Wesley Flannery

• Ph.D
• Professor in Environmental Planning at Queen's University Belfast

Community science can transform how marine governance operates by introducing new knowledge, mobilising resources, and fostering socio-technical innovation. Transformation has, however, been conceptualised in a limited way within the community science literature. Power issues within governance transformations have tended to be oversimplified, parti...

Ecosystem-based marine spatial planning is an approach to managing maritime activities while ensuring human well-being and biodiversity conservation as key pillars for sustainable development. Here, we use a comprehensive literature review and a co-development process with experts to build an assessment framework and tool that integrates the fundam...

Crises such as water quality, pollution, climate change, overfishing, biodiversity, energy, waste, and carbon sequestration mean that legislation protecting the marine environment is under intense pressure to be effective and to demonstrate positive results in a vast array of public and private spheres. Thus far, scholarship of EU marine environmen...

Planning of marine areas has spread widely over the past two decades to support sustainable ocean management and governance. However, to succeed in a changing ocean, marine spatial planning (MSP) must be ‘climate-smart’— integrating climate-related knowledge, being flexible to changing conditions, and supporting climate actions. While the need for...

After recognizing the importance of marine and coastal resources and the use of marine space for economic growth, the European Union (EU) created and implemented a long-term Blue Economy (BE) strategy that supports the development of traditional and emerging marine and maritime sectors, aiming at the enhancement of Blue Growth (BG). However, despit...

With a focus on oceans, we collaborated across ecological, social and legal disciplines to respond to the United Nations call for transformation in the ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’. We developed a set of 13 principles that strategically and critically connect transformative ocean research to transformative ocean governance (complementi...

Background: Systematic Conservation Planning (SCP) involves a series of steps to identify conservation areas and develop management strategies, incorporating feedbacks, revisions, and iterations at any stage. It is a valuable tool in facilitating the effective implementation of Ecosystem-Based Marine Spatial Planning (EB-MSP). However, few efforts...

Blue Growth is gaining momentum, opening up new frontiers for economic development, with potentially negative impacts on coastal communities and seascapes. The impact of Blue Growth projects on communities and seascapes is generally understood through narrow technical or economic approaches that focus on the potential loss of coastal views or the d...

Over the last decade, Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) has become one of the key components of marine governance. In the European Union, member states are working towards the development of their first plans under the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive. Internationally, UNESCO and the European Commission have launched their MSP Global initiative to s...

By increasing monitoring efforts and empowering members of the public to take political action to protect the oceans, citizen science is a potentially transformative practice. However, the impact of government agencies shifting from end-users of citizen science data to co-producers of initiatives raises questions about the transformative capacity o...

With a focus on the ocean, we collaborated across social, ecological and legal disciplines to respond to the United Nations call for transformation in the ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ by developing a set of 13 principles for transformative ocean governance. These principles can be used to help chart a course of action that responds to...

As marine spatial planning (MSP) continues to gain global prominence as an approach to ocean governance, planners and other stakeholders are eager to evaluate its social and ecological outcomes and to better understand whether plans are achieving their intended results in an equitable and cost-efficient manner. While a plan’s outcomes for marine en...

Nature Ocean Sustainability

There are strong links between heritage and the environment yet, heritage is not fully included in existing ecosystem‐based frameworks. Different understandings of heritage values exist, and heritage values are not yet related to key value categories in environmental values research. To address this gap and facilitate a common values‐based approach...

Coastal and Maritime Cultural Heritage (CMCH) is an important asset in coastal areas. However, this heritage has been exposed to several environmental and human-created threats. This paper presents three European coastal regions with relevant CMCH and important tourism destinations: Ria de Aveiro (Portugal), the Small Isles (Scotland, UK) and Marsa...

Coastal and marine cultural heritage (CMCH) is at risk due to its location and its often indefinable value. As these risks are likely to intensify in the future, there is an urgent need to build CMCH resilience. We argue that the current CMCH risk management paradigm narrowly focuses on the present and preservation. This tends to exclude debates ab...

Coastal and maritime cultural heritage (CMCH) is a relative newcomer on spatial development policy agendas and in spatial planning activities. Cultural heritage (CH) may assist in reconstructing place narratives and identities in local and regional strategies and plans, and it may create stronger place attractiveness for outsiders. This article exp...

