49 / 60
49
.
The dynamic relationship between humans and marine and
coastal ecosystem services demands constant monitoring
and assessment in order to measure progress towards
the SDGs and the ecological conditions required for their
achievement. It is therefore important that baseline
measures of marine and coastal ecosystem services include
ecological and human measures that can be reassessed on
a regular basis.
From Data and Discovery to Leadership and
Implementation
To achieve the SDGs, we must continue to work to
integrate marine and coastal ecosystem services into
decision-making and marine management on a local, but
regionally integrated, platform. A deeper understanding
of human-ecosystem interactions is a first step to
developing connections between marine and coastal
ecosystem services and to policy-making. As highlighted
earlier, stakeholders must be identified, and policy and
technical experts must work together to adopt a shared
terminology and develop assessments that fit specific
policy needs. To fully harness the power of marine and
coastal ecosystem services to meet the SDGs, it is crucial
to continue to develop international strategies that can
be implemented at a local (sub-national) level in order to
collect baseline data and to implement monitoring of a
key set of ecological and human indicators.
Ecosystems for People
This will require:
• A leadership role by an international organization
• An international strategy that gives countries a supportive
framework for conducting the necessary scientific
research and taking policy action
• National policies that translate an international framework
into local action, and respond to the specific context of local
development goals andmarine and coastal ecosystems
• Coordinated data collection and local level training to
ensure capacity for future data collection and monitoring,
supported by a steady stream of funding to enable
monitoring of progress and effective, targeted and
informed
decision-making.
There is a growing recognition among world and local
leaders that ecosystems are indeed our shared factory.
Marine and coastal ecosystems in particular are being
counted on to produce many of the essential goods and
services that will fuel the new blue economy and help us
achieve the SDGs.
Moving forward, there is a need for reliable, objective
and widely available data. Only then can we harness this
powerful, sustainable and global natural factory to achieve
the Sustainable Development Goals we have set for the
people of this planet.