Enhancing social acceptance in marine governance in Europe

Abstract

In this article we address social acceptance in marine governance. Public support and opposition are critical to any future developments of marine areas, and are often neglected aspects. Whilst one of the main new developments in European marine areas is the increase in sites for offshore wind, social acceptance of renewable energy developments in Europe is shown to be low in a series of ongoing studies. There is perhaps often a sense that renewables such as wind, wave and tidal will be 'out of sight, out of mind' when developed offshore but the empirical research evidence from across Europe suggests otherwise. People are protesting against offshore wind, and doing so very effectively, preventing and delaying the development of projects. This article articulates the term 'social acceptance' as a goal in marine policy implementation in European waters in general, and provides illustrations of the implications of social acceptance of offshore wind in a series of case studies. The experiences of social acceptance, together with theoretical insights, should be taken into account in future innovations for blue energy at sea, including the wind farms, but also wave and tidal devices and other technological developments.

The social identity approach to understanding stakeholder conflict in environmental and natural resources management

“…This runs contrary to other research indicating that communities value early engagement (e.g. Soma and Haggett 2015), emphasising the importance of pairing early engagement with sound process to avoid early misinformation (e.g. 'the secret') and misaligned perspectives on the purpose for engagement.…”

“…These findings emphasise the need for an understanding of the local context into which wind energy developments, and other land use changes, are proposed (Paveglio et al 2016;Soma and Haggett 2015). This is both in order to understand how local context and idiosyncrasies will affect the community response to a proposal, and to understand how the conflict legacy of such a proposal will affect the community in the longer term (Colvin et al 2015b;Paveglio et al 2016).…”

“…For those who were opposed to the TasWind proposal, this was seen to be insensitive, and made the TasWind conflict present at an otherwise unrelated important community event. This experience is not unique to the King Island experience; while Soma and Haggett (2015) and Devine-Wright (2011) found that proponent funding of local projects can be viewed as appropriate and responsible, Fast et al (2016) and Cass et al (2010) encountered the view among opponents of such actions as being a 'bribe'.…”

The Governance of Multi-Use Platforms at Sea for Energy Production and Aquaculture: Challenges for Policy Makers in European Seas

“…Of the social obstacles, the issues of trust and conflicts were addressed foremost in the Mediterranean Site and the Southern North Sea. Extensive stakeholder consultations were recommended as an important strategy to encourage trust and reduce conflict, which also is supported by the literature [80,81]. In addition, it appears from the Baltic Site and the Southern North Sea cases that economic obstacles, in terms of insurance in case of accidents, can become core obstacles in the future.…”

Charting the course for a blue economy in Peru: a research agenda

“…In recent years understanding human interactions with nature and the impact of this on perceptions, values and well-being, has been increasingly recognised as integral to marine and coastal management Blasiak et al 2015;Jefferson et al 2015;Soma and Haggett 2015;Hawkins et al 2016). This is evidenced by the growing interest in coupled social-ecological systems and the notion that human society is an integral component of nature; thereby requiring greater understanding of the interconnections between society and its environments (Blasiak et al 2015).…”