Designing Sustainable Marine Conservation Governance Under Offshore Wind Development: An Institutional Architecture for the Taiwan Cetacean Observer Association

Offshore wind development has become an important component of the renewable energy transition, yet its rapid expansion has also generated new sustainability challenges for marine biodiversity conservation. In Taiwan, offshore construction activities such as pile driving, drilling, dredging, and seismic surveys have raised growing concerns about anthropogenic underwater noise and its effects on cetaceans and other marine species Although Taiwan established its Cetacean Observer (TCO) system in 2020, the system remains constrained by fragmented authority, limited information transparency, insufficient professional training, unstable employment pathways, and weak cross-agency coordination. Against this background, this study shifts the analytical focus from diagnosing the deficiencies of the existing TCO system or assessing whether the Taiwan Cetacean Observer Association (TCOA) is beneficial to examining how the TCOA should be institutionally designed as a sustainable governance platform under offshore wind development. Drawing on environmental governance, institutional design, and intermediary organization scholarship, as well as document analysis and in-depth interviews with cetacean observers, contractors, marine conservation practitioners, and experts, this study develops a design-oriented institutional architecture for association-based marine conservation governance. Rather than treating the TCOA merely as a professional association, the study conceptualizes it as a governance infrastructure capable of stabilizing coordination, supporting implementation, strengthening professionalization, and enhancing accountability in a fragmented marine governance environment. The study proposes a five-module institutional architecture for a sustainable the TCOA, comprising employment and career support, as well as accountability and public engagement. Together, these modules can strengthen coordination, improve implementation capacity, enhance transparency, support observer professionalization, and build stakeholder trust. This study contributes to sustainability governance research by moving the discussion from whether an observer association is useful to how such an association should be institutionally designed to support long-term marine conservation governance. It also provides transferable insights for coastal jurisdictions seeking to align offshore renewable energy development with marine biodiversity conservation and Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14).