Our knowledge of the oceans is increasing rapidly, as more powerful tools for exploration and exploitation make it easier to locate valuable resources, such as fish stocks, oil and gas reserves, or sites for wind and hydropower schemes. At the same time competition for space has intensified, affecting marine life and people's livelihoods. Much has been written about marine management using marine protected areas, but MPAs are only a small subset of spatial management tools available. MPAs and MPA networks are better seen as starting points for more comprehensive spatial management, facilitated by ocean zoning. This logical scaling up from discreet piecemeal protected areas to larger and more systematic planning is happening around the world, but few are aware that we are entering a brave new world in ocean management with zoning at its core. This book provides guidance on using ocean zoning to improve marine management. It reviews the benefits of ocean zoning in theory, reviews progress made in zoning around the world through a wide range of case studies, and derives lessons learned to recommend a process by which future zoning can be maximally effective and efficient. Published with MARES, Forest Trends and UNEP

Comparative Ocean Governance examines the world's attempts to improve ocean governance through place-based management—marine protected areas, ocean zoning, marine spatial planning—and evaluates this growing trend in light of the advent of climate change and its impacts on the seas. This monograph opens with an explanation of the economics of the oceans and their value to the global environment and the earth's population, the long-term stressors that have impacted oceans, and the new threats to ocean sustainability that climate change poses. It then examines the international framework for ocean management and coastal nations' increasing adoption of place-based governance regimes. The final section explores how these place-based management regimes intersect with climate change adaptation efforts, either accidentally or intentionally. It then offers suggestions for making place-based marine management even more flexible and responsive for the future. Environmental law scholars, legislators and policymakers, marine scientists, and all those concerned for the welfare of the world's oceans will find this book of great value.

The United States and Canada are salt water neighbors on the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans. Despite the general closeness of the political, economic and social relationship, the two States have approached their offshore areas from different perspectives. Canada has long supported expansion of exclusive national control over its adjacent offshore; whereas the United States has been concerned with the balance between national authority and international navigation rights. Canada has tended to view maritime disputes with the United States as local matters; whereas the United States has tended to see the disputes with Canada in global terms. Against this background, Salt Water Neighbor's examines both the international ocean law disagreements that exist between the United States and Canada respecting maritime boundaries, fisheries and navigation rights (e.g., the Northwest Passage) and the numerous cooperative bilateral arrangements that have prevented these disputes from being significant causes of friction between the neighbors. There has not been a comprehensive book-length study of United States-Canada international ocean relations since the early 1970s. Much has changed in the last 30 years. Most importantly, the law and the nature of the disputes between the two States have changed as a result of the adoption of 200 nautical mile zones in the late 1970s.

This book informs environmental planning professionals, students and those interested in oceans and coasts from an environmental perspective about what is needed for planning and management of these unique environments. It is comprised of twelve chapters organized in three parts. Part I highlights the basics tenets of environmental planning for oceans and coasts including important concepts from the general field of planning and coastal and ocean management (e.g., hydrography, oceans policy and law, geomorphology). Environmental problems inherent within oceans and coasts (such as sea level rise, marine pollution, overdevelopment, etc.) are also addressed, especially those at the land–sea interface. Part II covers those methodological approaches regularly used by planners working to improve environmental quality and conditions of oceans and coasts among them: integrated planning and management, ecosystem services, pollution prevention, and marine spatial planning. Part III focuses specifically on state-of-the-art tools and technologies employed by planners for marine and coastal protection. These include systematic conservation planning for protected areas, decision support tools, coastal adaptation techniques and various types of communication, including visualization, narration and tools for stakeholder participation. The final chapter in the book reviews the most important concepts covered throughout book and emphasizes the important role that environmental planners have to play in the protection and well-being of oceans and coasts. Michael K. Orbach, of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, penned the book's foreword.