A Case Study on Consensus Building With Fisheries for Offshore Wind-Power Generation in Japan

Local fishery unions have a significant authority over the use of marine space in Japan. Building consensus with them on marine space use have been identified as significant barriers to development of offshore wind projects. Creating non-monetary benefits and adding value to the local fisheries is a required strategy for getting fisheries consensus for future offshore wind projects. Previous studies have proposed and evaluated several such benefit creation options. However, there still remains uncertainty of the effectiveness of such benefit creation options. This study aims to compare the local residents’ and fisheries’ preference of the benefit creation options by using questionnaire surveys and stakeholder interviews in three areas. Those valid responses have been selected for the preference analysis by using the DS-AHP multi criteria decision making model. This study shows that project location and other regional differences are significant factors of general residents’ attitudes of offshore wind projects. On the other hand, fishers, the most important stakeholders, preferred added values related to their fishing industry. Additionally, regional location and fishing method is found to have an impact on their preference.