The Convention on Biological Diversity's Ecologically or Biologically Significant Areas: Origins, development, and current status

Daniel C. Dunn, Jeff Ardron, Nicholas Bax, Patricio Bernal, Jesse Cleary, Ian Cresswell, Ben Donnelly, Piers Dunstan, Kristina Gjerde, David Johnson, Kristin Kaschner, Ben Lascelles, Jake Rice, Henning von Nordheim, Louisa Wood and Patrick N. Halpin

Marine Policy, 2014, vol. 49, issue C, 137-145

Abstract: In 2008, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted seven criteria to identify Ecologically or Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) “…in need of protection, in open ocean waters and deep sea habitats”. This paper reviews the history of the development of the “EBSA process”, which was originally driven by the commitment to establish marine protected areas in areas beyond national jurisdiction, but which has since broadened to encompass the possibility of informing marine spatial planning and other activities, both within and beyond national jurisdiction. Additionally, the paper summarizes ongoing efforts through CBD regional workshops to describe EBSAs and the development of the EBSA Repository, where information on these areas is to be stored. The overlap between the EBSA criteria and biodiversity criteria suites used by various authorities in areas beyond national jurisdiction is illustrated. The EBSA process has reached a critical juncture, whereby a large percentage of the global ocean has been considered by the regional workshops, but the procedure by which these areas can be incorporated into formal management structures has not yet been fully developed. Emerging difficulties regarding the mandate to describe, identify, endorse, or adopt EBSAs, are discussed.

Keywords: Convention on Biological Diversity; Ecologically or Biologically Significant Areas; EBSA; Marine Protected Areas; Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction; High Seas (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X13002856
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:137-145

DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2013.12.002

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 ().