Carballo Cárdenas, Eira

Coelho, Nelson F.

Long, Ronán

Papadopoulou, Nadia

Ramirez-Monsalve, Paulina

Smith , Chris

van Tatenhove, Jan

English

    Aalborg UniversitetD6.4. Policy brief providing input and options for the development of legitimategovernance arrangements and effective regimes regulating the conservation,restoration and recovering of marine ecosystems: Marine Ecosystem Restoration inChanging European Seas MERCESRamirez-Monsalve, Paulina; Carballo Cárdenas, Eira; Coelho, Nelson F.; Papadopoulou,Nadia; Smith , Chris ; Long, Ronán; van Tatenhove, JanPublication date:2020Document VersionPublisher's PDF, also known as Version of recordLink to publication from Aalborg UniversityCitation for published version (APA):Ramirez-Monsalve, P., Carballo Cárdenas, E., Coelho, N. F., Papadopoulou, N., Smith , C., Long, R., & vanTatenhove, J. (2020). D6.4. Policy brief providing input and options for the development of legitimategovernance arrangements and effective regimes regulating the conservation, restoration and recovering ofmarine ecosystems: Marine Ecosystem Restoration in Changing European Seas MERCES. European Union.General rightsCopyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright ownersand it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.            ? Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research.            ? You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain            ? You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ?Take down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us at vbn@aub.aau.dk providing details, and we will remove access tothe work immediately and investigate your claim.Downloaded from vbn.aau.dk on: August 24, 2021          D6.4: Policy brief providing input and options for the development of legitimate governance arrangements and effective regimes regulating the conservation, restoration and recovering of marine ecosystems   Marine Ecosystem Restoration in Changing European Seas MERCES Grant agreement n. 689518 COORDINATOR: UNIVPM   LEAD BENEFICIARY: 8 – Wageningen University  AUTHORS: Paulina Ramírez-Monsalve (AAU), Eira Carballo-Cárdenas (WU), Nelson F. Coelho (AAU), Nadia Papadopoulou (HCMR), Chris Smith (HCMR), Ronán Long (MLOPRS), Jan van Tatenhove (AAU)  SUBMISSION DATE: 23/11/2020   DISSEMINATION LEVEL    PU  Public – (Policy Brief)   WP 6 Deliverable 6.4       CONTENTS  1. GOVERNANCE OF MERCES: LEGITIMACY ISSUES ................................................................. 1 1.1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................................................................. 1 1.2. SCOPE OF DELIVERABLE 6.4 ........................................................................................................ 2 1.3. RECOMMENDATIONS .................................................................................................................... 3 Input legitimacy .................................................................................................................................................... 3 Throughput legitimacy ...................................................................................................................................... 3 Output legitimacy ................................................................................................................................................ 3 Regulatory fragmentation ............................................................................................................................... 4 Regional institutions ........................................................................................................................................... 4 Active and preventive approach .................................................................................................................... 5 2. REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................... 5 3. ANNEXES ......................................................................................................................................... 7 3.1. ANNEX I – POLICY BRIEF (PDF) [PU[.......................................................................................... 