Credit: Rob Suisted

Scale and EBM

Improving understanding and communication of scale-dependencies for EBM

Project Leader	Duration	Budget
Joanne Ellis (University of Waikato)	April 2022 – December 2023	$400,000

Overview

Ecosystem-based management (EBM) is a dynamic process, focused on understanding and managing ecosystems across a range of organisational (eg iwi, hapū and whānau; local councils, regional councils and central government agencies), spatial (eg local, regional, national) and temporal scales (eg past, present and future effects).

Despite the importance of scale, scale-dependency in different disciplines, and the interactions between them, is rarely explicitly stated and acknowledged as affecting both the decision-making process and its success.

While some Sustainable Seas research explicitly focuses on producing results for different scales, there are gaps in understanding of how EBM can be achieved across a variety of scales. Scale also influences components that may have to change if jurisdictional boundaries or management resolutions are changed, such as the prediction of impacts from cumulative interactions, the return periods of events for management, or the creation of spatial and temporal rules for consenting.

To support development of decision-making practices that explicitly identify scale and scale-dependencies to increase the success of EBM decision-making processes we are:

Reviewing existing knowledge of scale dependencies from other Sustainable Seas projects.
Analysing scale-dependencies, specifically in the legal-policy, ecological, socio-psychological, mātauranga Māori and economic realms.
Creating visual summaries to aid understanding of cross-scale implications and contribute to robust, transparent decision making.

Research Team

Joanne Ellis (University of Waikato)
Judi Hewitt (University of Auckland)
Simon Thrush (University of Auckland)
Karen Fisher (University of Auckland)
Taciano Milfont (University of Waikato)
Elizabeth MacPherson (University of Canterbury)
Erica Williams (NIWA)
Eric Jorgensen (Ocean Bay Farm)
Ani Kainamu (NIWA)

Co-Development Partners

Aquaculture NZ Waikato Regional Council Bay of Plenty Regional Council Shane Geange (Department of Conservation)

Project Proposal

378 KB | pdf

Location

This is a national project.

Tools & Resources

This project has produced or contributed to:

Seafood: Tools, resources and research

Summary

This is a research round-up of our tools, resources and research that support an ecosystem-based management (EBM) approach to the seafood industry (July 2022)

Scale dependencies and its influence on EBM

Report

This report provides a review of the existing knowledge of scale dependencies in Sustainable Seas research project and compares between phase I and II of the challenge. Ellis J, Rullens V, Fisher K & Hewitt J (December 2022)

A review of te ao Māori perspectives of marine scales and where these are impeded by contemporary management

Report

Kainamu A & Rolleston-Gabel T (September 2023)

Te ao Māori perspectives of marine scale

Report

Kainamu A & Rolleston-Gabel T (2023)

Considering scale and EBM in Aotearoa New Zealand

Graphic

Graphic depicting how successful practice for EBM requires a clear understanding of scale by decision-makers (2024)

Related projects & activities

Credit: Matakana Island © Shellie Evans

A novel approach to aquaculture in Aotearoa New Zealand

Growing community wellbeing with pātiki tōtara/yellowbelly flounder

This project has produced or contributed to

Credit: Ōhiwa Harbour, Sustainable Seas

Ecological responses to cumulative effects

This project brings together mātauranga Māori and science to develop new knowledge about cumulative effects

This project has produced or contributed to

Credit: Waipiro Bay © Shellie Evans

Huataukina o hapū e!

Enabling kaitiaki to better manage Whareponga and Waipiro Bays

This project has produced or contributed to

Communicating risk and uncertainty

Creating guidelines, models and tools that explicitly identify risk and uncertainty, to help make decision-making more inclusive and multi-sectorial.

This project has produced or contributed to

Tipping points in ecosystem structure, function and services

We investigated how marine ecosystems respond to change, and identified tipping points, risks and ways of managing them.

This project has produced or contributed to

Credit: Leigh Tait/NIWA

Building a seaweed sector

Developing a seaweed sector framework for Aotearoa New Zealand.

This project has produced or contributed to

Credit: Ripiro Beach © Taoho Patuawa

Thinking outside the can: Engineering toheroa aquaculture

Developing sustainable, community-based aquaculture in Te Taitokerau

This project has produced or contributed to

Credit: Kura Paul Burke

Awhi Mai Awhi Atu: Enacting a kaitiakitanga-based approach to EBM

This project combines mātauranga Māori, science and local kaitiakitanga to better understand the culturally and socially important species in Ōhiwa Harbour.

This project has produced or contributed to

Ngā Tohu o te Ao: Maramataka and marine management

We are investigating maramataka (Māori lunar calendars) as a framework to develop cultural coastal indicators to inform marine monitoring practices.

This project has produced or contributed to

Credit: Hamish McCormick

Policy and legislation for EBM

We are developing a research base for policy makers, Māori and stakeholders to navigate the legislative, policy and practice constraints surrounding EBM and any changes required to enable it.

This project has produced or contributed to

Credit: Lamprey and eel weir Whanganui River taken by James McDonald © Alexander Turnbull Library

Whakaika te Moana

Exploring traditional aquaculture practices to inform a hapū-based blue economy

This project has produced or contributed to

Credit: Dive Tutukaka

Growing marine ecotourism

Developing marine ecotourism that embraces regenerative principles and supports a blue economy.

This project has produced or contributed to

Credit: Jill Scott NIWA 2018

Perceptions of risk and uncertainty

We are investigating people's perceptions of risk and uncertainty in the marine environment and how these different experiences can improve decision-making about marine resources.

This project has produced or contributed to

Credit: Ngāti Kahungunu Inc on Te Matau-a-Maui, Waka Hourua © Desna Whaanga-Schollum, 2013

Indigenising the blue economy

Addressing key barriers that currently prevent Māori from using their marine resources in a more culturally relevant, economically impactful, and environmentally sustainable manner

This project has produced or contributed to

Credit: Greg Lois Nunes

Restorative marine economies

Encouraging restorative economies in Aotearoa New Zealand’s marine spaces

This project has produced or contributed to

Navigating marine social-ecological systems

We aimed to identify and/or improve our understanding of institutional, social and cultural factors that need to be incorporated into EBM for it to be successfully used to manage Aotearoa New Zealand’s marine resources.

This project has produced or contributed to

Credit: Crispin Middleton NIWA 2018

Spatially-explicit decision support tools

We developed tools to help decision-makers explore how best to use and share marine spaces.

This project has produced or contributed to

Credit: Terra Moana

Upholding the value of pāua quota

Exploring what pāua fishery investors (quota owners, divers, processors etc) need to know to have the confidence to invest; and the relationship between risk, quota valuation and management responses

This project has produced or contributed to