Marine futures
AFMEC: Alternative Future Scenarios for Marine Ecosystems
AFMEC is a strategic project being funded under Defra's 'Horizon Scanning' initiative.
The goal of this study has been to encourage debate about alternative futures for marine ecosystems, and to develop a series of future scenarios that can be used by Defra and other stakeholders for strategic planning.
This project has been undertaken by an alliance of four complimentary organisations:
Background
The Horizon Scanning Programme was established by Defra’s Chief Scientific Adviser in 2002, to improve Defra’s capability to anticipate and prepare for new science risks and opportunities. Horizon scanning research should encourage crosscutting thinking in natural and social scientific activities and research. For more information go to: http://www.defra.gov.uk/horizonscanning.
A set of four contrasting AFMEC ‘futures’ have been developed, detailing how marine ecosystems might look and how activities in the marine environment might develop over the next 20-30 years, given assumptions about climate change and socio-political development.
In elaborating these four ‘futures’, this project has built upon earlier scenario exercises. It aims to complement work carried out by the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP), and the Office of Science & Technology (OST).
The scenario framework segments the future ‘possibility space’ into four quadrants following other work on scenario development. Here scenarios are defined by a ‘societal values’ axis (ranging from consumerism to community) and a ‘governance’ axis (ranging from autonomy to interdependence). The four scenarios are: World Markets, Fortress Britain, Local Stewardship and Global Commons.
- The World Markets scenario assumes the prevalence of materialist and libertarian social values operating within interdependent and globalised governance systems.
- The Fortress Britain scenario assumes individualistic and conservative social values, and a reinforcement of a national governance system and identity.
- The Local Stewardship scenario assumes tolerant, community-oriented social values encouraging co-operative self-reliance and regional development.
- The Global Commons scenario attempts to reconcile growth and sustainability, where sustainability is seen from a global perspective, including the maintenance of biodiversity, the protection of global commons (the atmosphere, oceans, wilderness areas) and fair access to environmental resources.
In AFMEC, each of the four ‘futures’ is elaborated with respect to: climate and hydrography, fisheries and aquaculture, tourism, ports and shipping, nutrients and contaminants, aggregate extraction, oil and gas extraction, offshore renewable energy production, flood and coastal defence, biodiversity and conservation.
Extreme, low-probability high-impact geological, astronomical, climatic, ecological and socio-political ‘shock’ events are also considered and the likelihood of them occurring under each AFMEC scenario.
The AFMEC ‘Technical report’ concludes with an exploration of how the AFMEC scenarios might be used in the future, plus a discussion focussing on how they might be further quantified and elaborated upon.
