Side Event

Marine Spatial Planning in Practice – Learning from Planning and Implementation in Different Contexts

Organizer
CONVENERS: UNEP, GEF-STAP, CBD Secretariat, GIZ, TNC

Date and Time
24 June 2014 13:15 - 14:45

Meeting
Eighteenth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice

ABSTRACT: Marine spatial planning (MSP) can cover a broad range of initiatives that aim to maintain the use of resources and ecosystem services through careful planning of available coastal or ocean space. Whether MPAs are designed to maintain adequate fisheries yield, or shipping lanes are re-routed to minimize biodiversity impacts - essentially any effort that attempts to reconcile more than one sector’s development objectives and activities in a spatial way can be described as MSP. The Side Event will discuss wider learning perspectives from an ongoing initiative to collect, review and share practical experiences from MSP and implementation in order to understand which approaches are most effective in different contexts and settings. It will present outcomes from a series of country case studies from Parties to the CBD (e.g. Belize, Colombia, South Africa, and Indonesia, others, tbc), as well as initial findings from a global survey on MSP in practice. This will be framed by a discussion on how specific knowledge about enabling factors, challenges or solutions distilled from practical MSP processes can support planning and implementation of future initiatives elsewhere. The Side Event will also discuss effective formats and mechanisms to share such learning among planners and practitioners across marine and coastal sectors, coastal land-use and development planning, including options for development of a web-based information-sharing system linking existing information sources on marine spatial planning on the web. Format: Panel discussion and case study presentations The Side event adddresses CBD COP11 Decision: XI/18 C on Marine Spatial Planning. SBSTTA18 agenda item: 4. Marine and coastal biodiversity: 4.5 Tools and capacity development, including marine spatial planning and training initiatives.