Paper accompanying the OSPAR presentation to the NOWPAP Workshop on EcoQOs Gert Verreet, Deputy Secretary OSPAR Commission, London, 21 July 2014 Contents Some key drivers for ecological quality objectives in European (/North-East Atlantic) marine environmental policy developments ............................................................................................................. 2 First experience with EcoQOs in OSPAR 2002 - 2010 .................................................................................... 4 Mainstreaming the EcoQOs within the 'Good Environmental Status' concept of the MSFD ....................... 8 A dilemma: scientific maturity of EcoQOs and the 'normative' use of objectives to create a level playing field ................................................................................................................................................................ 9 Updating OSPAR monitoring and assessment for the next period: 'common indicators' .......................... 10 Practical considerations that should inform the selection of EcoQOs, operational objectives and indicators & targets ..................................................................................................................................... 11 References - 1: relevant publications (accessible via internet search) ....................................................... 13 References - 2: OSPAR Publications on Ecological Quality Objectives ........................................................ 13 Annex 1 Overview table of the EcoQO system for the North Sea (OSPAR, 2009) ...................................... 15 Annex 2 OSPAR Common Indicators (and Candidate Indicators): 2014 update .........................................17 1
Some key drivers for ecological quality objectives in European (/North-East Atlantic) marine environmental policy developments While the legislative 'landscape' of marine environmental protection was very fragmented in the 1970s and 1980s, a political movement to consider marine environmental protection in a more 'holistic' way was getting traction in Europe, as evidenced in the 'North Sea Conferences' that happened from 1984-2006. The intention was that marine environmental issues would be looked at in a more integral way across different policy instruments and responsible organisations. The Regional Sea Conventions such as the Oslo and Paris Commissions (now OSPAR) for the North-East Atlantic and the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) for the Baltic Sea were considered to be useful institutional platforms where these more 'integrated' approaches could be developed. The FAO Reykjavik declaration of 2001, reinforced at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002, required nations to use an ecosystem approach to develop policy governing the exploitation of marine resources by 2010. The political pressure to implement the Ecosystem Approach with a system of Ecological Quality Objectives resulted in a political commitment to this by the countries around the North Sea in 2002. The conceptual framework for an Ecosystem Approach ( Figure 1 ) embedded a first selection of 'ecological quality objectives'. Figure 1 - Conceptual framework on Ecosystem Approach from the 2002 North Sea Conference declaration For the North-East Atlantic and the Baltic Sea, OSPAR and HELCOM adopted in 2003 the definition of Ecosystem Approach provided by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). This described the Ecosystem Approach as: 2
" a comprehensive integrated management of human activities based on the best available scientific knowledge about the ecosystem and its dynamics, in order to identify and take action on influences which are critical to the health of the marine ecosystems, thereby achieving sustainable use of ecosystem goods and services and maintenance of ecosystem integrity. " This description also placed humans as part of natural ecosystems, and stressed that human activities [emphasis added] in these ecosystems must be managed so that they do not compromise ecosystem components that contribute to the structural and functional integrity of the ecosystem. (ICES, 2005) The late 1990s was a period in which European water policy was also changed dramatically with the negotiation of the Water Framework Directive (EC, 2000). Taking account of the slow progress of earlier approaches (by substance, by sector, ...) and with the gradual geographic expansion of the European Communities / European Union to ever more Member States, the fundamental environmental legislation became 'framework' legislation, taking up the main previous commitments. This new approach also required that water managers would make plans with specific objectives and targets for specific water bodies (rivers, lakes, groundwater, coastal waters), within a common methodological framework. This directive was a 'template' for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (see below). In 2002, the European Community agreed that, within its 6th Environmental Action Programme, a thematic strategy for the marine environment should be developed (" a thematic strategy for the protection and conservation of the marine environment taking into account, inter alia, the terms and implementation obligations of marine Conventions, and the need to reduce emissions and impacts of sea transport and other sea and land-based activities " (EC, 2002)). As a result of a process of discussion with Member States, international organisations and stakeholders, the European Commission decided in 2005 to propose a new legislative instrument which became the Marine Strategy Framework Directive 2008 (EC, 2008). This Directive is now providing an important legal framework for marine environmental protection action by the EU Member States. It can be considered to be, within the EU legal order, a 'legal embodiment' of the ecosystem approach, as illustrated in Table 1 (from Verreet, 2009). The Step 4 (& 5) is a pivotal step between preparation and management - and measures, i.e. they guide policy. This scheme corresponds strongly to that of the NOWPAP workshop's working document § 13. 3
First experience with EcoQOs in OSPAR 2002 - 2010 In the period 1997-2002 the 'Ecological Quality' (EcoQ) and 'Ecological Quality Objective' (EcoQO) discussion in OSPAR remained fairly academic. The 2002 Bergen Declaration of the North Sea Conferences gave a big push forward. They agreed on a first list of issues for which EcoQOs would be developed ( Table A , next page) and a first set of EcoQOs, for which they invited ICES and OSPAR to develop them further through a pilot study for the North Sea ( Table B , next page). The work to test and implement the EcoQOs was undertaken by several groups of experts reporting to the thematic OSPAR Committees that were responsible for the subject matter, so, for example, the 'Biodiversity Committee' would take responsibility for the biodiversity-related EcoQOs. The conclusions of the work were reported to the OSPAR Commission meetings. Monitoring, data collection and assessment were established using already existing initiatives and processes. The EcoQOs were then developed and used for the monitoring and assessment of the North Sea, with a revised EcoQO Manual published in 2009. In that process, wording of the 'objective' became more detailed and specific (see Annex 1 ). Key reporting stages in the decade 2000 - 2010 include (see References - 2): - further stakeholder engagement in the wake of the North Sea Conference - see OSPAR, 2005; - technical documentation and an overall 'handbook' (2005, 2009, 2011, 2012); - reports on overall system testing and implementation (OSPAR, 2006 and 2009). The 'learning experience' of the North Sea pilot project was documented in an evaluation report (OSPAR, 2009). Some of the findings include: Strengths 1. Accelerated by North Sea Conferences and EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive: Ecosystem Approach becomes leading principle for North Sea management 2. Much knowledge available 3. Quality control by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES - an independent and scientific international advisory body) 4. Tested in practice 5. Communication tools to inform stakeholders and politicians Weaknesses 6. Slow start, scientific and operational difficulties 7. Lack of coordination amongst the many organisations involved 8. No success in the short term 9. Lack of commitment The practice of the use of EcoQOs remained mostly limited to the North Sea area where they had first been developed. The assessment criteria of some EcoQOs could successfully be expanded to other areas, through adaptation. e.g. the EcoQO on imposex was expanded to other target species. In general it can be said that the EcoQOs at the level of features of biological populations at higher trophic levels (e.g. bycatch level of marine mammals, bird population status, ...) were the more difficult to make operational. A crucial requirement is that the monitoring can be undertaken on a sustainable basis. 4
5
The testing and application resulted in the use of the EcoQOs in the overall assessment of the state of the environment in the North-East Atlantic: see Quality Status Report 2010 (OSPAR, 2010) and Figure 2 . Figure 2 - Overview of EcoQO assessment in the OSPAR Quality Status Report 2010 6
Recommend
More recommend
