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Job Opportunity
Program Director
Marine Spatial Planning and Management
Background
Marine and coastal resources and ecosystems are in decline worldwide from a number of stressors, including pollution, habitat destruction, overfishing and exploitation and climate change. Many of these stressors interact in ways that are not well understood. Human activities on or within marine and coastal waters are intensifying in their spatial extent and expanding in type, producing both use conflicts and questions about their individual and combined impact on marine ecosystem processes, function and resilience. The current ocean governance structure of the United States and of most coastal nation/states lacks a cohesive framework that incorporates our best understanding of marine ecosystem health, ecosystem and human activity interactions, and ecosystem resilience. The prevailing single-resource, single sector, reactive management paradigm impedes information exchange and collaboration between and within agencies,
functionally ignores cumulative impacts of human activities in and on the water, and generates confusion among ocean users, between agencies, and with the public over agency roles and responsibilities as well as regulatory processes and standards.
By managing the ocean and coast with a clear set of objectives using a comprehensive and integrated ecosystem-based approach, the health of marine and coastal ecosystems can be supported and improved to sustain the provisioning of marine ecosystem services humans want and need. Comprehensive, integrated, ecosystem-based marine spatial planning and management represents a promising ocean governance framework and management tool for protecting marine ecosystem function and processes and supporting their resiliency over time. As a proactive, forward-looking approach, this tool can also increase governance and regulatory efficiencies by
decreasing process and substantive standard uncertainties.
Responsibilities
The Program Director (PD) will be responsible for leading the development and implementation of the Center’s marine spatial planning (MSP) initiative. The Director will build upon the work of the Center’s current projects (see below) the expertise of the Center’s partners, and develop new projects as needed. The PD will be responsible for creating and implementing a funding strategy to support the work of the initiative, and will work with COS staff, project faculty and researchers
to develop a communications strategy to ensure the effective solution implementation. The PD must ensure that educational opportunities for students and professionals are integrated into the initiative. The PD will also be responsible for mentoring the Center’s Early Career Fellows (recent PhD, MBA or JD recipients).
The PD works to promote a results-oriented center.
The Center’s current MSP work
The Center’s current marine spatial planning work focuses on improving ocean governance in California. Using ecological and legal expertise, the Center is able to approach this challenge through two concurrent projects. From the natural science discipline, the Center is developing ecological principles for application to spatial management decision-making and to guide ongoing management of marine and coastal ecosystems. From the law and policy disciplines, the
Center is conducting a fine-grained assessment of the existing regulatory mechanisms, agency practices, and institutional cultures that may foster or impede integrated spatial management of the marine environment in order to develop a set of closely tailored recommendations for state governance reform.
Requirements
• A PhD, JD, and/or MBA in related field
• Extensive knowledge in coastal and ocean governance at local, regional, national and international scales.
• Extensive knowledge in the science of marine ecosystems and experience in applying science to marine law and policy.
• Excellent project management skills.
• Extensive network of ocean science and policy experts.
• Strong leadership skills and ability to work effectively with staff at many levels as a colleague or supervisor, as well as work successfully with faculty and researchers in developing concepts into implementation.
• Strong networking and relationship-building skills
• Ability to work well in partnerships involving a wide variety of organizations and businesses
• Outstanding written and verbal communications skills
• Strong personal initiative, problem solving skills, creativity, and ability to work
independently and as a member of a team
• Track record and ability to secure funding
Application
If you are interested in applying, please apply online (keyword: marine spatial planning), preferably by November 13, 2009. COS will consider this position open until filled.
-Leon E. Panetta co-chair Joint Ocean Commission Initiative