New Marine SABRES Publications and Technical Reports
Catch up on our recent publications and reports from 2025!
Ocean & Coastal Management Publication
Current marine environmental management is the ‘sustainable management of people and their marine activities’ to be achieved through ecosystem manipulation and activity control. Marine management per se needs to define who requires and can achieve a successfully managed environment, the tools and indicators for that management, the indications of success and the means of knowing that the environment has been successfully managed. Indicators of success require policies and plans, environmental targets and regulatory standards and guidelines, i.e. output controls such as those stipulated by legislation. It should aim for sustainable outcomes based on government policy, to satisfy public demands and using the advice and assessments by natural and social scientists.
The inputs, outputs and outcomes should include scientific research and advice, reporting to the government and the public as well as compliance in programme performance evaluations. In this, there are three interested bodies: (i) those requiring a successfully managed environment such as the public; (ii) those responsible to carry-out and monitor the programmes and regulate humans and their activities as mandated by government such as administrators and regulators, and (iii) those implementing the management measures. Here, examples from Europe and North America but with relevance to all maritime states are used to emphasise that management success encompasses a well-defined planning cycle with a vision achieved as the result of objectives being met leading to actions carried out leading to outputs produced leading to outcomes achieved.
Read the full publication here!
Citation: Elliott, M., Borja, A. and Cormier, R., 2025. Managing marine resources sustainably – But how do we know when marine management has been successful? Ocean & Coastal Management, Volume 265, 2025, 107623. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2025.107623
Sustainable Futures Publication
In this paper, the authors present a comprehensive interrogation of nine existing Social-Ecological System frameworks, aiming to learn from these and identify the most suitable approach for managing the complex and adaptive nature of marine systems. Through a rigorous SWOT analysis and the application of appropriate characteristics criteria derived from the Ecosystem Approach principles, they evaluate various frameworks potential for operationalising ecosystem-based marine management. Key attributes such as holism, resilience, cross-scale interactions, stakeholder involvement, and adaptive learning emerge as critical to effective marine management.
Read the full publication here!
Citation: Smith, G., Atkins, J., Gregory, A. and Elliott, M., 2025.The minimum complexity necessary: The value of a simple Social-Ecological systems analysis in holistic marine environmental management. Sustainable Futures, Volume 9, 2025,100476. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sftr.2025.100476.
Baseline Assessment of Social-Ecological
System models
We are happy to announce the availability of our newest Marine SABRES Technical Report, 'Baseline Assessment of Social-Ecological System models'. The work conducted in this baseline assessment, represents the departure point of the application of the simple socio-ecological systems approach to three Marine SABRES Demonstration Areas:
👉The Tuscan Archipelago
👉Arctic Northeast Atlantic
👉Macaronesia
The results highlight how each Demonstration Area faces unique challenges (i.e., tourism and seagrass meadows, tourism and the ecological corridor, and pelagic fisheries, respectively), that are influenced by local socio-economic contexts and environmental pressures, emphasizing the need for tailored
management strategies.
Learn more by downloading your copy of the report here!
Recent Events
7 June, 2025 | La Aldea de San Nicolás
6-8 June, 2025 | Gran Canaria
Marine SABRES General Assembly
28 May, 2025 | Online
Upcoming Events
58th European Marine Biology Symposium
6-9 July, 2025 | Norway
8-12 September, 2025 | Germany
ICES Annual Science Conference
15-18 September, 2025 | Lithuania
Learn more about the Marine SABRES project at www.marinesabres.eu.
