Ecosystem-Based Integrated Ocean Management: A Framework for Sustainable Ocean Economy Development

4. How is Ecosystem-Based Integrated Ocean Management implemented?

4.1. About this section This section focuses entirely on the practical imple- mentation of EB-IOM, presenting the adaptive management cycle as an overarching approach and discussing a range of tools that can support ocean managers at different steps of the cycle. It builds on the previous section, which in its decon- struction of the five different forms of integration already started to shift focus to the ‘how’. The five types of integration cut across the entire adaptive management cycle presented in this section; each type should therefore be considered at each stage. 4.2. The adaptive management cycle 4.2.1. Overview Adaptive management – the environmental man- agement equivalent of the continuous improve- ment cycle in business management – was devel- oped in the 1970s to optimize the management of dynamic systems with large uncertainties (Walters & Hilborn 1978). It is seen as a central component of EBM (Long et al. 2015, Waylen et al. 2014). The adaptive management cycle comprises an iterative process in which ecological, social and economic goals are set, the status quo is assessed, shortfalls in relation to the goals are identified and solutions for achieving the goals are planned and decided upon. Relevant measures are then implemented, moni- tored and evaluated. The outcome of the mon- itoring and evaluation allows managers to assess whether the measures taken have been effective at achieving the initial goals, at which point another iteration of the cycle is started. The importance of adaptive ocean management is often stressed in related literature (Arbo & Th ủ y 2016, Forst 2009, Schupp et al. 2019), and many variations on the adaptive management cycle exist, for example, for participative multi-criteria deci- sion-making (Estévez & Gelcich 2015), for MSP implementation (Ehler & Douvere 2009, UNEP- WCMC 2019), for EBM implementation (ELI 2009, Stelzenmüller et al. 2013), for ecosystem-based fisheries management (FAO 2019) and for ICZM implementation and coastal watershed manage- ment (AIDEnvironment et al. 2004, UNEP GPA 2006). The IEA, introduced in section 3.4.4 as a

practical approach to support knowledge integra- tion, is in essence a version of the adaptive man- agement cycle, and is represented as such on the NOAA website 14 . Even the DPSIR framework (sec- tion 3.4.6), which is primarily an analytical frame- work to help break down and understand drivers, pressures and impacts on socio-ecological sys- tems in order to help formulate appropriate man- agement responses, is commonly represented as a closed cycle in which the assessment is repeated after measures are implemented, so they can be adapted if needed (Patrício et al. 2016). Figure 7 shows a representation of an adaptive management cycle for EB-IOM, based on an illus- tration created by UNEP-WCMC (2019) to represent adaptive management for MSP. While this figure is very high-level, it provides a balanced overview of the ‘big picture’ of adaptive management and includes vital contextual elements that other illus- trations sometimes lack. It is separated into two phases: pre-planning and the planning cycle itself. Both are embedded within a set of enabling con- ditions, including financing, capacity and the legal and governance context. Figure 7 includes ‘integration’ as an important cross-cutting element, relevant at each stage in the planning cycle. Since the five categories of integra- tion are covered comprehensively in section 3.4, integration isn’t discussed further in the present section, which instead focuses on the other ele- ment represented in Figure 7: setting goals and objectives. EB-IOM should be guided by clearly articulated overarching goals, in line with the vision of the blue doughnut (section 2.4). These broad goals should be used as a framework for articulating more spe- cific objectives that guide specific actions or should serve as benchmarks for monitoring and evaluating success. This is sometimes represented as a one- off action to be completed at the start of the cycle, with the SMART acronym (box 6, Ehler 2014) com- monly cited as a gold standard for objectives that each link to at least one management action and one indicator 15 . 4.2.2. Pre-planning and cross-cutting elements

14 See https://www.integratedecosystemassessment.noaa.gov/ 15 Belfiore et al. (2006), Link et al. (2017) and Pomeroy et al. (2004) are entry points to the literature on indicators. A lot of work is currently being done to develop indicator suites for reporting on the SDGs as well as on the performance of Large Marine Ecosystem projects and Regional Seas Programmes, which can easily be researched online for practical guidance.

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