RECONCILING ECOLOGICAL RISK FRAMEWORKS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS AT MULTIPLE SCALES

Abstract

Maintaining biodiversity, ecosystem stability, and avoiding functional boundaries are essential for maintaining a functioning biosphere. In this thesis, I analyse the effectiveness of two recent biodiversity policy and management tools at global and regional scales. I find that the Planetary Boundary framework has rarely been used directly to guide international conservation policy, though it has achieved modest adoption at the national scale in Europe. An alternative framework for evaluating biodiversity loss thresholds at a regional scale is the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List of Ecosystems (RLE). I create a reproducible methodology for assessing offshore marine ecosystems. I then conduct the first application of the RLE assessment on the Eastern Scotian Shelf (ESS) to provide both a contemporary ecosystem risk assessment and projections from an ecosystem model for the next century under a high emissions scenario. These result in the ESS ecosystem being categorized as “Endangered.”