Alternative management systems for the UK fishing industry

The paper considers opportunities for institutional development within the UK fishing industry that aim to engender a more meaningful incorporation of fishermen's organisations within the policy system. Special attention is given to the location of responsibility within the policy process. This involves an exploration of an alternative approach to consultation and the scope for delegation of management responsibilities to fishermen's organisations. Mechanisms to improve coordination among fishermen's organisations and to strengthen their internal architecture are also considered. The analysis raises important questions to inform the continuing debate over the development and structure of devolved management systems, in particular regarding the assumptions underlying user participation and the representativeness, capabilities and aspirations of fishermen's organisations.     

The State of Rhode Island's pioneering marine spatial plan

The state of Rhode Island's Ocean Special Area Management Plan (Ocean SAMP) is the first marine spatial plan in the United States to be formally approved by the federal government as an element of a state's Coastal Management Program. The 3800 km² Ocean SAMP region includes waters under both state and federal jurisdiction. The Ocean SAMP applies the inclusive, ecosystem-based approach to marine spatial planning recommended by the National Ocean Commission in 2004 that is a feature of the National Ocean Policy promulgated in 2010. It places within a larger spatial planning context the impact assessment process that is the basis for the issuance of leases and permits requested by a developer for a specified activity at a defined marine site. The Ocean SAMP was prepared over a two and a half year period of information generation, analysis, consultation, planning and policy making prompted by the need to identify potentially suitable sites for anticipated offshore wind farms. Its highly consultative approach builds upon the 30 years of experience of the Rhode Island Coastal Program in developing and implementing special area management plans (SAMPs) for coastal and marine areas where conflicts over needs for both development and conservation demand special attention and negotiation among stakeholders with different interests. The phases in the development and approval of the Ocean SAMP, and the prospects for successful implementation are examined through frameworks suggested for the preparation of a governance baseline put forward by the international Land Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ) program.     

Stakeholder consultation during the planning phase of scientific programs

Stakeholder consultation is being adopted as standard practice in the planning and management of natural resource management programs. While the utility of stakeholder participation has been investigated for the evaluation and implementation phases of natural resource management programs, few studies have examined the utility of stakeholder consultation during the initial phases of developing such programs. This paper presents a case study from a project developing a marine and coastal monitoring program for the Pilbara and Kimberley region of northern Western Australia. Via a series of workshops held in the region, stakeholders were asked to prioritise future research needs using several voting procedures. During the analyses of the results from the different voting procedures, it became apparent that there were high levels of inconsistency, poor correlation, and contradiction, between participants’ responses. Despite the rigour of the selection process used to identify ‘suitable’ stakeholders for the workshops, these results show that stakeholders did not have the technical or broader contextual knowledge about marine ecosystems to effectively and objectively contribute to the research prioritisation and planning process. Based on the outcomes of this study, we argue that project designers need to be clear about why they are involving stakeholders in a project, particularly in light of the costs involved (financial, time, resources, costs to the stakeholder) in stakeholder consultation. Stakeholder involvement may be appropriate in later stages of developing natural resource management programs (implementation and management), however, stakeholder involvement is not appropriate in the initial phases of such programs, where scientific expertise is essential in formulating scientific concepts and frameworks.     

Coastal management challenges from a community perspective: The problem of ‘stealth privatization’ in a Canadian fishery

Intertidal clam fisheries seem ideal candidates for the devolution of management authority from government to local stakeholders. In St. Mary's Bay, Nova Scotia, a private firm recently applied for a 10-year renewal of a large (1,627 ha) lease for quahog clam aquaculture. This case study examines the challenges of implementing community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) in rural fisheries within a broad integrated coastal management (ICM) institutional environment that favours corporate stakeholders. The challenges facing clam harvesters in rural Digby Neck, Nova Scotia arise from poor communication and coordination within government and between government and communities, as well as higher-level policy conflicts. The most important challenge arises from ‘stealth privatization’ of clam beaches. A single firm was granted rights of first refusal to depurate all clams harvested from closed (polluted) beaches in the region, resulting in the de facto privatization of all (polluted and unpolluted) clam beaches. Experiences in other parts of Canada suggest there may be community-based governance approaches that avoid the pitfalls associated with corporate management of clam beaches. New thinking is required about how to moderate the ‘privatization paradigm’ so prevalent within senior levels of government in order to ensure environmental and social sustainability in rural fishing communities.     