7        1. Governance of MERCES: legitimacy issues  1.1. Executive summary This Policy Brief is on the development of legitimate governance arrangements regulating the conservation, restoration and recovering of marine ecosystems. The key focus of researchers involved in drafting this document was on understanding the governance and legal factors that may enable and constrain the achievement of European Union Biodiversity Strategy goals. This Policy Brief builds on theoretical work on marine governance, applicable beyond the context of marine ecosystem restoration. Those theories consider the relations between various stakeholders over different activities at sea. In the context of marine ecosystem restoration, researchers applied this theoretical framework to uncover and highlight the interactions and interdependencies of actors involved in restoration activities. Relevant actors are understood as those who are influential in achieving restoration goals, but also those who are impacted by related actions. The existence of incompatible interests in this field stresses the need for legitimately created and maintained governance arrangements. Legitimacy is the acceptance of the political system by actors involved, the outcome of policy processes and the quality of policy making. The starting point of this Policy Brief is that a legitimate governance arrangement is dependent upon the involvement of stakeholders (input legitimacy), the quality of the decision-making process (throughput legitimacy), and the delivering of agreed plans, programs, strategies, and results (output legitimacy). The integration of that finding into the context to marine ecosystem restoration is based on the governance approach developed in the MERCES project. This governance approach consists of three pillars. First, the concept of Marine Restoration Governance Arrangements (MRGA), referring to the temporary stabilization of the marine restoration policy domain in terms of coalitions of actors, discourses, rules of the game and resources. Second, a typology of restoration discourses elaborated around motivations (eco-centric vs. anthropocentric) and modalities varying from active to passive restoration, referring to the level of human intervention in the ecosystem. Restoration discourses present distinct ways of defining the problem of restoration and preferred solutions. Third, a conceptual understanding of uncertainty, which acknowledges three types of uncertainties: incomplete knowledge, unpredictability and ambiguity. The Policy Brief uses the governance framework to analyse the legitimacy of emergent marine restoration governance arrangements (MRGA) in three MERCES case studies, namely the       restoration of fan mussel (Pinna nobilis) and red coral (Corallium rubrum) in the Mediterranean Sea, and the potential use of decommissioned oil and gas platforms in the North Sea as artificial reefs. In these three cases, researchers have found a gap between national and supra-national institutional responses (top-down approach)  ̶  which stress on passive forms of restoration such as closure of areas  ̶ and decentralized initiatives (bottom-up approach), which promote active restoration by private and small-scale initiatives such as species transplantation.  The Policy Brief then issues a set of recommendations to fill the identified implementation gap, taking into consideration legitimacy issues. These recommendations stress the need to promote inclusion (input legitimacy), transparency and clarity of rules (throughput legitimacy) as well as target setting and delivery of results based on common understanding of restoration, goals and uncertainties (output legitimacy) in MRGAs. The recommendations also expand on the need to tackle regulatory fragmentation, facilitate regional transboundary dialogue and combining prevention with proactive approaches to marine ecosystem restoration. These recommendations aim to guide decision-makers in being aware of all the essential preconditions of legitimacy for MRGAs. 1.2. Scope of deliverable 6.4 Deliverable 6.4 is a policy brief providing input and options for the development of legitimate governance arrangements and effective regimes regulating the conservation, restoration and recovering of marine ecosystems. The policy brief is based upon the research we have done during the MERCES project and focuses more specifically on issues of legitimacy in marine ecosystem restoration governance. During the period December 2018 and October 2020 we have done additional research to understand different types of legitimacy, related to the three cases of D6.3 (North Sea oil and gas decommissioning and the rigs-to-reefs debate; and the fan mussel (Pinna nobilis) and red coral (Corallium rubrum) restoration in the Mediterranean) [1].  Deliverable D6.4 mentions both the development of legitimate governance arrangements and effective regimes. A regime complex is ‘an array of partially overlapping and non-hierarchical institutions governing a particular issue area’. Such a complex would fall somewhere in the middle of a continuum running from fully integrated institutional arrangements at one extreme to highly fragmented collections of arrangements at the other. Examples of regime complexes in the maritime domain are shipping, fishing and oil and gas regimes. Each maritime policy domain has its own institutional dynamic, reflecting the different levels at which sectoral maritime activities are regulated [2]. In our discussion about the set-up of this deliverable we came to the conclusion that the concept of regime complexes as used in political science was not informative       enough to understand the issues of legitimacy in the three cases we researched. We therefore reformulated regime complexes as actors/coalitions (as one of the dimensions of a Marine Restoration Governance Arrangement). As a consequence, our analysis focused on governance arrangements, which incorporates and extends the notion of a regime complex. Based on the outcome of our research for the 4 deliverables we formulate recommendations in the policy brief. 