Globally, ecosystem-based marine spatial planning has become a useful instrument to coordinate the planning of different authorities. This, for balancing different requirements when managing marine areas and space. In the planning process, ecology is setting limits to which human activities are acceptable to the society. The use of the marine environment can be planned similarly as the land environment. We argue that there are several aspects which must be taken into consideration. Marine activities have traditionally been planned and managed in a sectoral way. Today, it has become obvious that a more holistic, multi-sectoral and coordinated approach is needed in future successful marine planning and management. The increased awareness of the importance of the oceans and seas challenges the traditional sector division and geographical limits in marine policy and calls for better coordinated and coherent marine policies.

In the past decade, marine protected areas (MPAs) have become an increasingly used tool for science-based conservation and adaptive management of marine biodiversity and related natural resources. In this review paper, we report on rather complete time-course series (55 years uninterrupted) focusing on comparison of the strong difference, in number and area, in establishing marine (56 MNRs) and terrestrial (4284 TNRs) nature reserves in Sweden versus marine (7001 MPAs) and terrestrial (132742 TPAs) protected areas globally. Sweden appears to follow the overall global time trends. The large backlog of MPAs in relation to TPAs is due to several possible reasons, such as (i) unclear marine jurisdiction, (ii) marine conservation policies and programs developed later than terrestrial, (iii) higher costs for marine conservation management, (iv) conflicts in marine conservation, especially the fishery, and (v) the general public's historically weak awareness of the status of the marine environment.

This thesis investigates how governance and management relevant to the use and protection of the marine environment has emerged in Sweden from the 1960s until today. Focus is on how the modern environmental and nature conservation administration in Sweden developed the legal and organizational frameworks needed for proper management. More specifically – did the available tools suit the needs?

The Swedish National Physical Planning system, initiated in the mid-1960s, pioneered the concept of ecology as basis for physical planning in Sweden. This introduced environmental considerations in societal planning, inter alia, through special national guidelines (geographical and for certain activities) for local authority planning. The National Physical Planning system strengthened the cooperation between local and regional (county) authorities and with central governmental bodies. With some delay, marine spatial planning became the instrument for coordinating and balancing competing demands on coastal and marine environments.

Marine environmental governance and management are commonly linked to intergovernmental agreements, usually in the form of international conventions. Measures against pollution and other threats to the marine environment, as well as conservation of its natural resources and biodiversity, become more efficient when countries work together through global or regional organizations, rather than each country is acting on its own (Article I). However, it should be noted that in practice many intergovernmental agreements are less binding than first appears.

While marine pollution began to be addressed and remedied in the 1980s, it was only in the 2000s that marine nature conservation and the establishment of marine protected areas began to receive increased attention and effective action (Article II).

Marine nature conservation and fisheries often conflict, as the establishment of a marine protected area commonly involves a restriction on some ongoing fishing. Usually, such conflicts are related to differences in the objectives between marine protected areas established for environmental and fishery purposes, which often leads to strongly conflicting opinions on how to manage them (Articles II–III).

Initial environmental and nature conservation efforts focused on measures against land, air and freshwater pollution, and the conservation of terrestrial environments. Excepting inner coastal areas, the open marine environment was not a focus of Swedish marine research although ecosystem research began early in the Baltic Sea. However, by the mid-1980s large-scale effects of pollution also on the open seas along the Swedish west coast, had become apparent and required environmental management actions (Article IV).

Impressive numbers of global and regional governmental and non-governmental organizations are working in the field of the marine environment and its resources. Many of these organizations operate within international legal frameworks ranging from comprehensive global conventions, such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to regional agreements aiming at protection and development of regional seas. Characteristic for the management of these seas, both at the national and international level, is that sectoral approaches predominate. Over time, several initiatives have been taken to improve cooperation, coordination and integration to achieve greater coherence of policies and strategies between different organizations dealing with marine and maritime management, within and outside the United Nation system. However, the success has been limited. The weaknesses of international organizations depend fundamentally on problems at the national level. The international organizations are no stronger than their Contracting Parties allow them to be.

This quality assessment of the Skagerrak-Kattegat is mainly based on recent results obtained within the framework of the Swedish multidisciplinary research projekt ‘Large-scale environmental effects and ecological processes in the Skagerrak-Kattegat’ completed with relevant data from other research publications. The results show that the North Sea has a significant impact on the marine ecosystem in the Skagerrak and the northern Kattegat. Among environmental changes recently documented for some of these areas are: increased nutrient concentrations, increased occurrence of fast-growing filamentous algae in coastal areas affecting nursery and feeding conditions for fish, declining bottom water oxygen concentrations with negative effects on benthic fauna, and sediment toxicity to invertebrates also causing physiological responses in fish. It is concluded that, due to eutrophication and toxic substances, large-scale environmental changes and effects occur in the Skagerrak-Kattegat area.

The establishment of Marine Protected Areas lags far behind the establishment of Terrestrial Protected Areas. In many countries a lack of consensus between nature conservation and fishery interests has complicated and inhibited progress and delayed the establishment of Marine Protected Areas for both conservation and fishery purposes. 

To achieve a more balanced weighing of fishery and nature conservation interests in the future, there is a need to improve and enforce the coordination and harmonization of conservation and fishery objectives. An appropriate instrument for this coordination is a Marine Spatial Planning process that involves all relevant stakeholders in the planning and decision-making process.   

Strategic Environmental Assessment for plans and programmes, and Environmental Impact Assessment for projects are commonly used tools for environmental management but have not, so far, been used for capture fisheries. The diversity of fisheries and the drastic effects of certain fisheries on the environment are strong arguments for introducing these procedures as complements to existing fisheries management and assessment tools. This would improve information on the environmental effects of fisheries relevant to the planning and decision-making process pertaining to conflicts between fishery and marine protected areas.  

In the future, legal management of Marine Protected Areas should differ depending on whether they were designated for nature conservation purposes, under conservation law or for fishery purposes, under fishery law. When these two interests conflict in a Marine Protected Area established for nature conservation purposes, the fishery should be managed under the conservation law, as other environmentally relevant activities.