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R. John Morrison[1]
The concept of regional marine planning (where regions are effectively large ecosystems having areas of the order of hundreds of thousands of km2) has gradually been gaining global acceptance over the last 20 years.
This paper presents an overview of aspects of regional marine planning, including the basic concepts of using large marine ecosystems as planning zones, the advantages and disadvantages, issues that need to be considered, and implementation concerns.
Recently, the Australian Government, through the 1998 National Oceans Policy, has made a commitment to regional marine planning for the areas of ocean under Australia’s jurisdiction. Part of the reason for this has been the experience gained from the systems established and operations involved in management of the Great Barrier Reef area adjacent to Queensland This paper includes a discussion of Australia’s experiences with regional marine planning and the ongoing development of a national program to develop regional plans for Australia’s ocean domain.
Finally, issues requiring future research and development are identified and some initial project areas are proposed.
Over the centuries, and especially during the last 100 years, many approaches have been taken in trying to ‘manage’ the Earth’s environment. Most approaches have met with limited success as they have been constrained either by national, state or other political boundaries, or they have basically been sectorally focused (oriented towards addressing one particular issue, e.g., single fish species management, protection of mangroves, water quality, waste management).
In recent years, several activities have been initiated that attempt to address issues at the global scale (ozone depleting substances, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity). These global approaches have been necessitated by concerns about the current and impending impacts of human activities on components of our environment that are considered likely to affect people all over the Earth.
Another approach that has been advocated widely, especially in the scientific community, is the ‘ecosystem’ approach to environmental planning and management. This is based on the premise that previous approaches that have attempted to address environmental problems using politically defined ‘management areas’ have often failed because the planners were considering only parts of ecosystems, without giving due consideration to the impacts on, or effects of changes in, segments of ecosystems outside the zone of specific political interest. This has led to major problems in the environment associated with large lakes and rivers, coastal areas, forests and fisheries. An alternative paradigm is to use ecosystems as the functional planning and management unit.
Ecosystems can vary enormously in size, from a rock pool, to a small isolated patch of mangroves, to a single reef, to large areas of ocean such as those covered by migratory fish. In each case, however, the system is not a closed one, with material, energy and organisms continuously entering and leaving, but at the same time maintaining a basic dynamic equilibrium. It has frequently been postulated that administration based on management of ecosystems has a greater prospect of success than operations which do not fully take into account the basic functions in ecosystems. Such an approach has been developed and utilised, with some success, in terrestrial situations with watershed or catchment management, large forest areas, or large areas of semi-arid land.
The ecosystem approach has also been utilised in marine and coastal areas, e.g., marine conservation areas based on islands, reef systems, estuaries or lagoons. In the marine domain such operations have met with varying (often limited) success due of a mixture of scientific, economic and political reasons. A limitation that has been identified is the scale at which some activities have been attempted. Remembering that ecosystems are not isolated (no matter what scale is considered) and that fact that environmental planning and management resources are limited, decisionmakers have noted the impracticality of preparing management plans for all the ecosystems that could be considered within, say, a national jurisdiction.
This has led to the consideration of managing environmental resources through the use of larger geographic areas. These areas, in the marine domain, have been described as large marine ecosystems (LMEs) or marine regions, and the concept of regional marine planning (RMP) has attracted a good deal of attention during the 1990s. Proposals that such large areas be used as planning and management zones have been in the literature for many years (e.g., Holling 1973), but it is only in the last 10 years or so that the political inclination and scientific information resources have been available to bring the concept into practice.
Given the massive and ever-increasing impacts that humans are having on the Earth’s ocean resources, there is an urgent need for improved planning and management of these resources. The planning systems that have been in place for the last 50 years have obviously failed to provide adequate protection for living and nonliving resources and coastal water quality, with evidence being presented regularly (e.g., Independent World Commission on the Oceans 1998; GESAMP 1990) of declining fishery resources and increasing pollution. New planning strategies must incorporate a larger view of the global environment and move away from purely localised approaches which often lead to isolated, insular and individual decisions which ignore the realities of how the global environment operates.
