Explicit benefit-sharing arrangements
To achieve equitable and fair
ocean governance, the discourse around ocean stewardship, access and use
of marine resources, needs to be
re-defined.
In particular, ocean stewardship
needs to address social inequity (Actions 24, 27) (Allison 2001; Bennett
2019b). This approach can offer many opportunities that are supportive
of current institutional processes (Action 2), adopt meaningful
co-designed governance principles, and have great potential for
transformative change (Coscieme et al. 2020; Díaz et al. 2019).
For example, moving away from the
practice of trading-off ecosystem services such as prioritising fish
harvesting over environmental damage by fishing gear (Clark et. al 2016;
Kaiser et al 2000) can help account for the unequal distribution of
costs and benefits across society (Costanza et al. 1998; Daw et al.
2011). As noted in SDG1 (i.e. no poverty): growing social inequality is
detrimental to economic growth and may undermine social cohesion and
collective action to address governance problems. Thus, mainstreaming
benefit-sharing mechanisms and access rights may strengthen stakeholder
collaborations (Action 36) and foster the integration of different
knowledge types (Actions 18, 19).
Build capacity for those
unheard
Issues in ocean governance can challenge how we cooperate nationally,
regionally, and internationally (Action 4) (Campbell and Hanich 2015;
Costanza et al. 1998; Díaz et al. 2019). Understanding and achieving
equity, alleviating poverty, and enhancing human resilience are required
to foster cooperation. This can be done by designing and implementing
context-relevant ocean governance policies that consider the
marginalised, disenfranchised, and landlocked communities (Bennett
2019a; Coscieme et al. 2020). These communities often lack information,
power and influence, a platform, and representation (Actions 29, 30) and
are thus less proactive in addressing ocean governance issues (Actions
27, 31, 32, 33, 40). For example, conflict resolution practices can
explicitly focus on ensuring representation of all interests, and work
hard to provide inclusive practices, and thereby contributing to
capacity building. Addressing social inequity will not only facilitate
fair-sharing and cross-sectoral cooperation but also transform how
humans relate to and interact with the ocean (Campbell and Hanich 2015).