Comprehensive Planning, Dominant-use Zones, and User Rights: a New Era in Ocean Governance

Ocean-zoning arguments often center on the biology of ocean species, the geography of fishing-use patterns, and the need for preventing use conflicts. Here we expand this discussion to the social and legal aspects of ocean zoning, focusing on comprehensive planning, segregation of activities into use-priority areas, and the allocation of user rights within each zone. The inclusion of all of these features within an ocean-zoning regime can be a catalyst for a variety of ancillary benefits, including opportunities for user groups to form informal or formal long-lived institutions and a reassessment of the focus and scope of the regulatory institutions involved in ocean management. Along with the ability of users to negotiate and trade within and between zones, both features will lead to improved conflict resolution, efficiency of use, and ecosystem stability—critical components for the production of ecosystem services and maintenance of biological and human economic benefits. The oceans hold many important natural resources and are themselves a resource. The sea is home to a seafood industry worth billions annually in the United States, provides an important fraction of animal protein in developing countries, and is also used for diluting waste, recreation and wildlife viewing, operating sea farms, transporting people, and moving goods. Because the oceans are common property, regulating their use faces at least four issues. First, incentives for overuse that can lead to long-term resource loss are prevalent. Second, resource use by one sector often affects the costs and benefits of other sectors. Using seawater to dilute waste, for example, kills marine larvae in the dilutant seawater and might decrease the supply of marine species and the amount of area available for recreational fishing. Both of these issues are externalities, which arise when the welfare or well-being of one individual or group is negatively (or positively) affected by the decision of another group or individual that does not explicitly take these impacts into account. Third, in most cases, more than one group is interested in each resource or ocean area, and this overlap creates a problem of allocation. Pelagic fish stocks, for example, are valuable to commercial fishermen, recreational fishermen, underwater photographers, and people who enjoy the idea of less-disturbed marine ecosystems. Fourth, the extent to which cumulative impacts of ocean uses affect resource status (Rosenberg, 2006) or the value of resources to various user groups is uncertain. With these challenges in mind, some experts have argued for ocean zoning. Like municipal zoning, ocean zoning (Jaakson, 1971; Russ and Zeller, 2003; Pikitch et al., 2004; Sanchirico, 2004; Babcock et al., 2005; Crowder et al., 2006; Eagle et al., 2008) would divide the ocean into different areas—for example, a commercial fishing zone, a recreation zone, and an oil and gas zone. Proponents argue that separating incompatible uses would reduce costly conflicts among users (Babcock et al., 2005; Crowder et al., 2006) and that zoning is a basis for implementing ecosystem-based management (Sanchirico, 2004; Babcock et al., 2005; Crowder et al., 2006). To the FastTrack➲ publication