ID	Key Area	Responsible persons until June workshop
3.1	Fisheries and aquaculture	Melanie Austen, PML and Poul Holm, SDU
3.2	Integrated Coastal Zone Management	Melanie Austen, PML and Poul Holm, SDU
3.3	Marine Protected Areas	Melanie Austen, PML and Poul Holm, SDU
3.4	Impact of marine management systems and legislation upon society	Melanie Austen, PML and Poul Holm, SDU

MarBEF Partners involved in Theme 3

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Core strategic project. 1. Valuation of Marine Biodiversity and Marine Ecosystem Management

Valuation of Marine Biodiversity

In order to manage marine ecosystems for conservation of biodiversity and sustainability of ecosystem functioning we need to understand the economic, social and cultural value of biodiversity across Europe and hence provide a framework and context to integrate natural science with the needs of society and development of management policies. Joint research between natural scientists, economists, and sociologists and socio-anthropologists within the network aims to investigate the total economic and social value of European marine biodiversity, including use and non-use values. Numerous valuation studies have been performed on coral reefs and mangroves, but other examples are rare, especially based in Europe, making this research both critically important and unique. Valuation also plays a critical role in the management of the environment, as determining estimates of value for environmental resources translates natural science into an accessible format, and enables decision makers to make educated and balanced management plans which maximize benefit to all affected parties.

Tasks

1. Carry out an interdisciplinary baseline review of the goods and services provided by marine biodiversity across Europe
2. Carry out an interdisciplinary baseline review of the value of marine biodiversity using currently available methodologies
3. Improve our understanding of different value systems in relation to marine biodiversity and the goods and services it provides including underlying regional differences across Europe and hence develop new methodologies for improved valuations
4. Develop a model to analyse the interaction of the different European value added chains that are rooted in the various areas of marine biodiversity resources
5. Determine how values change as marine biodiversity responds to environmental change, derived from a number of sources and at different temporal and spatial scales (anthropogenic and natural disturbances, long term and short term change, global and local scales) by looking at specific case studies e.g. effects of aquaculture, integration of fisheries and environment management, ecological disasters such as the breaking up and sinking of the Prestige oil tanker, regional and local effects of climate change.

Core strategic project. 2. Development of Marine Ecosystem Management Tools

Development of Marine Ecosystem Management Tools

MarBEF aims to provide information and input to the development of the EU Marine Strategy to promote the sustainable use of the sea and the conservation of marine ecosystems. This requires integration of management with an understanding of marine biodiversity its relationship with ecosystem functioning. The key to the sustainable utilization of marine biodiversity is not to limit all utilization (i.e. being completely precautionary), but to ensure that economic development can occur without exceeding the resource thresholds. In order to do this it is essential that socio-economists and environmental managers have a good idea of how marine biodiversity will react to different pressures at different times, and the risks and confidence limits associated with these estimates. Such knowledge will be essential to develop management strategies for the sustainable use of marine ecosystems and to mitigate environmental degradation. An achievable goal of MarBEF is to develop models such as decision support systems and scenario analysis for use as management tools.

Tasks

1. Interdisciplinary review of the different management tools, available to and used by marine environmental managers and other user groups including analysis of the advantages and deficiencies of current systems.
2. Optimisation and development of decision support systems to investigate complementary and conflicting uses of marine biodiversity. This will include evaluation of multi-criteria analysis and their utilisation by user groups as well as the design of consistent scenarios to generate environmental, economic and social indicators suitable for use in a multiple criteria evaluation framework.
3. Examination of the interaction between marine environmental management and individual and societal behaviour.
4. Investigation of the potential for applying alternative and novel policies and instruments achieve management goals.

Required from MarBEF: Scientific input/data/funds

To achieve the project, interaction between researchers in themes 1 and 2 and 3 will be required to integrate natural science and socio-economic research into the marine ecosystem. Close cooperation with natural scientists (themes 1 and 2) will be required to derive ecological data to underpin quantification of goods and services in different case study areas which can be used in valuation and management studies. Data will be collected within this project which will need to be input to the MarBEF database. The results from this project will be of wide interest and assistance will be needed from MarBEF outreach to disseminate them to managers and policymakers and to advertise the novel interdisciplinary approaches used in this research to as wide a scientific audience as possible.

Because of the novelty of the integrated research within theme 3 there is no established data available from which participants can develop new research. An input of additional personnel is required to facilitate gathering of novel data. A special request is made to ensure that the theme 3 CSP funding for a post doc continues for the remainder of MarBEF to assist in this. To attempt to create a European critical mass in this new area of integrated research we request special MarBEF funding for at least 2 PhD students within the areas of economics and socio-anthropology explicitly to work with natural, economic, social and anthropology scientists within MarBEF.

Workshops

The integrated science within the Strategic programme Valuation of marine biodiversity and marine ecosystem management will be initially progressed through integrating workshops to implement networks between the relevant parties across the biological, social, socio-anthropological and economic disciplines. These workshops will initially aim to review state of the art in valuation of marine biodiversity and review management tools and systems currently in place and hence to develop research programmes to develop these areas further within the longer term of MarBEF.

To organise workshops in the theme 3 area please read terms of reference.