In determining new planning strategies, it is vital to remember that people are part of the ecosystems, and that much management effort must address human activities and aspirations. As noted by Juda (1999) and others,
efforts to manage resources and the environment in the context of ecosystems are really about managing human behaviour and encouraging and inducing behavioural patterns that take into account the operation of the natural world.
The ecosystem approach to environmental planning is effectively a holistic or comprehensive one, where the basic planning unit is either complete or partial ecosystems (Grumbine 1994; Grumbine 1997; Christensen et al. 1996). In any environmental planning exercise, one of the initial steps is the definition of the geographic area to be covered. In the past, the limits have usually been established by political boundaries, many of which were based on historical, and often ‘straight lines on maps’ decisions. Such approaches have contributed to the present unsatisfactory nature of environmental planning and management.
The impetus for Regional Marine Planning rests in the development of exclusive economic zones (EEZs) as established under the UN Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS). As a result of the declaration of EEZs and the associated Convention requirement to manage the zones effectively, many countries had to consider planning for much greater areas of ocean space than ever before. In addition, many EEZs fall into readily identifiable marine ecosystems. At the national level, particularly for countries with significant EEZs, the size of ocean area/ economic zone to be managed, plus the large range of ecosystems, industries, developments and users means that, for many countries, a national oceans plan cannot be completed as a single exercise. The alternative approach, involving the development of plans based on either individual ecosystems (e.g., estuaries, mangroves, lagoons) or uses (e.g., conservation, fishing, shipping) leads to a multiple decisionmaking situation with numerous jurisdictional overlaps and conflicts (Goldberg 1994), which has been referred to as the ‘tyranny of small decisions’ (Kenchington and Crawford 1993). In such situations, the development of an intermediate system involving regional marine planning may be an appropriate approach (see diagram below).
GLOBAL/ <––––> REGIONAL <––––> LOCALISED
NATIONAL PLANNING DECISION
MAKING
The concept of large marine areas/regions has been discussed in the literature (e.g., Sherman et al. 1993; Grumbine 1994), with large marine ecosystems being considered as areas having ‘distinct bathymetry, hydrography, productivity and trophically dependent populations’ (Sherman and Alexander 1986). Such areas, appropriate for regional marine planning, may include semi-enclosed seas, continental shelves or margins, and even, for more open ocean areas, currents. Sherman (1993) has defined 49 LMEs which he reported accounted for 95 per cent of the annual yield of marine fisheries (Figure 1). In addition, the concept of ‘critical processes controlling structure and function of biological communities’ (Ricklefs 1987) is best addressed at the regional scale.
The use of ‘natural’ boundaries is attractive and scientifically advantageous, as it is much easier to consider process with natural systems as a whole, and interactions between ecosystems. The natural boundaries provide suitable points for delineation of management regimes that will facilitate planning which addresses the protection of natural processes and resources, while considering the wide range of human use needs. Many large marine ecosystems will incorporate coastal drainage basins, clearly recognising the link between coastal and ocean planning and management.
In the planning activities, the use of large ecosystems provides a good basis for establishment of the baseline conditions. This does nor mean that baseline assessments will be easier – there will still be a need to carry out the necessary measurements, often at scales that have not been attempted before. Another planning activity – development and assessment of alternative strategies for undertaking the desired project – will also benefit from an ecosystem approach. This will ensure better investigation of the interplay between different resource uses and the environment. An ecosystem approach also provides a mechanism to study and assess synergistic and cumulative impacts.
Historically, a number of attempts to develop a large scale approach to marine protection have been made. These include activities relating to:
• the Baltic Sea under the Helsinki Commission;
• the North Sea under the Oslo and Paris Commissions;
• the Antarctic Region under CCAMLR;
• the Yellow Sea;
• the Great Barrier Reef region;
• the Gulf of Maine.
