Marine Governance Research Articles

Policy Formulation of The Marine Governance In The Coastal Southern Lebak Regency Banten Province

This paper is aimed to explain the presence of marine potentials in the southern coastal area of Lebak Regency, Banten Province that have not been fully exploited. There are several potentials found in this Regency, the extensive coastline of approximately 91.42 km², and the marine resources and fisheries that could be developed. The potentials include not only fisheries and tourism but also mining. With such a high rate of development in the coastal area of Lebak Regency, it will certainly cause various problems in the region such as First, the degradation of coastal and marine ecosystems in Lebak Regency; Second, the increasing intensity of environmental pollution caused by mining and extraction activities; Third, the vulnerability to natural disasters (abrasion, tsunami, erosion, climate change, et cetera); Fourth, the occurrence of area utilization conflict; and Fifth, low productivity of biological marine resources utilization. The method used in this study was a qualitative research method with in-depth interviews, observations, and documentation. The results show that two issues become marine management problems in the southern coastal area of Lebak Regency, the first is environmental degradation, the second is space use conflicts, and the third is waste pollution due to organic and non-organic waste. Meanwhile, actor mapping shows that the government, in this case, the Regent as the authority in the area, has the power, influence, and interest to give input to the marine management of the Southern Coast of Lebak Regency so that it would not only increase the local revenue but also have a significant effect on the local communities, especially the fisher people and, and the environmental sustainability.

Remaking ocean governance in Aotearoa New Zealand through boundary-crossing narratives about ecosystem-based management

Despite international advances in linking ecosystem knowledge and ecosystem-based management (EBM) frameworks, progress in Aotearoa New Zealand to develop holistic ocean management has been hesitant and slow. The paper explores ocean governance by combining enactive narratives and boundary-crossing thinking. Strategic use of narratives can energise different collective imaginaries for holistic ocean governance at various scales. The narrative resources developed steer towards place making approaches enabling connected and holistic governance. This reflective paper revisits co-journeying and thought extensions, with the aim of supporting the reader to also think and do marine governance differently. We tell a story of co-creating narrative resources to show our navigation of the difficulties and learnings therein. We emphasise contextualising and development of narrative storylines, and the enactive workshop processes through which a distinctive bicultural, socio-scientific and grounded multi-media portfolio of narratives was produced. Five EBM narrative resources were circulated for review to gain feedback into how narratives as carriers of critical messages about marine governance practices might be received in different settings. We use boundary thinking to examine the translational possibilities and performative effects of deploying narratives. Feedback revealed deep tensions when reviewers assessed the narratives in terms of personal and professional positionings, and when reflecting on the social and collective work that EBM narratives provoke. The research provokes urgent recognition of the complexity of both the conception and practicalities of advancing holistic ocean governance, whilst also providing techniques for navigating these complexities.

Institutional integration in transboundary marine spatial planning: A theory-based evaluative framework for practice

The governance of shared waters involves complex interactions between actors and institutions embedded in different legislative approaches, cultures and administrative procedures. Marine Spatial Planning can address the transboundary dimension of marine governance, based on its potential to foster integration between sectoral agencies, regulatory bodies and local stakeholders when making decisions about the distribution of coastal and maritime uses. Coordination between activities and practices of actors in planning transboundary areas is imperative in advancing sustainability. This paper seeks to make a contribution to the evolving field of MSP by expanding the dimensions of integration in MSP to consider institutional integration. In doing so, the paper reviews pivotal literature on MSP and makes an argument that existing studies on integration in MSP are structured in an inductive manner and focused on national and sea-basin cases. In response to addressing these gaps, we used the social systems theory and related theories, as an overarching and valuable lens to understand the institutional challenges of planning across maritime borders. Based on these lenses, we present an evaluation framework that uses the metaphor of a ‘wheel’ to indicate iterative stages (observation, initial impact, response, recovery and stabilisation) that are shaped by dimensions including structural alignment, self-oriented action, and collaborative capacity. This is followed by discussion about the potential application and next steps for enhancing the utility of the framework. In conclusion, the paper adds to the growing discourse on transboundary MSP by presenting a deductive framework that can be applied to different context and multi-governance levels to understand institutional integration.

