Maritime Awards Society of Canada

The Faculty and Students of the Marine Affairs Program invite you to a seminar:

“Governing Marine Protected Areas”

Elizabeth De Santo, Assistant Professor, Marine Affairs Program

Wednesday October 7, 2009
1:00-2:00 PM

Room 309
Dalhousie Law School
6061 University Avenue, Dalhousie University Campus

Abstract
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are an important tool for achieving ecosystem-based management and conservation in the marine environment. However the actual implementation of MPAs worldwide has lagged behind international targets, and one reason for this is a lack of guidance on how to best govern their establishment and implementation.  The “Governing MPAs” project co-led by Elizabeth De Santo (Marine Affairs Program) and Peter Jones (University College London) is examining the role of incentives in MPA establishment and will result in a UNEP-IUCN ‘best practice’ guidebook. These incentives include knowledge-based, legal, economic, interpretative and participatory factors. We are looking at how the balance between achieving meaningful stakeholder participation and fulfilling marine biodiversity conservation objectives has played out in 30 cases across the globe, and will be holding a workshop in Croatia in mid-October to bring practitioners from these sites together to explore their studies and share lessons learned.  This seminar will discuss the premise of the project and some preliminary results.

For more information, contact the Marine Affairs Program, Marine.Affairs@dal.ca, 902-494-3555

The International Ocean Governance Working Group (IOG WG) is organizing a paper session at the 2009 OMRN National Conference on the broad theme of International Arctic Ocean Governance. With the renewed focus on the Arctic due to the effects of climate change in the region, increased interest in the development of northern resources, and announcements by the Canadian government of new initiatives to assert Canadian sovereignty in the region, there are numerous calls both inside and outside of Canada for strengthening international governance structures for the Arctic Ocean region. This session will consider perspectives on IOG in relation to marine shipping and future marine resource developments in the Canadian Arctic.

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