The whence and whither of marine spatial planning: revisiting the social reconstruction of the marine environment in the
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RESEARCH
The whence and whither of marine spatial planning: revisiting the social reconstruction of the marine environment in the UK Heather Ritchie 1
&
Linda McElduff 1
Received: 30 August 2019 / Accepted: 20 February 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract With the concept of marine spatial planning (MSP) firmly established in the UK with its own legislation, policies and plans underway, this paper critically revisits MSP as part of the wider debate associated with the social reconstruction of the marine environment, as first discussed by Peel and Lloyd’s seminal paper in 2004. We propose that their identified ‘marine problem’ remains and indeed has exacerbated. We ascertain that there has been much change in the governance of the marine environment that has both positively and negatively altered the way that society has (re)constructed solutions to that marine problem. We revisit Hannigan’s (1995) social constructionist framework, showing the degree to which the prerequisites have been satisfied, by providing an overview of how the marine problem has intensified in the preceding 15 years and how the marine problem has now captured the wider public’s attention. We then look at the how the response to the marine problem has evolved by examining at the current marine planning arrangements across the UK. We conclude by stating that the whence of MSP is clear, culminating with the formal introduction of MSP in the UK which has positively altered the way in which the marine environment is socially reconstructed. The whither is much more unclear. With a continually rapidly moving agenda of change, there is much more to be done for us to say that the marine problem has been successfully socially reconstructed. Keywords Marine spatial planning . Social reconstruction . Marine problem . Marine governance
Introduction The UK marine area extends some 867,400 km2, 3.5 times the UK terrestrial area (Russell 2010, Brown et al. 2011); it is an area of high ecological importance and natural resources. The UK marine biodiversity is estimated to be worth £2670 billion (2017, Government Office for Science). The economic aspects of the marine environment is often lost, as the Wildlife Trusts (2019) ‘Living Seas’ project highlighted the disconnect between everyday human activities and the long-term impact of these activities on the marine environment. Increasing This article is part of the Topical Collection on Critical turn in Marine Spatial Planning - whence and whither? * Heather Ritchie [email protected] Linda McElduff [email protected] 1
Belfast School of Architecture and the Built Environment, Ulster University, Newtownabbey, UK
awareness of our marine environment is critical to protecting our seas, especially at the coast which is now becoming increasingly urbanised, even industrialised (Flannery et al. 2018). As Ritchie and Ellis (2010) noted, the growing intensity of marine-related activities, accompanied by the economic contributions it brings, has had severe negative consequences for the marine environments e
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