Dilemma of Boundaries in the Implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive

Finnish Experiences from the Public Consultations

Juha-Markku LeppänenMarine Research Centre

Finnish Environment Institute

Boundaries uniting and separating

● Main responsibility: the Ministry of Environment in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Ministry of Traffic and Communication;

● To be adopted by the Council of the State;● Implementation assisted by the Centres for Economic

Development, Transport and the Environment located at coastal areas and governmental research institutes;

● Basically same administrational structures as created for the WFD to be used;

● Specific Coordination and Expert Groups to carry out the practical work

● Åland Island, as the autonomous region, makes its own marine strategy, which will be a part of the Finnish one

Implementation of the MSFD in Finland

● In “Main Finland” between 16 April and 15 May ○ In Finnish and Swedish

• Åland Island organized its own regional consultation

● Divided into the countrywide consultation and the regional ones

● The Ministry of Environment requested opinions of other ministries, governmental institutions and countrywide stakeholder

● The Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment took care of the consultation in their districts○ directed mainly to municipalities and local stakeholders

● The consultation document was publicly available in the Internet for anyone to comment

Public Consultation

● The importance of a marine strategy was not questioned!● Boundaries between the Directives

○ Many comments were related to the significant water management issues of the WFD

○ The added value of the MSFD in the coastal area was questioned● Administrative boundaries

○ Cooperation within national administrational sectors still ambiguous○ Regional state administrative bodies are quite independent

● Boundaries between the sectors○ The proposed marine strategy either too weak or too ambitious

● Geographic boundaries○ Need for transboundary coordination not understood○ Coastal-open sea boundary confusing○ One marine strategy vs. river basins difficult○ Local problems vs. GES○ Spatial scope

Dilemma of boundaries

Summary● The responses received from ministries, central

organisations and stakeholders mainly well structured.● The general public touched mainly very local and even

personal topics and responses were “unstructured”. Recommendations● Public consultations for the MSFD and the WFD should be

carried out at the same time.● Different stakeholders should be better take into account

when preparing the consultation material e.g. for general public a structured electronic questionnaire should be developed.

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