A New Paradigm for Social License as a Path to Marine Sustainability

Traditional marine governance can create inferior results. Management decisions customarily reflect fluctuating political priorities and formidable special-interest influence. Governments face distrust and conflicts of interest. Industries face fluctuating or confusing rules. Communities feel disenfranchised to affect change. The marine environment exhibits the impacts. While perceived harm to diverse values and priorities, disputed facts and legal questions create conflict, informed and empowered public engagement prepares governments to forge socially legitimate and environmentally acceptable decisions. Integrity, transparency and inclusiveness matter. This article examines positive contributions engaged communities can make to marine governance and relates it to social license. Social license suffers critique as vague and manufactured. Here its traditional understanding as extra-legal approval that communities give to resource choices is broadened to include a legally sanctioned power to deliberate—social license to engage. The starting hypothesis rests in the legal tradition designating oceans as public assets for which governments hold fiduciary duties of sustainable management benefiting current and future generations. The public trust doctrine houses this legal custom. A procedural due process right for engaged communities should stem from this public-asset classification and afford marine stakeholders standing to ensure management policy accords with doctrinal principles. The (free), prior, informed consent participation standard provides best practice for engaged decision-making. Building on theories from law, social, and political science, we suggest robust public deliberation provides marine use actors methods to earn and sustain their social license to operate, while governmental legitimacy is bolstered by assuring public engagement opportunities are available and protected with outcomes utilized.

Translation of Hydrogeological Environment Texts in the Process of Marine Natural Environment Management on the High Seas

Peng, H.T., 2020. Translation of hydrogeological environment texts in the process of marine natural environment management on the high seas. In: Guido Aldana, P.A. and Kantamaneni, K. (eds.), Advances in Water Resources, Coastal Management, and Marine Science Technology. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 104, pp. 101–105. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.At present, the sustainable use of biodiversity and biological resources has received wide attention, among which the importance of marine environment protection and governance on the high seas has been widely recognized. Although many countries are involved in relevant international treaties or agreements, the high seas, as an area outside their national jurisdiction, still have many problems with its environmental protection and governance, and environmental pollution on the high seas is becoming more and more serious. Under such circumstances, speeding up the process of the management of the marine natural environment on the high seas from the international level is not only conducive to the long-term solution of related problems, but also conducive to safeguarding China's rights and interests in the management of the high seas environment and building a community of human destiny in the marine environment. In this process, it is necessary to carry out hydrogeological environment survey of polluted sea areas, and to do a good job in translating hydrogeological environment texts is the basic work to avoid ambiguity and disputes, which is very important to promote the sustainable development of marine resources on the high seas.

Regional fisheries management organizations and the new biodiversity agreement: Challenge or opportunity?

AbstractIn 2018, the international community began formal intergovernmental negotiations over a new legally binding instrument for the protection of marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction. Protecting marine biodiversity is imperative for a sustainable future, and all the different organizations and agreements will have to work together to achieve this common goal. One of the first key principles to be agreed was to “not undermine” the existing legal instruments or mandates of regional and sectoral marine governance organizations. While fisheries are not being discussed during the negotiations, a marine biodiversity agreement is likely to still impact regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs), due to overlapping areas of interest. This article aims to firstly, assess the potential constraints posed by the commitment to “not undermine”; secondly, consider how aspects of the biodiversity agreement, such as area‐based management and environmental impact assessments, might enhance RFMOs; and thirdly, suggest meaningful ways to ensure cooperation between RFMOs and the marine biodiversity agreement.

