Making the ecosystem approach operational--Can regime shifts in ecological- and governance systems facilitate the transition?

H. Österblom, A. Gårdmark, L. Bergström, B. Müller-Karulis, C. Folke, M. Lindegren, M. Casini, P. Olsson, R. Diekmann, T. Blenckner, C. Humborg and C. Möllmann

Marine Policy, 2010, vol. 34, issue 6, 1290-1299

Abstract: Effectively reducing cumulative impacts on marine ecosystems requires co-evolution between science, policy and practice. Here, long-term social-ecological changes in the Baltic Sea are described, illustrating how the process of making the ecosystem approach operational in a large marine ecosystem can be stimulated. The existing multi-level governance institutions are specifically set up for dealing with individual sectors, but do not adequately support an operational application of the ecosystem approach. The review of ecosystem services in relation to regime shifts and resilience of the Baltic Sea sub-basins, and their driving forces, points to a number of challenges. There is however a movement towards a new governance regime. Bottom-up pilot initiatives can lead to a diffusion of innovation within the existing governance framework. Top-down, enabling EU legislation, can help stimulating innovations and re-organizing governance structures at drainage basin level to the Baltic Sea catchment as a whole. Experimentation and innovation at local to the regional levels is critical for a transition to ecosystem-based management. Establishing science-based learning platforms at sub-basin scales could facilitate this process.

Keywords: Diffusion; of; innovation; Ecosystem; approach; Marine; governance; Regime; shift; Resilience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308-597X(10)00105-3
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:34:y:2010:i:6:p:1290-1299

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 ().