Ecological connectivity between the areas beyond national jurisdiction and coastal waters: Safeguarding interests of coastal communities in developing countries
Type
ArticleAuthors
Popova, EkaterinaVousden, David
Sauer, Warwick H. H.
Mohammed, Essam Y.
Allain, Valerie
Downey-Breedt, Nicola
Fletcher, Ruth
Gjerde, Kristina M.
Halpin, Patrick N.
Kelly, Stephen
Obura, David
Pecl, Gretta
Roberts, Michael
Raitsos, Dionysios E.
Rogers, Alex
Samoilys, Melita
Sumaila, Ussif Rashid
Tracey, Sean
Yool, Andrew
Date
2019-03-08Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/678679
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The UN General Assembly has made a unanimous decision to start negotiations to establish an international, legally-binding instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity within Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ). However, there has of yet been little discussion on the importance of this move to the ecosystem services provided by coastal zones in their downstream zone of influence. Here, we identify the ecological connectivity between ABNJ and coastal zones as critically important in the negotiation process and apply several approaches to identify some priority areas for protection from the perspective of coastal populations of Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Initially, we review the scientific evidence that demonstrates ecological connectivity between ABNJ and the coastal zones with a focus on the LDCs. We then use ocean modelling to develop a number of metrics and spatial maps that serve to quantify the connectivity of the ABNJ to the coastal zone. We find that the level of exposure to the ABNJ influences varies strongly between countries. Similarly, not all areas of the ABNJ are equal in their impacts on the coastline. Using this method, we identify the areas of the ABNJ that are in the most urgent need of protection on the grounds of the strength of their potential downstream impacts on the coastal populations of LDCs. We argue that indirect negative impacts of the ABNJ fishing, industrialisation and pollution, communicated via oceanographic, cultural and ecological connectivity to the coastal waters of the developing countries should be of concern.Citation
Popova, E., Vousden, D., Sauer, W. H. H., Mohammed, E. Y., Allain, V., Downey-Breedt, N., … Yool, A. (2019). Ecological connectivity between the areas beyond national jurisdiction and coastal waters: Safeguarding interests of coastal communities in developing countries. Marine Policy, 104, 90–102. doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2019.02.050Sponsors
The initial workshop to generate the ideas took place in Seychelles in April 2018 with financial support from Sida. Data analysis was jointly supported by Sida and the UK GCRF project SOLSTICE (NERC grant NE/P021050/1). The modelling tools and approaches were supported by the UK GCRF project SOLSTICE and the UK National Capability project ACCORD. V. Allain was supported by the Global Environment Facility's Oceanic Fisheries Management Project #2. G. Pecl was supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship. D. Raitsos was supported by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) under the Project No. 3268. This work used the NEMO ocean general circulation model (https://www.nemo-ocean.eu/) and the ARCHER UK National Supercomputing Service (http://www.archer.ac.uk) for high resolution simulations of this model. Lagrangian analysis was carried out using computational tool ARIANE developed by B. Blanke and N. Grima.Publisher
Elsevier BVJournal
MARINE POLICYAdditional Links
https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0308597X19300764ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1016/j.marpol.2019.02.050