era that scientists have agreed to refer to as the “Anthropocene”.
69 The intricacy of
regulating and disciplining the management of the ocean emanates from the plurality
of activities involved (such as navigating, fishing, mining, researching, etc.), as well
as the emergence of new stakeholders in the past decades (environmental groups and
an increased amount of people negatively impacted by ocean uses), all that within a
context of economic and technological asymmetries between countries worldwide.
70
The complexity inherent to drawing and implementing ocean policies under those
circumstances could not logically result in simple, plain and straightforward documents. In this sense, fragmentation of marine environmental governance seems to be
an inevitable reality both internationally and domestically, as the work by Boyes and
Elliott depicts. Upon examining the international, European and English legislation
safeguarding the marine environment, the authors have come up with a map that
synthetizes the intricacy of policies, rules, programs and agencies that interact for
that purpose—such a map (or the chaotic overlap of policies and rules that it
portrays) was suggestively labelled “the ultimate horrendogram”.
71 In this context,
to strive for a centralized or unified marine governance edifice is not only utopic, but
also undesirable, as decision-makers and stakeholders ought to embrace the ocean as
a complex set of different regimes to be governed. The old-school “top-down
approach” to ocean regulation has proven insufficient in the past and does not
allow for the effective implementation of agreed goals.
To acknowledge that is not equivalent, by no means, to defending that domestic
legal and policy frameworks be unnecessarily labyrinthine. A too complex ocean
governance system is likely to lead to internal conflicts of formal competence, as
well as to material contradiction, consequences which are to be avoided by every
policy- and law-maker. As it does not mean that public authorities should not aim at
harmonizing policies and plans for the marine environment. To the contrary, it
means that expecting a handful of documents to regulate all uses of the oceans
may not be consonant with reality. Admitting the inherent complicatedness of the
process, due to the multiplicity of opposing interests at stake and the great variety of
stakeholders, is a first step towards the drawing of effective strategies for the oceans.
In the Brazilian case, when confronted with the question whether the Brazilian
“ocean strategy” is coherent, harmonic and uniform, the answer is: partially. For one,
Brazil does not pay lip service to those requirements, simply by mentioning them at
the beginning of each document containing a policy, plan or program.
72 The country
concretely attempts at intertwining key strategic priorities into the policies mentioned supra (PMN, PNMA, PNRM), while sharing general and specific objectives,
as analyzed above. In this sense, the key topics and objectives of the National Policy
on Marine Resources informs the Programs and Plans designed after it, as well as the
69 Vidas et al. (2014), p. 23.
70 Barros-Platiau et al. (2015), p. 158.
71 Boyes and Elliott (2014), p. 43.
72 Harmonization with other plans and policies is considered a “basic principle” by the Marine
Resources Policy, Art. 4.
266
9 The Environmental Dimension of the “Brazilian Blue...
69 The intricacy of
regulating and disciplining the management of the ocean emanates from the plurality
of activities involved (such as navigating, fishing, mining, researching, etc.), as well
as the emergence of new stakeholders in the past decades (environmental groups and
an increased amount of people negatively impacted by ocean uses), all that within a
context of economic and technological asymmetries between countries worldwide.
70
The complexity inherent to drawing and implementing ocean policies under those
circumstances could not logically result in simple, plain and straightforward documents. In this sense, fragmentation of marine environmental governance seems to be
an inevitable reality both internationally and domestically, as the work by Boyes and
Elliott depicts. Upon examining the international, European and English legislation
safeguarding the marine environment, the authors have come up with a map that
synthetizes the intricacy of policies, rules, programs and agencies that interact for
that purpose—such a map (or the chaotic overlap of policies and rules that it
portrays) was suggestively labelled “the ultimate horrendogram”.
71 In this context,
to strive for a centralized or unified marine governance edifice is not only utopic, but
also undesirable, as decision-makers and stakeholders ought to embrace the ocean as
a complex set of different regimes to be governed. The old-school “top-down
approach” to ocean regulation has proven insufficient in the past and does not
allow for the effective implementation of agreed goals.
To acknowledge that is not equivalent, by no means, to defending that domestic
legal and policy frameworks be unnecessarily labyrinthine. A too complex ocean
governance system is likely to lead to internal conflicts of formal competence, as
well as to material contradiction, consequences which are to be avoided by every
policy- and law-maker. As it does not mean that public authorities should not aim at
harmonizing policies and plans for the marine environment. To the contrary, it
means that expecting a handful of documents to regulate all uses of the oceans
may not be consonant with reality. Admitting the inherent complicatedness of the
process, due to the multiplicity of opposing interests at stake and the great variety of
stakeholders, is a first step towards the drawing of effective strategies for the oceans.
In the Brazilian case, when confronted with the question whether the Brazilian
“ocean strategy” is coherent, harmonic and uniform, the answer is: partially. For one,
Brazil does not pay lip service to those requirements, simply by mentioning them at
the beginning of each document containing a policy, plan or program.
72 The country
concretely attempts at intertwining key strategic priorities into the policies mentioned supra (PMN, PNMA, PNRM), while sharing general and specific objectives,
as analyzed above. In this sense, the key topics and objectives of the National Policy
on Marine Resources informs the Programs and Plans designed after it, as well as the
69 Vidas et al. (2014), p. 23.
70 Barros-Platiau et al. (2015), p. 158.
71 Boyes and Elliott (2014), p. 43.
72 Harmonization with other plans and policies is considered a “basic principle” by the Marine
Resources Policy, Art. 4.
266
9 The Environmental Dimension of the “Brazilian Blue...