Marine Indigenous Areas: Conservation Assemblages for Sustainability in Southern Chile

Globally, Indigenous Marine Areas are contributing to ocean sustainability by protecting key habitats and species whilst safeguarding customary uses for local communities. They are emerging as one of the key political mechanisms that can counteract the ravages of the blue Anthropocene. Nevertheless, their contributions are threatened by the accelerating expansion of economic activities, and exclusionary marine governance systems, affecting both marine biodiversity and human wellbeing. In southern Chile, indigenous communities have been countering the expansion of the salmon farms by promoting the establishment of Espacios Costeros Marinos para Pueblos Originarios (here called Indigenous Marine Areas or IMAs). These IMAs are being developed by coastal communities to protect traditional or customary coastal uses, and revitalizing culture whilst contributing to marine conservation. Using a relational theoretical approach and mixed methods, the paper presents the major trends in the implementation of IMAs in Chile. Through the case of the Los Lagos Region, it shows how the action-network that pursued the designation of IMAs is continuing today. The paper stresses the role of conservation assemblages to lead collective actions, showing how these constellations of agents have been interacting during the decision-making process and institutional building, whilst promoting the establishment of IMAs as place-based democratic mechanism to promote the sustainability of the southern Chile.

Influence of altitude on tropical marine habitat classification using imagery from fixed‐wing, water‐landing UAVs

AbstractUnmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are cost‐effective remote sensing tools useful for generating very high‐resolution (VHR) aerial imagery. Habitat maps generated from UAV imagery are a fundamental component of marine spatial planning, essential for the designation and governance of marine protected areas (MPAs). We investigated whether UAV survey altitude affects habitat classification performance and the classification accuracy of thematic maps from a tropical shallow water environment. We conducted repeated UAV flights at 75, 85, and 110 m, using a fixed‐wing UAV on the Turneffe Atoll, Belize. Flights were ground truthed with snorkel surveys. Images were mosaiced to form orthomosaics and transformed into thematic maps through semi‐automatic object‐based image analysis (OBIA). Three subset areas (4000 m2, 17 000 m2 and 17 000 m2) from two cayes on the atoll were selected to investigate the effect of survey altitude. A linear regression demonstrated that for every 1 m increase in survey altitude, there was a ~1% decrease in the overall classification accuracy. A low survey altitude of 75 m produced a higher classification accuracy for thematic maps and increased the representation of mangrove, seagrass and sand. The variability in classified cover was driven by altitude, although the direction and extent of this relationship was specific to each class. For coral and sea, classified cover decreased with increased altitude. Mangrove classified cover was non‐sensitive to altitude changes, demonstrating a lesser need for a consistent survey altitude. Sand and seagrass had a greater sensitivity to altitude, due to classified cover variability between altitudes. Our findings suggest that survey altitude should be minimized when classifying tropical marine environments (coral, seagrass) and, given that most fixed‐wing UAVs are restricted to a minimum altitude of 70 m, we recommend an altitude of 75 m. Survey altitude should be a major consideration when targeting habitats with greater sensitivity to altitude variability.

Marine Spatial Planning, Brexit and the island of Ireland

Brexit poses major institutional and governance challenges for the island of Ireland, not least in the area of Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) and the cooperative governance and integrated management of shared marine spaces and ecosystems. To date, MSP scholarship has not delved into the complex processes that construct marine borders and has failed to acknowledge how the same border may have different boundary qualities across a range of institutional contexts. Using the case of transboundary marine governance on the island of Ireland, we evaluate recent marine governance innovations in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) and Northern Ireland (NI) to assess if they promote integration. We then illustrate how the boundary characteristics of marine borders are context dependent, with the same border being both hard and soft in differing contexts, and we discuss how this may be impacted by Brexit. We argue that the development of integrated marine management is not a priority in these jurisdictions and that the resulting complex, multiple constructions of marine borders has largely been ignored by MSP researchers.1 We conclude that developing a more nuanced understanding of borders in order to advance integrated marine management is crucial for post-Brexit MSP planning practice and research.

