Integrated Ocean Management as a Strategy to Meet Rapid Climate Change: The Norwegian Case

Abstract

Introduction

The combined forces of climate change, pollution and increasing economic activities necessitates more comprehensive approaches to oceans management (Ebbin et al. 2005; Miles 2009). Climate change has the potential to seriously affect the structure and function of marine ecosystems (Schellnhuber 2010), at time scales that are unprecedented (Scheffer et al. 2001) and therefore raises the question of tipping points in marine ecosystems and how climate change can drive ecosystems into patterns of abrupt, nonlinear change (Wassmann et al. 2011; Lenton et al. 2008). This scenario is particularly relevant in the Arctic, where temperature trends are changing and expected to change considerably faster than in warmer latitudes (ACIA 2005; AMAP 2011).

Adding to the effects of climate change on marine ecosystems are various forms of pollution, including radioactive substances, organic matter and inorganic substances, such as persistent organic pollutants (AMAP 2009). Marine economic activities include fisheries, petroleum development, marine tourism, shipping, and a number of other activities which are competing for space and in some areas create user conflicts (Douvere 2008).

The need to address the cumulative impacts of climate change, pollution and various economic activities on the oceans has been long recognized (Halpern et al. 2008; Rockström et al. 2009), and a number of international instruments refer to the need to manage the oceans and their uses in an integrated manner. Specifically, the 2002 Johannesburg Plan of Implementation from the World Summit on Sustainable Development encourages governments to apply “by 2010 of the ecosystem approach” (UN 2005).

This article addresses the question of how an integrated, ecosystem-based management of marine ecosystems can be employed in dealing with this challenge. We will use the Norwegian integrated management plan for the Barents Sea as a case study of a real-world implementation of integrated ocean management and focus on how this deals with the challenges of climate change and variability both for the environment and its effect on society. We also address issues related to the plan as an instrument for governance; specifically, we discuss issues relating to decision-making and how integration of sector concerns is addressed.

Following an account of the genesis and development of the Barents Sea Plan, we discuss how climate variability and change specifically is addressed in the plan, and how this concern evolves over time. We conclude with some observations on how we think the plan work can be further improved upon.

Materials and Methods

The data underlying the account here are mainly drawn from a number of documents relating to the process of developing, implementing and revising the plan (Anon 2001, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2011). One of the authors has been closely involved in the plan work since its inception, and both are involved in Norwegian oceans management on a day-to-day basis. Also, both have written about the management plan work in earlier publications (e.g. Hoel 2010; Olsen et al. 2007). In addition to this, the article also draws on a number of secondary sources, mainly to provide context for the issue at hand here.

The method employed here is one of a case study, where secondary literature provides the greater context for this specific case; the global need for a shift towards integrated ocean management is well established in the literature (Curtin and Prellezo 2010; Levin et al. 2009; Douvere 2008). Drawing on this, we address the development, implementation and revision of the Management plan for the Barents Sea, mostly based on government documents and our own experience and writing.

We use the term “climate variability” to denote natural variability in climate, whilst “climate change” is a man-made change.

Birth of the Barents Sea Management Plan

Norway has jurisdiction over 2.3 million km² of oceans, more than six times its land area. Due to its long coastline, vast ocean areas and a small population, different uses of the oceans have coexisted with lesser levels of conflicts than seen in many other countries.

The oceans under Norwegian jurisdiction range from the temperate waters of the North Sea to the polar waters to the North of Svalbard. In broad terms, we distinguish the North Sea in the South, the Norwegian Sea in the west and the north and the Barents Sea in the north (Fig. 1). Norway’s oceans are rich in natural resources and are critical to the economy of the country and the welfare of its citizens. The offshore petroleum industry accounts for about one-third of government revenue (OED 2010). The fisheries resources provide for annual landings around 2.5 million tons (2009), with cod, herring, mackerel and haddock amongst the most valuable species (Ministry of Fisheries 2010). With a small population and marginal domestic market, both petroleum and fish production are major export earners.

