This article contributes to the increasing traction of social justice in marine spatial planning (MSP) by exploring perceptions and experiences of social justice from the viewpoint of planners and different social groups who were included and (self)excluded in MSP processes. The study builds on empirical material from Poland, Latvia, and Germany consisting of interviews, MSP legislation, and documents that were analysed through the lens of a multidimensional social justice framework centring on recognition, representation, distribution, and capabilities. Results indicate that MSP institutional arrangements constrain possibilities for marginalised and less consolidated actor groups (residents, coastal tourism, and small-scale fisheries) to enjoy the same degree of recognition that is given to groups representing strategic national interests (renewable energy and shipping). We also highlight the role of planners’ self-reflectivity in enhancing/depriving capabilities of vulnerable social groups whose wellbeing and multidimensional relationships with the sea call for institutional responses adaptive to specific planning contexts. 

While blue justice has gained traction, recognition and capability, which are necessary conditions for procedural and distributive justice, remain under-developed. We develop a four-dimensional blue justice framework that builds on recognition and capabilities to critically examine and advance justice in Poland’s marine spatial planning (MSP). We find that misrecognition of differential identities and capacities scripted powerless stakeholders out of participation and reduced possibilities for fair distribution. Conversely, MSP regulation augmented the rights of powerful actors through granting de jure “objecting” rights to some, inviting only strategic sectors to agenda-setting fora and, limiting MSP communication to meeting legal requirements. Several stakeholders also see defence and wind energy as key winners of MSP. While society will benefit from national security and energy sufficiency, especially given Russia’s increased weaponization of energy, many believe that financial profits from wind energy will accrue to developers. We offer governmental and planning measures to enhance capabilities. 

Att utveckla en förvaltning av Sveriges hav, med dess långsträckta kust och varierande ekosystem såväl i havet som på land, är en utmaning. Det ställer krav på samordning av beslut och genomförande på såväl lokal, nationell som internationell nivå. Förvaltningen måste också ta hänsyn till att både samhället och havsmiljön är under förändring, att ny kunskap utvecklas och att det finns en rad andra samhällsmål att ta hänsyn till.

Havsförvaltningsakademin bildades för att stärka kunskapsutbytet mellan i första hand samhällsvetenskapliga forskare och experter, och personer som arbetar med havsförvaltning i Sverige. Arbetet har resulterat i en gedigen antologi, där erfarna praktiker och akademiker inom olika samhälleliga discipliner ger sin bild av den svenska havsförvaltningen, hur den fungerar idag och vad som krävs för att kunna kalla den ekosystembaserad.

Community participation and influence are vitally important for meeting the multidimensional sustainability aims of marine spatial planning (MSP) and more specifically for procedural and distributive justice. While participation has received substantial research interest, we identify a need to: 1) develop equity-based principles for coastal community participation that can be used to assess and reform MSP practices; 2) generate rich empirical accounts of coastal community participation and representation linked to real-world MSP practices. Here we present the results of a study that synthesizes critical MSP and blue justice scholarship to develop principles and indicators of coastally equitable and just planning. Drawing on interviews with planners and stakeholders and analysis of planning and legal documents, these principles are used to assess participatory processes linked to Latvian MSP practices in the period 2015 to 2019. Our analysis shows that equitable and just MSP needs to be based on participation that is timely, inclusive, supportive & localized, collaborative, methodical and impactful. When applied to the Latvian case these six principles provide a comprehensive and versatile heuristic approach to assess participation in MSP. In the context of Latvian MSP practices, we revealed a fundamental challenge of maintaining inclusive and localized participation throughout the full planning cycle. To counteract the successive narrowing/hardening of participatory space our results indicate a need for continuously promoting diversity of voices and perspectives, opportunities for collaborative sense making, visioning and critique. This will help to bridge diverse MSP divides (e.g., between land and sea, between local, national, and global values and priorities, between science and local knowledge, and between blue growth, conservation, and justice goals). If applied more generally in research and as part of MSP evaluation an equity-based approach can promote the mainstreaming of coastally just and equitable MSP practices. Finally, considering contextual factors (e.g., history, culture, power, legislation) that shape participation and representation is crucial when applying the equity principles to a particular MSP setting to acknowledge and accommodate its particular characteristics and challenges.

