Informe El medio ambiente en Europa: Estado y perspectivas 2020

PART 3
In practice, ecosystem-based
management brings together many of
the features of innovative governance
already highlighted in this section.
In addition to being a distinctively
‘place-based’ governance approach,
ecosystem‐based management involves
(McLeod and Leslie, 2009; NOAA, 2018):
• Engaging multiple actors: Rather
than addressing individual sectors,
ecosystem-based management
highlights the importance of
interactions between stakeholders
in a socio-ecological system and
their cumulative impacts on the
environment. This includes engaging
actors at different levels — from local
to global — in coordinating actions and
sharing data.
• Actions towards shared
targets: Engaging sectors, public
authorities and other actors is achieved
by defining shared targets linked to
ecosystem functioning. For example,
the Water Framework Directive
requires that water bodies achieve
good ecological status across a variety
of biological, hydromorphological and
physico‐chemical characteristics.
• Focusing on diverse sustainability
outcomes: Ecosystem-based
management captures the full range of
benefits associated with maintaining
ecosystem service flows, as well as the
trade-offs inherent in reconciling the
activities of multiple sectors and other
actors at a particular spatial scale.
• Monitoring and adaptive
governance: Recognising that complex
systems are constantly changing in ways
that cannot be predicted or controlled,
ecosystem-based management
embraces an adaptive governance style,
Ecosystem-based approaches
help in understanding
environmental trends and
coordinating collective action
to preserve natural capital.
grounded in flexible and innovative
institutions that are highly responsive to
new information and experiences.
• Multidisciplinarity:
Understanding the interactions of
multiple societal and ecological systems
requires broad knowledge, including
‘synthesizing and applying knowledge
from across social and natural sciences,
as well as the humanities’ (Leslie and
McLeod, 2007).
Within EU governance, ecosystembased
management underpins some
of the key environmental policies that
together contribute to implementing
the EU biodiversity strategy, notably
the Water Framework Directive and
the Marine Strategy Framework
Directive. Since their introduction,
these tools have enabled a shift in
governance, bringing together sectors
and Member States to consider and
balance their collective interests and
assess the cumulative pressures that
they are placing on particular regions
(EEA, 2015a).
The shift to a systems approach in
EU environmental governance is not
simple, because it challenges established
knowledge, skills, decision making
processes and structures (Voulvoulis
et al., 2017). Perhaps, partly for these
reasons, Europe still has a long way
to go to achieve good status in its
freshwater and marine ecosystems
(as discussed in Part 2 of this report).
Nevertheless, adopting ecosystembased
approaches provides an essential
starting point for understanding the
links between ecological status and
the diverse pressures imposed by
society and for coordinating collective
action in ways that preserve Europe’s
natural capital. As such, there could be
significant value in strengthening the
implementation of ecosystem-based
management and extending its use in EU
environmental policy.
Overall, ecosystem-based management
provides a natural complement to the
transitions frameworks described in
this chapter. Whereas the multi-level
perspective is much stronger than
ecosystem-based management in
explaining the dynamics of change
in production-consumption systems,
it gives limited consideration to
cross‐system interactions and
environmental impacts and thresholds.
In contrast, ecosystem-based
management addresses precisely these
kinds of interlinkages and effects, using
ecological criteria, and exploring them
at the spatial scales most appropriate
for managing nature-society
interactions, such as a river catchment
area or a regional sea spanning multiple
administrative boundaries. Considering
the multi-level perspective and
ecosystem-based management together
in future policy design could help
accelerate sustainability transitions in
line with the 2050 vision of the Seventh
Environment Action Programme.
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