CoCoMar

The CoCoMar project focuses on the evolving marine governance frameworks that apply around the island of Ireland, concentrating specifically on transnational working as a key mechanism to achieve international, regional (EU and OSPAR) and national law and policy commitments in an EU Member State (Ireland) and non-EU jurisdiction, Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom. Marine spaces do not respect legal or administrative boundaries and natural ecosystems must be managed coherently to achieve international commitments relating to sustainable development, climate change and biodiversity loss.

The need to consider co-location and co-existence has been acknowledged in marine plans and policies but to date there is limited demonstration of how this can be achieved in practice. CoCoMar aims to address this gap and opportunity by using co-existence and co-location as a unifying lens in which to approach the themes of fisheries management in a post-Brexit world; cross compliance of marine sectors governed by Maritime Spatial Planning; expanding Marine Protected Area networks; and implementing nature restoration.

The twin challenges of addressing the impacts of climate change and minimising biodiversity loss necessitates combined, concerted efforts across all governance and societal actors who will have to co-exist in shared marine spaces. Through a comprehensive programme of targeted, collaborative desk-based research, supplemented by focused transnational fora, CoCoMar will build capacity on the island to progress more integrated marine governance by providing new knowledge, evidence and advice for policymakers to implement actions that are urgently required.

The CoCoMar project takes the aim of enabling co-existence and co-location as mechanisms to deliver more integrated marine governance in the shared waters around the island of Ireland, informed by EU and UK policy ambitions relating to the four themes of fisheries management post-Brexit; cross-compliance of policies for sectoral activities managed under Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP); expanding Marine Protected Area (MPA) networks; and delivering nature restoration. As policy objectives relating to all four themes present similar issues and challenges for integrated management, participatory approaches and transnational learning and sharing of information will be embedded in all elements of the project work.

The project will consist of undertaking specified research tasks in each of four thematic work packages and using a series of transboundary fora to disseminate the research findings and garner feedback from interested stakeholders drawn from government, regulators, industry and eNGOs. The project will also facilitate the completion of three PhDs – two from Queen’s University Belfast and one from UCC. The UCC PhD focuses on nature restoration and environmental liability in the marine environment.

WP1 Fisheries in a post-Brexit world

WP2 Cross-compliance of sectoral policies and MSP

WP3 Expanding Marine Protected Area (MPA) Networks

WP4: Implementing Nature Restoration

WP5: Communicating Transboundary Approaches to Coastal and Marine Governance

(WP6: Project Management)

Name: Dr. Anne Marie O’Hagan

Email: ei.ccu@nagaho.a