Europe's offshore wind boom clashes with fishing and shipping. New legal framework offers solutions.
As the Baltic and North Seas fill with wind turbines, Europe is scrambling to prevent conflicts between renewable energy developers and fishing fleets, shipping routes, and marine ecosystems. Researchers have mapped the legal tools—from spatial planning to environmental permits—that governments can use to let multiple industries coexist, critical for meeting climate targets without destroying existing ocean economies.
Originaltitel: On the Concept of-and Legal Pathways Towards-Marine Co-existence: Sustainable Offshore Wind Energy in the Baltic and North Seas
The fast expansion of offshore wind generation in the Baltic and North seas has made efficient marine co-existence frameworks even more important for managing conflicting uses of marine space. While addressing more general policy objectives like energy security and biodiversity conservation, marine co-existence entails creating a balance between offshore wind energy development with such industries as fisheries, shipping, aquaculture, and environmental protection. Based on past research, this article starts with an analysis of marine co-existence as a conceptual framework, separating active marine co-existence-as an interaction between maritime sectors and interests that yields win-win solutions-and passive marine co-existence-with an aim to protect the ecological relevance of unplanned areas. The article then centres on the tools at hand to apply marine co-existence in regulation. Among them are strategic environmental assessments, maritime spatial planning, feasibility planning, procurement policies, and permit-granting procedures-mostly environmental impact assessments and licensing. Inspired by national legal systems, the European Union/European Economic Area, and international legal systems, the article investigates how these instruments help to apply marine co-existence. It contends that although current tools offer a foundation for marine co-existence, their efficacy is limited without specific marine co-existence strategies. More exact policy guidance, integrated regulatory approaches, and more study on cumulative consequences, prioritizing in spatial planning, and cross-sectoral conflict resolution inside increasingly crowded marine habitats are required.