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MARINFORSK-Marine ressurser og miljø

Funding Future Welfare: Bioeconomy as the «New Oil» and the Sharing of Benefits from Natural Resources

Alternative title: Bioøkonomien som “den nye oljen”. Fordeling av goder fra naturressurser i framtidas velferdsstat (BioShare)

Awarded: NOK 10.0 mill.

Are ground rent or natural resource rent principles required for more sectors than hydropower and petroleum? Through carefully managing the exploitation of natural resources, and not at least sharing the benefits, Norway has successfully built an extensive state funded welfare. As oil gradually will be phased out, the bioeconomy along with renewable energy and mineral extraction have been pointed to as 'the new oil'. BioShare is developing knowledge and analytical understanding necessary to assess, organise and manage the sharing of benefits from the utilization of bioresources, and provide policy recommendations accordingly. BioShare has carried out an interdisciplinary analysis of the institutional system for benefit-sharing in the hydropower and petroleum sectors, which were the basis for the emergence of the extensive Norwegian public welfare. From here we draw lessons to the blue economies of aquaculture and marine bioprospecting, and also wind energy, which are sectors expected to play important parts in the future bioeconomy. Ocean and coastal governance is demanding, and today’s regulatory arrangements do not guarantee that value creation from aquaculture and bioprospecting sufficiently benefit the public. Models for distributing benefits from marine bioresources are therefore currently up for consideration. Decisions taken today may have major consequences for citizens’ future access to publically funded welfare. BioShare has studied the historical contexts in which benefit-sharing regimes became established in Norway, and compared benefit-sharing systems and principles across the petroleum, hydropower, aquaculture, wind energy and bioprospecting sectors. Further we have explored local and regional effects of benefit-sharing in the marine bioeconomy, and its relations to the social legitimacy of industrial activities. Three coastal municipalities where aquaculture is important are studied through interviews and a survey, in addition to a national sample. Local ownership and local involvement and high local employment in the sector was interlinked with, not unexpectedly, more positive perception of aquaculture’s environmental, economic and social contributions and efforts. The national sample was clearly most critical of the aquaculture industry. Further expansion of the aquaculture sector should not take place without environmental improvements in the sector, according to the respoondents. A comparison has been carried out of the management regimes for oil, hydropower, wind power, aquaculture and bioprospecting in terms of how they facilitate the community's access to the ground rent that exists today, or potentially in the future. The conclusion is that the ground rent or natural resource rent is given to private actors both within windpower, aquaculture and bioprospecting. Furthermore, we find a breach in the management tradition between hydropower and oil on the one hand and for wind, aquaculture and bioprospecting on the other. The former regimes were aimed at obtaining (potential) ground rent for the state (the overall population), the latter not. In 2022, the Government introduced ground rent on aquaculture and wind energy in Norway. Oceans are at a critical point in terms of pollution, climate effects, over-exploatation and great expectations for extraction. BioShare has assembled international scholars within studies of marine legal geography which led to the publishing of the book “Laws of the ocean. Interdisciplinary currents” in 2022. Some of the conclusions are that regulations and law need to be revised or remade in order to become more just, connecting sea and land law, and including indigenous and local groups’ knowledge and rights. Another book, 'The Natural Dividend (2023) analysed several resources, including space mining and international subsea minerals and resources on the seabed, and compares management regimes in different countries and at the global level. The book also focuses on the fact that natural resources are owned by the community (nationally or internationally) and who receives the ground rent (private or the people in individual countries or internationally). BioShare is based on qualitative and quantitative methods. Short films from the project are part of the communication and presenting some of the data material. They have been shown at conferences, and some of this film material will also be available at Ruralis’ homepage.

BioShare har analysert de institusjonelle systemene for fordeling av goder i olje- og vannkraftsektorene, og dratt lærdom herifra inn i de pågående prosessene med å etablere systemer for fordeling av goder innenfor andre sektorer som bl.a. havbruk og vindkraft. Prosjektet har gått rett inn i den pågående samfunnsdebatten rundt skattlegging og grunnrente på havbruk og vindkraft, og generelt om utnytting og fordeling av godene fra naturressursene som allmenning. Deltakerne har publisert og vært aktive i formidling, i møter og debatter. Sannsynligvis har dette også bidratt inn til politiske beslutninger og endringer mht i grunnrente. Den vitenskapelige betydningen vil sannsynligvis først kunne måles etter noe mer tid. To bøker, en rekke vitenskapelige artikler, bidrag i offentlig debatt og ved konferanser og seminarer, samt flere kortfilmer er publisert og presentert. De teoretiske bidragene inn mot rettsstudier og fordeling knyttet til naturresurser anser vi som betydelige.

By carefully managing benefit sharing, Norway has successfully built an extensive state funded welfare, with high social acceptability for the exploitation of natural resources at an industrial scale. As oil gradually will be phased out, the bioeconomy has been pointed to as 'the new oil'. Through an interdisciplinary analysis BioShare will (a) develop the knowledge and analytical understanding necessary to assess, organise and manage the sharing of benefits from the utilization of bioresources; b) examine the relationship between sharing of benefits and social legitimacy of continued growth and value creation in the bioeconomy (c) examine how the sharing of benefits in the bioeconomy relate to the stabilisation and destabilisation of rights and ownership to bioresources following the intensified pressure placed on marine bioresources; and (d) provide policy recommendations to reinforce the continued funding of Norway's extensive public welfare. Ocean and coastal governance is demanding. Models for distributing benefits from marine bioresources are currently up for consideration, as today's regulatory arrangements do not guarantee that value creation from aquaculture and bioprospecting sufficiently benefit the public. Decisions taken today might have major consequences for citizens' future access to publicly funded welfare. BioShare will study the historical contexts in which benefit-sharing regimes became established, and compare benefit-sharing systems and principles across the petroleum, hydropower, aquaculture and bioprospecting sectors. BioShare will explore local and regional effects of benefit-sharing in the marine bioeconomy, and its relations to the social legitimacy of industrial activities. The project will assemble international scholars within studies of ocean governance to gather, develop and publish cutting edge scholarly work. BioShare will provide policy guidelines to inform future strategies for managing public goods from the Norwegian bioeconomy.

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Funding scheme:

MARINFORSK-Marine ressurser og miljø