Marine Spatial Planning

Through an innovative integrated, stakeholder-led approach – connecting science and communities, this project builds a Territory to Territory partnership between the South Atlantic Environmental Research Institute (SAERI) in the Falklands Islands and DECR in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) to Develop Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) tools for TCI to feed into long-term planning and decision-making in the marine environment.

Background

MSP is a stakeholder-driven science-based process to develop a strategic plan for managing and protecting the marine environment, addressing multiple and cumulative uses of the sea and achieving ecological, economic and social objectives.

TCI currently has no such holistic strategic approach to marine management, but this was identified as a priority action in the 2012 TCI FCO/JNCC funded “Environmental Mainstreaming” report.

There are a range of stakeholders working in TCI’s EEZ, which is rich in biodiversity, and provides important ecosystem goods and services including its vital disaster mitigation role. However, there is risk to the marine environment from resource extraction and coastal development and such pressures are likely to intensify. Existing management, use and legislation needs to be improved to ensure sustainability. This project will create the framework and tools to bring together these functions and uses of the marine environment, which is essential for developing a marine spatial plan in the TCI and includes a series of reviews, stakeholder meetings and workshops; and all-island data portal and Geographic Information System (GIS) database for analyses and visualisation.

Darwin Initiative
South Atlantic Envorinmental Research Institute
Economics for the Environment
Joint Nature Conservation Committee
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