A framework for improving the cross‐jurisdictional governance of a marine migratory species

Abstract

Marine migratory species require collaborative decision-making because individuals move across jurisdictional boundaries within and between countries. However, governance of these species is not always harmonized or truly collaborative. We analyzed the Recovery Plan for Marine Turtles in Australia 2017 (the Plan) and three of its subsidiary plans for evidence of collaborative governance using a twopart gap analysis and interviews with environmental managers, scientists, and other stakeholders involved in the development of the Plan and in managing marine migratory species in Australia more generally. We applied existing adaptive and collaborative governance frameworks, which focused mainly on the social components of collaborative governance, and identified a need for a new, interdisciplinary framework for the collaborative governance of marine turtles in Australia. We applied our new framework to the Plan and identified that while the biological components of the Plan were well-developed, stakeholder analysis and engagement details were largely missing. We recognize that recovery plans are inevitably silent about certain issues but suggest that plans would benefit from including better guidance on stakeholder engagement and analysis. Our framework is directly relevant to harmonizing the management of marine turtles across jurisdictions in Australia but it could also be applied to managing threats towards other migratory species that inhabit large marine jurisdictions. K E Y W O R D Scollaborative governance, cross-jurisdictional governance, marine migratory species, threatened species management

Stakeholder engagement in the governance of marine migratory species: barriers and building blocks

“…However, these profiles do not provide insight into specific actions or activities conducted by stakeholder agencies throughout the range of the species (e.g. who is doing what, Miller et al 2019). Further, the Commonwealth Government compiles the information available in SPRAT profiles, and there is no link for other stakeholder agencies to upload information.…”

“…Resultant reform of the EPBC Act 1999 provides an opportunity to improve the fairness, integration, and coherence of legislation protecting marine migratory species and other MNES in Australia. We suggest that one means of improving the fairness of the governance system and integrating diverse stakeholder viewpoints could be through the revised EPBC Act 1999 requiring the establishment of representative steering groups to advise on the development and implementation of each management plan (described in depth in Miller et al 2019). However, because truly representative steering groups can be large and counterproductive, representativeness can be achieved using carefully selected expertise (e.g.…”

“…natural resource management bodies, government agencies) as well as agencies with expertise in operating within a nongovernment environment (e.g. independent researchers, NGO representatives, Miller et al 2019).…”

“…However, though the marine governance system is polycentric in that it is comprised of multiple governance bodies across jurisdictions (e.g. Miller et al 2018Miller et al , 2019, the governance of threats to marine migratory species in eastern Australia remains highly centralised around federal government agencies (R. L. Miller unpubl. social network data).…”

“…Identifying and understanding these barriers and opportunities has the potential to improve the overall governance of threats to these species to ensure that engagement is useful and produces decisions that are socially equitable and biologically appropriate (e.g. Miller et al 2019).…”