Using scenarios to identify adaptive governance regimes for marine biodiversity in a changing climate

This paper explores the use of scenarios as a tool for investigating how governance regimes for marine biodiversity conservation may need to change to adapt to climate change impacts. Scenarios are narratives or stories about plausible futures. They help in considering the implications of current decisions and in planning strategies for the future. For our purposes, scenario development was used to examine marine biodiversity conservation in the context of climate variability and change in the Whitsundays (Queensland), Tweed-Moreton (NSW/Queensland) and the Freycinet bioregion on the East Coast of Tasmania. The scenario process we deployed is novel in two ways. First, the scenarios were formulated with the current governance arrangements being kept constant in order to test their ability to secure marine biodiversity conservation under a range of conditions. This approach also allows potential alternative regimes to be similarly tested. Resilience theory suggests that the most adaptive regimes will be those that can achieve positive outcomes for biodiversity conservation under any plausible future. Second, to provide for scalability of the findings from the case regions to other levels, from local to national, scenarios were first developed for each case study, and from these we derived four generalised scenarios. These scale-independent futures were filtered through lenses of climate change/variability and development impacts on marine biodiversity. We demonstrate how using this approach to scenario development can help in identifying potential regime reforms that strengthen the likelihood that governance arrangements can secure the resilience of marine biodiversity in a changing climate.