Cumulative effects Wadden Sea World Heritage Site

Hoofdpunten uit het advies

Advisory report on scoping guidelines for the contents of the SEA-report 
The NCEA agrees with the necessity of a joint SEA to ensure the protection of the natural values of the Wadden Sea. The joint SEA provides an excellent and needed opportunity to identify the largest threats to these values on a trilateral scale. The NCEA emphasizes that to properly answer the request by the World Heritage Committee, the joint SEA should follow best practice SEA principles. The joint SEA is conducted without a specific plan attached to it. This makes ownership of the results of the joint SEA essential to ensure accountability, follow-up, monitoring and achieving the intended objectives. Kees Slingerland, chair of the advisory expert group, remarks ‘The Wadden Sea is a valuable yet vulnerable ecosystem and we plan more and more economic and infrastructural activities in this region. It is therefore important to have a clear picture of the potential impacts of human activities on the Wadden Sea ecosystem and to see what options there are to avoid further damage’. The NCEA emphasizes the need for alignment throughout the SEA process between Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. Select and substantiate a data-based approach to assess the cumulative impacts on the natural values of the Wadden Sea. The scoping report identified five human activities on which the research will focus (fisheries, tourism, shipping/ports, energy and coastal protection). To prevent lacunae, the NCEA advises to widen this scope of human activities with at least agricultural and industrial activities, military activities, marine litter and invasive species. Add an additional scenario with regulated decline of or changes in human activities that ensures a decrease in the current cumulative impacts. This provides insight in what is needed to prevent further damage to the Wadden Sea and ways to strengthen its natural values.