Towards a collaborative stakeholder engagement pathway to increase ocean sustainability related to marine spatial planning in developing coastal states

With the increased emphasis on charting ocean sustainability narratives, marine spatial planning (MSP) is envisioned as a key tenet. MSPs emphasize the systematic and collaborative planning and management of ocean space (resources and activities) for the benefit of all users. Regions that have implemented MSP based on collaborative stakeholder engagement are progressively realizing better ocean sustainability outcomes. Unfortunately, in developing coastal states, progress toward MSP is largely pedestrian and has attracted less interest. This is partly due to archaic coastal/marine resource models that are dominated by few powerful stakeholders. This is worsened by increasing human-environmental shocks, which are creating bleak futures. Our study systematically sourced 12,316 documents from Scopus that were analyzed using bibliometrics to (i) conduct a performance analysis, (ii) conduct a scientific mapping analysis and (iii) identify game-changing developments that can drive ocean sustainability. A performance analysis revealed that even though scholarship and publications on MSP have increased globally, scholarship among or led by researchers from the global south are limited. Scientific mapping analysis revealed emerging positive trends in multi-country collaborations as well as the recognition of threats to the marine environment. Reversing this requires increased stakeholder engagement. However, how to achieve this goal in most developing coastal states has been less studied. Building on this, we developed a novel Collaborative Stakeholder Engagement Pathway (CoSEP) involving eight (8) interrelated steps that can help build collaborative engagements for MSP development and ocean sustainability. A notable takeaway from the CoSEP is that; since research on MSP development is limited or in its infancy, knowledge of how and when to engage which stakeholders is key in creating collaborative mechanisms for positive ocean sustainability, including ocean justice. This can help localize sustainable ocean development pillars and build avenues for integrated coastal resource management. Using participatory approaches that bring forward microlevel stakeholder perspectives could be a future driver in designing effective interventions and cultures to create MSPs that meet ocean sustainability targets.