Why the Wadden Sea’s Green Transition Keeps Hitting the Same Walls

Along Germany’s North Sea coast, where the Wadden Sea stretches for more than 500 kilometers as the largest intertidal flat system on Earth, the people who manage its harbors, fishing fleets, wind farms and tourist resorts are wrestling with a paradox that defines the modern blue economy: the very ecosystems that sustain their livelihoods are being degraded by the activities those livelihoods depend on. A new study drawing on 35 expert interviews and a cross-sectoral workshop with stakeholders from across the German Wadden Sea region has now mapped, in unusual detail, exactly what is holding back green development in one of Europe’s most ecologically significant coastal zones — and what could unlock it.

The research, conducted by scientists at the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) in Bonn, defines green development as strategies and measures that facilitate long-term transformative change toward sustainability, biodiversity protection, resilience and climate neutrality. Rather than treating this as an abstract aspiration, the team applied a structured framework built on four pillars — climate action, environmental, social and economic development — and used it as an analytical lens to sort the barriers and enablers reported by experts working in energy, fisheries, shipping and ports, tourism, local government and nature conservation.

What emerged is a picture of a region caught between two powerful and often contradictory imperatives. The most frequently reported barrier, across every sector examined, was the existence of conflicting priorities. Nowhere is this clearer than in the tension between offshore wind energy expansion and nature conservation. Germany’s Offshore Wind Energy Act establishes that the use of renewable energy is of overriding public interest, giving wind development a strong legal foundation even where it collides with other interests. Yet experts from both the energy and conservation sectors warned that current expansion targets are unrealistic to meet in an environmentally sound way, and that national strategies such as the National Hydrogen Strategy set ambitious goals without detailing where the freshwater resources required for hydrogen production would actually come from.

The fisheries sector illustrates the conflict from another angle. Experts described a permanent state of crisis — high fuel costs, pandemic disruption, the upheaval of Brexit and an aging workforce — that forces reactive rather than proactive management. The EU’s Action Plan for protecting and restoring marine ecosystems was viewed by nature conservation agencies as a valuable instrument aligned with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, but was met with considerable skepticism by fishers, who criticized its lack of differentiation between enterprises of different sizes and its potential to burden small-scale operations. Meanwhile, funds linked to offshore wind expansion that were originally intended to support fisheries modernization were progressively reduced, dropping from 10 percent to 5 percent and then to just 1 percent for fisheries in 2023 tenders, underscoring how difficult it is to reconcile renewable energy expansion, environmental protection and the economic viability of traditional sectors.

The second most cited barrier was the lack of adequate laws and regulations — a finding that may seem surprising given the dense thicket of European and national legislation covering the region. But the problem, experts explained, is fragmentation and inconsistency rather than absence. Shipping representatives described overregulation in some areas and inconsistent regulation in others, noting that rules are often perceived not as incentives but as additional financial and bureaucratic burdens. In nature conservation, experts pointed out that regulations for nature-based solutions are outdated and insufficient, while current coastal protection remains focused on technical solutions. Local authorities reported unclear distributions of responsibilities between districts and municipalities, and a lack of clear guidance for implementing political goals at the local level.

Underlying all of this is a chronic shortage of financial and human resources. Small municipalities struggle to create or maintain climate and sustainability officer positions, which experts identified as crucial for driving green development planning and implementation. Funding for advisory support is often short-term — typically two to three years — externally dependent and uncoordinated, meaning that when funding ends, knowledgeable staff leave and projects stall. In tourism, an industry-wide labor shortage means that even where businesses want to adopt greener practices, everyday operational challenges undermine progress. Without personnel, green development simply cannot be planned for or implemented.

Yet the study also identified a robust set of enablers, and the most frequently cited were awareness raising activities and the development of adequate laws and regulations. The Wadden Sea’s status as a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site has long fostered recognition of its unique value, and the increasingly visible impacts of climate change are strengthening public demand for sustainable practices. Experts reported that this heightened awareness has even increased visitor acceptance of beach closures to protect the breeding grounds of migratory birds. On the regulatory side, instruments such as the European Green Deal, the EU Nature Restoration Law, the FuelEU Maritime Initiative and Germany’s Climate and Transformation Fund provide concrete frameworks and financing mechanisms that support decarbonization and green finance.

When the researchers mapped these barriers and enablers against the elements of the green development framework, a striking pattern emerged. Decarbonization and clean energy are comparatively well supported, backed by ambitious targets and legal frameworks. But critical gaps were found in the environmental and adaptation-related elements: work with nature, climate-resilient infrastructure, biodiversity conservation and biodiversity enhancement remain underprioritized. Nature-based solutions — actions that protect, restore and sustainably manage ecosystems to address societal challenges while delivering human wellbeing and biodiversity benefits — remain underutilized despite their potential to deliver multiple socio-economic and ecological co-benefits. In a region where sea-level rise and extreme events will increasingly test coastal defenses, the experts argued that the potential to work with nature, for instance through the carbon storage capacity of saltmarshes and seagrass, has to be leveraged rather than overlooked.

The strategies proposed in the expert workshop flow directly from these findings. They include strengthening political prioritization of sustainability objectives, increasing planning authority and funding for local authorities, developing policy goals through early-stage stakeholder engagement to reduce conflicts between climate, biodiversity and economic objectives, and ensuring that climate action and nature conservation are integrated rather than prioritized over one another. A recurring theme was the need to stop treating nature conservation as a stand-alone sector competing for space, and instead adopt an ecosystem-based approach in which functioning ecosystems are understood as the foundation for all economic activity — a shift that biodiversity-inclusive spatial planning could help institutionalize.

The study’s authors are careful to note its limitations: with 35 experts and no quantitative weighting of barriers, the findings reflect recurring patterns rather than statistically representative rankings. But the qualitative triangulation across policy documents, interviews and a multi-stakeholder workshop gives the analysis considerable weight. What it reveals is that the same institutional structures can function simultaneously as barriers and enablers depending on context, that green development does not benefit all sectors equally, and that the social and economic elements — good governance, green finance, green jobs — are the critical leverage points. For coastal communities everywhere watching their economies and ecosystems pull in opposite directions, the Wadden Sea experience offers both a warning and a roadmap: without inclusive governance, sustained financing and a genuine commitment to working with nature, the blue economy risks undermining the very foundations on which it stands.

Subject of Research: Barriers and enablers of green development in the blue economy of the German Wadden Sea region

Article Title: Barriers and enablers of green development: the example of blue economy sectors in coastal communities of the Wadden Sea region

Article References: Nestele, J., Hartmann, L., & Walz, Y. (2026). Barriers and enablers of green development: the example of blue economy sectors in coastal communities of the Wadden Sea region. Frontiers in Ocean Sustainability, 4, Article 1800081. https://doi.org/10.3389/focsu.2026.1800081

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/focsu.2026.1800081

Keywords: blue economy, Wadden Sea, green development, nature-based solutions, coastal governance, offshore wind energy, fisheries, tourism, biodiversity conservation, climate adaptation, marine policy, stakeholder engagement