Learning from the Marine Pioneer – Aisling Lannin

Marine Management Organisation  E: aisling.lannin@marinemanagement.org.uk

The Marine Pioneer was set up by Defra to test the approaches outlined in the 25 Year Environment Plan (25YEP). The 25YEP’s vision is to improve the environment in a generation and it states that to achieve this we need to make decisions that incorporate the environment and its value.

The Marine Pioneer was based in Suffolk and North Devon, where the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB and the North Devon UNESCO Biosphere employed project managers to coordinate the steering and stakeholder groups. Together the collaborations and partnerships produced all the outputs of the Marine Pioneer. The Programme overall was led by the MMO.

Although the Marine Pioneer was tasked with a) testing a natural capital approach, b) integrating planning and delivery, c) exploring new funding mechanisms and d) sharing best practice, the overriding learning showed that implementing good multi-level collaborative governance was an important fundamental activity underpinning everything.

The Marine Pioneer benefitted enormously from collaborations and partnership across scientific disciplines and different kinds of government and non-government organisations. This highlighted the importance of exploring good practice with a variety of people and incorporating lots of perspectives. This is one of the keys to delivering improvements for the marine environment.

As with most big challenges we learned there is not one solution or method but several that need to be applied in an integrated way to work together in a system to deliver the outcomes we want. We learned that whole system restoration is required, not just good condition of a proportion of the sea, for example of fish or specific habitats and species. We are convinced that we should be working collaboratively toward restoration of ecosystem services and the whole interconnected environment as our shared vision.

We learned that place-based collaborations and partnerships with multi-disciplinary perspectives can deliver more robust testing of new methods and theories as well as being more agile at doing action research and learning from regular evaluation. This approach can provide good value for money, but public investment is fundamental given the value and benefits of nature to people and the huge cost of losing it. When public funds are blended with private investment a strategic set of goals and transparent governance is required. The biodiversity and climate crises as well as restoration will require adjustments for communities’ therefore inclusive change through community empowerment and just transition is vital.

The Marine Pioneer collaboration has produced:

• 55 reports
• six short films
• a waste shark
• numerous web pages on various websites (main ones are listed below)
• lots of guidance on:
  • applying a natural capital approach
  • using participation to generate evidence, increase stewardship and ocean literacy
• a Geonode for data sharing and map making https://pioneer-geonode.plymouth.ac.uk/
• academic papers
• a finalised PhD and another in progress
• some amazing photos from a photo competition, posters and infographics
• some great legacy projects and partnerships

The legacy projects still operating include implementation of the multimillion-pound Blue Impact Fund led by WWF, the first Marine Natural Capital Plan as supplementary planning guidance led by the North Devon Biosphere, five North Devon Fisheries Research and Management Plans led by the Devon and Severn IFCA, a test of the application of a natural capital and net gain approach to offshore wind led by SWEEP and a PhD on multi-level collaborative governance by Rachel Holtby at Northumbria University.

There is much more detail in the final summary and recommendations interactive pdf, but key messages are below. The pdf should support people to explore different parts of the Marine Pioneer, cross reference results across themes topic areas, access full reports and focus on specific topics as suits people’s interests and work.

The headline learning and recommendations for each of the eight themes are below:

1. Collaboration and partnership – engage with multiple disciplines and carry out work in a transdisciplinary way, ensure there is creative space to iterate and be agile as well as traditional task and finish projects to get the most from the collective
2. Applying a natural capital approach – it is essential that the natural capital approach is given a holistic framing and is not seen through the restricted lens of a purely economic focus. In addition, investment in social capital is vital to the success of a natural capital approach (see 1, 3, 4, 5,6 and 7)
3. Integrated planning and delivery – Integration works best with inclusive and transparent governance across geographic scales and organisations, and with decision-making frameworks that consider the whole system, dependencies and complexities, as well as the distributional impacts on different groups (see 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8)
4. Innovative finance – public investment is required to build capital for public goods and blended public and private capital requires good governance and shared goals with stakeholders that recognise and respond to the public nature of the goods (see 2, 5, 6 and 7)
5. Fisheries management – we should build trust and exchange knowledge, use multi-level collaborative governance, ensure a range of perspectives and expertise are applied to co-developing solutions, develop varied and tailored approaches and use iterative evaluation as a learning tool
6. Marine protected area management – for Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to be part of the solution to the climate and biodiversity emergencies their objectives, management, governance and funding needs to evolve.
7. Community empowerment – plans to improve nature by managing, protecting and restoring coastal and marine ecosystems should be co-designed from the outset with local communities to incorporate their aspirations and experience. Coastal community empowerment can scale up delivery of the 25 Year Environment Plan through multi-level, collaborative governance and co-management of natural resources.
8. Applying a net gain principle – restoration on the scale necessary to impact the current biodiversity emergency and improve climate resilience should go beyond applying biodiversity net gain through the licensing and consents process. Applied only to individual development projects, net gain is likely to make a modest contribution to marine recovery.

North Devon Marine Pioneer https://www.northdevonbiosphere.org.uk/marinepioneer.html

Suffolk Marine Pioneer https://www.suffolkcoastandheaths.org/managing/projects/marine-pioneer/

UKSeas Project https://ukseasproject.org.uk/

North Devon Marine Natural Capital Asset and Risk Register https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332225506_North_Devon_Marine_Pioneer_2_A_Natural_Capital_Asset_and_Risk_Register