Participatory process for marine spatial planning: perception of Mar del Plata’s residents on offshore hydrocarbon exploration in the North Argentina Basin (Argentina)

Abstract

Offshore hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation are activities developed internationally in the advance of the energy industry. Conflicts generated by incompatibility with others or with social actors, make the approach from Marine Spatial Planning necessary. In Argentina, although it is a process that has been developing since the middle of the 20th century, it was not until 2014 when the National Government promoted the activity. The North Argentine Basin (NAB) constitutes a hydrocarbon exploration area that was delimited in 2018 by Resolution 65/2018. This activity in the NAB has given rise to conflicts between intervening social actors, which was manifested in the Public Hearing (AP1/21) held in July 2021. That is why the objective of this work was to analyze the results of the AP1/21 and contrast them with the opinion of Mar del Plata's residents. For this, 682 semi-open surveys were carried out, where they were asked about the activity and the AP1/21. As a result, it was obtained that 373 people were expressed in favor (4%) and against (96%) of the project. Topics such as climate change, energy planning, and disagreement with the steps of the participatory process and the environmental impact study were presented. In the case of the surveys, opinions similar to those expressed in the audience were found, corroborating results and conclusions between both processes. In summary, the work allowed us to know not only the opinion of Mar del Plata's population but also the type of information available on the economic activity analyzed.

Supplementary information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11852-022-00896-x.

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Journal of Coastal Conservation (2022) 26:51
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11852-022-00896-x
Participatory process formarine spatial planning: perception ofMar
del Plata’s residents onoffshore hydrocarbon exploration intheNorth
Argentina Basin (Argentina)
EleonoraM.Verón1,2 · JulianaSocrate2 · MónicaC.García2
Received: 15 March 2022 / Revised: 10 May 2022 / Accepted: 24 September 2022 / Published online: 5 October 2022
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2022
Abstract
Offshore hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation are activities developed internationally in the advance of the energy
industry. Conflicts generated by incompatibility with others or with social actors, make the approach from Marine Spatial
Planning necessary. In Argentina, although it is a process that has been developing since the middle of the 20th century, it
was not until 2014 when the National Government promoted the activity. The North Argentine Basin (NAB) constitutes a
hydrocarbon exploration area that was delimited in 2018 by Resolution 65/2018. This activity in the NAB has given rise to
conflicts between intervening social actors, which was manifested in the Public Hearing (AP1/21) held in July 2021. That is
why the objective of this work was to analyze the results of the AP1/21 and contrast them with the opinion of Mar del Plata’s
residents. For this, 682 semi-open surveys were carried out, where they were asked about the activity and the AP1/21. As a
result, it was obtained that 373 people were expressed in favor (4%) and against (96%) of the project. Topics such as climate
change, energy planning, and disagreement with the steps of the participatory process and the environmental impact study
were presented. In the case of the surveys, opinions similar to those expressed in the audience were found, corroborating
results and conclusions between both processes. In summary, the work allowed us to know not only the opinion of Mar del
Plata’s population but also the type of information available on the economic activity analyzed.
Keywords Offshore hydrocarbon exploration· Public audience· North Argentina Basin· Marine spatial planning
Introduction
Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) constitutes a public process
that aims to analyze and assign the spatial and temporal dis-
tribution of human activities in marine areas to achieve pre-
viously defined ecological, economic and social objectives
(Ehler and Douvere 2009). Being a political process, MSP
must necessarily be based on governance and governability
schemes, present from the first stages of the analysis. This is
essential to achieve its success, since the social and political
viability of the initiatives that are implemented depends on
it (Díaz Merlano and Jiménez Ramón 2021). In this way,
cooperation between the authorities (at different scales),
representatives of the uses and activities present within
the considered area and all those people who are affected,
directly and indirectly by the MSP, should be included in
the analysis. Therefore, citizen participation is fundamental
in an MSP process because it allows opening the space for
dialogue to all the actors involved (Díaz Merlano and Jimé-
nez Ramón 2021; García Sanabria etal. 2021; Elrick-Barr
etal. 2022).
MSP is a strategic process that allows studying and
assigning uses to specific areas of the ocean in order to
minimize conflicts between the activities that are carried out.
This is to achieve the greatest benefit, while guaranteeing
the recovery of marine ecosystems (IOC-UNESCO 2022).
In this way, MSP must manage both spatially and temporally
uses and activities involved and analyze the accumulated
impacts, to anticipate measures that will manage the areas or
resources. Among these, it can be mentioning the provision
* Eleonora M. Verón
eleonorav@mdp.edu.ar
1 National Council forScientific andTechnical Research –
CONICET - CCT/MDP, MardelPlata, Argentina
2 Geographic andSocio-Environmental Research Center
- CIGSA, National University ofMar del Plata, Funes,
3350MardelPlata, Argentina
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