On a larger scale the UNEP Regional Seas Programme attempted to develop regional cooperative programs for protection of major areas of the Earth’s oceans. Some of these activities made some progress towards integrated planning actions, e.g., the Mediterranean Blue Plan, the Persian Gulf Regional action plan, while others, where strategic action plans were developed, aimed at enhancing regional cooperation for improved protection of marine areas e.g., the South West Pacific, the Persian Gulf, the Black Sea, through the establishment of multi-jurisdictional working partnerships (UNEP, 1990). In all these situations, one important issue is the interaction between the ocean and the land, and any development of regional marine plans must recognise the major differences that occur if the area of interest has terrestrial boundaries.
All environmental planning activities follow a similar general sequence of defining objectives and area to be covered, baseline knowledge gathering, development and assessment of alternatives, decision-making or selection of preferred option, implementation, followed by monitoring of effectiveness. Effectively all of these steps are influenced by the area to be covered as the objectives defined at a regional scale will be different from those at a local or global scale.
The intellectual challenge in regional marine planning is to develop effective planning and management strategies for enormous areas of ocean starting from a low knowledge base and with limited expertise. Since such activities have received limited attention in the past, there is dearth of people trained or experienced in such work and this is one of the major constraints to further development of this approach.
To be successful, a regional marine planning system must recognise a number of principles (Juda, 1999):
• Integrating natural and social science perspectives
• Link between coasts (land) and ocean
• Sustainability
• Precaution
• Public participation
• Equity
• Addressing externalities
• Market forces
• Adaptive management
The regional approach also requires changes in other aspects of our marine work. There has to be a continuation or expansion of the change in how marine systems are studied – changing from a descriptive knowledge gathering approach to a functional multidisciplinary approach, with an emphasis on understanding the evolution of ecosystems, and the processes occurring at ecosystems interfaces, particularly the land-ocean boundary. Obviously, even within sectors such as fisheries, there must be a move away from single species to overall stock assessments. There must be rapid movement towards a much greater integration of scientific and geopolitical processes than has occurred in the past (Sherman 1993).
Working at the regional scale may facilitate better opportunities to differentiate between naturally occurring and anthropologically induced changes in the marine and coastal environment. In this context, it may be possible to use coastal lagoons as models (Lasserre 1979), since a good deal of recent coastal planning has focussed on multiphase, multisectoral planning for such ecosystems, a number of which are quite large. As noted by Cicin-Sain and Knecht (1998), most regional marine areas, being of area >100,000 km2, will include a combination of common problems (e.g., coastal erosion, poorly managed coastal development) and shared problems (e.g., migratory species management, sea-level rise, oil spill response).
Examination of Regional Marine Planning as a concept indicates a number of advantages and disadvantages as summarised below:
• Integration of many smaller jurisdictions and planning zones into a single planning and management regime
• Similarly, individual small ecosystem or sector planning will not be successful as this leads to fragmentation, jurisdictional debates and intersector disputes (‘tyranny of small decisions’)
• If implemented appropriately, this approach should ensure full public consultation and community involvement in decision-making
• Such an approach has potential application in:
• Federated countries
• Areas of disputed jurisdiction
• Countries with long coastlines or large Exclusive Economic Zones
• Archipelagic states
• Practicable in terms of national planning for countries with large maritime regimes
• Provides a mechanism for addressing/ overcoming traditional boundary problems
• Provides a basis for prioritising marine research needs
• Identification of problems arising from changing use and management of ocean areas leading to clear prioritisation of actions needed
• Identification of major/critical knowledge gaps; this will assist decision-making with research resources allocation
• May provide fora for determining ‘best use or best management practices’ for a given region
• Many sectoral interests to be considered (shipping, fishing, recreation, tourism, conservation, scientific research, defence/ naval, mining, indigenous aspirations and rights, cultural)
• Large planning steering committees may be needed
• Establishing the management regimes at a scale not previously attempted, which may lead to implementation problems
• Funding decision-making – changing from national or local to regional decisionmaking
• Weak current scientific knowledge base for planning
As noted by Juda and Burroughs (1990), ocean planning and management should attempt to ‘ameliorate conflict of use situations’ and ‘provide a directed balance between and among various uses of ocean space, as well as to protect the ocean environment from damage to its viability’. Regional marine planning has the potential to provide better opportunities to protect the ocean environment and resources than the present alternatives.
