Next Steps in Marine Spatial Planning

In 2004, the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy recommended that the federal government consider ecosystem-based management as a more effective approach to ocean governance. As our understanding of that concept has evolved, it became clear that marine ecosystems include people and that appropriate ocean management requires practitioners to consider all elements of an ecosystem, including its physical, chemical, and geological attributes, as well as the composition and location of marine-dependent human communities. In June 2009, President Obama charged the Interagency Task Force on Ocean Policy with outlining a national ocean policy that links governance of human activities in the sea to the biophysical ecosystem in a comprehensive way. Dr. Crowder will review the latest research in marine ecology to show why marine spatial planning offers a promising framework for incorporating the disparate elements of a marine ecosystem into decisionmaking.  He will also present a useful and relatively new conceptual framework—coupled socio-ecological systems—as way to fully integrate humans into marine ecosystems and their management.