Large Scale Conservation Planning in Marine Systems

One of the most challenging initial and reoccurring steps for a "spatially dependent" organization is the definition of where to work and on what. I had the great privilege of participating in a large scale marine planning exercise this week. The purpose was to define in a broad sense where the organization would invest capacity towards either directly or effectively conserving high priority marine areas across an expansive seascape - estuaries to the shelf/slope break. Unlike terrestrial conservation, the definition of place - those areas worthy of conservation focus - in the marine realm is dominated by a fluid medium that is in fact a habitat; the water column. The terrestrial equivalent would be the air column both within and above a forest block. This adds a certain complexity to defining place in a seascape.

What really struck me about the process of defining place is that in the terrestrial realm we are all very comfortable with assigning and identifying with the names given to "place". The same is true and does happen for places in seascapes, but we rarely really experience those places and are largely unable to identify with those names/places. The water gets in the way for the average practitioner. This must become problematic when one is asked to commit resources to something they don't really identify with regardless of all the ecological justification.

That being said, the exploration of new frontiers and the ability to collectively think and organize around new marine places in new ways that transcend existing organization structure is truly exhilarating. However, the areas are so vast, what with 70% of the planet under salt water, that the "where" and "what" remain critical issues if we think about conservation of the whole.