There is no doubt that the large Norwegian sea areas are an important national resource that will be of increasing importance in the future. Seen against that background, there is reason to question whether we have a regulatory framework that ensures that this resource is managed in the best possible way.
In this article, I will highlight some aspects of this management problem, and I will mainly focus on the management of areas for aquaculture.
At the outset, however, I would like to point out a general paradox. There is currently no government authority whose task is to ensure that the sea areas are managed in the best possible way. We have a number of authorities that are responsible for sector management within the sea areas. Examples are the environmental authorities, which are responsible for emissions and pollution, the Coastal Administration, which is responsible for traffic and navigation, and the Directorate of Fisheries, which is responsible for fisheries and aquaculture. But no one is responsible for seeing the whole and ensuring that the resource is properly managed based on an overall understanding.
The situation is somewhat better at a regional and local level in that the county authorities and municipalities have as one of their tasks to carry out overall area management. The problem, however, is that the legal tools that municipalities and county authorities have to manage area management - in particular the rules for planning in the Planning and Building Act - are adapted to the clear and static situation we have on land. They are not adapted to the situation in the sea areas, which is characterised, among other things, by the fact that the reality is less clear and that changes in area use should take place more often than on land.
The regulations for the management of sea areas for aquaculture currently have some major weaknesses. The purpose of the regulations is twofold. One is to ensure sustainable management of the sea areas. The second is to ensure that the most suitable locations (after an overall assessment) are used for aquaculture.
The first challenge lies in the fact that we do not have a suitable system for identifying the most suitable locations and opening up the possibility that they can be used for aquaculture. The main instrument for doing this is currently the municipal planning processes. The experience is that these processes are both too time-consuming and too random to achieve the purpose.
In practice, it is therefore the fish farming companies themselves that must identify the suitable locations and ensure that they are approved. However, today’s regulations do not make it possible for the fish farmers to do this job themselves. In principle, this should be possible. Good tools have been developed to assess the individual location and good map tools etc. are also being developed for the sea areas which make it easier to find where the good locations are. But the road to approval of a suitable location has been made extremely difficult by the legislature and authorities.
First, the fish farmer must carry out extensive and costly work to map and assess the location. If there is not a location set aside for aquaculture in the municipal plan, it is a difficult and time-consuming path to getting the location approved so that you can apply for a permit. And when you apply for a permit, approval is required from four different authorities, all of whom have veto power and are quite free to assess whether a permit should be granted. And during the application process, other applicants who also wish to use the location may apply. The fish farmer can therefore risk that it has spent a lot of resources and a long time investigating a location and getting it approved - only to find that another fish farmer is granted permission to use the location.
The regulations I have described here are obviously unsuitable if the purpose is to ensure the best possible management of the sea areas. In my view, we should have a review of these regulations with the recognition that we need a system which ensures that the most suitable locations (based on an overall assessment) are used for aquaculture.
An ideal way to regulate this is to start with an authority-led overall geographical analysis of a sea area to find out where the most suitable locations are likely to be found. Individual fish farmers are then given access to investigate suitable areas to investigate whether there are locations that can be used. During the time period needed for investigation, the fish farmer has the exclusive right to apply for new permits in the area. Based on the investigations carried out, the fish farmer can then apply for a permit, and the application is sent for consultation to local, regional and state authorities. The decision as to whether permission should be granted is then taken by a central authority whose task is to make an overall assessment.
We are currently in a situation where we have a great need to find the very best locations for aquaculture both on land and at sea. It is therefore absolutely necessary to review the regulations and establish solutions based on the fact that the sea areas are an important resource that must be managed as well as possible.