Understanding and managing marine protected areas through integrating ecosystem based management within maritime cultural landscapes: Moving from theory to practice

The ecosystem-based approaches to management being implemented in many marine protected areas require broad knowledge of these special places to achieve any measure of success in effective execution. Ecosystem-based management holds great promise for managing human activities that can significantly influence natural resources, more effectively using this broader context of sustaining ecosystem structure and function to guide management decisionmaking. However, socio-ecological systems are a product of their history. It has been suggested that the emerging idea of defining and understanding “maritime cultural landscapes” may be a way to acquire a better understanding of this history of human/environment interaction. The US National Marine Sanctuary System has recognized the potential value of integrating ecosystem-based management and maritime cultural landscape approaches to marine protected areas management, and is embarking on developing management models that can more clearly demonstrate this potential value. The deeper knowledge of both natural and cultural resources of marine protected areas, and how these have changed over time, offered by this integrated approach is likely to be a critical factor in providing effective stewardship of these special places.