Constructing a ladder of transnational partnership working in support of marine spatial planning: Thoughts from the Irish Sea
Introduction
Over the last 30 years the United Nation's Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) which entered into force in 1993, have been major driving forces behind efforts to improve the planning and management of marine areas. These global conventions are important not only in setting out duties to protect and where appropriate to rehabilitate and restore the marine environment and promote sustainable use, but also in advocating the ecosystem approach as the framework of understanding under which duties should be progressed (Maes, 2008). As a consequence many nation states are currently engaged in developing new arrangements for marine spatial planning (MSP), which is seen as a step towards ecosystem-based sea use management (Ehler and Douvere, 2007; Douvere and Ehler, 2009; Commission of the European Community, 2011). MSP not only considers environmental protection but aims to manage multi-sectoral uses of marine space, encompassing the increasingly wide range of human activities and interests that seek to benefit from ecosystem goods and services. However, although national legislation and action are important in the delivery of UNCLOS and CBD ambitions, they are only part of the response that is needed. Critical to both conventions is a concern that planning and management should be undertaken at scales that reflect ecosystem functioning and that national level activities should nest within wider international spheres of action. The United Nations Environment Programme in collaboration with others has identified 64 distinct Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) a number of which lie within 18 regional seas (Duda and Sherman, 2002; Wang, 2004). UNEP recommends that these should be the focus of coordinated ecosystem-based planning and management arrangements.
In recognition of the importance of transnational action at regional sea level a number of international agreements have already been established. In European waters for example, these include the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North East Atlantic (OSPAR Convention), the Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area (HELCOM), The Convention on the Protection of the Black Sea Against Pollution, and the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment and Coastal Region of the Mediterranean (the Barcelona Convention). While such developments are significant in strengthening the legal and institutional framework for collaborative protection and management of the marine environment, from both an ecosystem approach and a MSP perspective they have their limitations. Concerns include issues of integration which are central to both concepts (Dickenson et al., 2010; Flannery and O Cinneide, 2012; Kidd, 2013). For example, such agreements tend to be sectoral rather than cross-sectoral in scope and are largely focused on environmental protection. Complementary activity co-ordinating the growing range of socio-economic interests and development ambitions in the marine environment, such as offshore oil and gas and renewable energy, marine aggregates and minerals, marine transport, and marine tourism is also needed, and ideally this should be brought together with environmental orientated partnership activity in a holistic way. In addition, agreements such as OSPAR and the Barcelona Convention operate at a high level with often limited connections to local level MSP activity, and are therefore partial in terms of stakeholder involvement. These characteristics mean that they can be distant from the causes of the problems that they seek to address, and the regimes that need to be involved in implementing appropriate responses. As a result, their effectiveness in delivery has been questioned (Joyner, 2009). Such critiques also reflect more fundamental shifts in perceptions of ‘good’ governance in environmental (and indeed other contexts) away from state centred approaches to modes which are more collaborative and participatory rather than top down (Duit and Galaz, 2008) and the fields of integrated coastal zone management and marine spatial planning have been particularly prominent in championing the benefits of partnership styles of governance (Fletcher and Potts, 2008; Bruns and Gee, 2009; Osterblom et al., 2010). It is in this context that interest is growing in the development of new transnational partnerships which can complement high level international agreements (where these exist) and support the integrated planning and management aspirations of the ecosystem approach and the new era of national level MSP activity (Khalimonov, 1999; Kern and Loffelsend, 2004; Berkes, 2005; Leslie and McLeod, 2007; Osterblom et al., 2010).
