Project

The focus of the project is governance in fisheries with special emphasis on the role of management institutions in the decision-making process and the conditions under which management institutions work effectively and cost-efficiently. Associated questions of participation and representation of interests in fishery management, levels of decision‑making, factors influencing compliance/ non‑compliance behaviour, legitimacy and what is considered a valid knowledge base for management will be addressed by focusing on the following five research questions:

User-groups or broader stakeholder involvement - how are stakeholder interests voiced and mediated in management institutions?
The rationality of fisheries management - what is the overall rationality of the management institutions in terms of managing society's utilisation of its natural resource base and sharing access for interest groups?
The cost-effectiveness of fisheries management - how are transaction costs reflected in the design of management institutions?
The embeddedness of management institutions - to what extent are management institutions consistent and integrated with the cultural and social references of user and stakeholder groups?
The cognitive basis for management - how is knowledge about the resource system and other systems (e.g. the policy system) generated and used in management institutions, and what constitutes the social validity of such knowledge?

The research will eventually lead to submission of an anthology entitled: "Governance in fisheries - an institutional approach to management of fisheries" undertaking a structured analysis of the 5 research issues mentioned above. The aim is to disseminate the results to both the scientific community and policy‑makers in order to improve the performance of fisheries management systems in both developed and developing countries.

The objective of the project was to improve our understanding of the information needs and appropriate institutional structures for fisheries management in developing countries by making a comparative analysis of three cases in South East Asia (one in Laos and two in Vietnam) and four cases in Southern Africa (Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia and South Africa).

The overall objective of this project was to address the poor understanding of the links between management tools, fleet developments and the pressure exerted on fishing communities, and more precisely to supply fisheries managers with a modelling tool that will allow them evaluating the impact of regulations on the dynamics of fleets and fishing mortality.

The overall objectives of the project were to identify and understand specific shortcomings in the European fisheries policy and its implementation, which have contributed to the problems evident in several European fisheries, and to devise means for their rectification. The project focused on the knowledge production and decision-making within the fisheries management system, the interrelationships between these processes and the role played by stakeholders.

ITAC focuses on administrative arrangements to restrict and monitor fishing mortality. The aim is not only to describe regulatory arrangements, but to offer an understanding of how these systems function as wholes and why they have attained their present forms. An understanding of the management systems does not only require knowledge of the various institutions, but an understanding of how they are woven together - how they mutually restrict and shape each other. The main research question is: how and under which conditions can regulations aimed to restrict fishing mortality be successfully implemented at the administrative level?

The project will undertake four case studies divided on three different types of regulation schemes: 1) Direct catch regulation (Norwegian cod fisheries), 2) Capacity utilization (The Faroe Island demersal fishery) and 3) Indirect catch regulation (The North Sea cod recovery plan - having a Danish perspective & Recovery plans in Galicia).

Coordinator: Norwegian Agricultural Economics Research Institute (NILF)

Project goals:

Develop the knowledge of discarding patterns and factors in European fisheries

Evaluate the effectiveness of selective devices and other discard management measures that have been implemented in the past.

Improve methods to analyze, monitor, and manage bycatch and discarding in European fisheries.

This project will from the social sciences contribute to the establishment of a unique scientific network integrating natural and social sciences and thus improve the understanding of the marine ecosystem off West Greenland and the implications of climate change for the structure and functioning of the ecosystem by: 1) Identifying and describing the main social, economic and institutional drivers behind environmentally significant human behaviors with special emphasis on fishing and 2) Identifying and describing the existing environmental governance institutions and those social interactions that contribute or detract from effective governance of the fisheries resources off West Greenland.

Socio-economic effects of the main management principles of the future Common Fishery Policy (CFP): impact of new policy framework and opportunities for the fishing sector to develop self- and co-management.

The Common Fisheries Policy is in a major reform process at the moment. The European Commission draws the conclusion in its analysis of the previous reform in 2002 (COM (2009) 163 final) that despite making some progress there are still many problems unresolved. On the positive side, the Commission lists better stakeholder involvement, phasing out direct capacity-enhancing subsidies and the introduction of long-term management plans. On the negative side the Commission identifies a deep-rooted problem of overcapacity, imprecise policy objectives, a framework that does not give sufficient responsibility to the industry, lack of compliance and a decision making system that encourages a focus on short-term management. We will analyze a range of available, emerging and possible new management measures to overcome these shortcomings of fisheries management, and will consider their implementation on a regional level.

The Oceans Past Platform Action aims to measure and understand the significance and value to European societies of living marine resource extraction and production to help shape the future of coasts and oceans. The Integrative Platform will lower the barriers between human, social and natural sciences; multiply the learning capacity of research environments; and enable knowledge transfer and co-production among researchers and other societal factors, specifically by integrating historical findings of scale and intensity of resource use into management and policy frameworks.

The oceans offer rich resources for feeding a hungry world. However, the sea is an alien space in a sense that the land is not. Fishing requires skills that must be learned, it presupposes culinary preferences, technical ability, knowledge of target species, and a backdrop of material and intangible culture. The Action asks when, how and with what socio-economic, political, cultural and ecological implications humans have impacted marine life, primarily in European seas in the last two millennia.

The Action calls on historians, archaeologists and social scientists as well as colleagues from the marine sciences to engage in dialogue and collaboration with ocean and coastal managers. The Action will develop historical descriptors and indicators for marine and coastal management.

Since the reform of the EU Common Fisheries Policy in 2002, effort has been devoted to addressing the governance, scientific, social and economic issues required to introduce an ecosystem approach to European marine fisheries.

Fisheries management needs to support the 'three pillars of sustainability' (ecological, social and economic). Fisheries Ecosystem Plans (FEPs) were developed to further the ecosystem approach in fisheries management and as a tool to assist managers consider the ecological, social and economic implications of their decisions. The FP5-funded European Fisheries Ecosystem Plan (EFEP) project developed a FEP for European waters, using the North Sea as a case study.

The core concept of the Making the European Fisheries Ecosystem Plan Operational (MEFEPO) project is the delivery of an operational framework for three regional seas. This is the necessary next step in the process. Furthermore, MEFEPO will, based on the lessons learned, consider how FEPs can be made operational and developed for other regional areas. MEFEPO will focus on how best to make current institutional frameworks responsive to an ecosystem approach to fisheries management at regional and pan-European levels in accordance with the principles of good governance. This will involve developing new linkages and means of allowing dialogue between the disparate groups of stakeholders, the integration of the considerable body of ecological, fisheries, social and economic research which has been developed in recent years and investigate how existing institutional frameworks need to evolve to incorporate this information and develop both dialogue between the disparate groups of marine stakeholders and develop a decision-making process which integrates a wide breadth of interests. The three areas used by MEFEPO will be the North Sea RAC, North-western Waters RAC and South-western Waters RAC areas.