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Overview of Management Strategies and Instruments

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Handbook on Marine Environment Protection

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Abstract

The rapidly increasing demand for marine space for different purposes, such as offshore wind farms, oil and gas exploitation, fishing, aquaculture, shipping and tourism and the cumulative impact of the various activities on the marine and coastal environment have led to a growing recognition of the need for sustainable management strategies and legal governance. There is a broad variety of regulatory tools and the choice of instruments depends on the nature of the activity concerned and its potential effects on the marine environment. Direct regulation of marine uses may encompass the setting of restrictions and prohibitions as well as the establishment of licensing and permitting requirements. Integrated policies and cross-sectoral planning and management approaches like marine spatial planning are required to deal with conflicting uses and cumulative effects. Monitoring, surveillance and reporting obligations are important tools to acquire information on the state of the marine environment and the effects of various activities upon it. Besides the more traditional forms of direct regulation, market-based instruments like environmental taxes, charges or eco-labelling may provide incentives to consumers and businesses for environmentally friendly behaviour. This chapter gives an overview of various management strategies and instruments and their application to human activities in the marine environment.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The enforcement of international legal regimes on the high seas is primarily the responsibility of the flag State whereas a special regime applies to deep-sea mining activities in the Area (see Kimball 2005: 6).

  2. 2.

    Commission Decision 2010/477/EU on criteria and methodological standards on good environmental status of marine waters contains a number of criteria and associated indicators for assessing GES, in relation to the descriptors laid down in Annex I MSFD.

  3. 3.

    Annex I of the London Convention contains a ‘black list’ of hazardous substances which may not be dumped whereas its Annex II sets out a ‘grey list’ of other identified materials for which dumping requires a special permit. The 1996 London Protocol takes the opposite approach and prohibits all dumping, except for possibly acceptable wastes on the so-called ‘reverse list’.

  4. 4.

    With the new Basic Regulation, TACs have to be fixed in line with the management target of maximum sustainable yield (MSY), see Art. 2 (2) Basic Regulation.

  5. 5.

    Among the species listed in the appendices of the convention are marine species or groups of species like cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises), sea turtles and corals.

  6. 6.

    Bell, McGillivray and Pedersen (2013, p. 236) hint at the fact that different pieces of legislation use different words (permission, authorization, consent or license) but essentially mean the same thing.

  7. 7.

    See e.g. Art. 210 (5) UNCLOS requiring express prior approval of the coastal State as regards dumping within the territorial sea, the EEZ or onto the continental shelf; Arts. III-VI CITES requiring different kinds of export permits for species listed; Arts. 2 and 6 Seeanlagenverordnung [SeeAnlV] (Marine Facilities Ordinance) making the construction of installations in the German EEZ for commercial purposes subject to approval by the Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH).

  8. 8.

    Annex VI MSFD indicates types of measures, e.g. input and output controls, control of spatial and temporal distribution of activities, economic incentives, communication and stakeholder involvement, that shall be taken into consideration.

  9. 9.

    Resolution 17.38 of the IUCN General Assembly, 1988.

  10. 10.

    See e.g. Art. 3(1)(b)(ii) of Annex V OSPAR Convention, OSPAR Recommendation 2003/3 on a Network of Marine Protected Areas; Art. 15 Helsinki Convention, HELCOM Recommendation 35/1 ‘System of Coastal and Marine Baltic Sea Protected Areas (HELCOM MPAs)’; as regards the high seas see paragraph 2 of General Assembly Resolution 69/292 of 6 July 2015 ‘Development of an international legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction’.

  11. 11.

    See e.g. Council Regulation (EC) No 602/2004 as regards the protection of deepwater coral reefs from the effects of trawling in an area northwest of Scotland.

  12. 12.

    See IMO Assembly Resolution A.927(22), Guidelines for the Designation of Special Areas under MARPOL 73/78 and Guidelines for the Identification and Designation of Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas (Nov. 29, 2001).

  13. 13.

    See e.g. Art. 204 UNCLOS; Art. 5 (l) Straddling Fish Stocks Agreement; Art. 7 CBD; Annex IV Art. 1 OSPAR Convention; Arts. 11, 17 Habitats Directive (Directive 92/43/EEC); as regards national laws see e.g. Art. 6 of the German Bundesnaturschutzgesetz [BNatSchG] (Federal Nature Conservation Act).

  14. 14.

    According to Art. 2 (3) Aarhus Convention, the term ‘environmental information’ encompasses information on the state of elements of the environment, such as air and atmosphere, water, soil, land, landscape and natural sites, biological diversity and its components, including genetically modified organisms, and the interaction among these elements and a broad range of activities or measures (such as administrative measures, environmental agreements, policies, legislation, plans and programmes).

  15. 15.

    The first international instrument to create a right of access to environmental information was Council Directive 90/313/EEC (see Sands 2003, p. 854); the 1992 OSPAR Convention in Art. 9 provides for access to information.

  16. 16.

    See e.g. Principle 17 of the Rio Declaration, Art. 206 UNCLOS, the Espoo Convention and Directive 2011/92/EU.

  17. 17.

    See e.g. the 2003 Protocol on Strategic Environmental Assessment to the Espoo Convention or Directive 2001/42/EC of 27 June 2001 on the assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment.

  18. 18.

    See Annex VI (6) MSFD, according to which economic incentives make it the economic interest of those using the marine ecosystems to act in ways which help to achieve the good environmental status objective.

  19. 19.

    See the OECD database on instruments used for environmental policy and natural resources management, http://www2.oecd.org/ecoinst/queries/Default.aspx.

  20. 20.

    Another example for a voluntary agreement is the ‘Freiwillige Vereinbarung zum Schutz von Schweinswalen und tauchenden Meeresenten’ (voluntary agreement for the conservation of harbour porpoises and sea ducks) between German fishery associations and the Ministry of Energy transition, Agriculture, Environment and Rural Areas Schleswig-Holstein (MELUR) of 17.12.2013.

  21. 21.

    It is complemented by the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage (FUND) of 1971, also amended in 1992.

  22. 22.

    In contrast to civil liability systems, the European Directive 2004/35/EC on environmental liability with regard to the prevention and remedying of environmental damage takes an administrative approach, i.e. it is based on the powers and duties of public authorities, and also covers damage to ‘the environment in itself’ (i.e. damage is not limited to clean-up costs and loss of profit).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, Bonn, Germany

    Carolin Kieß

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  1. Carolin Kieß
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Correspondence to Carolin Kieß .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. German Advisory Council on the Environment, Berlin, Germany

    Markus Salomon

  2. University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Till Markus

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Kieß, C. (2018). Overview of Management Strategies and Instruments. In: Salomon, M., Markus, T. (eds) Handbook on Marine Environment Protection . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60156-4_31

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