The Global Risks Forum (GRF)
Land and ocean governance decides who may use, hold and protect territory and marine space. Tenure systems, spatial plans, protected areas, fisheries management and the new high seas agreement each assign rights and duties. Weak or contested tenure drives deforestation, overfishing and conflict. This page sets out how land and ocean governance shapes climate and nature risk, the records that show it, and the institutions that decide.
Land and ocean governance · Basin commission · Session 4
placeholder geography
| Water sharing accord | 4 | In force |
| Wetland protection protocol | 5 | Signed, not ratified |
| Data annex | 4 | Draft |
Fig.Basin and land governance. Design wireframe with placeholder names and illustrative values, not a record or a live system.
Land and ocean governance is the system of tenure, planning, protection and fisheries rules that decides who may use, hold and protect land and marine space. It shapes deforestation, overfishing and conflict. Land agencies, fisheries bodies, spatial planners and the parties to the BBNJ Agreement hold the decisions.
For land and ocean governance, in GRF's situational-awareness reading, the map opens on population density, marine heat and night lights with a wave forecast chart at the centre and chlorophyll-a from NASA GIBS, framed on the Andes; 3 further NASA layers wait in the list.
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NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
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For land and ocean governance, in GRF's situational-awareness reading, the map opens on population density, marine heat and night lights with a wave forecast chart at the centre and chlorophyll-a from NASA GIBS, framed on the Andes; 3 further NASA layers wait in the list.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
Layers and dates
Commons and local stewardship. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
When land or fishing rights are insecure or unrecorded, users have little reason to invest in long-term stewardship and little protection against displacement. Customary and collective rights are often missing from official registers.
Agriculture, mining, conservation, energy and settlement compete for the same land and sea. Without spatial planning that weighs them together, decisions are taken permit by permit.
Open access invites overfishing. Catch limits, licensing, monitoring and enforcement against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing determine whether stocks recover.
Areas beyond national jurisdiction had no general framework for protected areas or impact assessment. The BBNJ Agreement, now in force, creates one, and its institutions are being built.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Land tenure | The relationship, defined in law or custom, between people and land that sets who may use it, how and for how long. |
| Areas beyond national jurisdiction | The high seas and the international seabed area, outside any state's exclusive economic zone. |
| Regional fisheries management organization | An intergovernmental body that sets and enforces management measures for shared fish stocks. |
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Land documented with recognised tenure | percent of adult population with documented rights | periodic | SDG indicator 1.4.2 surveys | OFFICIAL |
| Indigenous and community land recognised in law | area and share of national land | periodic | Land rights databases | REPORTED |
| Tree cover loss | hectares per year | annual | Satellite-derived datasets | OBSERVED |
| Fish stocks within biologically sustainable levels | percent of assessed stocks | biennial | FAO, SDG indicator 14.4.1 | ESTIMATED |
| Marine area under protection | percent of marine area | monthly to annual | World Database on Protected Areas | OFFICIAL |
| Parties to the BBNJ Agreement | count | on change | UN treaty depositary | OFFICIAL |
The topic as a computational graph: named sources feed the methods, an evidence review gates the outputs, and the decisions stay with the authorities that hold them.
Fig. 02Nodes carry their type, two metric rows and a state; connectors show what feeds what; dashed frames name the owners; the timeline is the cadence. Design of the pipeline, not a record of a run.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| LandMark global platform of indigenous and community lands | Mapped collective lands and legal security indicators | Free with attribution, terms to check |
| Global Forest Watch tree cover loss data | Annual satellite-derived forest loss | CC BY 4.0, per dataset |
| FAO State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture and FishStat | Stock status and production statistics | Free, FAO terms |
| Protected Planet: World Database on Protected Areas | Marine and terrestrial protected areas | Free for non-commercial use, UNEP-WCMC and IUCN terms |
| Global Fishing Watch data | Vessel activity derived from tracking signals | Free for non-commercial use, terms to check |
| FAOLEX | National legislation on land, fisheries and natural resources | Free, FAO terms |
Climate and Nature Governance prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Land administration agencies | Whether and how customary and collective rights are recorded | Tenure data, legal frameworks and comparable recognition programmes |
| Fisheries ministries and regional fisheries management organizations | Where to set catch limits and how to enforce them | Stock assessments, vessel activity data and compliance records |
| Parties to the BBNJ Agreement | Which areas to propose for protection and how impact assessment works | Scientific evidence and procedural options, labelled by source |
| Spatial planning authorities | How land and sea uses are zoned | Overlapping claims, ecological data and stakeholder records |
Shared resources can be overused when access is open and no one can exclude others or enforce limits. Research on commons, notably by Elinor Ostrom and colleagues, showed that many communities sustain forests, fisheries and irrigation systems over long periods through rules they design and enforce, provided boundaries are clear, users take part in rule-making, monitoring is effective and higher authorities recognise their right to organize.
Insecure tenure undermines stewardship, as users have little incentive to invest. At sea, national jurisdiction covers coastal waters, while the high seas are governed by international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and a more recent agreement on marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction.
Applying frameworks that describe rules, users and resources, using policy, institutional and decision science. Frameworks guide comparison but do not predict outcomes.
Documenting formal and customary rights. Customary rights may be unrecorded or contested.
Linking governance to resource condition, using ecology and biodiversity science. Monitoring is costly over large areas.
Comparing successful and failing arrangements across settings.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.