Implementing a stakeholder engagement strategy for the formulation of a socio ecosystem diagnostic analysis (SEDA) and strategic action programme (SAP) for the conservation of an iconic area beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ).

Project Name: Strengthening the stewardship of an economically and biologically significant high seas area – the Sargasso Sea. 

The Global Environment Facility funded Sargasso Sea project, a child project of the Common Oceans programme, is committed to facilitating a collaborative, cross-sectoral, and sustainable stewardship mechanism to put in place a comprehensive conservation framework to protect the unique ecosystem of the Sargasso Sea. Led by UNDP, implemented by IOC of UNESCO, and supported by a comprehensive network of partners, it brings together regional fisheries management organizations, national agencies, intergovernmental organizations, initiatives, the private sector, civil society, and academia.

The overall objective of the Sargasso Sea GEF-UNDP-UNESCO-IOC project is to facilitate a collaborative, cross-sectoral and sustainable stewardship mechanism for the Sargasso Sea through improvement of the knowledge base and strengthened frameworks for collaborative management and governance. The area covered by the project is the Sargasso Sea Geographic Area of Collaboration as defined in the Hamilton Declaration.

The project will achieve its objective through the following 4 components (1):

1. Component 1: Partnerships and Organisational Infrastructure for Stewarding the Sustainable Management of the Natural Resources of the Sargasso Sea Ecosystem – producing a road-map and budget to support a collaborative Ecosystem Based Approach to sustainable management of natural resources and conservation within the Sargasso Sea. This would clearly define the roles and align with the mandates of the relevant stakeholders.

2. Component 2: Improved Knowledge Base to Support a Collaborative, Adaptive Ecosystem-Based Stewardship Approach – producing a detailed Socio-Ecosystem Diagnostic Analysis (SEDA) for the entire Sargasso Sea Ecosystem, an Ecosystem Valuation, and filling Priority Information and Knowledge Gaps arising from the Ecosystem Diagnostic Analysis along with a Road-Map and Programme under implementation for Monitoring of the Ecosystem’

3. Component 3: Development of a Strategic Action Programme for addressing Threats and Strengthening the Stewardship and Conservation of the Sargasso Sea Ecosystem

4. Component 4: Knowledge Management, Monitoring and Evaluation – including disseminating information packages to government bodies and regional entities, IW:LEARN activities, and a Communications and Awareness Outreach Programme.

(1) For more information on the project, read the GEF prodoc, available at: https://www.sargassoseacommission.org/our-work/gef/381-project-document

The landscape of actors on the high seas has often been described as fragmented. There are a wide range of international organisations with interests in ABNJ, but they operate under different and sometimes incompatible mandates. This results in a “patchwork of sectoral area-based management tools designed to protect specific marine areas from sectorally specific threats.”[2] The Sargasso Sea Commission operates under the innovative voluntary structure of the Hamilton Declaration on Collaboration for the Conservation of the Sargasso Sea. Under this framework, signatory governments, including the Azores, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Dominican Republic, Monaco, UK and US, and expert Sargasso Sea Commissioners collaborate to conserve the Sargasso Sea, an iconic ‘area beyond national jurisdiction’ (ABNJ). The Sargasso Sea Commission also partners with a wide range of international organisations with competence for the Sargasso Sea including IMO, ISA, CBD, CMS, ICCAT, NAFO, WECAFC, and more. Furthermore, the Sargasso Sea Commission has maintained relationships with a number of collaborating partners including NGOs, academia, industry, and others.

The Sargasso Sea Commission created a science case[3] for the protection of the area in 2011, and this scientific document has been used to pursue the conservation of the Sargasso Sea through existing agreements - for example, to propose the listing of the European eel under appendix II of CITES, indicating that its conservation status would benefit from international cooperation, and making a proposal to NAFO for the closure of some seamounts in the Sargasso Sea area of collaboration to bottom trawling. This science case was successful in advancing the conservation of the Sargasso Sea in some ways, including achieving the two conservation measures through international organisations above, and in awarding the Sargasso Sea description through the CBD as an ecologically or biologically significant area (EBSA).

The Sargasso Sea Commission’s efforts demonstrated that existing mechanisms were not enough to holistically conserve ABNJ, and that a new mechanism was needed. This mechanism now exists in the BBNJ agreement, which came into force on January 17, 2026. The Sargasso Sea project remains an innovative voluntary framework for high seas conservation. The Sargasso Sea project will produce a socio-ecosystem diagnostic analysis (SEDA) updating the 2011 science case and going into much more detail, focusing on the ecological and economic importance of the Sargasso Sea, as well as the pressures it faces. This factual document will serve to inform the discussion of a strategy action programme (SAP) for the conservation of the Sargasso Sea, which will include conservation measures.

