines in the natural and social sciences, policy-makers, and practitioners. It untangles the complex BBNJ negotiations, highlights the policy relevance of existing work, and facilitates links between science, policy, and practice. It presents recommendations made in the literature sample for each of the four package elements of the future treaty and identifies four overarching themes: ocean connectivity, institutional design, the role of science, and digital technology. This paper identifies two important gaps that need to be addressed if we are to conserve marine biodiversity in international waters: the science-policy interfaces and the need for transformative change.

Addressing the Relationship between Area-based Management Tools (ABMTs) Including Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and the Right of the Adjacent Coastal State to the High Seas: Recent Discussion and Suggestion

Abstract Marine biodiversity beyond areas national jurisdiction (BBNJ) are characterized by high diversity of life and ecosystem and played central role in maintaining and supporting life on earth. Nevertheless, in recent times a number of factors have increasingly brought about considerable damage, at an increasing pace, to the marine ecosystem and biodiversity. And currently there are no specific rules governing this marine environment on the BBNJ. Therefore, in 2004 The United Nation General Assembly (UNGA) created the Ad Hoc Open-ended Informal Working Group to study issues relating to the conservation and sustainable use of BBNJ. With the process initiated by UNGA Resolution 69/292 of 19 June 2015, the General Assembly decided to develop an international legally binding instrument (ILBI) under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on conservation and sustainable use of BBNJ. The paper contains the current discussion on the development of the new international legally binding instrument (ILBI) for conservation and sustainable use of BBNJ. It discusses on going mechanisms to address issues related to the package agreed in 2011, specifically on the measures such as area-based management tools (ABMTs), including marine protected areas (MPAs). More specifically,this paper discusses on the relationship between instrument and the rights of coastal States over all areas under their jurisdiction, including continental shelf within and beyond 200 nautical miles and the exclusive economic zone. The paper concludes that there is a need for further cooperation and coordination in developing and implementing ABMTs including MPAs under new ILBI with the right of the coastal states over all areas under their jurisdiction. The paper also addressing the concept of due regard, adjacency, compatibility, and the right of the coastal state. This four concept can be used for the basic guideline in relationship between ABMTs including MPAs with costal States adjacent to the area beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ).

Stuck in the middle with you (and not much time left): The third intergovernmental conference on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction

The third of four scheduled Inter-Governmental Conferences on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction met in New York in August 2019. This article tracks the progress made in the negotiations, focusing on the four key themes the draft treaty is addressing: (1) marine genetic resources, (2) area-based management tools, including marine protected areas, (3) environmental impact assessments, and (4) capacity building and transfer of marine technology. Drawing on process tracing (i.e. observations, interviews, and literature analysis), we have observed several critical issues in the emerging institutional design of a future agreement for ‘Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction’ (BBNJ). These include the continued ideological polarization between existing ocean governance principles (‘freedom of the seas’ and ‘common heritage of mankind’), disagreements about the delegation of authority to existing or created institutions, uneven participation of scientific and industry stakeholders, and the challenge of formulating a legal instrument that relies on inchoate or inconsistently used concepts. The conclusion looks ahead to the fourth Inter-Governmental Conference, and assesses the potential of reaching an effective agreement before the negotiations are scheduled to conclude in April 2020.

Data-driven approach for highlighting priority areas for protection in marine areas beyond national jurisdiction

One of the aims of the United Nations (UN) negotiations on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) is to develop a legal process for the establishment of area-based management tools, including marine protected areas, in ABNJ. Here we use a conservation planning algorithm to integrate 55 global data layers on ABNJ species diversity, habitat heterogeneity, benthic features, productivity, and fishing as a means for highlighting priority regions in ABNJ to be considered for spatial protection. We also include information on forecasted species distributions under climate change. We found that parameterizing the planning algorithm to protect at least 30% of these key ABNJ conservation features, while avoiding areas of high fishing effort, yielded a solution that highlights 52,545,634 km2 (23.7%) of ABNJ as high priority regions for protection. Instructing the planning model to avoid ABNJ areas with high fishing effort resulted in relatively minor shifts in the planning solution, when compared to a separate model that did not consider fishing effort. Integrating information on climate change had a similarly minor influence on the planning solution, suggesting that climate-informed ABNJ protected areas may be able to protect biodiversity now and in the future. This globally standardized, data-driven process for identifying priority ABNJ regions for protection serves as a valuable complement to other expert-driven processes underway to highlight ecologically or biologically significant ABNJ regions. Both the outputs and methods exhibited in this analysis can additively inform UN decision-making concerning establishment of ABNJ protected areas.

