Spatial planning is gaining momentum as an effective means to protect sensitive marine ecosystems around the world. Ecotrust brings years of analytical experience to the design and implementation of spatial planning frameworks. Our methods, analyses and tools illuminate the human dimensions of ecosystem management.

Ecotrust's award-winning OCEAN toolkit builds transparency into the marine spatial planning process. We incorporate fishermen's knowledge about the economic importance of fishing grounds — effectively bringing these expert voices to the table and ensuring that the best available information is utilized. We help scientists, managers and communities to understand the ecosystem in a social context and to implement management decisions at appropriate scales.

OCEAN grows as we build in new functionality. Ecotrust embraces an open development philosophy and publishes Open OceanMap under a GNU General Public License. We offer consulting services to adapt the OCEAN toolkit to specific needs and enable the rapid adoption of these methods and analyses.