Integrated ocean management: national science and governance priorities for Australia's marine estate

Abstract

Integrated Ocean Management (IOM) is an approach that links planning, decision-making and management arrangements across sectors in a unified framework, to enable a more comprehensive view of sustainability and the consideration of cumulative effects and trade-offs. As pressures on marine systems intensify, implementing effective IOM becomes increasingly critical for ensuring Australia's increasingly crowded marine estate remains healthy and productive for future generations. For Australia to successfully utilise IOM it must overcome many challenges associated with the scale of its marine ecosystems, which are highly interconnected, multifaceted (multi-species, multi-use, multi-stakeholder) and multi-jurisdictional. This is not an insurmountable task, but it does requires sustained commitment to coordination and integration; additional research to inform policy, including better tools for evaluating complex allocations, trade-offs and cumulative effects; effectively engaging stakeholders at scale; stronger legal and institutional frameworks for coordination; building capacity for implementation; robust monitoring systems to assess outcomes and enable adaptive management; and adaptive approaches that can respond to new information and changing conditions. In this paper we lay out the pathway to IOM in Australia, including priority milestones to 2030.