Five workshops within theme 3 for the first 18 months are scheduled:

Subject	Date	Responsible person and place
Goods and Services	16-18 June 2004	PML, Post-Doc; Plymouth and Melanie Austen
Non Monetary Value	2-3 August 2004	Tomaz Dentinho; Azores
Information	14-15 December 2004	Christos Arvanitidis; Crete IMBC
Integration	17-18 May 2005	Poul Holm; Denmark
Decision Support System and Wrap Up	27-28 June 2005	Anna Szaniawska, University of Gdansk Poland

Deliverables and Milestones

The work program for the Theme 3 CSP is a deliverable from the first 18 months of MarBEF and is currently being developed. Initial development is already taking place within the closely related RMP Development of decision support systems.

• Interdisciplinary baseline review of the value of marine biodiversity using currently available methodologies (publication)
• Study of different value systems in relation to marine biodiversity and the goods and services it provides including underlying regional differences across Europe and hence development of new methodologies for improved valuations (publication)
• Model to analyse the interaction of the different European value added chains that are rooted in the various areas of marine biodiversity resources (publication)
• Determine how values change as marine biodiversity responds to environmental change, derived from a number of sources and at different temporal and spatial scales (publication)
• Interdisciplinary review of the different management tools, available to and used by marine environmental managers and other user groups including analysis of the advantages and deficiencies of current systems. (publication/report)
• Optimisation and development of decision support systems to investigate complementary and conflicting uses of marine biodiversity. (publication)
• Examination of the interaction between marine environmental management and individual and societal behaviour. (publication)
• Investigation of the potential for applying alternative and novel policies and instruments achieve management goals. (report/publication)

On the PDF the responsible people volunteered, or were asked, to be responsible for the delivery and achievement of deliverables and milestones. Please go to tables [PDF - 9KB]

Partner implication: Assigning tasks (deliverables/milestones) to persons to be determined as the work program is developed during months 1-18 of MarBEF.

Tasks will be achieved through:

• post-doctoral position
• MSc students carrying out case study valuations
• 2 PhD students (jointly supervised)
  • sociological valuation and its use in management
  • economic valuation and its use in management
• Small progress meetings
• Annual plenary meetings to continue networking

Requirement	years	MarBEF Budget â,¬
Post doc	3.5	420k
2 PhD students	3	475k
Annual plenary meeting - 3		15k
T&S for post docs and PhD students, â,¬5K per person per year		52.5k
Coordination costs	3.5	70k
Participation Review and Assessment	3.5	25.2k
Total		1057.7k

Partner budget

Total		Required
	Own resources	Investment from MarBEF basic budget (â,¬32 K)1	Investment from MarBEF flexible budget (â,¬8k -SSC2)
Input from partners	Personnel costs	5000a + YYb	XXb

(1) overhead included
(2) specify why you need the extra funds from MarBEF
^a Travel and subsistence for first workshop: 1000 euro/participant; Small progress meetings (3-4/participant): 1000 euro/participant; Final joint workshop: 1000 euro/participant
^b Additional budget to invite other experts to (first and final) workshops: XX Euro per partner plus budget to support travel for MSc students and post-doc YY

Key Areas for responsive mode actions

Specific issues relating to valuation and marine ecosystem management included in the network that will be used as case studies are:

3.1 Fisheries and aquaculture

Fisheries policies are moving away from single to multispecies assessments and more recently towards the ecosystem approach. A number of programmes originated or coordinated by ICES (The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) already implicate global change processes as one of the causes of change of commercial fish populations (Cod and Climate, GLOBEC). Fisheries activities have substantial effects on ecosystem processes and there is an urgent need to integrate fisheries and environmental management to ensure sustainability of ecosystem functioning and also of the fisheries themselves. Besides fisheries, marine aquaculture is an important and growing economic activity in countries such as Ireland, Greece, Italy, Scotland, Spain and Norway and new problems of controlling biological invasions have become widespread in recent years. Furthermore, until the development of vegetable feeds has been achieved, aquaculture practices will continue to drive the need for harvested fish protein for fishmeal. Marine aquaculture in Europe and the associated member states presents a remarkable diversity in terms of farmed species, management practices, environmental conditions and socio-economic contexts. All these variables determine to different extents the nature of aquaculture-biodiversity interactions by producing various types of effects in different regions of Europe. In order to arrive at general conclusions on the nature of these impacts and to obtain meaningful management guidelines and operational tools it is important to integrate information from sources covering a wide range of this diversity and this can be done only through international co-operation.

3.2 Integrated Coastal Zone Management

There are many different zones such as the coast zone, the continental shelf or the deep sea. These require planning and management of the sometimes conflicting uses within them and an understanding of biodiversity as one of the main ecosystem assets. As argued above, the comprehensive valuation of marine biodiversity is for the moment impossible because most basic knowledge is missing, but in future it will without doubt become a major argument in the designation of areas for nature conservation and protection, sport and commercial fisheries, tourism, waste disposal, for establishing shipping routes and procedures for the disposal of ballast water, and for policies pertaining to the deliberate introduction of exotic species.

Marine protected areas are increasingly being used as management tools to protect endangered species and habitats. The criteria for the design of protected areas are largely derived from terrestrial ecological theory and little scientific basis exists for an integrated policy of conservation in the marine environment that takes into account the particulars of marine life histories. Furthermore, the uninformed implementation of MPAs could have either positive or negative social and economic consequences for a variety of stakeholders. Understanding these dynamics is essential for informed decisions regarding MPA implementation.

To be effective, management of marine systems must be achievable and legislation must be successfully implemented and enforced. It is essential that the effect of marine management and legislation upon human individuals and society are examined and incorporated into the development of management support tools. The overall aim of MarBEF is to ensure that future environmental management of marine biodiversity is holistic and equitable, allowing sustainable exploitation of the goods and services, whilst maintaining, or improving, the overall state of the environment.