Sustaining the World's Large Marine Ecosystems

Exploration of the Sea, and the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) (see Thulin, this
volume).
The Way Forward to Ecosystem-based Management
In the 10-year timeline of annualized adaptive management actions depicted in
Figure 28, the SAP provides the participating countries opportunity to continue
the LME assessment and management practice as a self-financing activity
supported with partnerships among stakeholders and engaged ministries vested
with responsibility for marine resource development and sustainability.
In the mid-1990s the scientific basis for moving toward ecosystem based
assessment and management of marine goods and services was put forward by
(Lubchenco 1994) and the Ecological Society of America (Christensen et al.
1996). This movement represents a paradigm shift moving from single species
assessments to multiple species assessments and the LME scale for measuring
changing ecosystem states on an annual basis with a focus on not only
ecosystem goods but also ecosystem services (Figure 29). More recent attention
has been focused on the diminished services to humans of marine ecosystems
and the concern that small changes in ecosystem resilience and robustness can
lead to non-linear interactions, regime shifts, and collapses (Levin and
Lubchenco 2008). Risks of ecosystem collapse are significantly diminished
under resilient and robust ecosystem conditions wherein depleted fish
populations can successfully be rebuilt (Worm et al. 2009). It is important to
maintain close linkages among management activities framed to sustain
socioeconomic ecosystem benefits. Monitoring and assessment methodology for
measuring changing states using the 5-module suites of indicators: ecosystem
productivity, fish and fisheries, pollution and ecosystem health (e.g. robustness
and resilience) provide a scientific foundation for management policy that must
also provide for socioeconomic benefits under a mutually agreeable governance
regime.
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FROM TO
Individual species Ecosystems
Small spatial scale Multiple scales
Short-term perspective Long-term perspective
Humans: independent of ecosystems Humans: integral part of ecosystems
Management divorced from research Adaptive management
Managing commodities Sustaining production potential for
goods and services
Figure 29. A paradigm shift to ecosystem-based management. (from Lubchenco 1994). The
scientific basis of ecosystem management. 103 rd Congress, 2d session, Committee Print. U.S.
Government Printing Office.