Navigating Change: Marine Spatial Planning from Canada to the Baltic

By Kate Ortenzi

In September 2025, I attended the 5th Baltic Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) Forum in Riga, Latvia. Under the theme “Navigate Planning Through Changes!”, the Forum brought together planners, policymakers, academics, NGOs, and practitioners from across the Baltic Sea Region to wrestle with some of the most urgent and interlinked MSP challenges: climate change, security, governance, and resilience.

I had just arrived in the Baltic region as an ABD (All but dissertation) PhD candidate in Marine Biology at Dalhousie where I work at the intersection of Indigenous Rights, ethics, and benthic ecology.  I conduct research in Nunatsiavut with my colleagues at the Nunatsiavut Research Centre and with community members.  Here, the water is cold, salty, and deep.  For my partner’s work, I’ve recently relocated to Vilnius, Lithuania.  It’s an inland city about 4.5 hours from the Baltic Sea.  I attended the MSP Forum to better ground myself in this new region and its relationship to the sea.

My first glimpse of the Baltic Sea from Klaipeda, Lithuania, in September. (PC Kate Ortenzi)

One of the first things I learned is that the Baltic is “the world’s biggest lake,” as people kept calling it. It is shallow, warm, soft-bottomed, and sweet.  A giant sill sits around Denmark, making it challenging for heavy saline water to make its way into the Baltic – a completely different marine experience to what I’ve grown used to. Surrounded by Denmark, Germany, Poland, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, and Sweden, it is a fascinating place to explore the intersection of environmental stewardship and geopolitical issues.

The Baltic Sea Watershed. © Global International Waters Assessment (GIWA), published by HELCOM - HELCOM - Baltic Sea Environment Proceedings No. 104

Marine Spatial Planning amid Geopolitical Complexity

One of the most striking undercurrents during the Forum was how deeply geopolitical issues permeate marine spatial planning even if they are not explicit. The Baltic Sea is an ecological space, an economic space, and a geopolitical arena shaped by national boundaries, historical tensions, and complex governance structures. During one plenary session, representatives from each country got up on stage and talked about their country’s current and future MSP plans and struggles in the Baltic. Meanwhile, a caricature artists was busy animating a map of the Baltic behind them based on what they said.  No one mentioned Russia, but the cartoonist drew a Russian ship leaving St. Petersburg dragging an anchor behind it – a reference to a recent cut undersea cable. 

Live cartoon depiction of Eagle S allegedly cutting undersea cables.  PC: Kate Ortenzi

This points to an important aspect of MSP that may not be as discussed: MSP is not just a technical exercise of mapping competing uses (shipping lanes, wind farms, fisheries, protected areas). MSP is a tool to manage and potentially mitigate geopolitical friction.

Between sessions, several conference attendees reflected on the difference in international cooperation between nations in the North Sea Basin verse the Baltic Sea basin.  One noteworthy reflection was in the North Sea Basin, “people listen to their neighbors,” but in the Baltic, “people take what their neighbors say into consideration.” When I asked why they thought so, fellow participants said that being in a closed system like the Baltic is different.  Problems, like eutrophication magnify because of the geochemical and oceanographic reality of the basin, but that having Russia right there does encourage people to work together a little harder. 

MSP as a Tool for Peace

This is an important lesson for all of us engaged in MSP across the globe.  As an American working in Canada, living in Lithuania, I often take a 30,000-foot view of social-ecological-political issues.  I see parallels between ongoing work in the Baltic, MSP in the Arctic, and around the globe where climate change adds a whole new dimension to geopolitical security and the sea – and in ways that are not always clear.  Even between the U.S. and Canada, the closest of allies, there have been decades of infighting over the ownership of Machias Seal Island, which heats up as Lobster populations move North with rising temperatures. 

In Dr. Kira Gee’s opening speech, she quoted Dr. Andrea Morph saying, “MSP is a Peace Project.”  I believe this is an excellent thing to keep in mind as we pursue equitable MSP outcomes in all our respective work around the globe. It’s important to keep this big picture in mind while making decisions regarding stakeholder and rightsholder engagement, in considering power dynamics in MSP and other environmental and geopolitical forums, and in making planning decisions that can better reflect the needs of people and the environment.

In an era of rising seas and rising geopolitical tensions, MSP can be a powerful instrument for sustainable marine development and for building trust across borders. As Dr. Andrea Morf’s work reminds us, MSP isn’t just about building maps, it’s about building a future.