Assessing the implementation of marine ecosystem based management into national policies: Insights from agenda setting and policy responses

During the past decade, global environmental policy discussions have encouraged countries to engage in an ecosystem approach to managing the oceans. An ecosystem approach involves the integrated management of species, other natural services, and the multiple uses of the coast. Improving ecosystem based management efforts requires a better understanding of how it is included within national level policies that influence marine resource management. Chile has committed to implement international recommendations to include ecosystem based management. This study operationalizes an approach to assess the extent to which ecosystem based management is being implemented at national scales through the synthesis of agenda setting documents and national level policy/regulatory responses. The study specifically searches for ecosystem based management principles, as defined by the Convention of Biological Diversity in State of the Nation presidential speeches, national sectorial policies, national decrees and national programs issued between 1990 and 2014 (n = 1335 documents). Results show that although national level policies in Chile increasingly share common grounds with ecosystem based management principles, the overall approach is poorly mainstreamed into agenda setting speeches and reports. Working with existing institutional settings and institutional capacity are key features to maintain trajectories for the implementation of ecosystem based management in national policies. The approach presented complements research on marine policy implementation by effectively informing how national level policies can be analyzed under the lens of ecosystem based management.