Interactions between Environment and Fisheries
- a Challenge to Management (IBEFish)

Policy Brief, November 2007

• Policy Brief, November 2007, Stakeholder Participation towards Ecosystem-Based Approaches to Fisheries Management.pdf (709 Kb)

Specific Support Action for DG Fisheries and Maritime Affairs, Contract no.: 044192

Introduction

There is an increasingly recognized need for finding a balance in the interactions between the environment and fisheries. Ecosystem impacts of fishing can be severely damaging, and several direct and indirect effects have been detected. Interaction occurs also in the other direction when environmental changes affect fish stocks or when protected species (such as cormorants or seals) cause economic losses to fisheries. In recent years, the need to incorporate environmental requirements into fisheries management - the ecosystem approach in managing living aquatic resources - has been endorsed in many international agreements. The European Union has taken an active role in promoting this approach.

Reducing the ecosystem effects even when they can be clearly shown is, however, complicated and often costly to fisheries. An extension of the management regime is required for two purposes. First, finding solutions to such a complex management challenge requires the inclusion of many types of expertise. Second, due the need to include a greater number of relevant stakeholders increases. Therefore, we see that the key to achieving balanced management lies in a more inclusive and integrated form of research and management, even though organizing stakeholder participation for integrated management approaches is difficult and complicated task.

Objectives

IBEFish had two major objectives: 1) to share the results and theoretical understandings gained in past projects with regard to the ecosystem approach in fisheries management, with a special focus on the role of participation in integrated management of the interaction between environment and fisheries; and 2) to make practical recommendations for improving fisheries management towards an ecosystem-based approach especially emphasising the need for an enhanced knowledge-base, legitimacy and trust-building in the management.

Activities

The main objectives were achieved through synthesising the results of projects on interactions between environment and fisheries by focusing on the roles and challenges of participation in integrated management. The synthesis of case studies used a framework for evaluating participatory decision making. This task was accomplished by a review of projects and producing a special issue in the journal Marine Policy (the articles became available in the Marine Policy's "in press" section in autumn 2007).

The IBEFish project organized a workshop in May 2007 to discuss the project findings and to identify policy-relevant messages that are combined in a policy brief available on this website.

Main results

The conclusions of the synthesis paper of the special issue in Marine Policy (Berghöfer et al. 2008) can be used here to illustrate the IBEFish findings. The paper concludes that institutional innovation is required for implementing ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management (EBAFM), and that such innovation can best be achieved by engaging in a delicate process of societal decision-making. By means of the IBEFish analytical frame we examined findings from recent European research on participation in fisheries management at different jurisdictional levels.

The analytical frame consist of four main criteria: Information management, Legitimacy, Social dynamics and Costs: (Varjopuro et al. 2008)

Six important lessons can be drawn regarding the institutional innovation towards ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management:

(1) With regard to information management: EBAFM has very high demands on information and this information is often needed quickly. Current approaches to the knowledge base are inadequate from the perspectives of both accuracy and facilitating effective political decision making. This seems particularly valid for how uncertainty is being addressed. Furthermore, the integration of different knowledge requires their transformation into new knowledge formats. This takes time and puts special emphasis on the attention dedicated to the framing and reframing of an issue. The framing has impacts on what kind of knowledge is considered, which options are conceivable, and which stakeholders are included. To transcend dichotomized framings of the type eco-centrism vs. anthropocentrism, prolonged deliberations among stakeholders seem necessary.

(2) With regard to legitimacy: In most cases EBAFM does not yet have the legal backing required for the continued, close collaboration of a wide range of (non-) governmental actors. EBAFM requires joint deliberation, planning and decision making. The governmental coordination of mere stakeholder consultations does not suffice to bring EBAFM about. If participation within fisheries management is to mean more than a form of secondary legitimation to government and its policies, then the devolution of governing powers to participatory arenas is necessary. This comes along with increased needs for matching policies in a decentralized  system. Trends to enlarge and systematize consultative mechanisms at high jurisdictions do not suffice.

(3) With regard to social dynamics: Participation in fisheries management and policies often takes place in ill-defined arenas. It is often unclear, to participants and to outsiders, whether policy uptake of the decision advice can be expected. The limited scope for agency of non-governmental participants jeopardizes meaningful collaboration of user groups and (sub-)national NGOs. This is opposed to the very idea of EBAFM. Another significant issue is trust: trust here refers to the need to collectively gain confidence in the process, to progressively build social capital and not simply to sympathize with other individuals or organizations. An important pre-requisite is the liberty of representatives to engage in meaningful debate beyond bargaining predetermined positions.

(4) With regard to costs: Specification of costs is difficult, as EBAFM comprises concerns for, and coordination among, different uses of the sea. Costs of current management regimes are considerable, in theory EBAFM holds the potential to reduce these costs as it combines management regimes of different marine uses. A stronger focus is also required on the just distribution of incurred costs among stakeholders.

We identify two more issues transcending the four categories of the IBEFish frame:

(5) Questions of scale: The spatial dimension is a recurrent challenge to participatory fisheries management. Addressing EBAFM on a rather high jurisdictional level, such as the North Sea RAC, allows addressing the North Sea as a macro-system, but this is of limited value for at least two reasons: the appropriate uptake of local issues, and the handling of the diversity and complexity of the social and ecological systems involved. Spatial planning, i.e. delimiting spaces for specific uses, can help structure the issues, but it is limited by spill-over effects and the mobility of fish stocks. A nested hierarchy of jurisdictions that has been proposed needs to be flexible so that countries can determine appropriate governance structures and levels according to the issue at stake and their own institutional configuration and political traditions.

(6) Cross-sector integration: In EBAFM, fisheries management cannot be addressed in isolation any more. EBAFM has to function practically as cross-sector resource management in which it is matched with other resource uses, similar to ICZM. Here lies the challenge for management concepts, where ‘‘adaptive management’’ suggests itself as the most appropriate form of ‘muddling- through’ in the face of complexity and change.

The last two issues illustrate that European fisheries act in a multi-level system, in a combination of cross-sector and multi-level governance. It is no surprise, therefore, that both authorities competent to regulate, and actors having a stake in these issues, are situated in different sectors and on different levels. This implies that information flows, legitimacy, social dynamics and costs are also spread across sectors and jurisdictions.

The way forward should be marked by attempts to further build up experience in stakeholder participation at, and across, all jurisdictional levels. It is in this practical work and in the empirical research on fisheries governance that know-how will mature and institutional innovation will materialize.

Berghöfer, A., H. Wittmer and F. Rauschmayer 2008. Stakeholder Participation in Ecosystem-Based Approaches to Fisheries Management: A Synthesis from European Research Projects. Marine Policy, 32: 243-253.

Varjopuro, R., T. S. Gray, J. Hatchard, F. Rauschmayer and H. Wittmer 2008. Introduction: Interaction between environment and fisheries – the role of stakeholder participation. Marine Policy, 32: 147-157.

Consortium

	Finnish Environment Institute, Research Programme for Environmental Policy, Finland Riku Varjopuro
	Institute for Fisheries Management and Coastal Community Development, Denmark Douglas Wilson Ditte Degnbol
	University of Gothenburg Human Ecology Section, Sweden Karl Bruckmeier
	UFZ - Centre for Environmental Research, Division of Social Sciences, Germany Heidi Wittmer Felix Rauschmayer Augustin Berghöfer
	University of Newcastle upon Tyne, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology United Kingdom Tim Gray Jenny Hatchard

Coordinator

Riku Varjopuro, Finnish Environment Institute, Research Programme for Environmental Policy ,  firstname.lastname@ymparisto.fi