Ecosystem-Based Management

In October 2006, the Environmental Law Institute launched its project, Implementing Ecosystem-Based Management: Governance Gaps, Conflicts and Needs, to identify and develop practical legal and institutional approaches to ecosystem-based management (EBM) implementation.

In the first phase of the project, we surveyed existing regional programs to begin to understand the laws and institutions available or needed for EBM success. We integrated this research with the insights that working group members and meeting participants shared during the first EBM governance working group meeting, held in February, 2007, into our first report. This report will help guide our project as a working document that will evolve as we move into the next phase of our project: identifying legal and institutional opportunities for and obstacles to EBM implementation.

Ecosystem-Based Management: Laws and Institutions

Ecosystem-Based Management: Laws and Institutions (Executive Summary)

Appendix A: Regional Programs Summaries

Appendix B: Defining EBM Governance Success

Implementing Ecosystem-Based Management: Working Group Meeting 1 Summary, February 2007

Managing for a Healthy Gulf of Mexico Ecosystem Workshop: Workshop Summary, November 2007

The Gulf of Maine is one of ELI's case study regions for the EBM project. The summary, Ecosystem-Based Management in the Gulf of Maine: U.S. Legal and Institutional Considerations, includes existing ecosystem approaches in the Gulf of Maine identified through research and interviews with federal and state agencies, academic institutions, and non-governmental organizations.