Presentation given by Jake Rice from Canada, during the GEF/FAO Discussion Meeting on Marine Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) on 19 November 2010.

1. Biodiversity and the High Seas –
What’s asked for and what’s needed
Jake Rice
Canada

2. Three main avenues for
creating/expressing needs
• UNGA itself
– Resolutions to be enacted by other Agencies
– Resolutions to be enacted by itself (Parties)
• Regulatory / “Oversight” Agencies
– Increase sustainability of biodiversity consequences
of industries they advise or manage
– FAO & RFMOs, IMO, ISA etc
• Conservation Agencies
– Increase protection / reduce threats to marine and
coastal biodiversity
– CBD, Ramsar, . IUCN, Regional Seas Conventions(?)

3. “Conservation and sustainable use of
biodiversity” plays out as the intersections of
ecosystem features and human uses
Fishing Shipping Mining (etc)
Fish
population
Reality Reality Reality
Food Web
links
Reality … …
Habitat
feature
Reality … …
(etc) Reality

4. Commonalities among them
• For ALL of them, their ultimate mandate and
priorities come from UNGA
• Goals of the regulatory bodies must be coherent
with goals of conservation bodies
• Measures adopted by all relevant regulatory
bodies must also be coherent for a given
ecosystem feature
• ALL REQUIRE THE SAME INFORMATION TO
USE WITHIN THEIR RESPECTIVE MANDATES

5. Rest of presentation:
• What are some of the key players trying to
achieve?
• What support do they need to succeed?
• What are the commonalities of necessary
support?
• Where are the best opportunities for
investment?

6. CBD (conservation) - Goals
• Identify areas and features of the sea that are
ecologically and biologically significant
– Apply EBSA criteria globally and regionally
• Understand the threats to those areas and
features
– Include biodiversity in mandatory SEAs and IAs
• Identify measures that would offer adequate
protection to those areas and features
– Enable use of multiple tools including Networks of
MPAs to achieve conservation and sust. use

7. CBD – Information Needs
• Application of EBSA criteria
– Geo-referenced information on species and habitats that are
found in the ocean, and their functional roles
– Standards and fora for processes to apply the criteria
– A library of the results of expert application of the Criteria to the
best available information
• Evaluation of threats
– Knowledge of direct impacts of human activities on biodiversity
features and indirect consequences of direct impacts
– Knowledge of expected places and magnitudes of the activities
• Provision of adequate management protection
– Knowledge of effectiveness of management tools
– Wise placement of (spatial) management tools

8. FAO (Management) - Goals
• Allow fisheries to contribute to economic and social
prosperity and food security
– Identify sustainable fishing opportunities
• Ensure fisheries do not cause serious adverse impacts
to vulnerable marine ecosystems
– Implement the Deep-Sea Fishery Guidelines:
• Identify the areas that meet the VME criteria
• Identify mitigation measures that provide adequate
protection to VMEs
• Conduct adequate impact assessments before
authorizing fisheries to proceed
• Provide sufficient Management, control and
surveillance to prevent Serious Adverse Impacts

9. FAO Information needs
• Sustainable Fishing Opportunities
– Better knowledge of what harvest levels are
sustainable – population sizes and life histories
• Implement Deep Sea Fishery Guidelines
– Geo-referenced information on species and habitats
to which to apply the VME criteria
– Identification of “best practices” for the:
• scientific evaluation tasks in the Guidelines
• management practices called for in the Guidelines
• impact assessment and risk assessment
methodologies required by the Guidelines
• Libraries of information & experience with the Guidelines

10. UNGA Regular Process - Goals
• Policy relevant assessments that integrate
ecological, economic, and social information, on
global and regional scales, to inform about:
– Status and trends (ALL three dimensions)
– Opportunities for sustainable development
– Needs for greater conservation efforts
– Policy gaps
– Implementation gaps
• The “chapeau” for all the other initiatives

11. Regular Process
Information Needs
• Ecological, economic, and social data sets that have
some inter-operability and spatial resolution
• Regional and sub-regional assessments of status and
trends on all three factors
• Sharing and pooling of information and assessments
across agencies and jurisdictions
• Processes for identifying priorities and needs
(conservation AND development) at regional and sub-regional
scales
• Processes for doing the integration across sectors,
social – economic – ecological, and from sub-regional to
regional and global

12. These have a LOT in common
CBD FAO Regular
Process
Geo-referenced
x x x
ecological data Information on
x x x
places and
levels of uses
Repositories of
outcomes x x x
Processes for
applying criteria x x use results

13. These have a LOT in common
CBD FAO Regular
Process
Best practices
(X) x User
-science steps Best practices
(X) x User
-management Impact / risk
x x x
assessments
Integrated
assessments input input X

14. Greater Generality
• Points about FAO apply to other IGOs with
regulatory or oversight roles: IMO, ISA etc
• Points about CBD apply to other cons agencies
• UNEP and Regional Seas have agendas & role
• IOC and other science orgs can contribute a lot
• Regular process will built on everyone else’s
products and add much value (and coherence?)
• UNGA and BBNJ will keep moving the goalposts
– This work will influence type and pace of change,

15. Conclusions
• Every issue can have “regulatory” agency AND
conservation agency engagement
• Information needs AND “best practice”
standards overlap greatly
• Requirement for coherence and efficiency both
argue for shared initiatives
• Regular process may provide skeleton, but the
“meat” will come from agencies
• Roles for NGOs in many parts, especially
consolidating information and tools.