ALBERT

Description: The dataset presented in this article contains information about marine Area-Based Management Tools (ABMTs) used to assess their contribution to the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Following the scope of the analysis, ABMTs were identified by scrutinizing international and regional legal sources related to ocean management in the fields of marine conservation, fisheries, deep sea bed mining, underwater natural and cultural heritage, environmental conservation, and marine spatial planning. Legal sources were screened to depict the following characteristics of individual ABMTs: i) management objectives; ii) authorities responsible for delivering such objectives; iii) the system of management and planning entailed in the ABMT including the zoning type; and iv) the specific spatial scope and domain each ABMT refer to in vertical depth and horizontal domain. Data were generated through an internal expert elicitation. Experts, initially trained in the data analysis and related protocol, contributed to the data production because of their specific knowledge and experience in ocean management. This dataset represents a unique source of information for advancing research about monitoring and assessment of the achievement of sustainable development goals that encompasses different types of ABMTs.

Description: Area-Based Management Tools (ABMTs) are spatial instruments for conservation and managing different forms of ocean use. A multitude of ABMTs exists in marine areas within and beyond national jurisdiction, ranging from tools for the regulation of specific human activities (e.g. fisheries, shipping, or mining) to cross-sectoral tools (e.g. such as marine protected areas, MPAs, and marine spatial planning, MSP). By applying expert elicitation and reviewing scientific and grey literature we evaluate the contribution of ABMTs to sustainable development goals (SDGs) as set out under the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including for SDG 14 that directly addresses the conservation and sustainable use of oceans, seas, and marine resources. We find that fisheries-related and conservation-related ABMTs, and MSP offer the greatest potential contributions to SDG 14 and to SDGs in general. Moreover, there is high complementarity and synergy among different ABMTs for most SDG 14 targets and other SDGs, with the exception of SDG target 14.6 Prohibit fisheries subsidies and SDG 7 Affordable and clean energy. We find that some ABMTs contribute directly to goal attainment, while others contribute in more nuanced or even unexpected ways. Furthermore, context-specific factors that relate to political and legal factors, enforceability, transparency, governance structure, and inclusivity are crucial for unlocking the full potential of ABMTs of attaining multiple SDGs, as shown through examples. The major challenge to face in the next decade is ensuring durable and equitable outcomes from ABMT implementation by coordinating ABMT initiatives established by different organisations and responsible authorities. It is also critical that outcomes are monitored and evaluated across environmental, social, economic, governance, and health dimensions, with indicators addressing management effectiveness and not only ABMT area coverage.

Description: In this Discussion Paper we show how the Covid-19 pandemic is affecting the Brazilian Amazon, leading to the collapse of health systems in several Amazon cities, endangering indigenous ethnic groups, facilitating the clearance of huge forested plots, and, in the process, giving rise to growing concerns about the possible emergence of new transmissible zoonotic diseases.

Description: The health of the ocean, central to human well-being, has now reached a critical point. Most fish stocks are overexploited, climate change and increased dissolved carbon dioxide are changing ocean chemistry and disrupting species throughout food webs, and the fundamental capacity of the ocean to regulate the climate has been altered. However, key technical, organizational, and conceptual scientific barriers have prevented the identification of policy levers for sustainability and transformative action. Here, we recommend key strategies to address these challenges, including (1) stronger integration of sciences and (2) ocean-observing systems, (3) improved science-policy interfaces, (4) new partnerships supported by (5) a new ocean-climate finance system, and (6) improved ocean literacy and education to modify social norms and behaviors. Adopting these strategies could help establish ocean science as a key foundation of broader sustainability transformations.

Description: Resource nexus research gained ground in the last decade prompted by crises of food and water supply throughout the world. In parallel, bioenergy emerged as an important renewable source worldwide, though it entails a large spectrum of externalities and feedback effects, involving key resources, such as water, land, and biodiversity. Making sense of the complex interactions and measuring all these impacts translates into significant challenges for developing and implementing policies based on a nexus perspective, especially amid divergent interests and normative views. This paper brings an empirical contribution by exploring how reflexive governance concepts can help to understand nexus implementation challenges, and possibly overcome them, based on biofuels policies in Brazil and Germany as case studies. It shows that nexus issues play out differently in each country and discusses how the idea of reflexivity could help to address them, supported by deliberation to reflect upon risks usually assigned to large-scale biomass use and, ultimately, about the underlying assumptions of cause-effect relationships. The cases comparison suggests that cognitive and normative aspects that influenced broader deliberation on biofuels will remain relevant for the deployment of biomass as part of negative emissions strategies in the future. Therefore, it reinforces the need to consider such aspects in nexus research and to expand the debate about the role of bioenergy beyond transformations in the energy sector.