OCEAN Sustainability Pathways for Achieving Conflict Transformation - OCEANS PACT
Informations
- Funding country
Norway- Acronym
- -
- URL
- -
- Start date
- 1/1/2020
- End date
- 12/31/2024
- Budget
- 369,004 EUR
Fundings
| Name | Role | Start | End | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marine Resources and the Environment (MARINFORSK) - call 2016 | Grant | - | - | 369,003 EUR |
Abstract
OCEANS PACT addresses marine conflicts in the light of the visions of blue growth, the UN's sustainability goals and the commitments to create a net zero emission society. The starting point is the increasing industrialization of the world's coastal and ocean areas and the many forms of conflict that are now emerging. OCEANS PACT includes cases from the Baltics, Brazil, India, Norway, South Africa and the USA, and we study and compare conflict types, conflict causes and conflict processes in various institutional and societal contexts. A main question is how conflicts can be transformed and contribute to more sustainable solutions. In the Norwegian part of the project, we have a special focus on the Barents Sea and the industries of oil and gas, offshore farming and offshore wind. We have followed the controversies surrounding these industries and analyzed the institutionalization of conflicts. We find that the oil and gas industry has contributed to a model for conflict management that is largely copied for new industries. Another important finding is that conflicts - when they are handled in a constructive way - often seem to act as catalysts for increased sustainability. Due to the corona situation and the project's complex matrix structure, with five work packages and six international cases that are all expected to provide input to each other, a relatively large amount of time has so far been spent on internal notes and coordination. However, we have organized special sessions at the MARE conference in 2021 and at the Ocean Sciences Meeting and Arctic Frontiers in 2022. Meetings have been held in the dialogue forums, and we are now working on a set of articles. We have had a Norwegian master's student associated with the project who has written about the dispute surrounding the extraction of seabed minerals. We have also had a French student on internship who has worked on a scoping review regarding natural resource-based conflicts in literature published by various UN bodies.