Marine Spatial Planning is a practical, inclusive and participatory process to simultaneously achieve social and economic goals for development, and environmental goals to protect the integrity, resilience and diversity of the ecosystems providing the resources/opportunities.

This is achieved by analysing marine space use, and in an open and transparent way, rationally organizing activities in space and time to reduce conflicts between users and with the environment. The result is allowing sustainable access to resources, ensuring continued provisioning of goods and services by protecting the ecosystems (and our natural heritage), and thereby creating social-ecological systems for the future.

 

The video below is by our guest lecturers, Hugh Possingham and Jennifer McGowan from The University of Queensland. Here they illustrate how marine reserves are designed through efficient spatial prioritization. In the workshop, we will expand the spatial prioritization problem to full ocean zoning, which requires the user to include zones for both conservation and economic (e.g., fishing/mining/shipping) objectives. 

Contact information
Dr Linda Harris
Postdoctoral Fellow
Tel: +27 (0)41 5044281
Linda.Harris2@mandela.ac.za