Options for managing human threats to high seas biodiversity

Areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) constitute 61% of the world's oceans and are collectively managed by countries under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Growing concern regarding the deteriorating state of the oceans and ineffective management of ABNJ has resulted in negotiations to develop an international legally binding instrument (ILBI) for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction under UNCLOS. To inform these negotiations, we identified existing and emerging human activities and influences that affect ABNJ and evaluated management options available to mitigate the most pervasive, with highest potential for impact and probability of emergence. The highest-ranking activities and influences that affect ABNJ were fishing/hunting, maritime shipping, climate change and its associated effects, land-based pollution and mineral exploitation. Management options are diverse and available through a variety of actors, although their actions are not always effective. Area-based management tools (ABMTs), including marine protected areas (MPAs), were the only consistently effective option to mitigate impacts across high-ranked activities and influences. However, addressing land-based pollution will require national action to prevent this at its source, and MPAs offer only a partial solution for climate change. A new ABNJ ILBI could help unify management options and actors to conserve marine biodiversity and ensure sustainable use. Incorporating a mechanism to establish effective ABMTs into the ILBI will help deliver multiple objectives based on the ecosystem approach.

Experts Meetings on Biodiversity beyond National Jurisdiction

This article summarizes and discusses the main issues addressed at two events hosted at the World Maritime University–Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute in Malmö, Sweden in the first half of 2019. The first event was the International Workshop on bbnj: Toward Development of a Balanced, Effective and Universal International Agreement on 7 February, co-sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Japan, and the second event was the 43rd colp Annual Conference on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction: Intractable Challenges & Potential Solutions co-hosted with the Center for Oceans Law and Policy (colp), University of Virginia School of Law and The Nippon Foundation. The two events covered topics including marine genetic resources – access and benefit sharing, area-based management tools including marine protected areas, environmental impact assessments, capacity building and transfer of technology, cross-cutting issues, and Arctic concerns.

What is the nature and extent of evidence on methodologies for monitoring and evaluating marine spatial management measures in UK and similar coastal waters? A systematic map protocol

BackgroundAnthropogenic degradation of marine ecosystems is widely accepted as a major social-ecological problem. The growing urgency to better manage marine ecosystems has led to the increasing application of ‘spatial management measures’ including marine protected areas, sectoral (e.g. fishery) closures, and marine spatial planning. However, the designation of varied spatial management regimes is just the first step; achievement of objectives relies upon effective implementation, monitoring, evaluation and adaptation. Despite spatial management being a core component of the marine management portfolio, to our knowledge, there is no systematic overview of the evidence on methodologies available, and employed, to monitor and evaluate their effectiveness across social, economic and ecological outcomes.MethodsThis systematic map will examine existing evidence describing methodologies for monitoring the effects, and evaluating the effectiveness, of marine spatial management across ecological, social and economic outcomes. Our aim is to provide a resource for decision-makers, primarily in the UK but also internationally, that supports effective marine management, and to describe the current evidence base. Identification and evaluation of relevant studies will therefore be restricted to coastal countries identified by our Stakeholder Group as being relevant to the UK, and searches will be restricted to the period 2009 to 2019 to align with the current UK policy context. Searches for relevant grey and academic literature, published in English, will be conducted in four bibliographic search engines, Google Scholar, 38 organisational websites and one specialist data repository. Eligibility screening will be conducted first at title and abstract level, and then at full text. Coding and meta-data extraction from eligible studies will include: bibliographic information, general information about the spatial management measure studied, and methodological information on the monitoring and evaluation undertaken. Consistency checking amongst reviewers will be undertaken during screening, coding and data extraction phases. The outcome of the systematic map will be a database that displays the meta-data of identified relevant studies. Findings will be presented in a descriptive report detailing the evaluation approaches and analytical methodologies employed, and data collection methods applied and/or data required by relevant studies to inform evaluations on the effectiveness of marine spatial management measures.