The Maritime Spatial Plan for Finland 2030 has been approved

The administrative authorities of coastal regional councils approved the plan between November and December 2020. You can get acquainted with Finland’s first maritime spatial plan at www.merialuesuunnitelma.fi.

i. Feedback on the draft Maritime Spatial Plan and its consideration

The Finnish maritime spatial plan proposal was prepared after going over statements and general feedback given on its initial draft.

If you like, you can get acquainted with a summary of the feedback and its consideration.

ii. Consultation of the draft plan in spring 2020

The consultation on the draft maritime spatial plan ran from 18 May to 17 June 2020. The plan was available only in digital form at www.merialuesuunnitelma.fi.

The councils of coastal regions worked together to prepare three draft maritime spatial plans for the following planning areas:

  • Gulf of Finland
  • Archipelago Sea and southern Bothnian Sea
  • Northern Bothnian Sea, Quark, and Bothnian Bay

The draft plan consisted of the actual plan map, supported by the following planning materials, which were on public display:

  • Future scenarios for Finnish marine areas. The scenarios describe various potential developments, which have enabled an analysis of the opportunities and threats related to the use of the marine area.
  • The vision for the marine area for 2050, and the development outlooks for each area and roadmaps for maritime sectors for 2030. These have been drafted in collaboration with stakeholders, and they have steered the planning work.
  • The draft maritime spatial plans are backed by overviews of the current state and planning solutions for each planning area.
  • The assessment of the indirect impacts of the maritime spatial plans, describing the environmental, economic and societal impacts of maritime sectors, as well as the overall impacts of the plans.

The regional governments of the councils of coastal regions made their own decisions to request statements from the authorities and entities to whose sectors or duties the plan is materially relevant and to put the draft on public display to enable opinions to be expressed in accordance with section 67 c of the Land Use and Building Act.

For all of the planning areas, opinions were given during the consultation period using the feedback form found on the website. Authorities and entities that received a request for a statement gave their statements on the form that was accessed by clicking the link on the request for the statement.

iii. Consultation of the first phase in spring 2019

The consultation of the first phase of the Maritime Spatial Planning was organized during 10 April–10 May 2019. The consultation of the Maritime Spatial Planning is not a statutory statement procedure, but it was done to collect views as background material for the planning.

The consultation material consisted of the preparation phase’s reports on the current state and the draft of the future scenario on national marine areas.

Summary of the hearing materials
Current state
Future scenarios