A critical turn in marine spatial planning

Abstract

Although area-based approaches to marine management have a long history, over the last 10-15 years marine spatial planning (MSP) has risen to become the dominant marine management paradigm. Spatial planning in the marine environment can, in part, be traced back to integrated coastal zone management (Agardy et al. 2011) and large marine ecosystem programs, such as the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (Day 2002). However, a special issue in Marine Policy in 2008 (see Douvere and Elher 2008, for an introduction to this issue) and the publication of an associated UNESCO guidance document in 2009 (Elher and Douvere 2009) popularized and defined the concept of MSP more clearly. Since then, MSP has been widely promoted by academics, practitioners, and policymakers as a solution to a vast array of management issues. It has been presented, amongst other things, as a process for implementing ecosystem-based management in the marine environment (Foley et al. 2010), a mechanism for reducing user conflict (Tuda et al. 2014), a means of enhancing

Building bridges between natural and social science disciplines: a standardized methodology to combine data on ecosystem quality trends

“…Allied to this, successful and sustainable marine management requires collaboration among all actors and appropriate concepts, data and information from both the natural and social sciences [3]. Arguably, marine policy to date has been primarily driven by natural science and technocratic approaches, with data derived from stakeholders and communities often considered relatively weak, inferior or incomplete by both policy makers and natural scientists [4][5][6]. This is despite approaches such as marine spatial planning being adopted with a view to increase stakeholder participation [7].…”

Opening the Black Box of Decision Support Tools in Marine Spatial Planning: Shedding Light into Reserve Site Selection Algorithms for a Balanced Empowerment of Stakeholders

“…In this logic, DSTs and other tools mobilised by geodesign (Goodchild 2010) require greater attention. Such an approach is in line with the critical current on MSP (Flannery et al 2020), which has been developing in recent years.…”

Broadening environmental governance ontologies to enhance ecosystem-based management in Aotearoa New Zealand

“…An example in the context of marine governance is marine spatial planning, which is an area-based management tool that has been advocated as an effective approach to reduce conflicts, enhance environmental protection, to facilitate ecosystem-based (and more integrated) management approaches, and to enhance economic opportunities by clearly demarcating areas within which certain activities occur (Boucquey et al 2016;Flannery et al 2020). Recently, however, social scientists have questioned the rationalities and logics underpinning marine governance and the adoption of tools such as MSP on the grounds that MSP resembles (and enables) enclosure and exploitation, the neoliberalisation of ocean commons, and de-politicises the process of establishing and maintaining MSPs, among other things (Boucquey et al 2016;Flannery et al 2020;Ntona and Schröder 2020). Ntona et al (2020: 246) discuss the limitations a 'scientific and managerial-technological rationality' approach to marine spatial planning (and marine governance more broadly) has for coastal communities as it neglects social values, power dynamics, and the multiple ways in which people interact with marine spaces.…”