Goals for maritime spatial planning set by national and international obligations related to the marine environment

The goals of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), Water Framework Directive (WFD), the Habitats Directive and the Birds Directive concern the sea (see table). The MSFD is the environmental pillar of the EU’s maritime policy. Its goal is to achieve a good status of the marine environment by 2021. The MSFD has been implemented in Finland by means of the Act on the Organisation of River Basin Management and the Marine Strategy and Government Decree on the Organisation of the Development and Implementation of the Marine Strategy. The MSFD also involves an obligation to promote the goals of the Habitats Directive, the Birds Directive and the WFD. The environmental goals of Finland’s national marine strategy are taken into account in maritime spatial planning. 

Maritime spatial planning and national land use planning can have an indirect positive impact on several descriptors of the good status of the marine environment. These include loss of biodiversity, the state of commercial fish stocks, changes in marine food webs, seabed destruction and disturbance, changes in hydrographical seabed characteristics, the control of alien species, levels of harmful substances in the marine environment, increases in marine litter, and amounts of energy and noise carried into the sea.

You can read more about the links between maritime spatial planning and the environmental goals of the MSFD, WFD, Habitats Directive and Birds Directive.