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

management or management bodies with rele- vant remits, it may be easier to establish strategic EB-IOM initiatives from the bottom up, at least at smaller scales and in coastal areas where there is a strong sense of ownership by local communities and other stakeholders. The resources needed for effective EB-IOM include adequate financing that must be sustained over the long term to enable ongoing iterations of the adap- tive management cycles to be completed. In addi- tion, there is a need for a range of capacities at the level of individuals, organisations, and networks of actors, including skills, knowledge, and (organiza- tional) culture. Often, new capacities need to be developed. The institution of new integration mechanisms and new strategic planning processes requires existing institutions and individuals to change, adapt, learn, and acquire new skills, for example. These changes can be very difficult to achieve (Kelly et al. 2019), but there is a significant amount of literature and guidance on organizational change management that can help practitioners (for example, Kotter 2014), with effective capacity-building known to be vital for success. Capacity-building for EB-IOM can be participative, thereby constituting a mechanism for integration in its own right. A full review of capacity-building approaches that can be used in the context of EB-IOM is beyond the scope of this report, but excellent resources exist to help practitioners get started. These include general resources on par- ticipatory training methods (UNITAR 2016), online training resources (such as the SessionLab library) 17 , dedicated training resources for EB-IOM (for exam- ple, those developed by the Blue Solutions pro- ject) 18 and training courses related to specific tools, methods and approaches such as those discussed in the following sections. 4.2.8. How to use adaptive management frame- works The ‘stages’ of the cycle in Figure 7 represent differ- ent elements of ocean management which should inform each other, but the adaptive management cycle should not be regarded as a strict ‘how-to’ manual with a prescribed sequence of discrete actions that must be carried out for every new pro- ject or initiative. As previously mentioned, there are several parts of the cycle that are best viewed as ongoing activities that should continue at the same time as other parts of the cycle. For example, the implementation and monitoring of existing meas-

ures should not stop while they are being revised or when new measures are being planned.

If every new initiative starts at the ‘beginning’, there is a risk of work continuously becoming stuck in the first half of the cycle and never delivering real- world impacts, especially when initiatives are pro- jects with time-limited funding. The technical tasks needed in the first part of the cycle (data gathering and analysis to establish the status quo, develop- ment of future management scenarios) can take a lot of time and effort, use up a lot of resources, and generate a lot of outputs. Ocean managers have the sense of making progress, funders see deliv- erables in the form of maps, reports and recom- mendations, and politicians can point towards the effort made as evidence of their green credentials. However, if the outputs generated are not carried forward into management practice, there will be no tangible effects on ecosystems or human well- being: the blue doughnut will remain no more than a vision. Ocean managers should instead review their cur- rent context to consider which elements of the cycle are already in place and decide which of those elements would most benefit from improve- ments using EB-IOM tools and approaches. In some instances, it may be necessary to begin by formu- lating a new set of goals and objectives. In others, the most benefit might be achieved by improving knowledge integration in the monitoring and eval- uation of existing management measures or by developing governance integration mechanisms to support the efficient and effective enforcement of existing measures. 4.3. Tools 4.3.2. Types of tools for Ecosystem-Based Integrat- ed Ocean Management Defining what is or is not an EB-IOM tool is a mat- ter of perspective. Any approach, method, tech- nique, software, or physical instrument used to facilitate the implementation of any of the steps of the adaptive management cycle could arguably be counted, including tools to: • Gather and analyse scientific data on the marine environment, society and economy • Carry out integrated baseline environmen- tal, social and economic assessments • Develop and compare good or optimized potential future management scenarios • Assess environmental, social and economic impacts of alternative management options

17 See https://sessionlab.com/library 18 See https://bluesolutions.info/capacity-development/

28