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• Actor intentions implementing the European Union ecosystem approach (EU-EA) can be surprising. • Rather than a universalized model, we found 'modernizing', 'competing' and 'appeasing' EU-EAs. • But in all three, the regulatory scientific EA project has not been accompanied by the political one. • Finding the EA tells us little about actor priorities of socio-ecological interdependencies. • EU-EAs are ambivalent on growth and do not affect the concentration of economic power. The application of the Ecosystem Approach (EA) to the government of aquaculture has been strongly advocated by many scientists and NGOs. However, knowledge gaps exist on actual actor intentions implementing this approach in the European Union (EU) which are often assumed to simply fit with a universalized model. Presenting findings on salmon in Scotland, trout in New Aquitaine (France) and seabass and seabream in Greece, we show that not only do a variety of actor intentions exist, but these can be unexpected. As a result, different forms of 'modernizing', 'competing' and 'appeasing' EU-EAs have been institutionalised. Further, although EA regulation is supported by a well-established EA scientific community, the political project has not followed the scientific one. Consequently, stating that the EA has been applied to aquaculture does not, in and of itself, tell you which socio-ecological interdependencies matter most to actors on the ground, nor how wider debates on the legitimacy of this industry have been addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the values and benefits of geodiversity and geoconservation in the context of the Strategic Objectives and National Outcomes in the Scottish Government's National Performance Framework, particularly in relation to: economic development; climate change adaptation; biodiversity; science and education; and recreation, health and cultural inspiration. A key challenge is to improve the integration of geodiversity in environmental policy and its implementation in order to deliver more holistic and sustainable environmental management and wider public benefits. This requires greater awareness and recognition of the key benefits and ecosystem services that geodiversity provides for society. With an overall objective of promoting integration of geodiversity into relevant policies and decision frameworks, we advocate a more strategic, ecosystem-based approach to address: the future-proofing of ecosystem services, particularly in a context of climate change and rising sea-levels; conservation and sustainable management of geodiversity both in designated sites and in the wider countryside; raising awareness of the value of geodiversity and its contribution to ecosystem services; and improving understanding of geodiversity and key knowledge gaps. Such an approach is adopted in the Scotland's Geodiversity Charter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building ecosystem resilience requires consideration of the role and response of physical processes to climate change. Understanding geodiversity will enable more effective conservation strategies for managing ecosystem responses, as well as helping to mitigate future impacts, inform appropriate policies, guide adaptive management, and contribute to the restoration of ecosystems already damaged by human activities. This will require applying understanding of the spatial and temporal connectivity and dynamism of geomorphological and soil processes, and working in harmony with them. Scenarios for the likely effects of climate change on coastal, river, slope and soil processes in Scotland include: reductions in recovery time for habitats and species between extreme events; changes in the distributions of landforms in response to altered patterns and rates of both erosion and deposition; and longer landform readjustment times to extreme events due to reactivation by subsequent events. In extreme cases, the frequency and speed of geomorphological change may mean that habitat recovery is never established, potentially leading to process regime change. Managing biodiversity adaptations to climate change through making space for natural processes must be informed by wider understanding of the links between geodiversity and biodiversity as part of an ecosystem approach climate-proof future nature conservation management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ecosystem Approach to environmental management, with its explicit acknowledgment of the environmental, social and economic elements within ecological systems, is becoming increasingly adopted by managers and policy makers. However, there are few specific prescriptions as to exactly how these different elements should be integrated, or examples where historical changes have been tracked. Here, we assess the potential benefits and challenges of applying an Ecosystem Approach to management using one particular method, the Holistic Ecosystem Health Indicator (HEHI), which integrates data from the ecological, social and interactive dimensions into a single composite index of ecosystem ‘health’. We apply it to one of the best-documented catchments in the UK, the Ythan Estuary in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, based on a 50-year time series of data. The evaluation of ecosystem health over time is lacking in previous applications of HEHI, yet is crucial for the assessment of the utility of this approach to ecosystem management. The application of HEHI yielded different insights to those revealed from the traditional application of biophysical approaches for managing the Ythan. Overall, ecological health declined through the 50-year period, although it increased marginally in the last decade, while social and interactive dimensions followed the opposite trend. HEHI indicated a steady increase in ecosystem health overall except for the last decade, when it declined marginally. Our evaluation of the application of ecosystem health for the Ythan revealed major data gaps. For the approach to be used more widely, issues of data availability and the temporal and geographical mismatch between ecological and social research boundaries need to be overcome. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]