Adaptation to climate change–related ocean acidification: An adaptive governance approach

Climate change-driven ocean acidification (OA) is causing rapid change to global ecosystems and poses a significant threat to marine life. However, predicting ecosystem effects remains highly uncertain and governance responses to OA are not yet forthcoming. Adaptive governance can provide a means to deal with this uncertainty and we consider its application to the polycentric governance of adaptation responses to OA in Scotland, focussing on the aquaculture industry as a vulnerable sector. A workshop was used to develop potential responses to OA and to gain information about present and potential capacity for adaptive governance at national and regional levels. Scottish legislation, policy and planning documents were subsequently analysed to enable description of how governance and management arrangements constrain or enable adaptation responses. Legislative and policy analysis indicates convergence across emerging mechanisms in support of adaptive governance and identified interventions. Recent advances in climate change adaptation in Scotland promotes integration of adaptation into wider Scottish Government policy development and functions, based on iterative and collaborative processes across scales. Alongside this, new models of coastal and marine governance, including a partnership-led regional marine planning process and devolution of seabed management rights under Crown Estate Scotland, seek to advance new models of locally-led and learning-based planning and management which can support adaptation responses. However, adaptation measures at operational scale requires flexibility in the aquaculture licensing regime which is currently of low adaptive capacity. Further, expansion of the industry faces social and ecological constraints which limit spatial measures, and are complicated by uncertainty in predicting local OA effects. Expanding the use of holistic and co-operative management tools such as Aquaculture Management Areas could support adaptation across wider spatial scales. Better integration across policy and planning instruments is also needed to enhance adaptive capacity, including between climate change adaptation, marine planning and aquaculture planning and management. This could be enabled by establishing links between existing and proposed collaborative groups to enhance development of adaptation responses and through co-ordination of monitoring and review processes to promote learning across scales.

Marine Spatial Planning and sustainability: Examining the roles of integration - Scale, policies, stakeholders and knowledge

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) has been heralded as the key means of achieving a more integrated approach to marine use across sectors and spatial scales. Achieving greater integration and coherence in MSP governance arrangements is seen as a way to resolve current problems of marine governance (such as fragmentation) and address future resource demands in a sustainable way. However, there is a lack of clarity and consensus in practice regarding sustainability in MSP, both in terms of MSP governance practices and sustainable resource use. For example, how are we to treat the environment in MSP? Should we conceive the environment as just another sector with interests to be negotiated, or as the very boundary condition that limits possibilities for maritime activities and developments? How do we integrate diverse views on this in MSP decision-making? This is but one example of an integration challenge in MSP important for sustainability. There are numerous others. Integration is intimately connected to the ability of MSP to deliver sustainable marine resource use at various levels and scales. The roles of integration are diverse and interconnected, including those that affect social-ecological integration or land-sea interaction, but also aspects of good governance and social sustainability. The latter include inter-sectoral decisionmaking, stakeholder engagement, cross-border interaction and knowledge pluralism. How integration is exercised in these procedural aspects of MSP is likely to substantively affect outcomes both in terms of sustainable blue growth or the ability to deliver an ecosystem-based approach. Integration as a policy and analytical problem to be addressed has also been discussed elsewhere – most saliently in the fields of sustainable development, ICZM, environmental policy integration, planning theory and socio-ecological systems. While there has been some work on integration in MSP, additional insight is needed: to better empirically ground the roles of integration in MSP, to understand the multidimensionality and interdependencies of integration dimensions and to unpack what ‘balance’ might mean for understanding and pursuing sustainability in different MSP contexts.In response, this special issue aims to explore the roles, problems and opportunities of various types of integration in relation to MSP's sustainability ambitions.

