Sea2Land Navigator: your compass to unlock planning insights

When a planning situation arises, such as the proposal of a new offshore wind farm, how can planners ensure that all affected stakeholders are identified and meaningfully involved from the beginning? How can they navigate the entire planning process, from early-stage scoping to implementation and evaluation?

Meet the Sea2Land Navigator. The Navigator is a free, open-access and one-of-a-kind tool designed to support coastal and maritime spatial planning practitioners facing complex stakeholder dynamics, policy frameworks, and pressing environmental challenges. The Navigator offers a suite of innovative interactive step-by-step methods to collaboratively engage stakeholders, identify their roles and influence, share data, and evaluate the progress to enhance strategic decision-making.

This hands-on workshop will introduce the tool in a practical setting. Participants will engage in a guided exercise, applying the Navigator to a coastal or maritime planning scenario. The session will provide an opportunity to test its features, explore its relevance to your work, and contribute feedback for further development.

This session will explore:

• How can planners identify, map, and involve relevant stakeholders in complex coastal and maritime planning processes?
• What structured methods and tools can support transparent, inclusive stakeholder engagement from project initiation to evaluation.
• How can the Sea2Land Navigator be applied to real-world planning scenarios to support strategic decision-making?
• In what ways can the Sea2Land Navigator be adapted or integrated into your existing planning workflows and institutional contexts?

Organiser: The Ministry of Smart Administration and Regional Development of the Republic of Latvia and HELCOM

Participants are kindly asked to bring a laptop, as they will have the opportunity to work with the Sea2Land Navigator directly during the session. Access and explore the Sea2Land Navigator already now via the link HERE.

Key words: Maritime spatial planning, Stakeholder engagement, Multi-level governance, Decision support tools, Cross-sector collaboration, Participatory planning, Data-driven decisions, Planning co-creation