[Created Dec. 12, 2016]
There’s an uncertainty to the future of marine resources and the ocean, as humans and climate change exploit and alter the state of the globe. In the Caribbean, governments have recognized the need for better resource management as an island community highly impacted by human use and climate change. The Eastern Caribbean is one of the world’s top five zones of biodiversity, and densely populated. With a high demand of marine resources, and high cumulative human impacts on marine ecosystems, change was needed. Hoping to apply this plan to the entire Caribbean, it was agreed a test site was needed first: St. Kitts and Nevis. These islands were chosen because of existing conflicts and conditions. The user/use conflicts were deemed fixable, and the government had a strong interest in implementing a marine spatial plan into resource management. Ecosystems of specific concern included coral reefs, wetlands, mangroves, beaches, and sea grasses. Creating a planning process, overcoming issues of time and communication, and drafting a zoning plan, St. Kitts and Nevis paved the way for the rest of the Caribbean to implement marine zoning.
A voluntary initiative was created to devise a marine zoning plan for human uses to mitigate conflict over ocean resources. This planning initiative was a voluntary effort through the agreement of stakeholders and governments to act as a trial zone for marine zoning and marine spatial planning (MSP) processes. Headed by the Steering Committee, and backed by the governments of St. Kitts and Nevis, this project involved stakeholders and managers alike. Funding and additional support came from USAID (a U.S. government agency), which works internationally to promote goals such as environmental stability, food security, economic prosperity, and global health. A second supporter and funder was the Nature Conservancy, a non-profit charitable organization aiming to protect resources, habitat, and biodiversity. Although there was a lot of outside support, and pressure, the main enforcers and drivers of this project were the local people, committees, and local government.
Formed to address marine resource management challenges and create a foundation for future marine zoning, this project was officially titled Marine Zoning in St. Kitts and Nevis: A Path Towards Sustainable Management of Marine Resources. Marine zoning is a way to spatially approach EBM, referring to “an extensive planning process required for management of a marine area” resulting from the consultation work of marine spatial planning (MSP)[1]. This project acted as a case study for comprehensive marine zoning, and a hands-on learning opportunity for the struggles in holistic, multi-objective, integrated marine resource management. Some of the main human use conflicts to be addressed were coastal development, land-based pollution sources, overfishing, and climate change impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services. In order to accomplish this, the Committee formulated five primary activities for the drafting process to include. These activities were engaging stakeholders, developing a common vision for resource management, creating an ecological and socioeconomic database, developing tools to support implementation decisions, and drafting a marine zoning design map out to a depth of 30m around the spatial ecosystem (islands). The heads of this project wanted to have a practical way to approach EBM management for the future.
After much planning, compromising, and overcoming obstacles there were many successful outcomes and lessons from forming a marine zoning draft for the St. Kitts and Nevis islands. A foundation for marine zoning was created through a consensus on a vision for the future of marine resources. This was finalized and visualized through detailed maps, an extensive ecological and socioeconomic database, and a decision support system. The overall end product was a successfully crafted draft of a marine zoning design. Marine zoning in St. Kitts and Nevis wove a network of relationships between people needed to advance management, and increased the understanding among people, partners, and sectors involved in zoning. The project also facilitated advances necessary for long term management, as a successful planning method was explored and created an exact process on how to integrate sectors and knowledge. Leaving behind the tools and perspectives needed, St Kitts and Nevis are now prepared to approach marine management for sustainable ocean use, and apply its methods to a wider scale.
In order for a holistic approach for management to be successful, ecosystem-based management elements were essential to the St. Kitts and Nevis Marine Zoning project. There are three important aspects of EBM for success: incorporating the best science possible, engaging multiple sectors and groups, along with valuing ecosystem services with their tradeoffs. It’s important to understand what natural changes an ecosystem undergoes and how the system adapts to these changes, in order to better understand what changes are unnatural from human impact[2]. Resilience science was created to work alongside adaptability and reassessment for the betterment of scientific knowledge for the implementation of EBM. This resilience refers to the “extent to which a system can maintain its structure, function, and identity in the face of disturbance[3].” When a system breaks the threshold of resilience and flips it can no longer follow its proper function and for management to continue, managers and scientists need to understand these biological and ecological functions. The involvement of these managers and scientists, along with the help of locals and stakeholders, is another key piece to EBM.
Engaging impacted parties and multiple sectors is important, because governance goes across multiple sectors for ocean activity and conservation. It makes sense to create management plans with the best legal and cooperative capabilities of different sectors[4]. This cross sector involvement is important, along with the involvement of professionals in the area of study for “assessing the status and trends of major ecosystem services within reasonable ecosystem boundaries”, and “in the synthesis… and peer review of the best advice and its translation into language readily understandable by managers, resource users, and public[5].” When creating a new management plan, one is creating a plan that will impact many individual lives, businesses, and governances. While a plan impacts these parties, they are also the parties most knowledgeable in their needs and the resources available. Including this wide array of perspective and knowledge can aid in formulizing the best ecosystem based management plan for ecosystem services possible, as opposed to a narrowed field of knowledge and understanding.
Not to be underestimated in the accumulation of knowledge is local or traditional ecological knowledge. TEK, or LK, recognizes that the world is dynamic and changing, explaining processes that occur outside one lifetime through the cultural and historical lens of an ecosystem; or seeks a personal personified collection of resource data through nonscientific quantification[6]. Recognizing the needs and knowledge of locals, whether ancestrally or recently, not only expands the available understanding of resources and ecosystems, but also binds a divide between managerial decisions and those impacted. In an EBM approach, not only do the people have value, so do the ecosystem services and habitats under consideration.