This paper aims to add to the growing body of literature on partnerships and MSP by providing a ladder of transnational partnership working that can be used to assist partnership development. The inspiration for the paper stems from work undertaken in the Irish Sea where for a number of years stakeholders from the six administrations with jurisdiction for the sea have been exploring the potential form and scope of transnational partnership arrangements to complement and support the rolling out of the new MSP regimes. The case is interesting in that it highlights the complexities that will be faced in many marine areas. The Irish Sea sits within the Celtic Sea/Biscay Shelf LME which is part of the North East Atlantic which falls under the OSPAR Convention. It is a semi enclosed sea within this wider area and has a distinct environmental and cultural identity. From the outputs of two events funded by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), it is evident that many stakeholders regard the Irish Sea as the ‘natural’ unit for transnational working and stakeholder engagement, while recognising the need to fit into the bigger Celtic Seas and North East Atlantic picture. The events also revealed multiple, widely supported motivations for collaboration. However, finding an appropriate way forward has proved difficult. The idea of outlining a ladder of transnational partnership working in support of MSP emerged from stakeholder discussions as a means of structuring partnership development. This paper is a response to this suggestion. The first part draws upon partnership working and co-management literature and develops a ladder with 5 levels of transnational partnership working: Information Sharing; Administration Sharing; Agreed Joint Rules; Combined Organisation; and Combined Constitution and illustrates what these might entail with reference to established maritime partnerships. The second part of the paper then explores how these generic levels may be used to structure transnational partnership development in a particular marine setting by drawing upon the outputs of the Irish Sea Transnational Partnership Working events, and in particular on the exploration of motivations for collaboration which was a key point of discussion. In conclusion the paper considers the strengths and weaknesses of the ladder and how it may be enhanced and used more widely to better understand and evaluate existing transnational partnership activity and guide the development of new transnational partnerships in support of MSP.
Section snippets
Partnership working and co-management
Three aspects of the partnership working and co-management literature have provided inspiration for constructing the ladder. The first relates to partnership function, the second to the nature of the partnership building process and the third to degrees of informality and formality in partnership activity. Each of these areas will be explored in turn.
A ladder of transnational partnership working to support marine spatial planning
The literature cited above provides a foundation for formulating a ladder of transnational partnership working to support MSP which can be used to evaluate and develop existing partnership arrangements and establish new ones where appropriate. As stated in the introduction, to date international conventions and regional sea agreements have been significant drivers for transnational partnership working activity particularly related to environmental issues, however, with the emergence of MSP and
Applying the ladder to the Irish Sea
As indicated earlier, inspiration for developing the ladder outlined above emerged from stakeholder discussions associated with two events funded by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council related to Transnational Partnership Working in support of MSP in the Irish Sea (Kidd, 2011a). Although formal MSP activity is still at a very early stage of development in the region, (see Figs. 3 and 4 for map showing the location and MSP responsibilities in the Irish Sea and Kidd, 2011a, Kidd, 2011b
Some strengths and weaknesses of the ladder
So what can this illustration of the use of the ladder in the context of the Irish Sea tell us about its strengths and weaknesses? In terms of strengths, the ladder does seem to offer the potential to bring order to what can seem very disparate motivations for transnational partnership working in support of MSP and identify where the balance of stakeholder interest might lie. In so doing it can act as a focus for discussion about the initial form and possible trajectory of partnership
Conclusions
By providing a tool which can aid the development of transnational partnership working in the sea, the ideas set out above do appear to have a role in responding to the integrated planning and management ambitions which are central to the ecosystem approach advocated by UNCLOS and the CBD and concepts of marine spatial planning. As shown through the exploration of the Irish Sea example, the ladder can be used to help visualise different modes of transnational partnership working, identify the
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Liz Charter Principal Biodiversity Officer (Strategy and Advocacy) in the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture of the Isle of Man Government for sparking the initial idea for this paper and for her useful thoughts on naming the steps of the ladder in a user friendly way.
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2021, Marine PolicyCitation Excerpt :The majority of these conclusions echo what has been already envisaged in the MSP literature. The cornerstones of stakeholder engagement identified by various researchers encompass similarly to the case of Namibia and BSR: importance of trust building and transparency [4,27,28,30], understanding and making use of stakeholder knowledge [3,4], stakeholder empowerment and inclusion of non-institutional stakeholders [5,9,27,36], context dependence of participation [5,28,30], importance of merging top-down and bottom-up processes [5,28] and adjustment of forms of participation to the needs of different planning stages [28]. The research also points out discrepancies between declared ambitions and the reality of stakeholder involvement [27,29] that can support our findings that practice is more important than a formal declaration of intentions.
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