GME0012
Written evidence submitted by Dr Pamela M. Buchan
Governing the marine environment – Call for evidence
1.1. I am an interdisciplinary marine science and marine practitioner with a particular interest in marine governance and a PhD in Marine Citizenship. Marine citizenship is exercising the right to participate in the transformation of the human-ocean relationship for sustainability. In order to contribute to good marine environmental status, my research focuses on people’s motivation to be active marine citizens and marine governance processes that enable citizen participation. I am currently a Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, conducting research funded by Natural England that investigates social and cultural values in fisheries. In 2024, I conducted a scoping review for the Crown Estate examining research and industry evidence relating to social impacts of marine developments and social impact assessment practices. I also led a knowledge exchange project with Marine Management Organisation considering social sustainability in marine planning. My work in the UN Ocean Decade Vision 2030 Challenge 9 Working Group supported the recognition of participation in ocean science and governance as fundamental to ocean equity. My PhD research led me to develop the idea of a Local Government Ocean Recovery Declaration – passed by 33 councils in England & Wales to date – to support local tier government to respond to the challenge of marine environmental sustainability through holistic policy.
1.2. Outside of academia, I am a Director of Labour: Coast & Country, an independent group which champions rural and coastal communities in Labour Party policy. I am directly involved in marine governance in the fishing and port sectors. I have served on Devon & Severn Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority since 2018 first as a Plymouth City Councillor and then as an MMO Appointee, sitting as Vice Chair of the Authority and Chair of the D&SIFCA Governance Working Group since 2020. I have been a port duty holder at the Cattewater Harbour Commissioners since 2019.
1.3. I am submitting evidence to this Call to highlight the importance of social science and social factors in the delivery of marine environmental sustainability and Good Environmental Status, in accordance with the various national and international commitments the UK is party to. Management of marine sustainability is more than an ecological issue as it is fundamentally management of human activity. Effective policies will therefore consider not only the ecological and technical evidence of pressures upon the marine environment, but also the means of delivering behaviour change. This necessarily includes good governance procedures which are fair, trusted, and deliver the best outcomes for people and nature.
2.1. In addition to marine treaties, general environmental international treaties and conventions apply to the marine context in the UK. An important example relevant to this Call is the right to participate in environmental decision-making. This right has three pillars: access to environmental information; participation in environmental decision-making; and environmental justice. The right originates in the 1992 Rio Declaration (Principle 10); then in the 1998 Aarhus Convention on Access to information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters; and was adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 in Resolution 48/13: “Recognizing that the exercise of human rights, including the rights to seek, receive and impart information, to participate effectively in the conduct of government and public affairs and in environmental decision-making and to an effective remedy, is vital to the protection of a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.”
2.2. Evidence from my and others’ research indicates that the right to participate in environmental decision-making is not being as fully delivered for the marine environmental context as for the terrestrial. The scoping review I conducted for the Crown Estate, indicated that social impacts are routinely scoped out of Environmental Impact Assessment for activities such as offshore wind farms, due to their operation at sea rather than on land. It identified a fragmented marine governance framework that is disempowering for communities and lacks recognition of the interactions between marine activities and coastal communities. My marine citizenship research indicated that even for those most highly engaged marine citizens, there is little opportunity to be involved in UK marine governance (a notable exception was the MCZ consultation procedure) and a sense of disempowerment to influence marine decision-making. The same research also identified that local decision-making processes are more accessible and trusted than national decisions, which sits in contradiction with the national scale of governance procedures for marine developments.
2.3. It is important to note that members of the public speak not only on matters of community impact but also on environmental impact. Without recognition and representation, it may not be possible to deliver equitable and just decisions. An empowered citizenry is a pre-requisite for achieving a mandate and political will to deliver on environmental challenges.
2.4. The Committee might consider asking the Government how it intends to implement the UN Human Right to participate in environmental decision-making for the marine governance context.
3.1. It is important that the UK has an effective approach to marine spatial planning and prioritisation. The current scale of marine planning areas is proving too large to be accessible to publics and communities who might have an interest and wish to participate. For example, the South West marine planning area is vast and it is impossible even for people with a marine expertise to visualise the potential impact of a hypothetical marine activity occurring at sea. This poses a barrier for meaningful stakeholder participation at the early stage of prioritisation and zoning and consequently disempowers people at later stages of marine consenting whilst also failing to reduce potential conflict or opposition at the point of a project being initiated and, ultimately, failure to deliver for the needs identified within the plan. To give an example, for an offshore wind farm project there are separate processes for seabed leasing, marine consents, landfall, and onshore construction activity. There is very little opportunity for affected communities to participate in decision-making until operations go through terrestrial planning which may come long before or long after other consents are in place. This is compounded by cultural approaches to stakeholder engagement that are technocratic and lack meaning (e.g., Clarke and Flannery, 2019).
