EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity in ABNJ: What can be achieved using existing international agreements?

Jeff A. Ardron, Rosemary Rayfuse, Kristina Gjerde and Robin Warner

Marine Policy, 2014, vol. 49, issue C, 98-108

Abstract: While the international community debates the desirability and possible content of a new global instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction, alternative approaches to improving the application and implementation of existing agreements for the protection of biodiversity appear to have fallen off the agenda. Recent practice under existing global and regional agreements suggests that, given political will, significantly greater protections could be achieved through the more effective implementation of individual sectoral agreements. However, while single-sector measures have the potential to make a valuable contribution, ultimately only multi-sectoral, integrated, cooperative management can ensure the conservation and long-term sustainable use of marine biodiversity in ABNJ. This requires establishing mechanisms for cooperation both intra and inter-sectorally, as well as between the sectoral and global and regional conservation agreements. This paper examines recent initiatives within various sectoral and conservation treaty regimes aimed at improving their application within ABNJ as well as some of the challenges to, and options for, further and better cooperation and coordination among and between existing regimes, and it identifies a range of possible mechanisms for achieving more effective implementation and coordination among them. Greater use of existing mechanisms represents a sensible approach to making the most of existing arrangements without in any way foreclosing the possibility of the adoption of a more comprehensive, integrated global agreement for the protection of marine biodiversity in ABNJ.

Keywords: Areas beyond national jurisdiction; Biodiversity; High seas; International cooperation; MPAs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X14000499
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:marpol:v:49:y:2014:i:c:p:98-108

DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2014.02.011

Access Statistics for this article

Marine Policy is currently edited by Eddie Brown

More articles in Marine Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:eee:marpol:v:49:y:2014:i:c:p:98-108