2022 SOST Opportunities and Actions Roundtable
Summary: Countries around the world are investing in offshore wind energy infrastructure to reduce emissions from traditional energy sources and address climate change in the 21st century. As the U.S. enters this new era of energy development, offshore wind energy should be developed in a responsible and thoughtful manner, employing science-based decisions and local knowledge to form best practices that ensure the protection and integration of development with our marine environment and existing ocean uses.
Fishing industry and coastal communities have been poorly integrated into co-planning and development processes for OSW design and mitigation. For an industry dependent on the productive natural ecosystems and strict management guidelines for sustainable harvesting, development without intentional planning or strong mitigation practices directly threatens their livelihoods.
The best way to ensure adaptation to environmental change and the introduction of new industry is to work directly with the communities that will bear the impacts. While the horse is out of the barn on the siting of many of these leases, there are still opportunities for mitigation and compensation to safeguard the fishing industry against future challenges from OSW development.
The last step of the NEPA step-wise approach to reducing impacts is "compensate for the impact" of projects. This topic has gained interest from federal, state and other parties in the recent months. To avoid past shortcomings of failing to work directly with the impacted industries and communities, RODA sees an opportunity to empower the fishing industry by partnering with federal agencies and other relevant experts to develop a diverse and inclusive fishing advisory board to develop administration, valuation, and eligibility frameworks for fisheries compensation. Development of a robust framework that promotes equity in science and values local knowledge, by a trusted and representative advisory board will take time, which is lacking as BOEM continues to identify new call areas and auction additional leases.
Sector: NGO
Organization: RODA
POC: Lane Johnston, lane@rodafisheries.org