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.
The ecosystem approach has become a common tool in environmental governance over the last decade. Within the EU context, this is most clearly accentuated through the adoption of the Marine Strategy ...Framework Directive and the Directive on Maritime Spatial Planning, that both include requirements for Member States to apply the approach. This paper examines the organization of marine spatial planning (MSP) by the EU countries in the Baltic Sea Region in terms of management levels and geographic delimitations. The research shows that there is no consistent interpretation of what is the appropriate level of management, or ecosystem scale. These findings are used to inform a discussion on the application of the ecosystem approach in the countries around the Baltic Sea, and its effect on the potential of transboundary cooperation initiatives.
In the last 20 years, the EU has adopted some rather ambitious pieces of legislation with the aim to achieve a good environmental status in freshwater and marine ecosystems. Both the Water Framework ...Directive (WFD) and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) have a strong focus on the natural environment and biological criteria for assessing the status of the relevant ecosystems. In the same time period, much research on environmental governance has focused on the interconnectedness of social systems and ecosystems, so-called social-ecological systems (SES). While having high aspirations, the legal frameworks underpinning current EU water and marine management do not necessarily reflect the advances of contemporary science relating to SES. Using the geographical intersection of the two directives, i.e., coastal waters as a focal point, the paper explores the inchoate integration of social and ecological perspectives in the EU marine governance. What are the main challenges for the current EU legal regimes for managing coastal waters in a way that builds on the understanding of social and ecological systems as interconnected? Having explored the two directives, the paper introduces the possibility of using marine spatial planning (MSP), and the EU directive establishing a framework for maritime spatial planning (MSPD) as a bridge between the social and ecological dimensions and discusses what implications this would have for the current system for governing coastal waters in Europe.
Divided Environments Westholm, Aron
Laws of the Sea,
2023, 2022, Letnik:
1
Book Chapter
This chapter explores the division of planning responsibilities between levels of government in Sweden's administration of marine and coastal areas. In this system, local municipalities are tasked ...with planning the coastal waters, while national authorities plan the territorial sea and the EEZ. Drawing on in-depth interviews, the chapter analyzes this administrative structure, and highlights how conceptions of marine and coastal areas are formed at the administrative level. The chapter also reveals how the administrative division of marine environments leads to an over-simplified planning in social-ecological systems. Through a study of the Swedish system for marine spatial planning, the chapter finally discusses challenges in marine planning in the European Union and how the complexities of social-ecological systems rarely fit into static perceptions of scale. Rather, the chapter illustrates the need of integrating management across geographical scales and levels of management.
Delimiting Marine Areas Aron Westholm
The Ecosystem Approach in Ocean Planning and Governance,
12/2018
Book Chapter
Odprti dostop
Marine management is a question of delimitations. The sea is a large ecosystem, which, for functional governance, needs to be broken down into smaller, more manageable, units. A central issue for ...such governance is: what are the appropriate geographic delimitations in terms of ecosystem functionality? A related and equally important question is: what management level within the administrative system is best suited for such governance? These issues are important to discuss as they relate to how a legal regime for the sustainable management of marine ecosystems can be designed. This chapter utilises a theoretical framework grounded in legal geography to
Marine management is a question of delimitations. The sea is a large ecosystem, which, for functional governance, needs to be broken down into smaller, more manageable, units. A central issue for ...such governance is: what are the appropriate geographic delimitations in terms of ecosystem functionality? A related and equally important question is: what management level within the administrative system is best suited for such governance? The chapter examines how three different EU directives, all pertaining to the marine environment, use different methodologies to identify relevant ecosystem scales, and management levels. Using the Swedish legal system as an example, the results show that there are multiple authorities in charge of marine management, as well as a number of different geographic delimitations of the sea, all within a single member state. These findings are used to inform a discussion on the how the different interpretations of the ecosystem approach create challenges for a coherent and functional management of the coastal and marine environment of the EU.
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