Interface: Winners and losers in marine spatial planning

Planning Theory & Practice is the RTPI's internationally regarded research journal. Interface is a section within it which takes an original approach to stimulating critical and challenging debate between academics and practitioners on planning matters. 

Editors: Wesley Flannery and Geraint Ellis of Queen’s University Belfast (QUB)*

Authors: Wesley Flannery, Geraint Ellis, Melissa Nursey-Bray, Jan P. M. van Tatenhove, Christina Kelly (QUB*), Scott Coffen-Smout, Rhona Fairgrieve, Maaike Knol, Svein Jentoft, David Bacon, Anne Marie O’Hagan (University College Cork*)

* RTPI-accredited planning school

Summary

By 2016 when this Interface edition was published, marine spatial planning (MSP) was already becoming the most common management regime for sustainable development in the marine environment.

Edited by Wesley Flannery and Geraint Ellis, this collection of nine essays is by academics, planners, policymakers and industry representatives from around the world. It brought together a wide range of voices and perspectives on the potential negative and distributive impacts of the widespread adoption of MSP.

The editors highlighted broad agreement among the authors on the need for a more holistic understanding of the distributional impacts of MSP. In the lead article, Flannery and Ellis draw attention to the increased scale and extent of how marine natural resources are being exploited – from industrial fishing fleets to deep sea mining and fossil fuel extraction. These activities have major environmental impacts creating irreversible shifts in marine ecosystems, and demand new forms of regulatory intervention.  

At the time of writing there was increasing interest in the opportunities of ‘blue growth’, with emerging policy frameworks at an EU level to facilitate and coordinate this.  Yet, while there was a strong body of research that had explored the economic and environmental impacts of specific sectors of the marine economy, there was a poor understanding of the wider social and spatial impacts of marine development.

Since the mid‑2000s MSP had been promoted as a key regulatory response to ensure growth in the marine economy was coordinated, risk-aware and respects ecological limitation.  Yet just as in the dominant traditions of terrestrial planning, it was dominated by an overly technocratic approach that emphasised efficiency, ecological management, and procedural performance.  

This prompts important reflections on the failures of terrestrial planning, where failure to appreciate distributive impacts led to the exacerbation of inequalities. At the time the article was written, it appeared that MSP research was again falling into this trap; a review of the literature suggested it was dominated by largely positivist, technical assessments and descriptive case studies.  Yet this paper argued that it is was essential to move on from this, to engage in research that paid greater attention to distributional outcomes and questions of power, summed up in the title of the paper MSP Cui Bono (in Latin: Who Benefits?).

This was a call to discover who would ultimately benefit from marine spatial planning and to pay attention to issues of power and distribution, to ensure that MSP acted truly in the long-term public interest. The papers that followed in the Interface explored different aspects of such distributional questions, providing an important contribution to a branch of knowledge that has now consolidated into the recognisable field of marine social science.

This Interface includes the following contributions:

1. ‘Exploring the winners and losers of marine environmental governance/Marine spatial planning: Cui bono?’, Geraint Ellis and Wesley Flannery
2. ‘“More than fishy business”: epistemology, integration and conflict in marine spatial planning’, Melissa Nursey-Bray
3. ‘Marine spatial planning: power and scaping’, Jan P. M. van Tatenhove
4. ‘Surely not all planning is evil?’, Christina Kelly
5. ‘Marine spatial planning: a Canadian perspective’, Scott Coffen-Smout
6. ‘Maritime spatial planning – “ad utilitatem omnium”’, Rhona Fairgrieve
7. ‘Marine spatial planning: “it is better to be on the train than being hit by it”’, Maike Knol and Svein Jentoft
8. ‘Reflections from the perspective of recreational anglers and boats for hire’, David Bacon
9. ‘Maritime spatial planning and marine renewable energy’, Anne Marie O’Hagan

Full reference

Flannery, W. et al. (2016) ‘Exploring the winners and losers of marine environmental governance/Marine spatial planning: Cui bono?/“More than fishy business”: epistemology, integration and conflict in marine spatial planning/Marine spatial planning: power and scaping/Surely not all planning is evil?/Marine spatial planning: a Canadian perspective/Maritime spatial planning – “ad utilitatem omnium”/Marine spatial planning: “it is better to be on the train than being hit by it”/Reflections from the perspective of recreational anglers and boats for hire/Maritime spatial planning and marine renewable energy’, Planning Theory & Practice, 17(1), pp. 121–151. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2015.1131482