What Strategies do MEBM Projects Use?
Research and Assessment
Research/Collaborative Science – Research undertaken by MEBM initiatives or in partnership
with other organizations has increased understanding of key ecosystems and resources.
Research/Collaborative Science
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The Center for the Inland Bays partnered with University of Delaware scientists and funded research into
long-term changes in saltmarsh acreage and health in the estuary being managed as part of the
Delaware Inland Bays National Estuary Program.
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The Wildlife Conservation Society worked with partners to collect biological and ecological information to
better understand the resources of focus in its
Vatu-i-Ra and
Cakau Levu Seascape Project in Fiji.
Monitoring and Assessment – By monitoring species and habitats, MEBM projects detected changes
that allowed managers to determine cause-and-effect relationships between stressors, program activities and
ecological processes.
Monitoring and Assessment
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Water quality, coral cover, and fish densities are regularly monitored by the
Florida
Keys National Marine Sanctuary, and results have pointed to improvements in ecological values
within its marine reserves.
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The
Glover’s Reef Marine Reserve involved
stakeholders of the three atolls in Belize to monitor the fishery, coral reefs and nesting sites of a marine
turtle.
Evaluation and Adaptive Management – By evaluating the effectiveness of their strategies,
several initiatives learned from their experiences, and acted on new information to improve their strategies.
Evaluation and Adaptive Management
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Regular evaluations of program activities at the
Great Barrier
Reef Marine Park led to the expansion and revamping of marine protected areas based on new
ecological data.
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Adopting recommendations from an external evaluation, the
Wadden
Sea Trilateral Cooperation in 2010 created a governance structure that added a new body of
appointed government staff better able to attend to the governance needs of the initiative. The
initiative also clarified the roles of its advisory bodies.
Planning and Coordination
Collaborative Planning – MEBM initiatives used collaborative planning to establish visions,
set goals, or create strategic plans, all of which served as springboards to support voluntary or regulatory actions.
Collaborative Planning
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Canada has selected the
Central Coast of British
Columbia as one of five ocean regions for collaborative planning among First Nations bands,
marine stakeholders and provincial and federal officials to identify priority issues and designate
management actions to address them.
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Fishermen and other marine stakeholders participated in a series of workshops that were organized by the
Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance to create a
vision for the future of the New England groundfishery.
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The
Port Orford Ocean Resource Team led the
development of a community-based, strategic plan that established a consensus-based statement on how to
improve the marine ecosystem and the economically important fishery off the coast of Oregon.
Cross-Jurisdictional Coordination – By establishing a forum for cooperation among agencies,
states or nations, MEBM initiatives coordinated management activities, shared information, and developed solutions to
problems that crossed political boundaries.
Cross-Jurisdictional Coordination
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The
Gulf of Maine Council, often called a forum
for process, allowed agency officials of participating Northeastern states and Canadian Maritime provinces
to exchange information, identify shared issues, facilitate habitat restoration projects, and recommend
additional transboundary solutions.
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The governments of Angola, Namibia and South Africa committed to develop and harmonize national policies to
improve management of a key fishery through them mechanism of the
Benguela
Current Large Marine Ecosystem Programme and Benguela Current Commission.
Marine Spatial Planning – A number of initiatives created public processes to generate spatial
plans that better protected key resource values. By designating protected areas or drafting broader plans to
prevent conflicting uses, MEBM initiatives managed human activities in accordance with ecological and socio-economic
goals.
Marine Spatial Planning
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Australia began
Marine Bioregional Planning
efforts along five coastal regions to develop scientific and biological information, identify regional
conservation priorities, and broadly outline networks of marine protected areas that will be refined with
stakeholder engagement.
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To implement its
Marine Life Protection Act, the
State of California carried out an extensive stakeholder-based planning process to identify a network of
marine protected areasto advance multiple goals. To date, the process has designed roughly 15% of state
waters as protected areas.
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Canada established five regional marine planning initiatives, including the
Pacific
North Coast Integrated Management Area, an ongoing collaborative effort with First Nations
bands, coastal stakeholders and researchers to identify management strategies that link scientific and
economic principles to promote resource conservation.
Zoning and Regulation
Marine Protected Areas – Marine reserves were often created as a result of planning processes
or as a reaction to the perceived need to protect ecological processes such as spawning or particular resources such
as coral reefs.
Marine Protected Areas
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To protect sensitive fish spawning areas, the
Philippines FISH
Project facilitated a process in which 25 marine protected areas were created.
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Establishing a marine protected area at
Fagatele Bay National
Marine Sanctuary in American Samoa was a strategy to protect coral reef from exploitative and
damaging fishing practices within the bay’s flooded volcanic crater.
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Restrictions on human activities within the
Race Rocks
Ecological Reserve aimed at protecting the unique ecological conditions of this small
archipelago off the coast of British Columbia, Canada.
Zoning – Some MEBM initiatives identified areas in which particular uses should be restricted
either spatially or temporally.
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After zoning areas in a piece-meal fashion over two decades, the
Great Barrier
Reef Marine Park expanded and revamped its zoning strategy by documenting and classifying
bioregions within the park and applying principles to sustain commercial activities while protecting an
ecologically representative percentage of habitat.
