Newsletter - July'09

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Ecosystem-based Approach to Marine Management

Conference highlights the importance of Marine Spatial Planning — A report prepared by Lesley Hampshire, Isle of Wight FOE and Marinet member, on the C-Scope (Combining Sea and Coastal Planning in Europe) conference in Dorset on 19-20th October 2009. Marine Spatial Planning is an essential part of the Ecosystem approach to marine management and will establish the priorities between different conservation, social and economic uses of the sea in local areas, and is a main feature of the UK Marine Bill, shortly to receive Royal Assent. Marine Spatial Planning is akin to the current system town and country planning on land, and will be administered in the UK by the Marine Management Organisation, shortly to be established in Newcastle.

The Ecosytem-based Approach : Its use in the selection and management of Marine Reserves — We provide here a guide to the principles of the ecosystem approach to marine management, and how this approach develops criteria which may be iused in the selection and management of marine reserves.
We are currently engaging with Natural England/JNCC in their MCZ Regional Stakeholder MCZ Projects — identification of MCZ network in Irish Sea, SW Seas, Eastern Channel, and North Sea — and we will be having MARINET representatives on each of these Regional Stakeholder MCZ Projects. We will also be giving our representaives training and, therefore, this is a key document for our MARINET members to use when identifying the principles upon which MCZs must be selected and managed.

A Definition of the nature and meaning of the Ecosystem-based Approach, and how this translates into a suite of management tools — This paper has been prepared by MARINET for OSPAR (Oslo Paris Convention for the Protection of the N.E. Atlantic www.ospar.org) in connection with the formulation of OSPAR’s new policy base for the forthcoming period 2010 to 2020. This paper explains that the ecosystem-based approach is more that an “adaptive form of management” which just responds when problems become known, and this paper highlights and defines “ecosystem integrity” in order to lay emphasis on its maintenance as a key component of this management approach. Arising from this duality (adaptive management and ecosystem integrity), this paper describes the key management tools available to us to enable the ecosystem-based approach to function as a management system which will actively maintain the sustainable use of our seas.

The Worldwatch Report, “Oceans in Peril” — explains the central and vital role of the ecosystem-based approach to the management of our oceans in order to ensure that fish stocks and other essential facets of our seas remain in good health. If we do not adopt the ecosystem-based approach, further decline in the health of our oceans is inevitable, with perilous consequences.