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In 2003, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation launched the Marine and Coastal Ecosystem Based Management (EBM) initiative. Through the spring of 2008, the EBM initiative made 85 grants totaling over $24 million. The rationales behind the initiative were the demonstrated shortcomings of existing approaches for coastal marine conservation and the strengthening call for a new management approach, articulated by two prominent national studies, the Pew Oceans Commission and the U.S. Ocean Commission (Pew, 2003; U.S. Commission, 2004). The Pew report concluded that “To govern the oceans for the long-term public good, we need to manage with the entire ecosystem in mind. “ (Pew 2003, p. 26) This thinking was reflected in the design of the EBM Initiative directed towards establishing “…new management approach that focuses on entire ecosystems, including the people and communities that live there”. (Gold, Rehmus and Leape, 2003).