This Special Collection will provide an opportunity for a new research area based on the past experiences of science-policy integration for the governance and management of marine ecosystems. While mentioning both the concepts of “governance” and “management” in its title, this Special Collection aims to engage diverse scholars in the fields of policy, management, biological, environmental, and legal sciences. Fortifying its theoretical foundations, this Special Collection will contribute to the consolidation of the increasingly accepted concept of “scientific research” and be an essential driver in forming an epistemic community among scholars looking at the ocean and marine environmental governance through an ecological lens. This, of course, aims to engage leading figures in environmental law, the law of the sea, and ocean and marine environmental governance, and will constitute an authoritative source and a reference for years to come. Addressing issues for the first time with a forward-looking approach that integrates emerging legal, policy, and scientific developments will lay the foundation for future research.
Science-policy integration for the governance and management of marine ecosystems has been covered with some old perspectives. However, there are new means of ocean governance and marine environmental protection under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals at the international level and China’s Maritime Community with a Shared Future at the regional level. Therefore, in practice, considerable differences between past and present problems persist—even in states that, in a land-based context, are the “model pupils” in terms of environmental law implementation.
This Special Collection is significant for the future of the principles and elements of governance and ocean governance at the global level. It will also engage in an authoritative discussion of issues related to the effective implementation of science-policy integration for the governance and management of marine ecosystems. The research also considers the UN system of science-policy integration related to ocean governance and its impacts on regional and national governance models; thus, it is also a pertinent piece to help UN–ocean systems reform and reframe the global ocean governance model. Moreover, it also discusses how geopolitics halts the ocean governance mechanisms and negatively impacts the marine environment. It is quite significant for the future of the literature development regarding ocean governance. Pertinently, this research is also quite significant for governments as it analyses the legislation, plans, and regulations of the oceans.
This collection will further discuss the legislation related to the marine environment, management, ports, infrastructure, fisheries, coastal tourism, planning, and development. Furthermore, it will cover the overall impact of human activity on the marine environment; therefore, the marine administrative authorities can learn a lot from this. As this research provides the latest framework for ocean governance with a new approach containing the SDGs, specifically SDG 14, many policy actors can reform and reframe their existing approaches to ocean governance. Although there have been several pieces of literature on bilateralism and regionalism of ocean governance, there is a lack of literature covering SDG 14.
Potential Topics List:
- Climate policy and marine environmental protection
- Regional mechanisms for climate change toward marine ecological preservation
- Governance and management of the marine habitat and fisheries
- Marine scientific research for ecosystem protection and restoration
- Ocean governance under Sustainable Development Goals
- New modes of national policy mechanisms of ocean governance for marine ecosystem protection
- Existing and new mechanisms in controlling ocean acidification and sea-level rise
Submission Information:
Manuscript Deadline: 17 July, 2023