The best developed plans are of no value if they are not implemented; this requires fitting with local/regional/national/international political realities. As a result, marine planners must be conversant with the various political regimes operating in their regions, including the interactions and interlinking of the various levels of political activity. Generating such support for the planning process and their implementation is an additional issue that has to be addressed.
Australia has one of the largest (16 million km2) and most biologically diverse marine jurisdictions in the world. It stretches from the tropics to Antarctica, covering a wide range of tropical, subtropical, temperate and cold climate ecosystems. In addition, the political make-up of Australia (a federation of states and territories), with a constitution that recognises many states rights, make governance difficult. This is exacerbated by the fact that local government exerts a significant role in environmental planning and management in Australia.
Historically, the approach to marine planning in Australia has been fragmented, with a range of Commonwealth and State activities, often being sectorally driven (transport, fishing, conservation, recreation, etc.). This led to a less than satisfactory governance regime, with many issues contributing to poor management regimes for the coastal and ocean areas. Over a period of about 30 years from the early 1970s various attempts were made to improve the situation, with legislation and negotiated agreements between the different tiers of government.
The recognised need to protect the Great Barrier Reef region (about 348,000 km2) on the NE Australian continental shelf), recognised as an area of major world ecological importance, but also as a major marine resource, led to the development of a specific planning and management regime, established by law under the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act in 1975 (Kelleher 1993). This was one of the first pieces of legislation to apply the concept of ecologically sustainable development to the management of a large marine area. The relative success of this approach, encouraged marine planners to consider adopting it in other areas of Australia’s maritime jurisdiction.
From the late 1970s, governments, scientists and planners had been looking at ways to improve the management of Australia’s marine domain. A number of strategic planning activities were undertaken, including assessments of the opportunities for new marinebased industries, the development of a Marine Science and Technology Plan, reviews of marine research, and preparation of an extensive State of the Marine Environment Report. These individual activities were accompanied, particularly during the 1990s by a series of planning initiatives that culminated in the production of Australia’s Ocean Policy (Commonwealth of Australia 1998).
One of the main initiatives in Australia’s Ocean Policy was the commitment to regional marine planning, viz. ‘The Commonwealth’s commitment to integrated and ecosystem-based planning and management will be implemented through the introduction of a major Regional Marine Planning process’ (Commonwealth of Australia 1998). The major aim of such an exercise is to link ‘Understanding Australia’s Ocean Domain’ with ‘Utilising Australia’s Ocean Domain’ and ‘Provision of Appropriate Infrastructure for Managing Australia’s Ocean Domain’.
As part of the planning program leading up to the final Oceans Policy, marine scientists had prepared an Interim Marine and Coastal Regionalisation for Australia (Environment Australia 1998). Using this regionalisation scheme, further work combined the interim regions into seven large marine domains (Figure 2, for the mainland) for planning purposes (Lyne et al. 1998). The decision was also made to develop the Regional Marine Plan for the South Eastern Region of Australia’s EEZ first. This is probably the most complex situation, with four state governments, numerous local governments, and more than 50 per cent of the national population in the adjacent coastal lands. The region also contains many marine industries, including fisheries, aquaculture, tourism, off-shore petroleum and sea transport, and is a highly productive and widely used marine area.
Implementation of the Regional Marine Planning process has been given high priority by the Australian Government. In general, each Regional Marine Planning exercise will involve undertaking regional resource assessments, consideration of current and possible uses, development of proposals (alternatives) for broad cross-sectoral priorities and resource allocations among the sectoral uses (Commonwealth of Australia, 1998). Final approval for each plan rests with the National Oceans Ministerial Board.
