Introduction
The importance of the oceans cannot be underestimated; thus, effective ocean governance is imperative. The oceans are global common-pool resources managed under national jurisdictions (e.g. territorial waters) and by different sectoral and regional organisations (e.g. Regional Fisheries Organisations, Regional Fisheries Management Organization, International Maritime Organization, the International Seabed Authority). Oceans are governed by numerous actors, formal and informal institutions, and nation-states, for a variety of often conflicting services and uses. Inconsistencies in sectoral approaches, conflicts between actors, jurisdictions with overlapping mandates, and poor communication among governance institutions have undermined the effectiveness of ocean governance (Balgos et al 2015, Stephenson et al 2019). Addressing these challenges is integral to developing effective governance for marine ecosystem sustainability (Alexander and Haward 2019).
While governance encompasses many elements, in this paper we focus on the processes that operate within and between states, civil society and local communities, and the market, including industry (Jentoft and Chuenpagdee 2009; Lemos and Agrawal 2006, Vince and Haward 2019). These processes steer decision-making and human interactions with the ocean in response to social, ecological, political or economic change and through, for example, institutional arrangements and legal and policy frameworks. However, governance is more than formal institutions and laws. It encompasses actors (for example states, non-state actors – including businesses – and international organisations) and how they influence and implement the rules that mediate human interactions with resources (McGinnis 2011, see also Young 1991).
The complexity of marine socio-ecological systems has often led to ocean governance arrangements in which policies can lack effectiveness (Underdal, 2002; Willock and Lack 2006; Gjerde et al. 2008; Haward and Vince 2008; Blanchard 2017) and coherence (Nilsson et al 2012). International treaties, regional agreements and national policies often comprise complex design, development and implementation, that reflect the desire to move towards specific objectives. To improve oceans governance, the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development agreement (Chapter 17, Agenda 21) and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (Vandeweerd et al. 2006) encouraged states to develop and implement integrated ocean and coastal policy approaches. However, ad hoc, disjointed management regimes have resulted in poor compliance among member states (Ban et al. 2014) and poor outcomes, such as overfishing (Hobday et al. 2011) and increasing marine pollution (Vince and Hardesty 2018). This has had negative impacts on the marine ecosystem, markets and society (Rogers at al. 2016).
We use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as an underlying framework to identify three major risks for marine ecosystems to frame the discussion of future ocean governance. The SDGs comprise of 17 goals which seek to achieve sustainable development across social, economic, and ecological sectors. These goals are highly interlinked with each other (Singh et al. 2017) and the progress towards these goals will likely impact the ocean. Derived from the SDGs we have summarized three major risks for the ocean where future governance is pivotal for change. These risks are:
1) the impacts of the overexploitation of marine resources e.g. overfishing (SDG12, SDG14, SDG16); 2) inequitable distribution of access to and benefits from marine ecosystem services e.g. technology transfer and gender inequalities (SDG1, SDG8, SDG10, SDG16) (discussed further in Alexander et al, in prep); and 3) inadequate or inappropriate adaptation to changing ocean conditions e.g. ocean warming and acidification and sea level rise (SDG1, SDG13, SDG11, SDG16).
Governance has frequently focused on addressing such risks through legal and institutional architecture (Young 2010). There is, however, increasing value in developing an understanding of the impact of interplay and interaction between actors and institutions as well as within these institutions (Beunen et al. 2017; Beunen and Patterson 2016; Scobie 2016). As the climate changes and the oceans face increasing degradation and sustainability challenges, there is a renewed urgency to reform governance structures and systems to address current and emerging problems (Biermann et al. 2010, 2012).
We use these three priority risks for marine ecosystems to frame our discussion on how improved ocean governance may mitigate such risks and offer specific and tangible examples of pathways of change. As such we look at addressing these risks through the lens of agency. Agency is defined as the capacity of an actor to make decisions and to act upon them, and thus to influence government and institutions’ behaviours (Hall 2010; Bloomfield 2017; Lawrence et al. 2009). Institutions are shaped by the individuals who work within them; addressing agency helps to analyze how institutions are created, how they interact, and how they adapt to changing needs and expectations. By recognising agency as a driver of governance, we can begin to identify interactions between actors that foster or hinder the development of norms and related government systems (Burch et al. 2019) and thus help explain the dynamics of interplay. We use agency as it provides a critical lens that centres on actors within institutions as key to changes ( positive or negative) and thus is a key concept in identifying pathways of change. Agency moves away from a simple focus on state and organisational action.
The aim of this paper is to envision ocean governance for a more sustainable future by 2030, which is the end of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, and to propose tangible actions towards such a vision. To address this aim, we identify five drivers (Section 2) shaping ocean governance which will play a key role in the immediate future (Nash et al. 2020). Based on these drivers, we define the narratives of two alternative futures (‘business as usual’ and an aspirational, more sustainable but technically achievable 2030) (Section 3). These futures are based on the perception and opinions of the authors and we acknowledge that some topics which others might consider as important have not been included. We also identify actions that may facilitate change towards a more sustainable future (Section 4). While not addressed in this paper we acknowledge that the disruptions of 2020, in particular the COVID-19 pandemic, are currently causing major changes to economies and socioecological systems at the global scale. These changes will likely change future trajectories as the COVID-19 pandemic has extensive impacts on for example small-scale and community fisheries (Bennett et al. 2020). Thus, the business as usual scenario we describe is based on evidence from the recent past before the pandemic and assumes a general return to this trajectory in the next few years. We note that current disruptions to the global ocean, environment and society because of COVID-19 may influence the described actions and indeed present a platform for change and an opportunity to ‘reset’ trajectories in the coming decade (as discussed in Pecl et al. In review, this issue). The more sustainable future presented here is one option for such a shift.
Drivers of change
We identified five key drivers that influence current ocean governance and can steer the direction of governance within the next decade. These drivers are based on the perceptions and experience of the authors and had been identified in numerous workshops through an established iterative method (see Nash et al. 2020 for more details on this methodology). We acknowledge that the opinion regarding these drivers might differ among different scholars. The first driver is formal rules and institutions (Ostrom 1990). Rules (including norms and regulations) created by formal governance institutions play a role in steering actors’ behaviour and the institutional arrangement for the implementation of effective management, which includes compliance and enforcement. The second driver isevidence and knowledge-based decision-making (Cash et al. 2003) as t he sharing of knowledge, brokering between scientific and policy institutions and the acknowledgement of traditional knowledge are important for decision-making processes. The third driver islegitimacy of decision-making institutions (Clark et al. 2011). Public’s trust is important in decision-making processes and relative outcomes and whether actors judge these processes and outcomes as fair and adequate. The greater the level of legitimacy, the more likely actors will comply with its rules without the need for enforcement actions (Tyler 1990; Franck 1990). The fourth driver isstakeholder engagement and participation (Cash et al. 2003). To facilitate cooperation at all levels of human interaction with the oceans, all relevant stakeholders need to be included in the governance processes. The last driver is empowering communities(Ostrom 1990). Collective actions, as well as social licence for human use of the ocean, benefits the different actors and the various scales at which they operate. Table 1 centres on the three risks in relation to these five key drivers and provides examples of each promoting or undermining ocean governance.
Insert Table 1
3 . Narratives of alternative futures