Welfare economics and wicked problems in coastal and marine governance

Coastal and marine governance has been characterised as a ‘wicked’ problem due to difficulties in definition, uncertainty, and conflicting perspectives and values. Social Cost-Benefit Analysis (SCBA), which is an application of welfare economics, 'tames' such problems by assuming away many of these complexities. This article reviews the simplifying assumptions underlying SCBA in four major areas. First, welfare-economics and SCBA assume a utilitarian, consequentialist frame and a clear problem delineation, whereas wicked problems are difficult to define and delineate. Second, welfare economics can deal with risk and uncertainty as long as all policy alternatives, states of nature, and success criteria are known, whereas for wicked problems it is not known with certainty which alternatives are to be evaluated and by which criteria, and which states of nature are possible. Third, welfare economics can deal with a variety of perceptions as long as the legitimacy of each perception is uncontested, whereas in wicked problems some stakeholders' or experts' views are contested by others. Fourth, welfare economics can deal with a variety of preferences and hence conflicting interests, as long as all values are individual and substitutable, whereas in wicked problems some values cannot be substituted as they represent ‘sacred’ values such as religion and identity. Despite its limitations, however, the explicit definition of the assumptions behind SCBA make it a helpful benchmark to determine what makes a given problem in coastal and marine governance wicked.

The performance of marine spatial planning in coordinating offshore wind energy with other sea-uses: The case of the Dutch North Sea

Governments are searching for institutional designs that enable coordination of sea-uses in a more systematic and integrated manner. Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) is presented as such an approach for improved coordination. However, existing literature is increasingly doubting the ability of MSP to accomplish this, particularly regarding offshore wind farms (OWF). Therefore, this paper evaluates how six key principles of MSP perform in coordinating OWF vis-á-vis other spatial claims in the Dutch North Sea. Where existing literature focuses on the conformance of material outcomes to stated objectives, this paper evaluates performance; i.e. how the six principles are understood in successive manifestations of MSP and subsequently used in decision-making regarding OWF. Based on the conditions of knowledge, legitimacy and feasibility, four modes of performance are identified. Knowledge of the principles of MSP can be found throughout successive manifestations of MSP. However, the understanding of these principles in the Dutch case is narrowed in order to create a robust system that ensures a quick and cost-effective roll-out of offshore wind energy to meet (inter)national renewable energy targets. The focus lies on furthering the feasibility of OWF development, resulting in a dominant mode of performance that is termed ‘legitimacy misfit’; MSP is used as a tool to implement external sustainability discourses and renewable energy targets, rather than forming a systematic and integrated marine governance approach that balances various interests at sea. Furthermore, it is necessary to develop a more critical approach to the operationalization of the principles of MSP that is sensitive to possible interdependencies and conflicts.

Toward marine democracy in Chile: Examining aquaculture ecological impacts through common property local ecological knowledge

The preferential treatment of the aquaculture industry over fisheries and marine protected areas in Chile through the demarcation of the Areas Appropriate for Aquaculture has set it on a collision course with conservation, artisanal fishing and coastal communities. This article shows how marine democratic governance can evolve through the inclusion of artisanal fisher local ecological knowledge. Artisanal fishing communities elicit how contamination from industrial aquaculture is causing natural shellfish banks, fish populations and endangered cold corals to diminish. While fisheries and aquaculture governance are nominally governed by the same body, the ideological concerns of decision makers have not left space for the original users or ecological health. The right to good water quality and ecological health of artisanal fisher, original people and the broader coastal community are highlighted. Using semi structured interviews, participatory cartography and Geographic Information Systems fishers explain how the contamination footprint has expanded across benthic habitats. Diving in the contaminated areas confirmed the impacts using comparison with control sites. The article shows how new laws are need to assess nutrient loading, antibiotics and invasive species introduction. It links these impacts to literature in other countries where harmful algal blooms result from eutrophication from aquaculture contamination. It shows how the privatisation of space has left marine governance unable to take adequate enforcement. Artisanal and indigenous common properties can lead toward participation in marine planning for ecological health, whilst governmental institutions need realignment so that marine ecological planning for conservation can evolve.