To develop the strategies necessary for successful implementation, a series of workshops has been held on the Regional Marine Planning Process to permit wide consultation between the community and other stakeholders, determine the best management of the process and to ensure indigenous issues are fully considered. These workshops have examined a number of general issues, and also some specific items associated with the South Eastern Regional Plan, e.g.:
• Developing a Regional Marine Planning process;
• The structure of regional marine plans;
• The presentation of the plans;
• Membership and role of Steering Committees.
Some of the conclusions to date include:
• Regional Marine Plans should take their general scope from the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and cover all marine waters including estuaries, claimable seabed and continental shelf margins and certain high seas areas where this would be in Australia’s national interest or responsibilities;
• A flexible approach needs to be adopted when establishing boundaries between planning areas;
• Regional Marine Plans should not attempt to reinvent existing effective planning processes, but adopt and modify them as appropriate;
• While Regional Marine Plans should not interfere with existing sectoral and jurisdictional arrangements, they should also move towards simplified, comprehensive regulatory regimes that minimise legislative or regulatory conflict or duplication;
• The Steering Committees should be of medium size (about 15 members), consisting of both experts and stakeholder representatives;
• There must be regular/ongoing consultation with stakeholders and the community;
• Regional Marine Plans should provide increased security and certainty for industry and other ocean users;
• Development of effective partnerships between the various levels of government must be given a high priority;
• There is a clear need to establish on whom the Plans are to be legally binding, and in what ways.
A National Oceans Forum, to be held in Tasmania in April 2000, will provide an excellent opportunity for discussion and resolution of problems which have arisen to date in the development and operation of the regional marine planning process. The Forum will focus specifically on the proposed South Eastern Regional Marine Plan, the first to be developed under Australia’s Ocean Policy. The objectives of the Forum are:
• To increase clarity regarding sectoral concerns and interests in South Eastern areas;
• To raise cross-sectoral awareness of key factors;
• To identify areas about which there is agreement and to focus on areas that require further study and consideration.
Since the practical implementation of the concept of large ecosystem or regional marine areas in planning has received relatively little attention in the past, there are many issues that need research investigation. The methodology of such planning, involving a much greater degree of inter-disciplinary activity than has normally occurred in the past, requires investigation of issues like:
• Shared multi-use resource management
• Integrated assessment (economic v. environmental values)
• Coordination in planning and implementation
• Performance Indicators for Regional Marine Planning and Plans
Specific topics on which some investigations have been initiated include:
• Overcoming the ‘Tyranny of Small Decisions’ problem
• Multi-user assessments of Marine Protected Areas
• Incorporating indigenous issues in Regional Marine Planning
• Marine pollution – strategies to reduce diffuse sources problems
• Will Regional Marine Planning lead to improved management of inter-regional issues such invasive marine pests (Thresher, 1999)?
There are also training needs, with a global requirement to enhance capabilities to manage oceans by producing graduates with the skills, knowledge, outlook and confidence to tackle large multidisciplinary issues.
The concept of using large marine ecosystems or marine areas as planning regions has received a good deal of attention from academics over the last 30 years. In recent years, the practical implementation and utilisation of this approach has been considered by governments and international agencies. It is recognised in many circles that this may be the only way to overcome many of the deficiencies in the current planning systems utilised in protection and management of the global marine environment. This paper has reviewed a number of issues relating to regional marine planning including the potential advantages and disadvantages of such an approach.
The recent initiative by the Australian Government to adopt a regional approach to the planning for management of its extensive national ocean domain will enable a major scientific, planning and management effort to be expended on the further development of both the concept and its implementation. This should provide a lead for other countries and agencies to follow particularly those where a regional approach seems particularly advantageous, e.g., federated countries, countries with long coastlines or large EEZs, and archipelagic states.
Regional marine planning represents a new and exciting challenge for people responsible for protection and sustainable use of the marine environment. This will require significant changes in many aspects of the present marine planning systems. To achieve such a change in approach will require three Ps – performance (effort), patience and persistence. The rewards, however, should be considerable.
The author would like to thank Gordon Anderson of the National Oceans Office in Hobart for valuable advice and comments in the preparation of this paper.
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[1] Environment Research Institute, University of Wollongong NSW 2522
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