D4.3 - Report on transferable good practices and policy recommendations

One of the most pressing challenges facing marine governance is the need to safeguard the loss of ecosystem biodiversity and functioning, while simultaneously allowing for their exploitation by those who depend on their services, goods and benefits. Establishing sustainable and equitable tradeoffs between these objectives is made difficult by the need for governance regimes to adapt to multiple pressures, threats and uncertainties. This includes adapting to emerging maritime sectors and the effects of climate change, as well as achieving conservation targets, facilitating transboundary integration, and addressing scientific data gaps. A governance regime’s capacity to address such issues can be constrained by a range of challenges. These include limited resourcing and political will, as well as concerns regarding the potential risks of change. Understanding the conditions that facilitate the emergence of challenges to adaptation can provide valuable insight for marine governance practitioners and researchers. Deliverable 4.3 (D4.3) reports on the barriers to achieving governance objectives within MarinePlan’s eight regional European governance regimes, before proposing policy solutions to how such barriers could be overcome. Barriers are understood as obstacles that hinder the achievement of targets and objectives. Building on the institutional and policy audit presented in Deliverable 4.1 (D4.1) and the review of adaptive capacity of governance regimes demonstrated in Deliverable 4.2 (D4.2), this report provides bespoke policy briefs relevant to each of the project’s Planning Sites.