In order to make the SEDA as scientifically accurate as possible and to make the SAP as impactful as possible, it is important that the Sargasso Sea Commission engages with the wide range of stakeholders benefiting from the Sargasso Sea. This is especially important because there is such a diverse range of actors in the Sargasso Sea. Stakeholders can help with both the SEDA and SAP processes by providing data access and best practices, input on the structure of analyses, and input on the kinds of conservation measures appropriate for the Sargasso Sea.

Stakeholder engagement is also important for increasing shared mutual understanding of the drivers and constraints affecting users of the Sargasso Sea. For example, in the case of the shipping sector, the way to completely avoid any risk to migrating cetaceans is for the shipping to go around the Sargasso Sea; clearly this would have too great an economic impact - so a compromise has to be struck, which might be seasonal avoidance or speed reductions. Early stakeholder engagement can increase understanding, generate solutions, stimulate dialogue between representatives with different interests, and help reach compromises in the complex situation of the high seas area of the Sargasso Sea.

[2] Freestone, D., and Gjerde, K., (2016), ‘Lessons from the Sargasso Sea’, available at: http://www.sargassoseacommission.org/storage/SargassoBrochure.FIN.pdf

[3] Laffoley, D.d'A., Roe, H. S. J., Angel, M. V., Ardron, J., Bates, N. R., Boyd, L. L., et al. (2011). The Protection and Management of the Sargasso Sea: The Golden Floating Rainforest of the Atlantic Ocean. Summary Science and Supporting Evidence Case. Washington DC: Sargasso Sea Alliance. 44pp. https://www.sargassoseacommission.org/storage/documents/Sargasso.Report.9.12.pdf

The Sargasso Sea Commission hired a third-party Blue Economy consultancy, NLA International, to develop a stakeholder engagement strategy for the project. It was important for this consultancy to be independent of the project in order to avoid bias and any risk of alienating different groups of stakeholders, whilst being suitably informed and aware of the needs and constraints facing all stakeholders. The aim of the strategy is to “ensure meaningful engagement of stakeholders in both the Socio-Ecosystem Diagnostic Analysis (SEDA) and Strategic Action Programme (SAP) drafting processes through appropriate mechanisms including workshop(s)and dialogue.” The strategy splits stakeholders into 3 categories:[4]

• 'Guardians': principally focused on the conservation of the Sargasso Sea, either directly or indirectly.
• 'Users': who realise direct or indirect commercial gain from legal exploitation of the natural resources within, or that pass through, the Sargasso Sea.
• 'Beneficiaries': all others globally, who derive benefit from the Sargasso Sea, whether consequent of its guardianship or commercial use, but are neither active ‘Guardians’ nor ‘Users’.

The strategy “aims to develop stronger cooperation and coordination between those parties that have a vested interest in the ‘guardianship’ of the Sargasso Sea and the various entities with commercial, industrial interests or management mandates relating to the Sargasso Sea area. It is intended that this will help to promote and implement stronger and more effective cross-sectoral management and stewardship of the Sargasso Sea ecosystem.”

There are five guiding principles behind the stakeholder engagement strategy (5):

• Participation: Open representation and participation of stakeholders will be facilitated at all levels and across all relevant sectors, ensuring diverse voices are heard.
• Gender equity: Project design and implementation will be responsive to gender-sensitive considerations including the specific capacity development needs of women, the youth, and marginalised/vulnerable groups.
• Respect for cultural diversity: Project design and implementation will respect existing customs, traditions, and forms of organisation and decision-making. Engagement activities will be culturally sensitive.
• Communication and transparency: Care will be taken to design and implement a communication strategy that guides messages coherently to specific stakeholder groups and audiences targeted by the Project. Adequate communication will help avoid unrealistic/false expectations or erroneous interpretations between actors. Information will be provided transparently, without marginalising any stakeholder groups.
• Partnerships and synergies: Continuous efforts will be made to ensure mapping of other interventions with similar objectives as the Project, or initiatives that are related to the same thematic scope as the Project. Opportunities will be explored to establish synergies that can help to maximize Project impact and avoid duplication of efforts.

The strategy also includes various mechanisms by which stakeholders will be engaged and their views will be considered over the course of the project (6):

• Informing stakeholders: Ensuring understanding and awareness of project goals, approaches, intentions and expected outcomes.
• Generating project buy-in: Securing support by targeted partners and beneficiaries and building common ownership amongst stakeholders.
• Seeking synergies & partnerships: Identifying opportunities for collaboration, co-financing, institutional co-operation, and for leveraging the resources and expertise of engaged stakeholders.
• Identifying priorities & strategies: Identifying priority interventions for the Project’s success and developing strategies to successfully implement and achieve the intended Project outcomes.
• Validating strategies: Ensuring that intervention strategies and targets align with stakeholder expectations and the intended Project outcomes, enabling regular validation with key stakeholders (e.g. the Hamilton Declaration signatories).
• Facilitating feedback: Implementing participatory monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, encouraging open and regular Project feedback from all stakeholder groups.

