Offshore Renewable Energy – Stakeholder Perceptions and Public Participation in the New Frontier
installations that are completely within federal areas must meet stipulations of consistency with state coastal zone management plans.2 In 1984, the State of California sued the US Secretary of the Interior to stop the sale of oil and gas leases on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) (in federal jurisdiction), arguing that a consistency determination was required at the second stage of leasing. To resolve this matter, the 1990 reauthorisation of the Coastal Zone Management Act determined that an ‘activity within or outside the coastal zone that affects any land or water use or natural resource of the coastal zone must be consistent with state Coastal Zone Management Plans’.
Added Conflict in the Coastal Zone
Marine renewable energy is the newcomer on the block, so to speak, when it comes to conflicting uses in the coastal zone. As in general conflict situations, the following three elements are true in coastal and marine areas:
• •
• they involve at least two parties;
the parties are interdependent, meaning that one party can affect another’s ability to reach its goals; and
the parties have articulated their objections to another’s actions or intentions.
To qualify as a conflict over resources there must be the perception of incompatible goals, scarce resources and interference from another party over resource use.8
Renewable energy is a use that joins a slew
of long-existing traditional uses of the ocean, such as commercial fishing, navigation and tourism, many of which are already conflicting. The investigation into conflicts and alliances in coastal management can facilitate strategic assessment and integrated planning to the benefit of different types of offshore development and uses that may be at odds. As a first step to conflict resolution, policy makers and development proponents should identify the variables of dispute.
For offshore renewable energy the main resource in question is ocean space, although depending on the technology and the extent of the development, biological resources such as marine mammals, fisheries and other non-consumptive uses such as aesthetic resources may also be affected and therefore related to the dispute or conflict. To identify the parties involved, policy makers and planners can use focus groups, snowball sampling, social network analysis, Q methodology and social assessment tools, among other approaches and techniques. Identifying stakeholders and their likely competing goals can serve as a precursor to conflict mediation or, better yet, as part of the MSP process. For example, in an article on combined offshore wind farms and aquaculture projects off the German coast, Buck et al.9
examined interests in marine waters
because these are pursued by a number of federal and state development authorities, private companies and local politicians. These entities form alliances among themselves, but also with local stakeholder groups (e.g. local fishing communities). The position of members of the alliance will often depend on whether short-term profit or long-term sustainable revenue is their ultimate goal. In such a case, the MSP process can help strike a balance between various long- and short-term goals.
Marine Spatial Planning and Renewable Energy MSP is a public process of analysing and allocating the spatial and temporal distribution of human activities in marine areas to achieve ecological, economic and social objectives that are usually specified
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through a political process. The last few years have seen an explosion of interest in MSP as a practical approach to managing both conflicts and compatibilities in the marine environment in the face of increasing development pressures and interest in the conservation of nature. Originally conceived as a management approach for nature conservation in Australia for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park over 30 years ago, it has been used recently in the more crowded seas of European countries. Here it has been an effective process for achieving multiple objectives and has spread quickly to places as disparate as the US and Vietnam. The Vietnamese government has identified long-term conservation and sustainable management of the seas and coastal ecosystems as one of its top priorities and the Vietnam Administration of Seas and Islands has been in active partner in developing a step-by-step guide for Marine Spatial Planning published in 2009 by UNESCO.10
MSP can promote
environmental protection while supporting development interests and sustainable economic growth. As an example, environmental assessment for a wind farm proposed in the German Exclusive Economic Zone (from 12–200 nautical miles from shore) would cost about €1million to prepare. The German federal government has already conducted a strategic environmental assessment for its marine spatial plan, but it includes priority areas for wind farms. Therefore, the costs of preparing and reviewing an environmental assessment for permits sought in a ‘priority wind farm area’ will be reduced or avoided.11
The US
The US federal government’s efforts at MSP are an outgrowth of the US Commission on Ocean Policy’s findings published in 2004.11 In December 2009, President Obama’s Ocean Policy Task Force released its Interim Framework for Effective Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning.12
Under the Framework, coastal and MSP will be regional in scope, developed co-operatively among federal, state, tribal, local authorities and regional governance structures. A major portion of the framework is dedicated to involving stakeholders and the public. There is also frequent mention of marine renewable energy, particularly wind, wave, tidal, current and thermal, as a new ocean use. In a recent analysis of stakeholders involved in MSP prepared for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coastal Services Center, renewable energy siting stood out as the primary current and future driver of MSP efforts.13
The UK
The UK government has gone further than the US, with the recent passing of the Marine and Coastal Access Act in 2009. This is a single piece of legislation dedicated to protecting the marine environment that coincides with the UK’s push to develop offshore renewable energy. The act has created a new marine planning system designed to bring together conservation, social and economic approaches for use of resources in the UK’s territorial seas. The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) will have responsibility for preparing marine plans that will be a source of information that marine stakeholders can use when considering where and how they might carry out activities. The intention is to achieve consistency – operators and regulators in a given area will be steered by the same plan, thus bringing about a reduced regulatory burden and streamlined licensing. Renewable energy proponents will be able to construct and operate facilities based on a single consent from the MMO. To avoid conflicts with marine conservation priorities, four regional subcommittees (England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland) have started working with local groups
MODERN ENERGY REVIEW – VOLUME 2 ISSUE 2
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