Coastline Management: Review and Countermeasure Proposal

The scientific coastline management is of great significance to the development of marine economy, coordinated development of land and marine and construction of ecological civilization. The coastline management in China has experienced two main stages: (i) the stage of basic survey and jurisprudential establishment, and (ii) the stage of perfection under new situation. There are challenges in promoting modern marine governance and marine power, which are characterized by the lack of high-quality management involvement throughout the coastline management process. Accordingly, coastline supervision is not comprehensive, the standardized system still needs to be improved, and the research on the main function of coastline has not been conducted yet. On this basis, the corresponding strategies were put forward from the perspectives of top-level design, main function, the “double-index” assessment system, requisition-compensation balance of natural coastline, with a view to provide strategic support for coastline management in China.

Regulatory and Institutional Framework for the Conservation of Coral Reefs in Bangladesh: A Critical Review

The coral reefs' crisis increases with the combined effects of natural and anthropogenic disturbances. It is predicted that coral reefs could extinct soon from the world. Bangladesh has only one coral Island named Saint Martin, locally known as 'Narikel Jinjira’. This is one of the most popular tourist spots in Bangladesh, entertaining thousands of tourists per year due to its unique landscape, blue water, and coral colonies' presence. This Island lost most of the coral in recent times. The coral reef ecosystem management needs to focus on reforming the legal and institutional frameworks for enhancing the local administration's capabilities to address the adverse effects of the stressors and promote ecosystem services by improving resilience. The study aims at analyzing the existing institutional and legal frameworks for conserving the coral reefs. Fieldwork was conducted at Saint Martin Island and Teknaf Upazila to collect data. The related literature on legal documents was reviewed critically. It is found that despite having legal mechanisms and institutional frameworks, non-compliances with laws and poor coordination among different sectors are widespread, resulting in severe degradation of coral resources. In most of the laws, robust institutional arrangements were ignored. The study recommends integrating the legal and institutional frameworks governing the environment, tourism, and fisheries sectors. Effective marine governance, increasing coordination among different sectors, amending some existing rules, and activating MCS (monitoring, control, surveillance) system can improve the scenario.

‘Re-grabbing’ marine resources: a blue degrowth agenda for the resurgence of small-scale fisheries in Malta

The era of blue growth, underpinned by neoliberal policy discourses, has been pervasive in the promulgation of European marine governance and policies in the past decade, with little or no regard for the sustainability of small-scale fisheries. In this paper, we engage with theoretical and empirical observations to reflect on how the promise of sustainable economic growth arising from the convergence of international conservation policies and the blue growth paradigm, has failed to materialise and caused huge social and economic inequities among local fishing communities and the catastrophic disruption of the socio-ecological system of fisheries. Drawing on various interventions in Malta, we illustrate how neoliberal policies, lauded and promoted as part of a national blue growth strategy, are suffocating and marginalising small-scale fishing communities by concentrating fishing opportunities into fewer, larger corporate hands, and by a hegemonic anti-small scale fishing narrative that seeks to replace traditional fishing with the ‘darlings of the new blue economy’, aquaculture and coastal tourism. With artisanal-commercial fishing in Malta on the verge of extinction, we call for reversal of neo-liberal policy measures to re-create a more resilient and stable fisheries economy through specific blue degrowth measures including improved access to fisheries resources and markets, and the establishment of marine protected areas that recognize the value of small-scale fisheries to conservation. This could be achieved through equity-based governance systems, including improved profit distribution systems within community economies, that grant small-scale fisheries the possibility of re-institutionalizing their sector and promoting their existence and viability into the future. Ultimately, we demonstrate that through a blue economy roadmap for small-scale fisheries, small-islands states like Malta, can rescue an important component of their maritime traditions, and be better placed to reach the obligations set out within the United Nations sustainable development goals.