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Interest in protecting coral reefs at
Glover’s Reef
Marine Reserve in Belize led to the creation of a plan that delineates zones of activity that
include restrictions on fishing, boating, and other human activities.
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Research on ways to reduce threats to endangered whales at the
Stellwagen
Bank National Marine Sanctuary in New England led to a 2007 decision to shift shipping lanes
12-degrees northward to avoid the humpback and finback whales’ primary feeding areas. Analysis of
whale sightings and ship strikes identified habitat zones to be avoided.
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Similarly, the
Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary
worked with the U.S. Coast Guard to request the International Maritime Organization establish an Area to be
Avoided (ATBA) on the Olympic Coast. Adopted in 1995, the ATBA advises ships carrying petroleum and
hazardous materials to maintain a 25-mile buffer from the coast. Since then, the Sanctuary has
developed an education and monitoring program to help implement the ATBA.
Regulation – Government regulations issued or advocated by MEBM initiatives sought to guide
human uses or practices to achieve conservation goals.
Regulation
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The
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary was
authorized by the National Marine Sanctuaries Act to regulate vessel operations, prohibit oil or mineral
drilling, and prohibit fishing within certain areas developed through a marine spatial planning process.
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Colombia established a new government agency to enforce regulations in the
Seaflower
Biosphere Reserve to protect sensitive marine and terrestrial areas in the archipelago and
manage growth in a sustainable manner.
Habitat Restoration
Restoration – Restoration projects, either MEBM pilot initiatives or more formal programs,
aimed at improving ecosystem functioning and resiliency.
Restoration
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The
Northwest Straits Commission funded
locally-based pilot projects, and larger scale efforts, such as a marine debris removal program, to restore
the ecosystem of Puget Sound.
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The
Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research
Reserve established partnerships to support habitat restoration projects. The reserve provided
planning services and coordinated volunteer workers, and tested restoration strategies using smaller, pilot
projects.
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The
Narragansett Bay Estuary Program partnered
with state, federal and NGOs entities to restore rivers, wetlands and seagrasses that contribute to the
health of the estuary.
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By working with The Nature Conservancy and the Albermarle-Pamlico National Estuary Program, the state
agencies that oversaw the
North Carolina Coastal Habitat
Protection Plan restored oyster beds and conducted additional habitat improvement projects.
Enabling Actions of Others
Strategic Grant-Making – Initiatives provided strategic grants to incentivize other entities
to take actions that support ecosystem-protection goals.
Strategic Grant-Making
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The
Gulf of Maine Council provided habitat
restoration grants to projects that offered long-term ecological benefits and promoted effective habitat
restoration.
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The
Northwest Straits Commission provided grant
funding to incentivize local Marine Resources Committees to address local problems in ways that meet a
regional vision for ecosystem restoration.
Capacity-Building – By increasing the legal, managerial and technical capacities of
organizations, MEBM projects created the means for communities or nations to transition to ecosystem-based
management.
Capacity-Building
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The
Sulu-Sulawesi Marine Ecoregion Program, which
was focused on coastal areas of the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, strengthened scientific
communities, and improved management of fisheries through policy development and community education.
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Angola, Namibia and South Africa are participating in a program focused on the
Benguela
Current Large Marine Ecosystem to develop and harmonize national fishery policy and water
quality guidelines, and increase opportunities for scientists to develop skills and expand monitoring.
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China and South Korea joined the
Yellow Sea Large Marine
Ecosystem Project to build connections among scientific, academic and managerial communities of
the two nations, and develop legal, policy and institutional reforms to improve management of the resource.
Incentivizing Sustainable Economic Activities – Other types of targeted incentives motivated
external parties to transition to more sustainable economic activities.
Incentivizing Sustainable Economic Activities
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The
Marine Stewardship Council managed an
ecolabel program to give seafood that meets sustainable harvesting standards greater visibility on
supermarket shelves, and incentivize producers to participate in the program.
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Supporting the conservation goals of the
Mafia Island Marine
Park in Tanzania, the World Wildlife Fund provided loans to fishermen to use more sustainable
fishing gear, and provided technical and financial support to community-based enterprise groups that
developed non-fishing alternative economic activities.
Raising Awareness and Concern
Outreach and Education – Other initiatives paired outreach and education efforts aimed at
resource users, policy-makers and the public to increase understanding, change behavior, or build support for action.
Outreach and Education
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The
Baltic Sea Regional Advisory Council held
scientific conferences to increase understanding and prioritize regional issues, and reach out to
stakeholders to develop consensus on European Union fishery management policies.
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The
Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research
Reserve offered a training program on coastal issues for decision-makers and education courses
for school teachers. It also engaged community members by holding courses of local interest, such as how to
use Cape Cod-appropriate home landscaping, and community-building events, such as a watershed block party.
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The
Fagatele Bay National Marine Sanctuary aligned
Western-style management with local customs through its outreach and educational efforts with the local
community in American Samoa. The sanctuary printed an English- and Samoan-language newspaper. Staff also
visited local schools, and helped build community support for conservation.
This material should be cited as: "Julia Wondolleck and Steven Yaffee, Marine Ecosystem-Based Management in
Practice (Ann Arbor MI: School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, June 2012),
www.snre.umich.edu/ecomgt/mebm."