Community science has gained momentum as a participatory knowledge production approach that can transform governance into more transparent, socially relevant, and democratic endeavours. In the marine context, where the rationalisation of economic knowledge and the marginalisation of local communities are growing concerns, community science is advan...

Many coastal nations have embraced marine spatial planning (MSP) as a solution to maintaining ecological integrity of marine environments, while ensuring continued provisioning of economic, social, and cultural benefits. However, evidence supporting the idea that plans achieve—or are likely to achieve—these goals is limited. One gap in our understa...

The dataset presented in this article contains information about marine Area-Based Management Tools (ABMTs) used to assess their contribution to the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Following the scope of the analysis, ABMTs were identified by scrutinizing international and regional legal sources related to ocean management in the...

Area-Based Management Tools (ABMTs) are spatial instruments for conservation and managing different forms of ocean use. A multitude of ABMTs exists in marine areas within and beyond national jurisdiction, ranging from tools for the regulation of specific human activities (e.g. fisheries, shipping, or mining) to cross-sectoral tools (e.g. such as ma...

Governments are increasingly adopting Blue Growth strategies as a means of promoting economic development. Although Blue Growth offers development opportunities, from a local perspective it is often concentrated in inaccessible sectors or has negative impacts on coastal communities and landscapes. We argue that to be of use to local communities, to...

Coastal zones are historically rich with unique land/seascapes, tangible artifacts, and intangible cultural heritage. Coastal and maritime cultural heritage (CMCH) contends with various constraining conditions of the sea and shore—both geophysical and socially constructed—which we delineate to identify risks and threats to its sustainable managemen...

Limited progress has been made in implementing integrated coastal and marine management (ICM) policies globally. A renewed commitment to ICM in Canada offers an opportunity to implement lessons from previous efforts over the past 20 years. This study applies three core ICM characteristics identified from the literature (formal structures; meaningfu...

Frangoudes, K., Toonen, H., Macias, J. V., Ferguson, L., Flannery, W., Hansen, C. J., Sousa, L., Pita, C., da Silva, A. M. F., Mylona, D., Azzopardi, E., & Roio, M. (2021). A participatory risk assessment and sustainable use framework for maritime cultural heritage. PERICLES.

This chapter critically explores the challenges and opportunities of adopting a mixed methods approach to coastal change. We reflect on our experiences of a study that involved a tourist survey and participant-led, photo-elicitation focus groups with two coastal communities in Ireland. The survey found that tourists display complex perceptions of c...

To achieve sustained participation, community science projects aim to satisfy the motivations and desired personal outcomes of their volunteers. Evaluating participation is, therefore, crucial, with projects seeking to assess volunteers’ motivations for engagement and the complex outcomes that they achieve through their participation. Many assessme...

Governments are increasingly adopting Blue Growth strategies as a means of promoting economic development. Although Blue Growth offers development opportunities, from a local perspective it is often concentrated in inaccessible sectors or has negative impacts on coastal communities and landscapes. We argue that to be of use to local communities, to...

Marine spatial planning (MSP) is advanced by its champions as an impartial and rational process that can address complex management issues. We argue that MSP is not innately rational and that it problematises marine issues in specific ways, often reflecting hegemonic agendas. The illusion of impartial rationality in MSP is derived from governmental...

Preserving and sustainably governing cultural heritage and landscapes in European coastal and maritime regions - PERICLES H2020 project report D5.4

Brexit poses major institutional and governance challenges for the island of Ireland, not least in the area of Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) and the cooperative governance and integrated management of shared marine spaces and ecosystems. To date, MSP scholarship has not delved into the complex processes that construct marine borders and has failed...

The poster outlines the background to the research as well as the research aim and research design.

Brexit poses major institutional and governance challenges for the island of Ireland, not least in the area of Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) and the cooperative governance and integrated management of shared marine spaces and ecosystems. To date, MSP scholarship has not delved into the complex processes that construct marine borders and has failed...

Marine spatial planning (MSP) has become the most adopted approach for sustainablemarine governance. While MSP has transformative capacity, evaluations of itsimplementation illustrate large gaps between how it is conceptualised and how it ispracticed. We argue that these gaps arise from MSP being implemented throughpost-political processes. Althoug...

