Sustaining the World's Large Marine Ecosystems

describing practical applications of the LME approach to recover and sustain
depleted and degraded marine goods and services.
Global LME Movement
Sustaining the World’s Large Marine Ecosystems, provides examples of
advances made in the operationalization of the five-module approach to
ecosystem based management (EBM) for sustaining the goods and services of
the world’s LMEs. The opening contribution by A. Duda is focused on the global
movement underway by the LME partners (GEF, UNEP, UNDP, UNIDO, IOC-
UNESCO,FAO, NOAA, IUCN and WWF) to assist over 100 developing countries
in operationalizing the LME approach to the assessment and management of
coastal ocean goods and services. The following chapter, by Sherman et al.,
describes the suites of indicators used to monitor and assess changing states of
LMEs in support of ecosystem-based adaptive management practices. The
subsequent contributions are focused on the results of initial phases of fully
operationalized LME projects. In the case of the Benguela Current LME, M.
O’Toole describes the emergence of the world’s first LME governance
Commission. In his chapter, he summarizes the present institutional structures,
future plans, and lessons learned from ten years of engagement by Angola,
Namibia, and South Africa in operationalizing the LME approach to address
specific transboundary priorities of the Benguela Current LME project based on
the countries’ agreed upon Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA) and
Strategic Action Program (SAP).
LME Project Applications
In the Baltic Sea LME (BSLME) project chapter, J. Thulin describes the
application of the 5-module LME approach for controlling nutrient overenrichment
from improved agricultural practices in partnership with the WWF and
the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM). With regard to fisheries sustainability, he
explains how the BSLME project enhanced the application of the ecosystembased
approach to initiate recovery of depleted fish stocks of the BSLME through
activities of working groups of the International Council for the Exploration of the
Sea (ICES) and supported by GEF funds to allow for greater participation in the
project by emerging democratic countries of the eastern Baltic.
Q. Tang, addresses the application of time-series metrics for investigating multidecadal
changing states of the Yellow Sea LME (YSLME). Results of the
analyses of ecosystem productivity and ecosystem health are described in
relation to environmental and anthropogenic ecosystem driving forces of change.
He concludes the chapter with a description of an adaptive management
approach to both recover depleted fisheries and improve the water quality of the
YSLME. A major effort to reduce fishing effort is selected as the strategy to
recover depleted capture fishery stocks, while a parallel marine mariculture effort
is to be ramped up to replace the estimated loss of capture fisheries biomass
yields with intensive expansion of marine polyculture.
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