Beyond rhetoric: navigating the conceptual tangle towards effective implementation of the ecosystem approach to oceans management

The ecosystem approach is widely considered the best paradigm for environmental management and oceans management. With such ample endorsement, one could expect that the concept has an unambiguous definition and that its implications for management are clear. That is not the case. The concept has provoked an extensive academic and practical debate over the last 30 years. Early work focused on debates about the concept of the ecosystem approach, its guiding principles, and consistent use of terminology. As those questions were progressively clarified, the work has focused on its implementation. This paper provides a three-part literature review of these developments. The first part analyzes the current understanding of the ecosystem approach, its consensual elements or principles, the differing terminology coined in the literature, and three sources of persisting confusion around the concept. The paper addresses in particular one of those sources of confusion: the goal of the ecosystem approach. The second part focuses on implementation frameworks and strategies, with particular focus on objective-based and adaptive management frameworks and the pivotal role of ecosystem indicators in understanding, assessing, and managing ecosystems. The third part reviews the recognition of ecosystems and the ecosystem approach in international law, including an analysis of nonbinding instruments, treaty law (with particular reference to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the 1995 United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement, and the Convention on Biological Diversity), and the practical regional implementation of the ecosystem approach to fisheries and oceans management. The literature review demonstrates that, despite some persisting differing interpretations, the ecosystem approach has moved from the theory of aspirational discourse to the practice of implementation. It has proven successful in enhancing the understanding of ecosystems’ structure, function, and dynamics; increasing awareness of environmental problems; and developing policy and research agendas and priorities. However, the jury is still out in relation to its capacity to influence human behavior through direct management actions. Many factors concur to this limitation, but two stand out: the inadequacy of traditional regulatory frameworks and institutional arrangements to capture the complexity, uncertainty, and variability of ecosystems; and the reluctance of the international community to embrace a global, comprehensive, and substantive international obligation that effectively protects the ecological systems on which life on Earth depends.