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Fig. 1

The plan areas for the Lofoten–Barents Sea management plan (red), Norwegian Sea management plan (green) and the coming North Sea management plan (blue) (Map data from Norwegian Directorate for Nature Management adjusted with new boundary between Norway and Russia in the Barents Sea)

Development of the integrated management plans for Norway’s oceans were first heralded in the coming to power declaration of the new government in the fall of 2001 (Anon 2001), and was initiated in a government white paper (Anon 2002) and sanctioned by Stortinget (the parliament) in 2002.

The Development of the Barents Sea Plan

The development of the Barents Sea plan, which also includes ocean areas to the west and south of the Barents Sea southwards along North Norway to the Lofoten archipelago (Fig. 1) started in 2002. This was the first of three plans, with initiatives for the Norwegian Sea and the North Sea to follow. Amongst the reasons for starting in the north were that the foreign-policy aspect was limited to one country, Russia, and that there was a significant political push to open areas off Lofoten to oil and gas exploration. Also, international commitments flowing from legally binding instruments (e.g. The Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (the ‘OSPAR Convention’, www.ospar.org) as well as ‘soft law’ arrangements (e.g. the 2002 Johannesburg Plan of Implementation) necessitated the development of ecosystem-based oceans management and integrated ocean management.

The Barents Sea plan, a Government white paper (Anon 2006) was sanctioned by the Storting in June 2006. The implementation of the plan was initiated the same year following the 4-year development phase. Also in 2006, the development of an integrated management plan for the Norwegian Sea started to be adopted in 2009 (Ottersen et al. 2011). The work on the North Sea plan that was initiated in 2009 and is planned to be implemented in 2012.

All three plans have been developed in a process (Fig. 2) starting with a scoping phase (1) assessing the state of the ecosystem and the different economic sectors. In a second phase, the ecological impact of different human activities is assessed for each sector separately. In the third phase of the development of plans, the cumulative impacts on marine ecosystems are assessed and particularly valuable and biologically vulnerable areas (Fig. 2) are defined. Also in phase 3, the gaps in knowledge and setting management objectives are addressed (Olsen et al. 2007; Olsen and Auran 2008).

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Fig. 2

Planning process for the Lofoten–Barents Sea-integrated management plan (from Von Quillfeldt et al. 2009)

Organization of Work

The Norwegian oceans management plans are plans—they rely on existing legislation for implementation, and focus on setting up new arrangements that make existing government structures work together. For actual implementation, the 1995 Petroleum Act and the 2008 Marine Resources Act are central. The arrangements for this cooperation exist at different levels of government as well as in practical management.

The planning as well as the implementation of the management plans is a top-down process, led by an inter-ministerial steering group led by the Ministry of Environment, with participation from the ministries of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs, Energy and Petroleum and Foreign Affairs. Three government agency sub-groups to follow up on the implementation of the plans: an Advisory Group on Monitoring, a Forum on Environmental Risk Management and a Management Forum. All three groups report annually to the ministerial group and have continuing and extensive collaboration and communication between them.

Main Themes of Plan

The plans establish objectives for the status of the marine environment and how human activities are to be conducted. The objectives address four areas: pollution, safe seafood, accidents and associated pollution and biodiversity. These four areas are then split into sub-goals and -objectives that become increasingly more specific. At the lowest level, the objectives are related to species or species groups and their status. Goal achievement is evaluated annually and reported publicly to the government by the Management Forum. Thereby, a check is provided on progress towards the goals.

The Norwegian plans cover the ecosystems in Norwegian waters, but it is impractical (impossible) to evaluate the state of the all ecosystems with the 1,000s of species and populations (Figs. 3, ​,4,4, ​,5).5). Therefore, the plans rely on an indicator-based system (Table 1) for assessing the state of the ecosystems on an annual basis. Assessing the state of the ecosystems is the main objective of the Advisory Group on Monitoring.