Charting the territory: Exploring stakeholder reactions to the prospect of seafloor exploration and mining in Australia

Geological surveys of Australia’s marine territory have revealed significant potential for development of a marine resource industry. As onshore mineral deposits become harder to find, less accessible to their market and more challenging to extract, seafloor exploration and mining becomes an economically viable option. However, evidence from industry and environmental literature suggests that social acceptance will be important in determining the future of this industry in Australia. This paper reports on findings from research investigating the social viability of seafloor mining in Australia. A combination of interviews and focus groups were used to explore industry and community reactions to the possible development of seafloor mining in Australia. Although stakeholders’ reactions were variable, the majority of the participants were reluctant to see development of seafloor mining in Australia, primarily because of concerns about the industry’s potential environmental impact. All stakeholders sought further information about the benefits and costs associated with the industry suggesting that they did not yet have a fixed attitude towards the industry. Stakeholders favoured a precautionary approach towards the industry, supported by rigorous scientific analysis of the potential environmental impacts, transparent and socially responsive management processes and meaningful engagement with stakeholders.     

Communicating environmental information to the stakeholders in coastal and marine policy-making: Case studies from Nova Scotia and the Gulf of Maine/Bay of Fundy region

This study examined the awareness of, use by, and influence on stakeholders in coastal and marine policy-making in Eastern Canada and the United States of environmental publications produced by government agencies. Research was conducted in collaboration with government agencies and the publications evaluated were: (1) The 2009 State of Nova Scotia's Coast Report, released by the Government of Nova Scotia; and (2) The State of the Gulf of Maine Report, released by the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment. Studying the use and influence of such reports is essential to assure accountability for use of public funds and for environmental protection. Interviews and surveys, web analytics, media scans, and citation analysis were conducted shortly after public release of the reports. The views of multiple stakeholders were considered, including policy and decision makers, scientists, industry, and the public. While produced for different audiences and in different formats, the two reports are important sources of baseline information on regional coastal issues. The methods used to promote awareness of the reports targeted the “interested public”, which included individuals and groups who usually respond to government requests for input, who may be better able to inform policy, and who are already active in coastal zone conservation. Raising awareness and use of information was challenged by the need to communicate environmental information to diverse audiences and to engage the general public (stakeholders and individuals outside of established networks). Results are presented within the context of communication and information pathways at the “science-policy interface”.     

Values,images, and principles: What they represent and how they may improve fisheries governance

Natural resource governance is expected to respond effectively and timely to dynamic environmental conditions, also in a manner that reflects social and political complexity of the system that it aims to govern. Values, images and principles that resource users and governing actors hold about how the world works represent a fundamental part of that complexity. These elements have indefinite form and meaning, may be incommensurable, competing and incompatible, and they often go unnoticed in governance discourse. This paper examines how values, images and principles are represented in a fisheries setting, and explores their diversity and ubiquity as well as the potential differences in the way they are conceived by various stakeholders. These characteristics are shown to give rise to the difficulties in policy planning and implementation, and create implications to power relations and overall governability of a fisheries system. The paper posits that governance challenges could be lessened if stakeholders' values, images, and principles are made explicit, understood, and articulated into the policy and decision-making process. It concludes with suggestions about future research steps.     

Canada's Atlantic Coastal Action Program: A community-based approach to collective governance

The Atlantic Coastal Action Program (ACAP) is a community-based coastal management initiative that has been underway on Canada's east coast for the past 6 years. Coalitions of local stakeholders have been assisted by government in taking a lead role for the planning and management activities in 13 coastal ecosystems throughout Atlantic Canada. The program was initiated and originally facilitated by the federal government (Environment Canada) but has come to be led and owned at the local level. The objective is to have all those affecting and/or affected by local decisions involved in this process. In ACAP, the traditional role of government is shared with the local roundtables that are established in each coastal ecosystem. Instead of government departments being the lead agencies that set policy and priorities, the communities assume this function and the government agencies become partners in responding to their identified needs. ACAP is a practical demonstration of the joint management, or collective governance approach to Integrated Coastal Management and offers lessons to governments and coastal communities looking to establish lasting partnership approaches that have the potential to achieve the sustainable development of coastal ecosystems.     