Not all ecosystem services are created equal, and neither are their economic values or ecological impacts. Valuing ecosystem services and tradeoffs is a key part in management decision making, because not all needs or wants can always be met. When deciding what management goals to implement after planning, it’s important to understand what could be lost from an ecosystem and its ecological or quantified economical value[7]. Valuing ecosystem services is one way to weigh the tradeoffs between choices and is a difficult process for ecological factors, especially those without market value. While challenging, it’s not only an important process for decision making but also a way to hold parties responsible for any damage done to an ecological system for liability. There’s always uncertainty in planning for the future, and while one of the goals of EBM is adaptability and resilience, valuing an ecosystem must also look at times of certainty and uncertainty and relate it back to that adaptability the spatial ecosystem and management plans[8]. A lot of time and process goes into creating EBM plan, ranging from monetary to scientific to interpersonal relations. It’s through this time and effort that a successful marine management plan can be created, such as in St. Kitts and Nevis for marine zoning.
These three essential elements of EBM are thoroughly reflected in the planning for a holistic management in St. Kitts and Nevis. The research completed was done around coastal development, land-based pollution sources, overfishing, and climate change impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services within the spatially defined ecosystem. Exemplifying resilience science, and expanding into adaptability, this plan also mapped outcomes and impacts as the ecosystem evolved past thresholds from their natural state, along with how to apply these mechanisms to a grander scale. The Multi-Objective Database compiled socioeconomic and ecological data, taking into account not only a range of scientific data collected, but also mapping habitat and fisher surveys. Preparing for overlapping states, and engaging multiple parties in the research, this database was a collaborative effort. The Steering Committee took time to work closely together with governments and community to discuss interests and how the future of marine zoning impacted them. The Committee also worked to overcome facilitating communication issues between stakeholders and governments on two separate islands. This involvement was a high priority of the project, and the first step to completion.
Once the best possible science was found and the best range of voices could be heard, a scenario analysis mapping program, Marxan with Zones, was utilized to value how deciding in favor of one ocean use impacted zoning in other areas, and see how different services competed for resources. These compatibility maps worked to show what ecosystem services could coexist versus create conflict. The creation of compatibility maps was a visual way to study the tradeoffs and values of different biodiversity scenarios and services.
With such an exhaustive plan created, there is still much that could be done moving forward. Six years later no implementation has occurred. A marine zoning plan is in the hands of the government officials and people of St. Kitts and Nevis. Steps moving forward are finalizing the zoning design, adopting the design, continuing the public and government engagement, developing governance enforcement, and finally completing new legislation to support the marine zoning plan. Even if no legal implementation ever occurs, sectors now have the maps and tools available to make better decisions moving forward. St. Kitts and Nevis has learned the essential but challenging aspects of EMB; the struggle for affordability and agreement between people, along with the extensive time commitment required. The lack of implementation and struggle of process doesn’t impede the success of the original goals laid out though.
Drafting a plan for the use of marine resources in waters surrounding St. Kitts and Nevis, the drafting committee and partners were successful in integrating a holistic approach to the planning process. As a successful plan, the Marine Zoning in St. Kitts and Nevis: A Path Towards Successful Management of Marine Resources project incorporates the three key aspects of EBM, and achieved its original objectives and goals outlined through a multi-objective approach. The success in St. Kitts and Nevis is in the planning though, not the implementation. This plan has yet to be finalized by the government and stakeholders, or implemented Caribbean-wide. Since 2010, there has been no publishable information on the project, and even reaching a legislative halt at the test site, there is still hope for this EBM approach to management to spread. St. Kitts and Nevis have laid the foundation for a future of planning through the use of adaptable resilience science, cross party engagement and communication, along with examining ecosystem services and tradeoffs. Overcoming and resolving many obstacles along the way, hopefully this project in the hands of an interested government and local body will continue to lead the way to better ocean resource management in a world riddled by human impact and accelerated climate change.
[1] “St. Kitts and Nevis Marine Zoning.” Marine Planning: Practical Approaches to Ocean and
Coastal Decision-Making. Nature Conservancy, n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2016.
[2] Kinzing, Ann and Leslie, Heather. “Resilience Science”. Ecosystem-Based Management for the
Oceans. Island Press. Ed. Karen McLeod, Heather Leslie. Washington: Island Press, 2009.
- Print.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Rosenberg, Andrew and Sandifer, Paul. “What Do Managers Need?”. Ecosystem-Based
Management for the Oceans. Island Press. Ed. Karen McLeod, Heather Leslie.
Washington: Island Press, 2009. 14. Print.
[5] Rosenberg, Andrew and Sandifer, Paul. “What Do Managers Need?”. Ecosystem-Based
Management for the Oceans. Island Press. Ed. Karen McLeod, Heather Leslie.
Washington: Island Press, 2009. 25. Print.
[6] Alessa, Lilian, Barr, Brad, and Kinskey, Andrew. “Integrating Local and Traditional Ecological
Knowledge”. Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans. Island Press. Ed. Karen
McLeod, Heather Leslie. Washington: Island Press, 2009. 147, 149, 150. Print.
[7] Barbier, Edward. “Ecosystem Service Trade-offs”. Ecosystem-Based Management for the
Oceans. Island Press. Ed. Karen McLeod, Heather Leslie. Washington: Island Press, 2009.
- Print.
[8] Barbier, Edward. “Ecosystem Service Trade-offs”. Ecosystem-Based Management for the
Oceans. Island Press. Ed. Karen McLeod, Heather Leslie. Washington: Island Press, 2009.
- Print.
