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Accepted Paper:
Seeking inscribed understandings of marine biodiversity in emerging technologies
Samantha Kristensen
(Wageningen University)
Annet Pauwelussen
(Wageningen University)
Simon Bush
Emerging wind energy seascapes in the Dutch North Sea hold implications for marine life. Technoscientific innovations are being developed to monitor and mitigate biodiversity loss. The inscription of competing values and assumptions in these innovations can (re)shape future human-ocean relations.
Long abstract:
The massive expansion of wind energy in the North Sea holds significant implications for marine biodiversity. ‘Hard’ wind energy infrastructure can both enhance biodiversity by providing hard substrates and cryptic reef-like habitats, or degrade biodiversity by disturbing existing benthic and pelagic habitat. The question is what kinds of biodiversity might be enhanced and in whose interest. To assess the effects of offshore wind energy parks on biodiversity, a range of new sampling technologies are being developed, including automated monitoring technologies that incorporate environmental DNA (eDNA) and video camera. How these technologies observe which kinds of biodiversity starts with their design; with different values, ways of knowing and worldviews of biodiversity inscribed into material sampling technologies and their deployment. This paper outlines an approach for exploring which assumptions and understandings of biodiversity influence the design of these sampling technologies. It also discusses what implications the use of these technologies, and the data they generate may have for claims over biodiversity (protection, restoration, and enhancement) in the tendering process for offshore wind energy parks. These findings hold implications for governing the assessment, mitigation and possible enhancement of marine biodiversity.