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Fig. 3

The island Hjelmsøya in Finnmark, northern Norway. Photography: Erik Olsen

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Fig. 4

Northcape and Knivskjellodden, the northernmost point of Norway. Photography: Erik Olsen

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Fig. 5

The coast of Finnmark, northern Norway. Photography: Erik Olsen

The task of the Forum on Environmental Risk Management is to assess how the environmental risk associated with human activities in the ecosystem change over time. This has proven to be the most complicated task both technically and organizationally, as the question of potential environmental impacts of future oil/gas developments that brings the largest differences in opinions between the cooperating agencies.

The plans were developed with a strict time schedule. No time could be allotted to conduct new studies or experiments, and therefore an important part of the work on management plans have been identifying and reporting gaps in current knowledge. An important task of the Management Forum has been following up on how these gaps have been filled during the reporting period, and identify new gaps.

The management plans are zoning plans in the sense that they limit the type of petroleum-related activities that can take place in space and time. This is the aspect of the management plans causing the most political attention, as it is a large-scale zoning of economically important marine activities. The zoning plans have imposed strict limits on where, when and how the oil industry can operate in the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea. Most of the plan area is opened to the industry, but in the Barents Sea the environmentally most valuable and vulnerable areas have been closed for petroleum activities, both for the initial 2006–2010 plan period, and in the revised plan from 2011 to 2013 (Anon 2011). In the Norwegian Sea, the petroleum industry has been operating for a longer time so the zoning is not as strict as in the Barents Sea. But here too, the most vulnerable areas were protected with no new activities being allowed.

For shipping a routing system has been introduced along the Norwegian coast in the Barents Sea and further southwards off the coast. This is a zoning arrangement for international shipping activities grounded in the International Maritime Organization (IMO) system. Small-scale and coastal shipping activities are not included in this zoning regime. As regards fisheries, the plans do not introduce new zoning measures beyond those already existing. In fisheries management, area-based measures have been used for several decades. Therefore, at present the zoning aspects of the Norwegian management plans are mainly zoning of the activities of the petroleum industry in relation to environmental concerns and fishing activities.

The Implementation of the Plan

A central part of the implementation process after the adoption in 2006 has been to prepare for a substantial revision of the plan. The revised plan was adopted by the government in a white paper to the Storting in March 2011 (Anon 2011).

The first part of the revision process consisted of development of annual reports from the three government agency sub-groups. These reports have emphasized new information that has been gathered since 2006. Especially, the MAREANO seabed mapping programme has collected much new and detailed information on bathymetry, geology and biology of the sea-floor (www.mareano.no).

The second part of the revision process consisted of public hearings and debate. The formal hearings process, mandated by law, gave relevant business, civil society and government agencies 3 months to comment on the documentation presented by the working groups. The revision process was originally planned to be finished by the end of 2010. But the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) oil spill after the Deepwater Horizon incident in April–Aug 2010 had the government pause the process whilst knowledge from the GoM spill was gathered and assessed in relation to the situation in Norway. This assessment had a substantial impact on the evaluation of environmental risk from the oil industry, as it clearly illustrated that worst-case accidents and large spills were possible and realistic outcomes of off-shore petroleum activities. The analysis pointed to many technical failures that led to the GoM incident, similarities and differences in the geology, biology and management of petroleum activities in the GoM compared to Norway. The US had not finished the natural resource damage assessment and it was therefore not possible to conclude on the actual environmental impact of the GoM spill. However, the GoM spill acted as a caution to the development of the oil industry and was central in the political debate leading to the new zoning plan for the area.

The revised Lofoten–Barents Sea plan follows the same structure as the initial plan, keeping the governance structure and the three working groups, but extending the mandate of the Forum for Environmental Risk and the Advisory Group on Monitoring to include all three management plan areas (Barents Sea, Norwegian Sea and North Sea). Each plan area kept its specific Management Forum.

The greatest changes in the revised plan are in the zoning aspects of the plan and in the regulation of pollution. Whilst the most valuable and vulnerable areas off Lofoten–Vesterålen were still kept off-limits to petroleum, the industry was allowed to operate closer to the shore of Troms and Finnmark (35 km in the revised plan as compared to 50 km in the previous plan) and in the Eggakanten area (the continental shelf break). Also, pollution regulations for the petroleum industry were changed, allowing for controlled discharge of produced water, drill cuttings and chemicals at the same levels as are allowed in the North Sea and Norwegian Sea. Previously, the Barents Sea plan did not allow any discharges except of drill cuttings from the top-hole section.