This paper explores deep insights into sustainability transition tensions and pathways in terms of place-based conflict and potential for synergies between offshore wind energy (OWE) development and justice for humans and nonhuman nature. Specifically, we build a capability and recognition-based multispecies blue justice framework that at once centers ecological reflexivity (i.e., environmental awareness-raising, proxy representation of nature, and institutional recognition and protection of rights of nature and human-nature relationality), decenters anthropocentric frames of justice, and sheds light on injustices, human and nonhuman that climate and energy transitions may create or reinforce. This framework then informs analysis of a sustainability transition conflict, specifically a longstanding OWE conflict on Hiiumaa island, Estonia. This analysis unravels justice concerns, human and nonhuman, raised by proxy representatives of nature (i.e., grassroots actors and environmental stewards), the knowledge contestations involved, and the resolution measures undertaken thus far. Next, we discuss the possible transformative role of the OWE conflict, including how a Supreme Court ruling invalidating the OWE plan has fostered reflexive planning and may have set a legal precedent that may have human and nonhuman justice implications for the handling of future planning cases. We then highlight remaining challenges for socially and ecologically responsive OWE deployment. These include the judicial non-recognition of nature’s right as well as environmental values and sociocultural ties to nature as rights worth protecting, and the likely effects that formalization of European Union ambitions to speed-up and ramp-up renewable energy could have locally. These include prospects for environmental stewards and ocean defenders to steer nature-positive, people-centered energy transitions. Last, we propose conditions for enhanced multispecies justice, including how formal interventions (e.g., law) and informal practices (e.g., negotiation, awareness-raising) can be harnessed to unlock productive conflict and align energy transitions with the norms of justice, human and nonhuman.

Vi, 1 620 forskare samt lärare vid universitet och högskolor, är eniga med de unga bakom Auroramålet: De drabbas och riskerar att drabbas allvarligt av klimatkrisen under sin livstid. De klimatåtgärder vi vidtar i närtid avgör deras framtid. Sverige måste ta ansvar och göra sin rättvisa andel av det globala klimatarbetet. 

I strid med Parisavtalet ökar utsläppen av växthusgaser i en takt som gör att 1,5-gradersmålet kan överskridas om några år. De globala effekterna blir allt mer synliga med ständiga temperaturrekord, smältande isar, havshöjning och extremväder som torka, förödande bränder och skyfall med enorma översvämningar, som i Pakistan nyligen. Försörjningen av befolkningen utsätts för allvarliga hot i många länder.

Minskningen av den biologiska mångfalden är extrem. Klimatkrisen är enligt WHO det största hotet mot människors hälsa i hela världen och barn utgör en särskilt sårbar grupp. Med Sveriges nordliga läge sker uppvärmningen här dubbelt så fort som det globala genomsnittet. Det förskjuter utbredningsområden för växtlighet och sjukdomsbärande insekter och ökar förekomsten av extremväder såsom värmeböljor, skogsbränder och översvämningar samt av många olika sorters infektioner och allergier. När extremväder ökar, ökar även stressen och risken för mental ohälsa. Värmeböljor ökar risken för sjukdom och död hos sårbara grupper som äldre, små barn och personer med kroniska sjukdomar. De negativa effekterna på hälsan kommer att öka i takt med klimatkrisen och barn riskerar att drabbas av ackumulerade negativa hälsoeffekter under hela sina liv. Redan i dag är mer än hälften av unga mellan 12 och 18 år i Sverige ganska eller mycket oroliga för klimat och miljö. Detta är förståeligt när våra beslutsfattare inte gör vad som krävs.

Den juridiska och moraliska grunden för arbetet mot klimatförändringarna är att varje land måste göra sin rättvisa andel av det globala klimatarbetet. Centralt i det internationella klimatramverket är att rika länder med höga historiska utsläpp, däribland Sverige, måste gå före resten av världen. Dessa länder måste också bidra till att finansiera klimatomställningen i länderna i det Globala Syd, som är minst ansvariga för klimatkrisen men drabbas hårdast. Denna rättviseprincip är tydlig i Parisavtalet och var en het diskussionsfråga under COP27 i Sharm el-Sheikh, men lyser med sin frånvaro i det svenska klimatarbetet. 

Sverige har satt mål för att minska sina utsläpp. Men de är helt otillräckliga: minskningstakten är för låg och målen tillåter samtidigt att åtgärder skjuts på framtiden. Dessutom exkluderas merparten av Sveriges utsläpp från de svenska nationella utsläppsmålen; bland annat utelämnas utsläpp som svensk konsumtion orsakar utanför Sveriges gränser, utsläpp från utrikes transporter och utsläpp från markanvändning och skogsbruk, exempelvis utsläpp från förbränning av biobränslen eller utsläpp från dikade våtmarker (Prop. 2016/17:146 s.25-28).

Sverige saknar dessutom ett eget mål för att öka upptaget av växthusgaser genom utökat skydd och restaurering av ekosystem, något som krävs för att begränsa de värsta konsekvenserna av klimatkrisen (IPCC s.32). Trots dessa låga ambitioner misslyckas Sverige med att nå sina utsläppsmål, konstaterar både Klimatpolitiska rådet och Naturvårdsverket. En klimatpolitik i linje med Parisavtalet kräver både att alla typer av växthusgasutsläpp minskar samtidigt som – inte i stället för – upptaget av växthusgaser maximeras: i dag misslyckas Sverige på bägge fronter.

Slutsatsen är tydlig. Sverige vidtar inte de åtgärder som krävs för att skydda barns och ungdomars rättigheter enligt Europakonventionen till skydd för de mänskliga rättigheterna. Detta medför allvarliga risker för liv och hälsa för unga generationer, människor i andra länder och särskilt utsatta grupper. Detta kan inte fortsätta. Därför ställer vi oss bakom Auroras krav att Sverige börjar göra sin rättvisa andel och omedelbart sätter igång ett omfattande och långtgående klimatarbete som vilar på vetenskaplig grund och sätter rättvisa i centrum.

