AORA Working Group on the Ecosystem Approach to Ocean Health and Stressors: Mandates for Ecosystem-based Ocean Governance across Canada, the EU, and the US. March 2018, London UK

The Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance Working Group on Ecosystem Approach to Ocean Health and Stressors formed a task group to explore the mandate/s for ecosystem based management (EBM) in the North Atlantic. The task group met 13-16 March 2018 in London and was comprised of an interdisciplinary mix of legal, political, administrative, and natural scientists/scholars from the three jurisdictions that signed the Galway Statement on Atlantic Ocean Cooperation (US, Canada, and EU). The task group workshop identified the major mandates that govern marine activities and the stressors that impact ocean health and condition. The overarching goal was to characterize, compare, and synthesize the mandates that govern marine activities and ocean stressors relative to facilitating EBM in the North Atlantic (national and international waters). The group also identified impediments to the incorporation of science into the management process, largely based on a cross-comparison of jurisdictional applications of mandates and highlighted benefits of improved implementation of existing mandates for EBM.