Marine spatial planning (MSP) has become the most adopted approach for sustainable marine governance. While MSP has transformative capacity, evaluations of its implementation illustrate large gaps between how it is conceptualised and how it is practiced. We argue that these gaps arise from MSP being implemented through post-political processes. Alt...

This deliverable is an output of the synthesis of our work in WP2, “Eliciting a Deep Understanding of Maritime and Coastal CH,” in particular from the following tasks:  Task 2.1: A global review of current understanding of maritime and coastal CH  Task 2.3 CH through a literature review of “Space, Place, and Identity” and how they inform CH persp...

Coasts are dynamic socio-ecological systems, subject to increasing anthropogenic pressures that present complex challenges for the design of effective coastal and marine governance systems. There are many contributing factors to the unsustainability of the marine environment, including weak governance arrangements. Typically, the management of coas...

Marine spatial planning (MSP) has been lauded as a remedy to unsuitable marine management. There is, however, growing MSP research illustrating that it is failing to foster paradigm shifts towards sustainable governance. The gap between MSP theory and practice is due to its asocial and apolitical implementation. This narrow version of MSP has been...

Coastal states are increasingly urged to transform their sectoral and fragmented marine governance regimes, and to implement integrated and holistic management approaches. However, to be successful, integrated governance mechanisms, such as marine spatial planning and ecosystem-based management, will involve transformative change of institutions, v...

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) offers the possibility of democratising management of the seas. MSP is, however, increasingly implemented as a form of post-political planning, dominated by the logic of neoliberalism, and a belief in the capacity of managerial-technological apparatuses to address complex socio-political problems, with little attention...

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) offers the possibility of democratising management of the seas. MSP is, however, increasingly implemented as a form of post-political planning, dominated by the logic of neoliberalism, and a belief in the capacity of managerial-technological apparatuses to address complex socio-political problems, with little attention...

The introduction of the Floods Directive signals a move from flood protection towards flood risk management in the European Union. Public participation is highlighted in the Floods Directive as being instrumental to effective implementation of this new approach. This study utilised document analysis, non-participant observation, a questionnaire sur...

This research recommends that a staged integrated approach be adopted for the preparation of MSPs in Ireland. The staged approach is recommended as it ensures that a rational and consistent process is applied to the spatial plan-making processes. This approach ensures that there is a full understanding of the maritime environment and issues, allows...

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) has rapidly become the most commonly endorsed management regime for sustainable development in the marine environment. MSP is advocated as a means of managing human uses of the sea in a sustainable manner, in the face of ever-increasing demands on marine resources. While MSP is quickly becoming the dominant marine mana...

Transboundary cooperation is viewed as an essential element of Marine Spatial Planning (MSP). While much of the MSP literature focuses on the need for, and benefits of, transboundary MSP, this paper explores the political and institutional factors that may facilitate the effective transition to such an approach. Drawing on transboundary planning th...

Stakeholder participation is advanced as a key element of marine spatial planning (MSP) by the U.S. Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force. It provides little guidance, however, regarding stakeholder participation. We argue that much can be learned from existing ecosystem-based marine management initiatives. The Channel Islands National Marine Sanctua...

Stakeholder participation is viewed as a key element of ecosystem-based marine spatial planning (MSP). There is much debate over the effectiveness of stakeholder participation in ecosystem-based management (EBM) in general and over the form it should take. Particular challenges relating to participation in the marine environment are highlighted. A...

The European Commission has developed a set of common principles for marine spatial planning in the European Union. A critical examination of these principles in practice is undertaken through an evaluation of the Clyde Marine Spatial Planning Pilot Project. The principles are found to be lacking in specificity and somewhat inconsistent with the ec...

Marine spatial planning (MSP) is advocated as a means of managing human uses of the sea in a manner that is consistent with the maintenance of the ecological goods and services of the marine environment. The adoption of a system of MSP is seen as urgent in the face of ever-increasing demands on marine resources. This is particularly so in Ireland w...

Marine spatial planning (MSP) is advocated as a means of managing human uses of the sea in a manner that is consistent with the maintenance of the ecological goods and services of the marine environment. Support for the process is evident at international and national levels but the degree to which it is acceptable to local level stakeholders is no...