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At its fifth meeting in 2000, the COP adopted the Ecosystem
Approach (EA) as a framework for the implementation of the
objectives of the Convention. The EA provides a paradigm for
the integrated management of soil, water and biodiversity,
while taking into account the basic principles of ecosystem
functioning (e.g. focusing on spatial structures, processes
and interactions) and good decision-making (e.g. involving
all stakeholders and applying subsidiarity, based on all relevant
information).
The COP adopted twelve principles, as well as rationale and
implementation guidelines to complement them (decision
VII/11).
Principle 1: The objectives of management of land,
water and living resources are a matter of societal choice.
Principle 2: Management should be decentralized to
the lowest appropriate level.
Principle 3: Ecosystem managers should consider the
effects (actual or potential) of their activities on adjacent
and other ecosystems.
Principle 4: Recognizing potential gains from management,
there is usually a need to understand and manage the ecosystem
in an economic context. Any such ecosystem-management programme
should:
(a) Reduce those market distortions that adversely affect
biological diversity;
(b) Align incentives to promote biodiversity conservation
and sustainable use;
(c) Internalize costs and benefits in the given ecosystem
to the extent feasible.
Principle 5: Conservation of ecosystem structure and
functioning, in order to maintain ecosystem services, should
be a priority target of the ecosystem approach.
Principle 6: Ecosystems must be managed within the
limits of their functioning.
Principle 7: The ecosystem approach should be undertaken
at the appropriate spatial and temporal scales.
Principle 8: Recognizing the varying temporal scales
and lag-effects that characterize ecosystem processes, objectives
for ecosystem management should be set for the long term.
Principle 9: Management must recognize that change
is inevitable.
Principle 10: The ecosystem approach should seek the
appropriate balance between, and integration of, conservation
and use of biological diversity.
Principle 11: The ecosystem approach should consider
all forms of relevant information, including scientific and
indigenous and local knowledge, innovations and practices.
Principle 12: The ecosystem approach should involve
all relevant sectors of society and scientific disciplines.
The principles amount to a strategy for the integrated or
holistic management of resources through modern scientific
adaptive management practices. Essentially, they require that
the process of decision making be transparent and take into
account all relevant factors. Collectively the principles
are similar to principles associated with strategic environmental
assessment methods.
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