Rockall and Hatton: Resolving a Super Wicked Marine Governance Problem in the High Seas of the Northeast Atlantic Ocean

Abstract

The Hatton-Rockall plateau in the northeast Atlantic Ocean has long been the subject of interest for fishers, prospectors, conservationists, managers, planners, and politicians. As a feature that straddles national and international waters, it is subject to a multitude of competing and confounding regulations, making the development of a holistic management plan for sustainable use fraught with difficulty. Here, the various stakeholders in the area are collated, together with the rules they have created or must abide by with respect to biodiversity assets, maritime resources, and governance frameworks. Blue Growth envisages optimal use of sea areas, including potential for additional commercial activities. Current research and stakeholder engagement efforts to achieve this integration are described, and the contribution of the EU-funded ATLAS project is analyzed. In particular, more precise, ground-truthed information has the potential to inform systematic conservation planning, providing the basis for sustainable development and improving adaptive management. By scrutinizing and exposing all the elements in this example of a spatially managed area we show how the expectations of each stakeholder can be better managed.

The Second World Ocean Assessment

“…Deepwater fishing targets the slopes of plateaux, rises and banks (e.g., Johnson and others, 2019). Emerging activities, such as mining, also pose threats to those environments (e.g., Leduc and others, 2015).…”

The Voice of Science on Marine Biodiversity Negotiations: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Policy recommendations based on experience with past international agreements, including the CBD and the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement (UNFSA), emphasize the need for the BBNJ agreement to apply a long-term ecosystem-based approach and mention requirements such as: a precautionary and science-based approach, the concept of compatibility, mechanisms for international cooperation, and the duty to cooperate (Gjerde et al, 2019).Various BBNJ publications refer to already-identified EBSAs as a potential basis for MPA and marine spatial planning (MSP) implementation on the High Seas (see Table 4). These include criticisms of evidence gaps within EBSAs that are due to "political" reasons (Johnson et al, 2019b). A large body of BBNJ literature explicitly recommends an ecosystem-based approach for the effective conservation of BBNJ, including a representative network of MPAs (see section Overarching Themes Across All Package Elements) (Gjerde and Rulska-Domino, 2012;Cordonnery et al, 2015;Johnson et al, 2018Johnson et al, , 2019a.…”

“…Lessons learnt show that ABMTs, including MPAs are often introduced in fisheries only when other measures have failed and that regarding closures scientific advice has been ignored (De Santo, 2018). Successful examples of ABMTs through cooperation with RFMOs include mitigation of bycatch in fishing gear (Dias et al, 2017) and the integration of fisheries into marine spatial planning by comparing the economic value of fishing with the ecological value of diversity, and developing mutually agreeable spatial plans (Johnson et al, 2019b).…”

Exploring the Potential of Forecasting Fish Distributions in the North East Atlantic With a Dynamic Earth System Model, Exemplified by the Suitable Spawning Habitat of Blue Whiting

“…While spawning commonly takes place in the deep waters along the European Continental Shelf, in some years changes in the marine climate trigger a westward expansion of the spawning distribution onto Rockall Plateau and Hatton Bank (Figure 1C; Hátún et al, 2009b;Miesner and Payne, 2018). This area of Rockall-Hatton Plateau (RHP) straddles both international and national waters (with disputed economic boundaries; Yiallourides, 2018;Johnson et al, 2019) and forecasting changes in the spawning distribution at interannual to multi-annual time scales could therefore be beneficial for a range of stakeholders and nations.…”