‘A system that works for the sea’? Exploring Stakeholder Engagement in Marine Spatial Planning

This paper aims to contribute to the current debate on Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) by exploring the issue of stakeholder engagement. MSP is an emergent policy field that is subject to an increasing body of research, yet the role, scope and nature of participatory engagement within the process remains a neglected topic. This paper briefly reviews the nature of the ‘marine problem’, to which MSP is seen to be the response and describes the emergence of MSP policy in the UK with specific emphasis on participatory aspects. Drawing on the experience of terrestrial planning it discusses the potential benefits of stakeholder engagement in MSP and highlights some of the key issues that need to be taken into account when shaping stakeholder input into the process. It then goes on to describe the findings from a series of interviews with key stakeholders in the Irish Sea Region, which suggest that we need to develop a more critical and deeper understanding of how various interests frame the ‘marine problem’, and how they see their role in shaping the form of the MSP process. This highlights the importance of encouraging stakeholder involvement in MSP, the need to develop a shared vision of a ‘sea interest’. Priorities are then set for research to support this important policy agenda.

Planning Through Dialogue for Rural Development: The European Citizens’ Panel Initiative

This paper presents a narrative of the operation of the European Citizens’ Panel that reported in 2007 on the future roles of rural areas. This dialogue was located within a wider and recent engagement by the EU with its citizens following rejection of the EU Constitutional Treaty. The paper draws attention to the contemporary rural development challenges in Europe that were debated by eight regional panels as a prelude to a wider European deliberation. The working method of the European Citizens’ Panel is outlined and critical commentary is provided on the interaction between planning through dialogue, EU citizenship renewal, and the shaping of bottom-up development trajectories.

Tourism changes on a Mediterranean island: experiences from Mallorca

Mediterranean islands exemplify well the interactions between tourism, heritage and culture on islands. After an introduction that considers their heritage and the pressures which might be applied by tourism because of insular characteristics such as scale, the paper considers the Spanish island of Mallorca as a case study. First its history and consequent heritage is identified and then various stages in its tourism development, which might be recognized in Butler’s model, are treated with particular reference to two very different foreigner commentators on the island, George Sand and Robert Trimnell. The mass market tourism exemplified by Trimnell has brought a reaction and in recent decades Mallorca has given much more consideration to its environment and heritage, illustrated here through the example of the district of Calvià and its Local Agenda 21 policies. This has seen a considerable impact on the island’s tourism and marketing initiatives, as well as upon its natural environment.