Mr Jurgen Valckenaere1,2,5, Dr Karen Filbee-Dexter1,2,3,5, Prof Thomas Wernberg1,2,3,5, Prof Erika Techera1,2,4
1The University Of Western Australia, Crawley, Perth, Australia, 2The UWA Oceans Institute , Crawley, Perth, Australia, 3Institute of Marine Research, His, Norway, 4UWA Law School, Crawley, Australia, 5School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia
The global environmental and climate crisis pose a significant threat to coastal ecosystems, and international governance frameworks play a vital role in ensuring their preservation, enhancement, and sustainable management. These frameworks provide guidelines, best practices, priorities, and targets for environmental organisations around the world. The organizational ecology of the international governance system is highly sophisticated, collaborative, and dynamic, encompassing a wide range of international law texts, international institutions, and global actions resulting from international collaboration. Often critiqued and questioned, it nevertheless has a key influence on global environmental trends at all levels. Here we overview mention and inclusion of kelp forests in international governance and compare this to other dominant marine habitats: coral reefs, seagrass meadows, mangrove forests, tidal marshes. We find that kelp forests consistently receive the least mention (and are sometimes absent) in comparison to other coastal ecosystems across seven organizations and six legal frameworks, including but not limited to the FAO, UNESCO, UNEP, the Paris Agreement, the SDGs, … This oversight extends to the applications and implementation of international treaties such as the World Heritage Convention. Potentially half of the coastal sites in the convention contain kelp forests, yet only one publicly acknowledges their presence. This discrepancy is concerning considering that kelp forests are amongst the most extensive coastal ecosystem on the planet, providing critical ecological functions as well as valuable ecosystems services while experiencing rapid rates of decline globally.
Presentation Slides – Jurgen Valckenaere
