Planning for rising seas, clean energy and jobs on a crowded coast

Rising seas and stronger storms are forcing hard choices about where we defend the coast, where we adapt and where we let it change. At the same time offshore wind, grid connections, ports and shipping all need space, often in the same places, and governments across the UK want growth that brings jobs and lasting benefits to coastal regions. This session looks at how coastal management and marine planning can deal with both: funding adaptation where defences are no longer possible, planning and consenting infrastructure on finite space, and whether growth and recovery can be planned together rather than traded off. It asks who carries the costs and benefits, and how developers, regulators and NGOs can work together.

Joining up land, rivers, coast and sea

Rivers, estuaries, coasts and seas work as one connected system, but we still plan and manage them in separate pieces. What happens upstream shapes what happens to the sea: sediment and nutrients, flood water, pollution, and the movement of fish and other wildlife. Heavier rainfall, drought and rising seas make those links harder to ignore. Integrated coastal management and catchment-based approaches have been pursued, but source-to-sea thinking is now gaining ground. This session asks what joined-up management looks like in practice: how voluntary partnerships, regulators, water companies, farmers, planners and marine managers can work to shared goals, how river basin planning and the UK Marine Strategy can connect, and how to work at a larger scale whilst delivering locally.

Protecting and recovering marine and coastal biodiversity

Marine and coastal wildlife is under pressure from fishing, development, pollution and warming seas, and a changing climate is shifting where species can live. Marine protected areas now cover a large share of UK seas and the UK has committed to protecting 30% of its seas by 2030, but many sites are not yet well managed, and sites designated for today’s conditions may not suit tomorrow’s. This session looks at marine and coastal nature recovery as conditions change: what the latest science says about species and habitats on the move, how protected areas should be managed and adapted, how to reduce the pressures on them, and where restoring habitats such as seagrass, saltmarsh and shellfish reefs fits alongside protection. It will also bring together headline findings from the Environment Agency’s ReMeMaRe conference, which OCF delivers in partnership with the EA, and from OCF’s Blue Finance conference.

Evidence from scientists, managers and fishing communities

Fishing matters to coastal economies, food security and the health of the sea, yet it is often treated as a side issue in wider marine debates. Warming seas add to the pressure, changing where fish live and breed, bringing new arrivals such as bluefin tuna and octopus to some waters and putting familiar stocks under strain. This session brings together fishers, managers, scientists, the seafood sector and conservation organisations to look at where UK fisheries management is heading: how fisheries management plans are being delivered, how access and quota arrangements with neighbouring countries are working, how monitoring and new technology are changing the way fishing is managed, how management can keep pace as stocks move, and what role aquaculture should play. It will also look at the pressures fishing communities face, from costs and access to competition for space with offshore wind and protected areas, and ask whose voices shape the decisions that affect them.

Who decides, and how, as coasts change

People who live on the coast are seeing climate change at first hand, and many want a say in how their coast changes: new cables and grid connections, sea defences, managed realignment and restoration schemes. Too often decisions arrive with little real engagement, and the places that host new infrastructure are not always the ones that benefit. New regional structures in England and regional marine planning in Scotland create a chance to rethink how coastal and marine decisions are made. This session asks whether our decision-making is ready for the climate we face: how participation, local knowledge and citizen science can shape marine planning and major projects, what working together looks like beyond consultation, what devolution means for the sea, and what different ways of valuing nature, from natural capital to the rights of nature, bring to those decisions.