3.2. In addition to scale, the fragmented nature of leasing, consenting, and planning (marine and terrestrial) across different decision-making authorities and across time make it difficult for people to participate meaningfully and reduce the power of Environmental Impact Assessment to capture cumulative impacts across multiple projects in an area.
3.3. In my work with the MMO, the lack of marine planning expertise at local government level is a clearly articulated challenge (see also MMO1333 and Ansong et al., 2024). Marine planning is not adequately recognised within the planning professions and, due to local administrative boundaries, marine contexts are not a priority for overworked and under-resources local planners. Having noted above that the local scale is the most accessible to people and the point at which formal planning participation tends to occur, this is a key skill gap that will have implications for marine environmental participation.
3.4. The Committee might consider asking the Government how it plans to better integrate terrestrial and marine planning at all scales of the decision-making process.
3.5. Based on my experience as an IFCA Vice Chair, there is a further regional boundary at 6 nautical miles which divides the jurisdiction of IFCAs and MMO and has a number of consequences. First, there are administrative issues with data and intelligence sharing, particularly in real time, between these two organisations that has implications for enforcement. There is a need for a review of the intelligence sharing system.
3.6. Second, there has been the impression that government is more focused on offshore fishing activity which commands a higher economic return than inshore. Financial resourcing for IFCAs as a whole has not reflected the resource needed for an integrated coastal zone management that brings together local councils, nature agencies, and marine industry and environmental experts to balance the social, environmental, and economic needs and implications of inshore marine governance. Tranches of MCZs have been designated since the inception of the IFCAs that require additional monitoring and management. The inshore zone is where communities are most impacted by marine management decisions and should therefore command more resource that might be indicated by economic measure of the value of the inshore fishing sector.
3.7. I encourage the Committee to consider the issue of fragmentation between authorities, regions, inshore/offshore, and across time within individual projects. In light of the right to participate in environmental decision-making, the Government should be asked to reform marine governance to reduce fragmentation, improve participation to decision-making, and deliver sustainable and more holistically focused decisions.
4.1. Recommendations relevant to these questions are set out in the University of Exeter-MMO report ‘Opportunities for improved social sustainability in marine governance’. Without repeating the recommendations here, they focus on review of the Stakeholder Participation Policy and improving MMO procedures to ensure better recognition and representation of diverse communities and interests; development of a Social Policy in the Marine Planning Framework and mapping of potential social impacts; and cultural changes within MMO to promote continuous improvement and ambition. Additionally, the report recommends that marine planning undergo professionalisation to better integrate it within existing planning practices, and that marine planning receive higher prioritisation and resourcing from local and national governments. The conclusions of this work support the fundamental need for improvement in social sustainability within marine spatial planning to enable adaptive and sustainable management of the marine environment. The social component is fundamental to the climate change response within the marine and coastal environment and to acceptability of marine decisions.
4.2. The Committee might look at the full set of recommendations set out in this report which was co-produced with MMO.
5.1. As described in section 3, the decision-making process would be improved with more holistic integration of marine and terrestrial planning across individual projects, and to better consider whole-of-life impacts at the planning stage. Professionalisation of marine planning within wider planning would improve the skills and knowledge basis within the planning sector as a whole.
5.2. Economic growth and environmental protection cannot be effectively balanced without considering other social dimensions of marine developments that impact upon people and thus the economic potential of people and places. Improved citizen participation in all stages of marine consenting and planning would enable better understanding of potential environmental, economic, and social outcomes, and deliver better decisions that reflect the local, place-based context and needs as well as national and larger scale economic and environmental outcomes.
5.3. Social impacts and public participation are increasingly recognised as important – as evidenced by the collaborative research projects I am engaged in – and developers need certainty and clear guidelines around how to deliver on social dimensions. The ‘Social Impact of Marine Development’ report makes clear recommendations that Social Impact Assessment practices should be developed and better integrated in marine governance processes. It recommends the International Association for Impact Assessment SIA principles should inform this process.
Formal regulation provides a level playing field for developers and reduces uncertainty. Under proposals for the Great British Energy and Crown Estate Bills, it is likely the Crown Estate may projects play a greater role in early development work for offshore wind, reducing the risk to developers. In the event this is enacted, the Crown Estate will need a regulatory framework that can deliver outcomes from marine decisions that are equitable and sustainable for people and nature. The Committee therefore might consider the full set of recommendations and ask Government how these can be delivered upon, particularly in light of accelerating marine development.
January 2025