New and updated management measures for other sectors and pressures ranging from fisheries, protection of bottom fauna, MPAs, seabirds, pollution and litter and long-transported pollution were also introduced. These were grounded in the background analyses and reports produced by the three working groups charged with following up the plan, although all issues and measures were ultimately decided upon by the government and adopted by the Storting.

The revised plan also synthesized the gaps in current knowledge and made recommendations on how to fill these, as well as on the importance of cooperation with Russia on management of the marine environment and living marine resources.

Including Climate Change as a Factor in the Plan

Climate variability and change have consistently been identified as important long-term external influences on the Lofoten–Barents Sea ecosystems, both in the initial version of the plan (Anon 2006) and in the revision (Anon 2011). The emphasis on climate-related issues has been shared by the scientists and managers developing the scientific base for the plan and the revision. The Barents Sea is generally heavily influenced by natural climate variability (Stiansen and Filin 2007). In the future, climate change can reinforce the effects on ecosystems of natural variability. A substantial increase in ocean temperatures is likely to affect ecosystems and human uses of them both directly and indirectly. A major physical effect is a substantial loss of sea ice cover in the Northern Barents Sea. Recent projections expect the Arctic Ocean to be ‘… nearly ice-free in summer within this century, likely within the next thirty to forty years.’(AMAP 2011). Some model simulations go further, and indicate that this change will be rapid with major losses of sea ice cover occurring within a period of a few decades (Wang and Overland 2009) or even <10 years (Holland et al. 2006).

Loss of sea ice cover will have large-scale ecological effects, especially on sea ice-dependent organisms, such as bowhead whales, narwhales, polar bears, several species of seals, to name a few (AMAP 2011). Some unique habitats with their associated flora and fauna, such as the ice-edge are at risk of being lost completely. The biological effects of such physical forcing result in loss of habitat (ice cover) and changed circulation patterns. According to Wassmann et al. (2011), the effects of an increase in ambient temperature can be classified into five categories: (C1) range shifts, (C2) abundance, (C3) growth and condition, (C4) behaviour and phenology and (C5) community and regime shifts. For the commercially important fish species the potential changes include shifts in distribution range (C1) and abundance (C2). Drinkwater (2011) reviews possible scenarios for the commercially important fish stocks in the Barents Sea and finds that for boreal species like cod and herring who tolerate increased temperatures the effects will be positive; the fish will experience higher growth rates and improved recruitment survival. However, shifts in distribution patterns affecting spawning grounds and migrations patterns can be expected. For Arctic fish species like capelin and polar cod the effects of warmer waters are likely to be more negative. Capelin distribution is expected to change northwards, possibly preventing spawning along the coast of Finnmark and Kola due to too long migration distances from the feeding grounds at the polar front.

Higher atmospheric CO₂ not only leads to a temperature increase, but also directly affects sea water chemistry by lowering the pH, making the oceans more acidic. Higher acidity changes the solubility of calcium carbonate and aragonite, both essential components for forming structures such as shells and other calcified structures important to invertebrates and plankton. This can in turn affect the growth rate and ultimately survival of many of these organisms, thereby posing a severe threat to structure and functioning of marine ecosystems (Fabry et al. 2009). Arctic oceans are thought to be extra vulnerable to ocean acidification (Fabry et al. 2009; AMAP 2011), but thorough empirical evidence is still lacking in this regard. Ocean acidification is therefore subject to increasing research and monitoring, also the case in Norway.

