With increasing activities of multiple sectors in marine spaces, management of marine social–ecological systems requires more holistic approaches. Adopting such an approach, however, presents difficult institutional and disciplinary challenges. Here, we use the International Council for the Exploration …

This thesis provides an answer to the question if the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) does fulfil its own objective of supporting Ecosystem-based management by producing Ecosystem Overviews as advice. Against the background of ongoing changes and pressures on the ecosystem, …

While the status of UN SDG14 Life Below Water lags behind in the Netherlands, target horizons for certain targets have been either reached or are fast approaching (2020, 2025, 2030). In 2016, recommendations have been formulated by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, for adjustments …

Like most ocean regions today, the European and contiguous seas experience cumulative impacts from local human activities and global pressures. They are largely in poor environmental condition with deteriorating trends. Despite several success stories, European policies for marine conservation fall short …

To experience and appreciate the challenges involved in marine spatial planning (MSP), students enrolled in two MSP courses play stakeholder roles in a realistic serious game. The serious game is played with the participatory online MSP tool SeaSketch, and tackles the contemporary Dutch marine renewable …

To limit the pressure on the marine ecosystem, the European Unions’ Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) was developed to ensure sustainable use of the marine ecosystem. The goal of the MSFD is to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES). To achieve this goal, the MSFD prescribes using Ecosystem-Based …

To support the implementation of the Ecosystem Based approach to Management (EBM), ICES strives to provide evidence-based scientific advice and relevant management options that also assess potential trade-offs among sectors or between environmental status and human uses. To help achieve this, the Workshop …

Increased spatial pressures on the marine environment asks for smart use of space in order to safeguard the achievement of environmental, social and economic objectives. Multi-use is seen as a new paradigm for space efficiency and might yield other benefits beyond that. Within the scope of their Policy …

Transboundary conservation has an important, yet often undervalued, role in the international conservation regime. When applied to the legally ambiguous and interconnected marine environment this is magnified. The lack of clear guidance for transboundary marine conservation from the international conservation …

The EU enacted new legislation on regulating access to deep-sea fisheries in 2016. Two important aspects of the regulation are outstanding, namely the establishment of a list of areas where vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) are known to occur or are likely to occur and the determination of the existing …