| Coastal
A-Z [return to Table of Contents] Ecosystem-based Management A leading recommendation of the Pew Ocean Commission and the US Commission on Ocean Policy was the need to apply ecosystem-based management (EBM) to protect and conserve our coastal ocean environment. Subsequently, the need for EBM has been emphasized by the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative and the West Coast Governor’s Agreement on Ocean Health among others. EBM has become the recommended paradigm for ocean and coastal conservation. So what does ecosystem-based management mean? Communication Partnership for Science and Sea (COMPASS), an organization dedicated to helping coordinate and communicate important marine conservation science issues defines ecosystem-based management as the following: "Ecosystem-based management is an integrated approach to management that considers the entire ecosystem, including humans. The goal of ecosystem-based management is to maintain an ecosystem in a healthy, productive, and resilient condition, so that it can provide the services humans want and need. Ecosystem-based management differs from current approaches that usually focus on a single species, sector, activity or concern; it considers the cumulative impacts of different sectors."In other words, ecosystem-based management means taking the entire ecosystem, the way it interacts, including with humans, into the equation when making decisions. While this may be revolutionary for government agencies, the concept is very intuitive for Surfrider’s grass roots activists. Our advocacy tends to take a community-based or area-based approach in addressing coastal issues, which often tends to be inherently ecosystem-based. At conceptual level this seems obvious but exactly how to put EBM into practice remains ambiguous and challenging. One practical place to start experiment with EBM is at the community level and that is exactly what the Surfrider Foundation is trying to do. The Surfrider Foundation is active in four precedent setting community scale “ecosystem-based management” campaigns that are demonstrating the value of proactive coastal and ocean management that takes the entire ecosystem into consideration. These communities are the San Juan Islands in Washington, Port Orford in Oregon, Ventura in California and Rincón in Puerto Rico. To learn more about EBM visit: http://www.compassonline.org/ http://www.marineebm.org/ Additional: "The goal of ecosystem-based management is to maintain the health of the whole as well as the parts. It acknowledges the connections among things." -Pew Oceans Report, 2003 |
  
 
Photo credits from top to bottom: Port Orford by Pete Stauffer; Ventura aerial photo by US Bureau of Reclamation; Trawler in San Juan Islands by Jody Kennedy; Lighthouse in San Juan Islands by Critter Thompson; Orcas in San Juan Islands by Critter Thompson. |