Fishers' Ecological Knowledge about Marine Pollution: What Can FEK Contribute to Ecological and Conservation Studies of a Southwestern Atlantic Estuary?

The growth of human populations and industrial activities in the last decades have been the major cause of ecosystem decline, especially due to the inputs of several pollutants in the environment. Estuaries are one of the main concerns in marine governance because they receive potentially toxic substances from many sources that end up in the sea. Despite this, marine policies that aim to protect marine areas have dismissed local fishers' knowledge, although fishers have ecological knowledge that endorses and complements scientific research. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify sources and indicators of pollution in the Bahia Blanca Estuary (BBE) according to the fishers and to contrast this knowledge with scientific studies. We conducted 20 interviews with the fishers of the BBE, and the results showed that all of them think the estuary is polluted and that there have been changes in the biomass of catches in the past. Most of them think that industries of the petrochemical complex are the major cause of pollution (57%), while marine organisms were the most mentioned items as indicators of pollution (59%), especially the commercial species (41%). We found interesting parallels between fishers' ecological knowledge (FEK) and scientific data. Thus, we conclude that FEK is an invaluable tool that provides data that could help to co-protect and co-manage this estuary and the services it provides.

Exclusionary decision-making processes in marine governance: The rezoning plan for the protected areas of the ‘iconic’ Galapagos Islands, Ecuador

The number of marine protected areas (MPAs) has increased twenty-fold since 1993, and there are ambitious targets for further expansion set by international conservation agencies. This expansion has been accompanied by claims that only No-take MPAs (NTMPAs) can effectively ensure biodiversity conservation, and the international marine conservation community has become increasingly active and influential in promoting them. However, NTMPAs clearly have consequences for resource users whose livelihoods are impacted by restricted access to natural resources. Since these consequences can trigger social conflicts that impeded progress towards conservation goals, there have been concerted efforts to find collaborative and inclusive approaches to MPA planning and management. This paper assesses stakeholder engagement in decision-making processes related to marine conservation planning and management in the Galapagos Marine Reserve, and examines how these have been influenced by shifting narratives of biodiversity conservation in the lead up to, and the execution of, the 2016 rezoning process. A dramatic shift in the rezoning process, a top-down declaration of a no-take MPA, fostered social conflicts that have delayed the full-implementation of the new zoning plan even three years after its official declaration. Through a mixed-methods approach we contrast perceptions, expectations and experiences of key actors in three stakeholder groups: the small-scale fisheries sector, the scientific research community, and the conservation management sector. This study illustrates challenges associated with rushed conservation initiatives, promoted and supported by large external conservation NGOs, and it demonstrates how a “back to the barriers” approach to conservation can undermine acceptance of conservation practices and jeopardize the success of MPAs.

Arctic Ocean governance in light of an of an international legally binding instrument on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction

A global process is underway towards an international legally binding instrument (ILBI) under the Law of Sea Convention (LOSC) on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction This global instrument may influence the governance of the Arctic Ocean of which a large part is beyond national jurisdiction. The Ocean remains one of the last great oceanic wilderness areas of the planet while at the same time being highly vulnerable to climate change and the increased human activity that may follow from the retreating sea ice. The physical changes of the Arctic Ocean have led to growing international attention and perception of the Arctic Ocean as a global common with calls for its increased protection. Alongside with the process towards an ILBI, various initiatives have been taken and discussions conducted within the Arctic region on a mechanism for Arctic marine governance including on the role of the Arctic Council. The current legal framework for governance of the Arctic Ocean is fragmented and incomplete in terms of protecting biodiversity. The article discusses the relevance of a future global instrument for the protection of biodiversity in the Arctic Ocean and its relationship with regional initiatives and existing instruments governing the Ocean. It suggests that Arctic states should use the ongoing global negotiation process as an incentive to take responsibility and be proactive in creating a comprehensive protection regime for the Ocean rather than waiting for the global instrument to serve as the platform.