Although oceans cover 75% of the earth’s surface, they are overwhelmed with competing users that vie for ever-dwindling resources. The real last frontier in the oceans is in the realm of effective, coordinated ocean management. Nations and multilateral institutions around the world have embraced marine spatial planning as the cornerstone of ocean management. However,  this idea is moving towards implementation without a clear way to quantitatively measure these different uses of the ocean, known as ecosystem services. Without these measures, negotiations about who gets what will not be based on useful data and it will be difficult, if not impossible, to track the success of management practices in common terms.

Results/Conclusions

We propose a novel framework for identifying the appropriate metric at three distinct points along the ecosystem service production chain: supply, service and value. Using these metrics as a basis, we then illustrate how to take initial steps towards using ecosystem services in marine policy decisions, revealing the benefits of using specifically defined metrics and the negative consequences of continuing to manage single sectors as if they operate in isolation of other activities.