Sea Ahoy (EN)

Climate change, sea-level rise, warming of the North Sea, extreme weather events, increasing precipitation in Northern Europe, droughts in SouthernEurope, shifts in marine fisheries production, changes in tourism and recreationalactivities, destruction of marine habitats and an unsustainable use ofmarine resources – all are popular issues or concerns in the media and ingovernmental and scientific reports. The recently published study of theEuropean Environment Agency, Impacts of Europe’s changing climate, is anexample of a study that focuses on the effects of climate change in Europe.Problems and risks dominate our view of the sea, while the measures to tacklethese are mostly sectoral in nature instead of integrated or multi-functional.They also tend to focus on short-term solutions and seldom addresslong-term ones. Mostly these solutions are re-active rather than pro-active. Inthe Dutch foresight study Sea Ahoy! Sustainable use of marine resourcesanother approach was chosen.1 This study offers an attractive bouquet ofinnovative concepts for future sustainable use of marine living resources inthe North Sea. In the context of this study, which resulted in a 369-page publication in March 2004, a wide variety of Dutch experts and professionalsparticipated in a two-year process, structured around so-called creative Design Groups.