Maaike Knol

Marine spatial planning: risk or opportunity for fisheries in the North Sea?

The North Sea is one of the busiest marine areas in the world. It is also a major fisheries ground. Bordered by seven countries with their own spatial uses and claims, the stage is set for complex and demanding governance challenges. Recent decades have also seen user groups multiply, competition for space and resources increase, and the pressure on the marine environment and its living natural resources grow. As governments strive to balance conservation and economic development needs, they also have to deal with inter-as well as intra-national user conflicts. Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) has arrived as a new approach to these issues. It is argued that for North Sea fishing people and their communities MSP holds risks as well as opportunities, depending on which institutions are formed and what role they are allowed to play in the planning process.

Arctic futures: conceptualizations and images of a changing Arctic

Abstract The future of the Arctic is an issue of increasing concern. During the last five years, a large number of reports, books, and articles have appeared which directly focus on what happens in the Arctic. This article summarizes the findings of an assessment of more than 50 such studies. It aims to identify the basic assumptions, analytical approaches, and future images that characterize current thinking about the Arctic. The article shows that the studies are diverse in thematic scope and background. Different methodologies are applied to envision the future of the Arctic. The future images range from boom to doom, from escalating conflicts to peaceful collaboration. There is a strong agreement that the Arctic is subject to profound change, driven by developments outside the region. Simultaneously, the studies display the many uncertainties that the future of the Arctic is imbued with. This article does not attempt to sketch an alternative version of the future of the Arctic, but rather to highlight how future studies can stimulate debate, create preparedness for change, offer direction, and inform policy.

Mapping ocean governance: from ecological values to policy instrumentation

With the turn to integrated forms of ecosystem governance, ocean zoning is argued to be an efficient means to manage cumulative pressures and multiple spatial claims. Maps and mapping practices reflect and constitute the turn to marine ecosystem governance, wherein different actors take part to design policy instruments. This paper traces how mapping practices enacted ecosystem governance in the Barents Sea-Lofoten area in Norway. It demonstrates how ecological values and vulnerability were translated into a boundary infrastructure, which was consequently distilled into a user-oriented grid that provided a temporary framework for oil and gas activities. The paper demonstrates that mapping–perceived as an on-going process of translation–results in constant redefinations of the relationship between actors and information, and of regular reinterpretation of the reality that is created.

Making ecosystem-based management operational: integrated monitoring in Norway

Ecosystem-based management presupposes that the state and development trends of an ecosystem - or of ecological quality - can be measured and followed. Currently, in many coastal countries there exists a variety of monitoring practices that are concerned with single issues only, and are not an integrated part of a larger framework. With the trend towards more comprehensive forms of ecosystem-based management, there is a desire to develop more integrated monitoring frameworks. This paper follows the development of such a framework for the Barents Sea-Lofoten area in Norway, which to a large extent builds upon existing practices, but also suggests additional monitoring programs. It describes how the construction of governance instrumentation for ecosystem-based management takes place. In doing so, it focuses on pollution monitoring. The paper sheds light on the ways in which the ecosystem is made readable and measurable. In addition, it offers insight into the scientific and institutional challenges in the practices towards making ecosystem-based management instrumental and operational.

Understanding the Creation and Use of Polar Weather and Climate Information

AFFILIATIONS: Thoman—National Weather Service, Fairbanks, Alaska; dawson—University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; LiggeTT—Gateway Antarctica, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand; LameRs—Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands; sTewaRT—Lincoln University, Lincoln, New Zealand; LJubicic—Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; knoL—University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway; hoke— Alfred Wegener Institute, Bremerhaven, Germany CORRESPONDING AUTHOR E-MAIL: Richard L. Thoman Jr., richard.thoman@noaa.gov

Exploring the user-producer interface of weather and sea ice information for Arctic marine mobilities: a dedicated session at the Ninth International Congress on Arctic Social Sciences (ICASS)

In March 2014, the Societal and Economic Research and Applications (SERA) sub-committee of the Polar Prediction Project (PPP) was formed, consisting of polar social scientists from North America, E...