Collaborative Research: The Emergence of Stakeholders and Ecosystems as Powerful Actors in Marine Spatial Planning

几十年来，确定如何有效和负责任地管理海洋是一项复杂的任务，涉及研究人员、政策制定者和其他人。为了应对过去和现有的海洋管理形式，海洋空间规划(MSP)是一种新兴的海洋治理进程，旨在解决当前对如何组织和利用国家海洋资源的关切。MSP是美国联邦政府国家海洋政策的核心组成部分，也是政府实现基于生态系统的海洋管理承诺的关键途径。海洋环境是MSP正在努力纳入新的全面规划进程的越来越多的用户和活动的家园。这一研究项目将增进对海洋管理进程的理解，这些进程对维持沿海社区及其许多社区赖以生存的海洋资源至关重要。这项研究将集中在两个关键问题上：1)社区和环境行为者是如何由MSP实践构成的？2)社区和环境行为者在MSP本身的构成中扮演什么角色？通过这些研究，这项研究将审查MSP的国家政策语言如何在区域MSP的论述和实践中得到解释，从业人员和人类利益集团的关切是如何形成和解决的，以及区域内和区域之间差异很大的海洋环境行为者--如鱼类、海洋哺乳动物或海草--是如何被列入名录的。在这些区域内，有一些特定的地点或“计算中心”将是数据收集的重点，包括在线海洋科学数据库(国家和区域)；大西洋中部和东北部的区域MSP联合体；以及在“转向”MSP、生态系统和生态系统服务方面发挥了重要作用的研究中心。该项目将收集地区政府机构、非政府组织、行业团体和公共论坛的书面和录音记录；收集与中期战略计划有关的各种测绘项目的原始数据和成果；并对领导这些项目的组织进行简短的组织人种学研究。该项目将分析MSP中纳入了哪些类型的人类和海洋资源信息(以及可能缺失的信息)，这是研究人员和政策制定者推进旨在可视化和组织美国海洋使用的越来越大的数据集的关键需求。实际上，该项目旨在向MSP做法提供信息，因为全国各地的社区继续参与以不同方式定义海洋空间的倡议(例如，水产养殖、渔获量份额、风能)。更广泛地说，全球对新的海洋治理形式产生了前所未有的兴趣，尽管这项研究将集中在美国，但结果将对这些更大的进程具有重要意义。该项目将加强学术机构之间以及与政府和社区团体之间的现有合作，并为博士后培训和指导做出贡献。结果将传达给学术界、实践者和社区受众。

Determining how to effectively and responsibly manage the oceans is a complex task, engaging researchers, policymakers, and others for decades. In response to past and existing forms of oceans management, Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) is an emerging process of oceans governance that seeks to address current concerns with how to organize and use the nation's marine resources. MSP is a central component of the US federal government's National Ocean Policy, and is the key avenue through which the government's commitment to ecosystem-based management of the oceans will be realized. The marine environment is home to a growing number of users and activities that MSP is working to frame within a new comprehensive planning process. This research project will improve understanding of the processes of ocean governance produced within the context of MSP, ones critical to sustaining coastal communities and the marine resources many of them depend on. The research will focus on two key questions: 1) How are communities and environmental actors constituted by MSP practices?; and 2) What are the roles of community and environmental actors in the constitution of MSP itself? Through these, the research will examine how national policy language for MSP is interpreted in regional MSP discourses and practices, how the concerns of practitioners and human interest groups are formulated and addressed, and how the widely varying marine environmental actors both within and between regions - such as fish, marine mammals, or sea grasses - are inscribed. Within these regions, there are specific sites, or 'centers of calculation, that will be the focus of data collection. These include online ocean science databases (both national and regional); regional MSP consortiums in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast; and research centers that have been instrumental in the 'turn' toward MSP, ecosystems, and ecosystem services. The project will collect written and audio records from regional government agencies, non-government organizations, industry groups, and public forums; collect source data and outputs from the various mapping projects associated with MSP; and conduct short organizational ethnographies of the organizations leading these projects. The project will analyze what types of human and marine resource information are being incorporated into MSP (and what might be missing), a critical need as researchers and policymakers move forward with ever-larger data sets designed to visualize and organize US ocean uses. Practically, the project aims to inform MSP practices as communities across the country continue to engage with initiatives (e.g., aquaculture, catch shares, wind energy) that define ocean space in different ways. More generally, there is unprecedented worldwide interest in new forms of oceans governance, and although this research will focus on the US, results will have significance for these larger processes. The project will strengthen existing collaborations across academic institutions and with government and community groups, and contributes to post-doctoral training and mentoring. Results will be communicated to academic, practitioners, and community audiences.