An innovation and agency perspective on the emergence and spread of Marine Spatial Planning

The roles of governance and technological innovation have been widely recognized as important parts of sustainability transitions. However, less attention has been paid to understanding the mechanisms of the emergence and spread of innovative ideas for stewardship of social-ecological systems. This study considers how theories of innovation and agency are able to provide explanatory power regarding the spread and impact of such ideas. This includes how innovations may contribute to resolving the mismatches between the scale of ecological processes and the scale of governance of ecosystems. The emergence and spread of Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) is used as an illustrative case study. The study shows that individuals embedded in informal networks have played a key role in driving the emergence of MSP across scales and in constantly re-framing the tool in order to overcome obstacles to adoption and implementation. In a number of cases, MSP has been decoupled from the ecosystem despite being framed as a tool for ecosystem-based management. Finally, this study is important to understand the process of emergence of new integrated tools for ecosystem stewardship at the global level.