Human uses of the Barents Sea will be affected both directly and indirectly by warming of the oceans. Reduced sea ice cover will bring easier access to previously ice-covered areas, making it easier for transportation and industrial development, such as petroleum activities. An increase in shipping is predicted, particularly to destinations in the Arctic (AMSA 2009). At the same time weather conditions are expected to deteriorate (Loeng et al. 2005; AMAP 2011), creating a more challenging environment for human operations at sea. The long-term indirect effects on society are likely to be range shifts and changes in abundance of commercially important fish (Drinkwater 2011). Changes in spawning and migration patterns can make existing fishing ground less productive, thereby shifting fishing to other areas (Drinkwater 2011). For the larger ocean-going fishing vessels this is likely to be less important than for the small-scale coastal fisheries.

Discussion

The Norwegian approach to integrated oceans management is characterized by being pragmatic, incremental and rationalistic. It is pragmatic in the sense that the work is based on existing knowledge and institutions; incremental in moving step by step towards a synoptic approach; and rationalistic in applying a logic where the establishment of objectives and associated measures is assumed to lead to desired ends. In relation to climate change, ecosystem-based oceans management in general can be assumed to be advantageous, in the sense that the entire ecosystem is the objective of management. Specifically, in the plan work, two elements are critical in this regard. First, the emphasis on mapping the cumulative impact on ecosystems of all drivers of change, including climate, is important to ensure that climate effects are taken into account in management. The other element is related to decision-making; by establishing arrangements at several levels of governance that encompass all relevant sectors, coordination amongst sectors is addressed.

There are a number of areas where the work on the management plan can be further developed. This is to be expected, as any large-scale planning process will yield new insights, and it is important to provide mechanisms for capturing such insights and understandings. Lessons learnt can be valuable contributions to the further development of the plan work.

One such area is the science–policy interface. The plan work has been carried out in cooperation between scientific institutions on the one hand, and government agencies on the other. Whilst strongly informed by science, the plan work has not been a scientific process, and therefore misses some of the qualities associated with that. In particular, process transparency and the importance attached to peer review in a scientific process are missing. The reasons for this have to do with the nature of the planning process, which necessitate compromise between government agencies, observance of tight deadlines, and the need to meet the requirements of the political system the plan work feeds into. This made it difficult to find time for lengthy peer-review processes. The question of petroleum development in the North is currently one of the most salient political issues in Norway, and the three parties in the coalition government have different views on the issue.

Ensuring the scientific quality of the knowledge underpinning ecosystem-based management is important (Levin et al. 2009). It can be argued that some aspects of the plan work could benefit from a rigorous peer review inspired by scientific standards. This would ensure that the science underpinning the plan work is sound and stands the test of international scrutiny.

Related to this, in concluding a planning cycle, the emphasis has been upon arriving at consensus texts. The advantage of this has been that an agreed opinion of science and technical agencies carries considerable authority, and is difficult for decision-makers to set aside. On the other hand, a consensual approach can also lead to suppression of disagreement. Disagreement is important to bring scientific understanding forwards, and in the plan work the ensuing policy process could benefit from being more aware of areas of disagreement. Whilst the existing consensus approach perhaps was appropriate the early phase of the plan work, in a more mature phase the spelling out of areas of disagreement could be encouraged. This would be more in line with a scientific ethos, and provide decision-makers with a more explicit foundation for their decisions.

A second area where management plans can be further developed is by inclusion of economic considerations. The explicit criteria by which the judgements undertaken in the planning process address the status of various components of the ecosystems. As pointed out above, there are ten categories of indicators, all of which refers to physical or biological properties of the ecosystem. There are, however, no explicit attempts to address the economic significance of ecosystem services, and such considerations therefore become implicit in the decision-making process. Bringing in economic considerations by assessing the value of ecosystem services is one area where the plan can be improved upon (Armstrong et al. 2008).

A third issue in relation to the work on the plans is the organization of the work and how cooperation among various sectors is achieved. As regards inter-ministerial cooperation, integrated oceans management requires that government entities with authority over aspects of oceans governance cooperate, because actions in one area will affect another (Douvere and Ehler 2009; Hoel 2010). In Norway, cooperation in the plan work has taken place at three levels of governance: at the political level between ministers, at the administrative level between ministries and their officials and at the agency working group level which involves a number of government agencies as research institutions.

