Is there a democratic crisis in marine governance?

Who is 'competent' or 'very competent' to manage the marine environment?

Graph: Data showing perceived competence of different groups to manage the environment. Scores shown as percentage of responses rating ‘competent or highly competent’ (rating of 4 -5). Note that EU, National and Local refer to government bodies. Sample: UK, Poland, Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal, France,

Source: Knowseas: Public perceptions of Europe’s Seas - A Policy Brief. LINK
  
 The chart points to public concern over the process for managing the marine environment -  and the  opportunity to develop new ways of co-managing marine resources and including public voice in marine decisions. Environmental groups and scientists are perceived as more competent (at 57% and 56%) than government bodies, individuals and industry (max 37%). While on one hand this is a concerning statistic, it points to a change in the way marine governance can work. Governance means more than government, and the inclusion of civil and scientific voices, not only as 'stakeholders' but as co-managers, may be the way forward to improve marine sustainability.

There is clearly a critical role for elected representatives in government and civil departments to continue to administer and support marine management and be viewed as the custodian of the process. But if the views of the community are to be acknowledged, the system needs to advance to include genuine engagement over consultation.

A new approach to mapping marine policy...

Often policy processes in coastal and marine systems are difficult to understand, opaque, or the means of making changes are hard to identify.  A new paper by Bainbridge, Potts and O'Higgins is freely available in the journal Plos One that demonstrates an approach to mapping and understanding marine and coastal policy. The approach, called Rapid Policy Network Mapping (RPNM) aims to improve the understanding and positioning of actors and institutions in environmental policy, see who is represented and where, and identify the 'levers of change'. It is a generic tool - one that can be used anywhere and at any scale - and users are asked to contribute to a growing community of online maps and debate about how the ecosystem approach can be implemented.

The main benefits of RPNM are that it:

1. Captures the majority and most significant instruments and actors in the development of specific policies.
2. Aggregates and compares actors and instruments by policy domain.
3. Provides a robust platform of data as a baseline for reference or further research or action e.g. multi-modal network analysis, policy networks etc.
4. Provides a web based tool for dynamic collaboration.
5. Is a means of understanding and visualising complex policy systems and identifies where changes can be driven through the system. 
6. Can be developed at a reasonably low cost and deployed rapidly. 
7. Helps understand who does what and where, who is over and under represented in policy debates.

The Reef Tank interview

Recently I was interviewed by the The Reef Tank, a great blog that covers many issues of relevance to marine science and conservation.

We discussed many issues concerning marine policy: governance reform in Scotland and the UK, ecolabelling in fisheries, the Arctic and the 'big questions' facing marine policy and governance.

An important point was the fact we need to get marine issues into the public consciousness - not just the usual suspects or those making a living from, or living in proximity to the sea.

For the interview and other posts covering diverse marine topics:

http://www.thereeftank.com/blog/