Integration at the round table: marine spatial planning in multi-stakeholder settings.

Erik Olsen,David Fluharty,Ellen Pecceu,Alf Håkon Hoel,Kristian Hostens,Frank Maes,Judi Hewitt

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0109964

Erik Olsen, David Fluharty + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0109964

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Abstract

Marine spatial planning (MSP) is often considered as a pragmatic approach to implement an ecosystem based management in order to manage marine space in a sustainable way. This requires the involvement of multiple actors and stakeholders at various governmental and societal levels. Several factors affect how well the integrated management of marine waters will be achieved, such as different governance settings (division of power between central and local governments), economic activities (and related priorities), external drivers, spatial scales, incentives and objectives, varying approaches to legislation and political will. We compared MSP in Belgium, Norway and the US to illustrate how the integration of stakeholders and governmental levels differs among these countries along the factors mentioned above. Horizontal integration (between sectors) is successful in all three countries, achieved through the use of neutral ‘round-table’ meeting places for all actors. Vertical integration between government levels varies, with Belgium and Norway having achieved full integration while the US lacks integration of the legislature due to sharp disagreements among stakeholders and unsuccessful partisan leadership. Success factors include political will and leadership, process transparency and stakeholder participation, and should be considered in all MSP development processes.

Highlights

The management of marine ecosystems and their human activities underwent dramatic changes since the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
Because ecosystems are spatially explicit, area-based management approaches offer a suitable and efficient way of implementing EBM into practice [5,6]. One such approach is marine spatial planning (MSP), which offers an effective perspective to deal with the challenging issues of multiple use and multiple impacts in EBM [7]
Even though a spatial perspective has been successful in terms of leading to novel and forward-looking ecosystem-based management plans, like in Norway and Australia [8,9,10,11], the development of marine spatial plans is a complex process at the borders between science, management and politics

Summary

Introduction

The management of marine ecosystems and their human activities underwent dramatic changes since the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. Because ecosystems are spatially explicit, area-based management approaches offer a suitable and efficient way of implementing EBM into practice [5,6]. One such approach is marine spatial planning (MSP), which offers an effective perspective to deal with the challenging issues of multiple use and multiple (cumulative) impacts in EBM [7]. The establishment of effective governance of the planning, implementation and review processes, is a fundamental step to develop sound MSP [12,13]. To develop the appropriate measures in an integrated (ecosystem) MSP setting, the integration of concerns and interests across sectors (horizontal integration) and between governmental levels or between government and stakeholders (vertical integration) is required.

The Three Case Studies

Horizontal integration

Consultation and formal roles in planning group

Author Contributions