Search

The Ecosystem Approach to Management (EAM) has emerged over the past decades, largely to promote biodiversity conservation, and more recently sectoral tradeoffs in the management of marine ecosystems. To ascertain the state of practice of EAM operationalization, a workshop was held, which included a pre-workshop online survey. The survey gauged international participants’ perspectives regarding capacity, knowledge, and application of EAM. When asked about the subject, most survey respondents had a general understanding of EAM, and provided a clear definition. Major perceived challenges to EAM objectives by those surveyed included limited knowledge, conflicting interests, insufficient communication, and limited organizational legal frameworks or governance structures. Of those directly involved in an ecosystem approach, the majority responded that processes were in place or developed for application of integrated knowledge toward assessing key issues within their respective sectors (i.e. fisheries, conservation, energy), and that capacity was generally high. Our results show that most respondents, irrespective of sector or geography, see value in considering an integrated, broader ecosystem approach as they manage their sector. Although many participants were from the North Atlantic region, our results suggest that much of the international community is converging toward continued understanding of broad-scale, integrated approaches to marine resource management.

Norwegian development cooperation in fisheries has been taken place since the early 1950s and the Nansen Programme, now operating as the EAF-Nansen Project, has been one of its major representatives. The Nansen Programme has cooperated with developing nations, institutions and national and regional projects over the last forty years, representing an important mechanism for development assistance in the field of fisheries for the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). The scope of the cooperation has changed over the years to respond to emerging needs and challenges in partner countries. Since the Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) concept appeared in the global marine science and governance agenda, the Nansen Programme was seen as an important partner for the regional projects in Africa that emerged from the concept. The Nansen Programme has collaborated with the Agulhas and Somali Currents LME (ACSLME) project, the Benguela Current LME (BCLME) project and its successor the Benguela Current Commission (BCC) as well as the Canary Current LME (CCLME) project and the Guinea Current LME (GCLME) project. In South Asia, the Nansen Programme has also collaborated with the Bay of Bengal LME (BoBLME) project. This paper chronicles the nature of the collaboration and the mutual benefits accruing to all the parties.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)'s mandate is central to the sustainable use of natural resources and biodiversity on the planet. The Organization's normative role at the global level offers a neutral forum for development of international instruments and agreements relevant to agricultural production (including fisheries), in addition to facilitating their implementation through field activities. FAO's role in the LME Program recently has been increasing, offering the opportunity to link fisheries governance frameworks at the sectoral level (such as the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries—EAF), to broader ocean governance frameworks (such as ecosystem based management, EBM) as promoted within the LME movement. It is argued that these approaches are both needed and complementary and that links between the two can be fruitfully established as demonstrated by experiences made in FAO-led LME projects, i.e. the Bay of Bengal Large Marine Ecosystem (BOBLME) and the Canary Current Large Marine Ecosystem (CCLME).