Policies for managing the global commons : the case of marine protected areas in Antarctica
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The Commission on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), the international body responsible for managing Antarctic marine living resources, has been lauded as a leader in high seas conservation and science-based management. Exemplary of this leadership, CCAMLR committed to designating a representative network of Southern Ocean marine protected areas (MPAs). However, after adopting the world's first high seas MPA in 2009, progress towards this goal stalled, despite extensive MPA proposals for the East Antarctic and the Ross Sea. To evaluate the potential barriers and facilitators of the CCAMLR MPA process, I conducted an in depth case study that included participant observations of five CCAMLR meetings from 2012--2015, interviews with CCAMLR diplomats and scientists from the 24 Member States and compiling a diverse suite of other documents and secondary data sources from 1982--2015. Results indicate that national economic interests, geopolitics, and lack of a defined policy process have created institutional inertia within CCAMLR and thus inhibited CCAMLR's ability to establish MPAs. Worldwide, the Antarctic harbors some of the last regions of unexploited marine living resources, including stocks of krill and lucrative toothfish. The MPAs proposed would displace some fishing access, limit potential future access to Southern Ocean resources, and establish a major precedent for global management in the Antarctic and high seas. Tense international relations due to actions far removed from Antarctica (e.g., U.S. opposition to Russian actions in Crimea in 2014) can stall the entire process. Moreover, the motivations behind MPA proposals are not clear to all participating States, nor is the scientific basis for the location of MPA boundaries. This lack of clarity and the potential disruption of CCAMLR institutional norms may impart distrust among some Member States, thus stalling the negotiation process. While CCAMLR Member States have collectively agreed to adopt MPAs in the Southern Ocean, the process of implementation has become increasingly entangled in regional and global politics. As a consensus-based management body, just one Member State can block adoption of conservation measures. The way forward may depend on building trust through enhanced transparency, greater collaboration among Member States and better defined rules around the MPAs plans and process. Adoption of CCAMLR MPAs may further require a shift in international relationships among participatory States.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2017 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Brooks, Cassandra |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (Stanford University) |
| Primary advisor | Crowder, Larry B |
| Primary advisor | Curran, Lisa Marie, 1961- |
| Thesis advisor | Crowder, Larry B |
| Thesis advisor | Curran, Lisa Marie, 1961- |
| Thesis advisor | Caldwell, Margaret R |
| Thesis advisor | Dunbar, Robert, 1960- |
| Advisor | Caldwell, Margaret R |
| Advisor | Dunbar, Robert, 1960- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Cassandra Brooks. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2017. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2017 by Cassandra M Brooks
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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