From: SeaLife Ships Blog

Ocean Zoning – a Useful New Book

I just acquired a copy  of Dr Tundi Agardy’s new book “Ocean Zoning: Making Marine Management More Effective”.  This is a very timely publication given the new US National Ocean Policy (see http://sealifeceo.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-national-ocean-policy-perfect.html) and given the initiative to establish a series of Regional Ocean Partnerships in nine regions of the USA (Alaska is one region) that will give effect to that policy (see http://www.csc.noaa.gov/funding/PDFs/noaa-nos-csc-2011-2002721-ffo-report.pdf).

Under the new National Ocean Policy, Coastal and Marine Spatial planning (CMSP) has been emphasized as “an important planning tool for regional ocean governance. CMSP is a comprehensive, adaptive, integrated, ecosystem-based, and transparent spatial planning process, based on sound science, for analyzing current and anticipated uses of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes areas”.

Agardy’s book begins with an interesting discourse on how CMSP and ocean zoning differ (they are often confused by critics of ocean governance).  She uses her extensive knowledge of  global marine planning to tap into a network of experts and experiences to describe why a big picture approach to ocean management is needed.  She then systematically examines global experience with the application of zoning and CMSP from the small scale (e.g. Asinara Marine Park in Italy) to the large scale (e.g. the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park). 

Having spent several years in the early part of may career working on planning of the Great Barrier Reef and then tracked the evolution of governance there, it has proven to be a great case study of how the competing demands of different industries (tourism, fishing, shipping and conservation) can be met, whilst still protecting the ecological resources and services on which those industries depend.

I commend this book to anyone who would like to know more about CMSP and ocean zoning –  it serves as a great primer to the types of governance innovations that the new National Ocean Policy should generate and  could be used to “jump start”  new CMSP initiatives – there is, after all, little point reinventing a wheel that has been around for more than three decades!