1.3. Recommendations  Input legitimacy The EU aims to promote participation in its EU-system for ocean and water governance [3]. In this process, it is crucial that actors who are influential in achieving restoration goals, and those who are impacted by and interested in restoration actions are involved in MRGAs. These actors should be part of defining the problem and formulating potential solutions for it (e.g. what sort of commitment and measures and implementation benefits they bring to the table to achieve the common shared target). Their participation needs to be ensured and strengthened. Considerations need to be made also for those who are excluded –or feel excluded. What are the reasons or evidence provided for this exclusion –or feeling of exclusion? Throughput legitimacy Procedures for decision-making should be established and followed by actors within the MRGA. Transparency (e.g. visibility and understanding of decision-making processes by insiders and outsiders of the MRGA) and clarity of rules (e.g. rules about who is allowed to participate, how decisions are taken and by whom, while stakeholders know their roles and responsibilities) needs to be ensured. Procedures also relate to management of available resources, and to awareness of limiting and supporting factors for achievement of the restoration goals. The wide consultation with Member States and stakeholders planned for 2021 in preparation of the new European Ocean and Water Agency, as well as the European Blue Citizen’s Forum [4] should establish clear procedures to guide the various MRGAs forming around specific species/habitats/ecosystems in the various EU regions. Output legitimacy A common understanding of restoration, of the goal to reach, and of the related uncertainties need to be established within a MRGA [5, 6]. This process requires awareness of the multiplicity of ways in which restoration is conceptualized and practiced, and mechanisms should be in place that facilitate this process. Output legitimacy of governance arrangements not only refers to       achieving restoration goals (producing impact), but also if the results are in accordance with desired plans and programs (outputs), and by the strategies set by the actors (outcomes). Evaluating the output legitimation of a MRGA is about whether the MRGA achieved what was promised. In other words were the actors able to agree to a common goal, under a common conceptualization and understanding of the problem, did they have the needed resources, and were they able to manoeuvre within the existing rules to reach that promised objective – be it an aspiration, a target, or an ambition. At the Member State level, EU-set targets [3] should provide the benchmark to assess output legitimacy. A shared understanding of ecosystem degradation, recovery and agreement on descriptors and thresholds of change should be reached in order to be able to assess progress towards meeting such restoration targets [6]. Regulatory fragmentation The findings and conclusions reached based on our work [5, 6, 7] largely converge with the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030’s and Mission Starfish’s aims [3, 4]. Part of the planned European biodiversity governance framework [4] should include a set of strategies and instruments that will:   Facilitate actors within a MRGA to align their actions with policy goals associated to restoration;  Facilitate registration of individual initiatives that might be “out of the radar” as they are not responding to a top-down legal obligation;  Facilitate MRGA to find avenues to “scale up” and further their success by achieving a measurable impact beyond their local success. All and all providing a level of transparency which is now lacking, as well as accountability mechanisms to ensure that Member States are answerable regarding their restoration obligations.  