The core issue of how to reconcile petroleum development with environmental concerns and fisheries is addressed at all levels, but ultimately has to be resolved by ministers, as this requires genuine political decisions: a gain to one set of interests can easily be a loss to another.

Most of the actual work on the management plan has taken place at the working group level, where close cooperation over time has served to enhance understanding and cooperation across institutional boundaries. An important outcome of the plan work thus far, is that the cooperation over time in the three working groups (see below) has enhanced mutual understanding amongst agencies and institutions in different areas.

Still another issue is the status of the plans relative to existing, sector policies and measures. An important aspect of the plan work in Norway is that the plan work is plan work, rather than regulation; the actual regulation of economic sectors and the marine environment is executed through sector-based legislation and institutions. This may seem counter-intuitive from the perspective of integrated oceans management. But the approach has merits; integrated oceans management is achieved by the coordination in the planning process and in the implementation of the plan. The implementation of a sector policy requires institutional capacity, which is provided by legislation, budgets and other measures. It would, for example, be extremely difficult to regulate the petroleum industry without the detailed regulatory framework based on the continental shelf legislation and the associated institutions. The same goes for fisheries; the effective regulation of fisheries requires a detailed regulatory framework addressing access to fisheries, the harvesting of fish, as well as various technical aspects of the activity.

The marine management plans therefore constitutes a political framework, built on a compilation of the best available knowledge about the sea areas. When a marine management plan (a white paper) is presented to and adopted by the Storting, it becomes national policy and a political framework for the management of the sea area in question. The policies laid down in a white paper has effect for the implementation of existing legislation and other measures, which is built on existing legislation. The white paper then is a framework for how existing legislation as the Nature Management Act, the Pollution Control Act, the Marine Resources Act and the Petroleum Act is to be practiced in the sea area. For example, no areas closed to petroleum activities in a marine management plan will be made available when announcing licensing rounds—even if it is already opened legally for activity pursuant to the Petroleum Act.

A final issue is the need to enhance cooperation in this field with Russia. The Barents Sea, after all, constitutes a large ecosystem, and to ensure a consistent management of the entire ecosystem the two coastal states have to cooperate on its management. As far as fisheries are concerned, there is a well-developed cooperation with a Joint Norway—Russia Fisheries Commission which delivers substantial results in terms of the management of the living marine resources in the Barents Sea. Under the purview of the Joint Commission there is also an extensive scientific cooperation, which in recent years has been expanded to include also ecosystem considerations, with joint reports on the state of the Barents Sea ecosystem (Stiansen and Filin 2007).

Conclusions

The Norwegian-integrated management plans have been some of the first regional scale MSP plans that have been implemented and have gathered international attention (Blæsberg et al. 2009; Ehler and Douvere 2009). Much focus has been on planning and governance (Olsen et al. 2011) aspects. The challenges posed by climate change on such planning processes have only received cursory discussion in the scientific literature, although the reports and analyses leading up to the initial 2006 plan and the revision in 2011 have pointed to climate variability and change as being a major driver in changing the ecosystem in the coming 100 years (Anon 2006, 2010, 2011). Climate change is likely to affect the ecosystem directly through increased temperature and lower pH levels, in turn affecting all forms of human activities in the ecosystem to varying degrees. Predicting and understanding this cumulative impact on human society and ecosystem alike is a key to successful long-term management of our marine ecosystems.

Taking climate change and variability into account is critical to keep the plans viable as the ecosystems change. An important aspect of the management plans is that their emphasis on assessing the cumulative impacts of climate variability and change on marine ecosystems provide an important basis for decisions on how to adapt to the changes that are likely to come. The gradual development of ecosystem-based oceans management (Browman et al. 2005) is therefore an important strategy for how to confront climate variability and change. Another aspect of the plan work in relation to the challenges posed by climate change is that it provides a decision-making system where numerous concerns can be addressed comprehensively.

Biographies

Contributor Information

Alf Håkon Hoel, Email: on.rmi@leoh.nokaah.fla.

Erik Olsen, Email: on.rmi@okire.

References