A decade of marine spatial planning in Belgium: a journey towards integrated management

Ellen Pecceu, Ann Cliquet, Frank Maes, Steven Degraer, Kristian Hostens

    Research output: Contribution to conferencePublished abstractpeer-review

    Abstract

    In 2003, Belgium was one of the first countries in Europe to start with spatial zoning for the North Sea (= Master Plan) and currently a legal marine spatial plan (MSP) is underway. The journey towards such MSP was turbulent, triggered by several sectoral needs (e.g. offshore energy; nature conservation) and was examined within the MESMA project (Monitoring and Evaluation of Spatially Managed Areas). A number of successful events can be noticed (e.g. the extension of a Special Area of Conservation to 1/3th of the total Belgian part of the North Sea, allocation of an area for renewable energy,... ). Nevertheless, there are also a number of obstacles within the MSP process such as the lack of management plans and the absence of pressure & risk analysis as well as conflicts with and among the users (e.g. renewable energy versus nature conservation on “Vlakte van de Raan”, conflicts due to multi-level government, etc.). All these events are proceeded by a series of processes on both the national and European level, which are documented in this study. For each case the main questions were: who took the initiative, what were the driving forces, were there lessons learned from the past and what is important for future marine policy ?

    Key words: marine spatial planning, governance, integrated management
    Original languageEnglish
    Publication statusPublished - 24-Sept-2013
    EventICES ASC 2013 - Reykjavik, Iceland
    Duration: 23-Sept-201327-Sept-2013
    http://www.ices.dk/news-and-events/asc/ASC-2013/Pages/default.aspx

    Conference

    ConferenceICES ASC 2013
    Country/TerritoryIceland
    CityReykjavik
    Period23/09/1327/09/13
    Internet address

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