Festering ocean conflict thwarts efforts to realize the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. This paper explores transformations of ocean conflict into situated sustainability pathways that privilege human needs, justice and equity. We first outline the promise and limits of prevailing ocean/coastal governance practices, with a focus on marine spatial planning (MSP), which by framing conflict in shallow terms as use incompatibility, supports resolution strategies that privilege neoliberal technocratic-managerial and post-political models of consensual negotiation, thereby obscuring the structural inequalities, maldistributions and misrecognitions that drive deep-seated conflicts. Next, the distinctive features of the marine realm and ocean conflict are explained. Third, we outline the root causes, drivers and scale of conflict, with reference to history, climate, culture, governance, institutions and prevailing international socio-political conditions. Fourth, we reflect on the nature of conflict, exploring implications for shallow and deeper approaches of handling conflicts. Fifth, we highlight the implications of knowledge co-production for understanding and transforming conflict in pursuit of justice. Then, in response to the orthodoxies of MSP and prevailing conflict resolution strategies, we elaborate an alternative approach – Pragmatic Agonistic co-produced Conflict Transformation (PACT) for sustainability – sketching out key elements of a praxis that seeks to transform destructive interaction patterns of conflict into co-produced, constructive, scalable and ‘institutionalizable’ yet contestable and provisional sustainability knowledge-action.

A number of commentators have argued that up until now marine/maritime spatial planning (MSP) research and practice have been dominated by blue economy and environmental concerns and have tended to neglect what might be regarded as social sustainability concerns. To gain more insight into the character and extent of such a gap, as well as how to address it, this article examines how social sustainability has been addressed in peer reviewed scientific articles on MSP between 2005 and 2020. Using search terms such as participation, democracy, social inclusion, social cohesion, equity we systematically identify and review 310 scientific articles that address diverse social sustainability concerns within MSP and marine governance. The review showed that very few papers systematically conceptualised or developed a coherent framework for engaging with social sustainability. Instead, they mostly addressed particular social concerns including participation and engagement, equity and social justice, socio-cultural values and preferences. Marine management and planning efficiency, as well as related instrumental framings of the merits of participation were the key arguments for including these dimensions of social sustainability in MSP. In terms of how to better include social sustainability in MSP, most attention was given to social-cultural mapping and ways to improve social inclusion/participation while also redressing exclusion and maldistribution of outcomes in MSP practice. We conclude that there is a need to deepen and diversify MSP inquiry with respect to social sustainability. In particular, scholars would do well to delve deeper and more broadly in social science literature to find inspiration on ways to understand and elucidate social issues. Here, the enormous body of relevant work on justice, power, critical institutionalism, political ecology and terrestrial planning literatures has hardly been tapped. It is also evident from this review that there is a need for both the academic and practice-based communities to more comprehensively address how the multidimensions of social sustainability interact with each other, as well as with economic and environmental aspects of marine planning and governance. Based on these observations, we highlight a set of suggestions on how to develop MSP research and practice on social sustainability. Most importantly, we argue that more in-depth co-production, linking scholars, practitioners and society actors, is needed. 

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) has been heralded as the key means of achieving a more integrated approach to marine use across sectors and spatial scales. Achieving greater integration and coherence in MSP governance arrangements is seen as a way to resolve current problems of marine governance (such as fragmentation) and address future resource demands in a sustainable way. However, there is a lack of clarity and consensus in practice regarding sustainability in MSP, both in terms of MSP governance practices and sustainable resource use. For example, how are we to treat the environment in MSP? Should we conceive the environment as just another sector with interests to be negotiated, or as the very boundary condition that limits possibilities for maritime activities and developments? How do we integrate diverse views on this in MSP decision-making? This is but one example of an integration challenge in MSP important for sustainability. There are numerous others. Integration is intimately connected to the ability of MSP to deliver sustainable marine resource use at various levels and scales. The roles of integration are diverse and interconnected, including those that affect social-ecological integration or land-sea interaction, but also aspects of good governance and social sustainability. The latter include inter-sectoral decisionmaking, stakeholder engagement, cross-border interaction and knowledge pluralism. How integration is exercised in these procedural aspects of MSP is likely to substantively affect outcomes both in terms of sustainable blue growth or the ability to deliver an ecosystem-based approach. Integration as a policy and analytical problem to be addressed has also been discussed elsewhere – most saliently in the fields of sustainable development, ICZM, environmental policy integration, planning theory and socio-ecological systems. While there has been some work on integration in MSP, additional insight is needed: to better empirically ground the roles of integration in MSP, to understand the multidimensionality and interdependencies of integration dimensions and to unpack what ‘balance’ might mean for understanding and pursuing sustainability in different MSP contexts. In response, this special issue aims to explore the roles, problems and opportunities of various types of integration in relation to MSP's sustainability ambitions.