Establishing grievance mechanisms: Providing a structured, transparent, accountable, and responsive process to address concerns and complaints

Stakeholders are engaged in different ways during the project according to their mandates, perspectives, and knowledge. A useful distinction is to separate stakeholders by those interested in the SEDA, and those interested in the SAP:[7]

1. The SEDA-related Stakeholders. These would be those entities or individuals who provide the scientific background and baseline, identifying threats and impacts, and assist in identifying the ecosystem value and goods and services that the Sargasso Sea Geographical Area of Collaboration (GAC) supports. It includes those parties to advise on appropriate conservation and stewardship measures needed to maintain or improve ecosystem quality. Essentially, this group of stakeholders will include the scientific experts and the ‘Guardians’ of the welfare of the Sargasso Sea GAC.
2. The SAP-related Stakeholders. This stakeholder group would include those entities that ‘make use’ of the Sargasso Sea either directly or indirectly, or who have a mandate to manage certain aspects and activities within and/or adjacent to the GAC (e.g., fisheries, shipping, seabed exploitation, security, etc.). These are the ‘Users’, ‘Beneficiaries’ and/or ‘Managers’ of the Sargasso Sea.

As part of the strategy, a stakeholder map was produced to understand the full breadth of stakeholders on the Sargasso Sea.

Map of stakeholder groups (not exhaustive). [8]

The strategy also outlined transparent and objective criteria to categorize stakeholders and their engagement, and outlined events where engagement could take place (e.g., project meetings, workshops) and communications channels that would be important for generating project buy-in (e.g., videos, policy briefs).

So far, the stakeholder engagement strategy has engaged the shipping community on the Sargasso Sea, and a similar approach for the fishing industry is in development. As a result of shipping community stakeholder meetings, contacts agreed to form a working group to discuss possible governance frameworks that address vulnerabilities of the Sargasso Sea as a result of international shipping.

[4, 5, 6, 7, 8] Fleming, K. and Bjergstrom, K (2023). ‘Sargasso Sea GEF Project: Stakeholder Engagement Strategy’, NLA International. Available at: https://www.sargassoseacommission.org/storage/documents/small_full_stakeholder_engagement_strategy.pdf 

• Having a dedicated impartial and professionally informed third-party consultancy is important for open, truly consultative and evidently fair stakeholder engagement.
• Different stakeholder groups have different perspectives, speak in different ‘languages, taxonomies and lexicons’, and will need to be approached in different ways.
• Careful consideration of the parameters of engagement is necessary for the wide range of actors on the high seas, and a system for prioritising the inputs of different stakeholders is necessary for ranking inputs.
• Engagement with industry is important for high seas conservation as they can provide relevant data, and are often incentivized to be innovative and ambitious with conservation due to ESG requirements. Furthermore, liaising with industry makes it more likely that conservation measures are applicable to the area at hand, since industry spends the most time on the high seas. Working with industry can facilitate the establishment of voluntary conservation measures, a process that can move more quickly and be more ambitious than legally binding measures.
• Open and inclusive stakeholder engagement along with clear, useful and transparent communication results in greater trust and buy-in for the project.

The use of a stakeholder engagement strategy is expected to be a useful best practice for the implementation of the BBNJ agreement, and more generally for other projects seeking to conserve high seas spaces. The fragmented nature of the high seas governance regime, where different interests on the high seas are often siloed, can only be broken through with proactive stakeholder engagement and communication. It is hoped that the Sargasso Sea project’s model can inspire other high seas conservation projects to design and implement a dedicated stakeholder engagement strategy in this manner to gain the best scientific understanding of a given high seas area, as well as the perspectives of many different actors upon it, leading to sustainable conservation measures for the area. Furthermore, a stakeholder engagement strategy will be important for proposals of area-based management tools through the BBNJ agreement, as it calls for a two-part consultation process, where parties are obliged to consult with relevant stakeholders in the formulation of proposals, with a second round of consultation occurring after proposals are preliminarily reviewed by the scientific and technical body.

This model of a stakeholder engagement strategy for high seas conservation addresses the long-standing issue of the lack of cooperation and coordination between a diverse range of high seas actors on issues relating to conservation. It can be extremely useful for other high seas conservation projects seeking to conserve high seas areas through a voluntary framework, through existing organisations, or through the BBNJ agreement.