Workshop
Governance and Sustainable Use of Ocean Ecosystem Services and BBNJ
A side event titled “Governance and Sustainable Use of Ocean Ecosystem Services and BBNJ” was held on 9 October 2014 in Pyeongchang, Republic of Korea to introduce research outcomes from the five-year New Ocean Paradigm on its Biogeochemistry, Ecosystem and Sustainable Use (NEOPS) research project. The event featured talks by three NEOPS researchers, reflecting among other things on valuation of ecosystem services, community fishery management, and international cooperation towards sustainable fisheries management. The side event was moderated by Dr. Salvatore Arico (UNESCO Senior Programme Specialist and Team Leader Science-Policy Interface and Assessments Division of Science Policy Natural Sciences Sector) during the 12th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP12).
Dr. Mina Hori (Assistant Professor, Kochi University) delivered a presentation on “Governance and Sustainable Use of Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia: Issues on the Ground after the Recent Fishery Policy Reform”. The presentation focused on the Tonle Sap Lake, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, which is located in the Kingdom of Cambodia. She described the current conditions as well as what has changed since recent policy reforms. In 2000, the first fishery reform was implemented, according to which 56% of areas demarcated for large-scale fishing were abolished and transferred to open access fishing grounds for small-scale fishers. Community based resource management was introduced to those areas by gathering local people and creating Community Fishery (CFi). In 2012, the second reform was implemented and the remainder of the demarcated areas in Tonle Sap Lake were abolished and transferred to open access or protected areas. An interview survey in 3 CFi was conducted and issues on user rights, fishing ground demarcation and obligation of CFi were discussed. Subsequently, suggestions were made on building a data collection system for fisheries management in the Tonle Sap Lake.
Robert Blasiak (Research Fellow, The University of Tokyo) delivered a presentation on “Hegemony and Shared Dominance in the World’s Marine Capture Fisheries”. In the presentation, he described the strategic decision-making engaged in by fishing nations managing shared, straddling and highly migratory fish stocks. Among other things, he introduced a dominance-based typology for understanding different management paradigms, with hegemonic single-player systems, coupled two-player systems, shared small group systems, and non-dominated systems. Based on 60 years of FAO catch data, he applied the typology on the world’s 25 largest fisheries, making up some 40% of global catch, to demonstrate characteristics of each system. Within the first category of hegemonic systems, in particular, he introduced findings that confirm the theorized de facto veto power exercised by hegemons as reflected in an absence of international cooperative fishery agreements for these fisheries. He also presented examples of how shifts in dominance within fisheries can indicate advantageous windows of opportunity for engaging in cooperative management negotiations.
Shen Zhonghua (Doctoral Researcher, The University of Tokyo) presented a talk on “Valuation of open ocean ecosystem services: towards a new paradigm for sustainable ocean management”. During his presentation, he introduced the results of research focused on the valuation of open ocean ecosystem services (OPES) and discount rates for present and future OPES valuation results. Using conjoint analysis, he worked with colleagues to conduct two choice experiments using questionnaires on Japanese residents. In the 1st step, the marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) of the respondents for OPES was collected. In the 2nd step, a positive discount rate was calculated based on the MWTP for present and future OPES, suggesting that the respondents were more worried about the future of OPES, and also implying potential actions to protect future OPES. The conjoint analysis method used to evaluate the OPES may have advantages over traditional alternative valuation methods that fail to elicit non-use values of the environment.
