Summary

This article by Priyatma Singh, Björn-Ola Linnér and Kushaal Raj, investigates whether marine spatial planning has the potential to address the challenges identified by various actors and, if so, to explore how this can be achieved. Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) is a globally established tool to support integrated ocean management. As Small Island Developing States (SIDS) embrace MSP, this study focuses on Fiji as it begins its MSP process alongside the implementation of newly established ocean-related policies and legislation.

This article is published by the scientific journal Frontiers in Marine Science.

Key messages

• This study found that Fiji’s ocean policy landscape has progressively evolved toward an integrated, ecosystem-based approach to ocean governance. Marine spatial planning fits this role.
• However, realizing the ambition of fully sustainable ocean management will require more than technical mapping and zoning exercises. It will demand institutional innovation, financial ingenuity, and deep societal engagement.
• We find that the success of MSP in Fiji will be highly contingent on building a collaborative governance framework that extends leadership beyond political oversight, convenes actors across levels, and nurtures social capital through trust, reciprocity, and inclusivity.
• A critical pathway toward the effective implementation of MSP lies in elevating the role of NGOs and academic institutions as central actors in the MSP process.
• Likewise, academic institutions must be positioned at the heart of MSP, mandated to co-produce research agendas with stakeholders, generate long-term ecological and socio-economic data, and strengthen national capacity for adaptive and science-based ocean governance.