Establishing Authority
Once you decide to embark on marine spatial planning (MSP), two initial aspects need consideration before you get underway:
(a) Defining clearly why you want to develop MSP. This will enable you to stay on track throughout the process; and
(b) Defining whether you have appropriate and sufficient authority to develop and implement MSP. If not, your MSP efforts might be wasted if implementation is not possible later on.
Various countries have used different ways to establish authority for MSP. We are currently compiling a set of good practices to illustrate how to establish authority for MSP. We expect to have it available here by the end of June 2009.
You can read about an initial set of good practices to establish authority in Step 1 (p. 22-31) of the guide "Marine spatial planning: A step-by-step approach toward ecosystem-based management". Download (pdf, 1.55 MB)
Last updated: 28 January 2010