Resources

Regional Wildlife Science Entity

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Effective, multi-sectoral, regional collaboration is needed to successfully advance environmentally responsible offshore wind power development activities in U.S. waters.

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Recognizing the Need

Starting at the inaugural State of the Science Workshop in 2018, E-TWG members and other stakeholders expressed the importance of developing a regional science entity to support research and monitoring on wildlife and offshore wind energy. The E-TWG initiated a Specialist Committee to further this topic in early 2019, with coordination support from Cadmus Group and the Consensus Building Institute.

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Building from these early efforts, a strong stakeholder engagement process was initiated to develop the current vision for a Regional Wildlife Science Entity (RWSE) for Atlantic Offshore Wind. The process was led by a "Coordinating Group", or representative group of stakeholders along the Atlantic Coast including NYSERDA, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Shell, Equinor, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and the National Wildlife Federation (NWF).

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Developing a Vision

A properly structured RWSE will provide a range of benefits, including:

• Identifying priorities for scientific research and monitoring at the project, regional and ecosystem-wide scales

• Coordinating and aligning funding to meeting those priorities

• Ensuring appropriate data and standards are in place to support science priorities

The Organizational Vision document is the result of an 18-month engagement effort and outlines:

• The stakeholder engagement effort used to develop the document

• RWSE mission and objectives

• Proposed RWSE organizational structure

• Vision for pilot funding requirements and initial research activities

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This document and associated stakeholder engagement processes were

sponsored by NYSERDA, MassCEC, and BOEM.

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Photo credits: Short-beaked common dolphins © Anthony Pierce