Science Advisory Report 2008/029

Further Guidance on the Formulation, Prioritization, and Use of Conservation Objectives in an Ecosystem Approach to Integrated Management of Human Activities in Aquatic Ecosystems

Summary

• Greater clarity is needed about the need for identification of Degraded Areas as part of the Ecosystem Overview and Assessment Report (EOAR) / Conservation Objectives (CO) processes, and a process for work in this area is proposed.
• The EOAR assessment framework and the development of Conservation Objectives are generally appropriate for coastal as well as offshore ecosystems, but there are many issues of applying the framework and processes on finer spatial scales that need to be addressed.
• The experience of using the Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas (EBSA) and Ecologically and Biologically Significant Species (EBSS) criteria and guidelines in preparing the EOARs suggests that these documents are a useful starting point for identifying conservation priorities and are working reasonably well, although there is undoubtedly scope to improve all criteria and guidelines.
• The boundaries of the EBSAs in the EOARs should not be mis-interpreted as rigid and precisely determined boundaries on the ecological properties of the EBSAs. The lines on the maps are based on the best information available applied and interpreted at the scale of the Large Oceans Management Areas (LOMAs), to support integrated planning and management at that scale.
• Past guidelines regarding prioritizing the Conservation Objectives are reasonable and should continue to be used, even if the lists of top priorities may be long. As experience is acquired in what management will do with the Conservation Objectives, there may be new insights into how to more effectively prioritize Conservation Objectives.
• The EOAR and Conservation Objective approach has been developed for marine ecosystems, but is a reasonable starting point for ecosystem approach to conservation and sustainable use of freshwater ecosystems as well.
• The Ecosystem Overviews and Assessments have been done on relatively large spatial scales, but many management questions and conservation issues may be most appropriately addressed at smaller scale (and sometimes larger ones), particularly in coastal areas. Some guidance is provided on how adapt scales of EOAR results and COs.
• All participants from management sectors concurred that Conservation Objectives have value in their work. Moreover, aspects of their work related to both conservation and planning for integrated and sustainable use would be more difficult to achieve without having explicit Conservation Objectives.
• Conservation Objectives for Pressures have been shown to be useful in actual management decision-making in a number of applications at both the levels of selection of strategies and tactics.
• Conservation Objectives for the State of specific structural and functional properties of ecosystems are meaningful and important to many stakeholders, including Environmental Non-Government Organizations (ENGOs), CNGOs (Conservation Non-Government Organizations), industries, and Aboriginal Peoples. Managers consider them an important part of science advice on Ecosystem Objectives, and examples of their use in management need to be developed more fully.
• Important progress has already been made in incrementally adding specific ecosystem considerations to existing management policies, strategies, and tactics, and the underlying science advice, primarily using Pressure-oriented Objectives. However, in addition to the Pressure-based assessments and advice an operational advisory framework requires that:
  • indicators for the Conservation Objectives for States are identified;
  • there are periodic audits of the status of the indicators relative to ecologically based benchmarks; and
  • there are fora where all operational sectors must address how they are managing the pressures exerted by their sectors relative to discrepancies between the audited status of the ecosystem and the ecologically based benchmarks.
• Conservation Objectives used in policy and management require scientifically sound foundations, which the EOARs were designed to provide. A lesson confirmed by the EOAR process is that assembling the necessary science will not be easy, but is feasible

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