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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Fabrice StephensonORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2025Ecosystem Based Management (EBM) is a dynamic process, focused on understanding and managing human interactions with ecosystems across a range of organisational, spatial and temporal scales. Scale-dependency in different disciplines and the interactions between them will affect both the decision-making process and its success. Unsurprisingly, many of the problems encountered by societies in managing natural ecosystems arise because of a mismatch between the scale of management and the scale(s) of the ecological processes being managed. This research therefore aims to produce new knowledge to better understand and communicate scale-dependencies for EBM. We evaluate scale-dependencies in social-ecological systems and provide case study examples where scale is explicitly recognised resulting in ‘scale fit’. Case studies include research that acknowledges ecological heterogeneity when scaling up information and place-based customary practices. We do this against a background of the organisations and legal instruments that are responsible for managing marine systems to ensure social-ecological resilience. Opportunities to align policy and law with marine ecosystems include a series of legal and policy innovations to set high-level, cross-sectoral and cross-scalar policy intention for oceans management which could collectively support EBM approaches across sectors and scales. This research aims to facilitate the development of decision-making practices that explicitly identify scale-dependencies to increase the success of EBM decision-making processes.
Author(s): Ellis J, Macpherson E, Thrush S, Fisher K, Pilditch C, Jorgensen E, Low J, Stephenson F, Allison A, Geange S, Hewitt J
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Biological Conservation
Year: 2025
Volume: 302
Print publication date: 01/02/2025
Online publication date: 03/02/2025
Acceptance date: 23/01/2025
Date deposited: 17/02/2025
ISSN (print): 0006-3207
ISSN (electronic): 1873-2917
Publisher: Elsevier Ltd
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2025.111000
DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2025.111000
Data Access Statement: Data will be made available on request.
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