Regional institutions A gap exists between the existing nature conservation directives and the challenges associated with regional, sub-regional and local implementation and transboundary coordination capabilities for restoration projects within European seas [6]. This finding reveals and highlights that a fragmented institutional setting within the EU governance framework represents a constraining factor to the emergence of legitimate governance arrangements around marine ecosystem restoration. Building on this, the newly proposed high level European approach of the marine biodiversity strategy 2030 should actively facilitate the development of legitimate governance arrangements along regional specificities, while strengthening implementation mechanisms and the links with Regional Sea Conventions to meet the new aspirations and       binding commitments. Furthermore, it is important to facilitate transboundary dialogue between public agencies responsible for management of restoration practices and respective target implementation to ensure national boundaries are not an obstacle to legitimately restoring marine ecosystems. Active and preventive approach Among the conditions that will enable active restoration are:   The presence of “drivers of change” (e.g. species decline, or a mass mortality event);  Appearance of new actors which would (re)define and propose alternative ways of addressing the problem;  Discovery of new scientific evidence on marine ecosystem restoration;  Enthusiastic willingness of volunteers. Among the conditions that will enable the institutionalization of active MRGA are [3, 5]:  Legally binding targets and a restoration prioritization framework;  An institutional framework that will respond to shocks (i.e. mass mortality events);  A regional plan that will prompt scaling-up of active restoration actions.  It is important to be aware that a much stronger emphasis on restoration – compared to prevention, might see the emergence of short-term interests characterized by “no prevention now because we will restore later”. Preventive and proactive approaches should be combined; restoration is not presented as an alternative for prevention but rather as an additional approach to meet biodiversity conservation and recovery goals [8].  2. References 1. Ramírez-Monsalve, P. et al., Marine Restoration Governance Arrangements: Issues of legitimacy. Submitted to Environmental policy and governance 2. Van Tatenhove, Jan P.M (2019). Regulatory Mixes in Governance Arrangements in (Offshore) Oil Production: Are they smart? In: J. Van Erp, M. Faure, A. Nollkaemper, & N. Philipsen (Eds.), Smart Mixes for Transboundary Environmental Harm, pp. 309–326. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 3. EC (2020). European Commission, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. Bringing nature back into our lives. COM(2020) 380 final. Brussels, 20.5.2020 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52020DC0380   4. Lamy et al (2020). Mission Starfish 2030: Restore Our Ocean and Waters. https://op.europa.eu/s/onTH  5. Van Tatenhove, J. P. M., P. Ramírez-Monsalve, E. Carballo-Cárdenas, N. Papadopoulou, C. J. Smith, L. Alferink, K. Ounanian, and R. Long. (2020). The Governance of Marine Restoration: Insights from Three Cases       in Two European Seas. Restoration Ecology.  6. Carballo-Cárdenas, E., J. van Tatenhove, N. Papadopoulou, C. Smith, K. Ounanian, P. Ramírez-Monsalve, A. Delaney, and R. Long. (2018). D6.3. Review on Restoration, Conservation and Recovery of Marine Ecosystems in the Four Regional EU Seas. MERCES Project. 110 pp.  7. Ounanian, Kristen, Eira Carballo-Cárdenas, Jan P. M. van Tatenhove, Alyne Delaney, K. Nadia Papadopoulou, and Christopher J. Smith. (2018). Governing Marine Ecosystem Restoration: The Role of Discourses and Uncertainties. Marine Policy 96:136–44.  8. Bastmeijer, K. (2016). Ecological Restoration in International Biodiversity Law: A Promising Strategy to Address Our Failure to Prevent? In: Bowman, M., P. Davies, and E. Goodwin (eds.), Research handbook on biodiversity and law,. Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.           3. ANNEXES 3.1. Annex I – Policy brief (pdf) [PU[                                                         

D6.4. Policy brief providing input and options for the development of legitimate governance arrangements and effective regimes regulating the conservation, restoration and recovering of marine ecosystems: Marine Ecosystem Restoration in Changing European Seas MERCES

Ramírez-Monsalve, Paulina

Carballo Cardenas, E.C.

Smith, Chris

Long, Ronan

van Tatenhove, Jan P.M.

NARCIS 

D6.4. Policy brief providing input and options for the development of legitimate governance arrangements and effective regimes regulating the conservation, restoration and recovering of marine ecosystems : Marine Ecosystem Restoration in Changing European Seas MERCES

https://vbn.aau.dk/files/412120104/MERCES_D6.4_Annex_Policy_brief_FINAL.pdf

D6.4. Policy brief providing input and options for the development of legitimate governance arrangements and effective regimes regulating the conservation, restoration and recovering of marine ecosystems: Marine Ecosystem Restoration in Changing European Seas MERCES

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