Integrated ocean management and the collaborative planning process: the Eastern Scotian Shelf Integrated Management (ESSIM) Initiative

In its capacity to lead and facilitate the development and implementation of integrated management plans under the 1997 Oceans Act, Fisheries and Oceans Canada is working with a range of stakeholders through a collaborative process—the Eastern Scotian Shelf Integrated Management (ESSIM) Initiative—to develop and implement an integrated ocean management plan for the eastern Scotian Shelf off Nova Scotia. Stakeholders include federal and provincial departments, aboriginal communities, municipal and local planning authorities, ocean industry and resource use sectors, coastal communities, environmental interest groups, and university researchers. This large ocean management area possesses important living and non-living marine resources, high biological productivity and diversity, and increasing levels of multiple use and competition for ocean space and resources. The ESSIM vision is to achieve environmental, economic, social/community, and institutional sustainability in the eastern Scotian Shelf.The ESSIM Initiative is building a collaborative planning process that involves all interested and affected parties. Ongoing information sharing and dialogue with stakeholder groups is providing capacity building and important input to current proposals for a collaborative planning structure and the ocean management plan. A joint federal-provincial working group has been established to move the Initiative forward within government and to address policy and regulatory coordination for ocean management. The future ocean management plan will include a balanced set of environmental, social, economic and institutional objectives, indicators and management strategies, as well as spatial and temporal planning approaches to address multiple ocean use.This article provides an overview of the ESSIM Initiative, including an assessment of ocean use, ecosystem understanding, and ocean management and planning requirements. The design of a collaborative management and planning structure and process will be discussed, as well as the key elements of the future integrated ocean management plan.     

Perspectives on effects-based management of New Zealand exclusive economic zone resources

Adoption of effects-based management, environmental effects-based management (EEM) or ‘learn as we go, is essential to open up access to all of New Zealand’s Maritime Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) resource base into the future. Utilising knowledge gained from ‘learn as we go’ and combining it with the integration of sectarian agendas and establishment of a central government EEZ agency empowered by an Act of Parliament will ensure future food and energy security is met. To achieve this integration of environmental effects management with security of access and stakeholder buy in is needed. Government hierarchies should not limit integration under EEM, policy should be non-separatist, and regions should be defined using ocean zoning. Future food and energy security can then be thought of in terms of environmental carrying capacity, moving away from regimes overly focussed on regulating for development. Ocean zoning could be used to assign property rights, with all activities subject to EEM regulation and enforcement of adaptive environmental standards through a central government EEZ Ocean Affairs agency. An overarching strategy to provide a framework guiding the development of New Zealand’s EEZ organisational infrastructure and decision making is needed to achieve this.     

A feasibility assessment of the application of the Polluter-Pays Principle to ship-source pollution in Hong Kong

This article aims to assess the feasibility of applying the Polluter-Pays Principle (PPP) to its fullest measure in counteracting ship-source pollution in Hong Kong (HK). Ship-source pollution is of chief concern for HK׳s marine environmental protection. A comprehensive legal and policy framework has already been established to control and remedy ship-source pollution; nevertheless, the costs of implementing measures under this framework are largely undertaken by the government or through the public avenue, leading to an inconsistency with PPP, which is a principle rooted in HK environmental policy. Through an intensive literature review and questionnaire survey, the results of this study have revealed that the adequacy and/or effectiveness of the existing legal and policy framework for controlling and remedying ship-source pollution are questionable. In addition, despite varied understandings of PPP, the industry also supports the adoption of innovative legal and policy measures to apply PPP to its fullest measure in order to better control and remedy ship-source pollution. These findings provide useful evidence, and enable meaningful reflection on the existing legal and policy framework covering ship-source pollution.     

Lessons learned from ‘decentralized’ ICM: an analysis of Canada's Atlantic Coastal Action Program and China's Xiamen ICM Program

Integrated coastal management (ICM) is a management process used by stakeholders in decision making to determine how coastal areas will be used and what activities can take place in them. While many ICM Programs are national government initiatives, some ICM Programs are ‘decentralized’, managed by community groups or local governments. This paper describes the Atlantic Coastal Action Program (ACAP), an ICM Program in Atlantic Canada, and the Xiamen ICM Program, in Xiamen, China, and discusses their major differences. The most important difference between the two ICM Programs is that ACAP is a community-based program that uses a multi-stakeholder approach and consensus decision making, while the Xiamen ICM Program is managed by a coordinating office within a local government. After comparing the two programs, some general lessons learned about decentralized ICM from these case studies are noted. It is concluded that the appropriate use of either model for ICM depends on the cultural, economic and political environment of the program. However, stakeholder involvement, scientific consultation and the use of a detailed management plan are important components of any decentralized ICM program.     

The engagement of stakeholders in the marine spatial planning process

Due to the interdependency that exists between the ecosystem resources and its users, successful implementation of ecosystem-based management depends on the identification and understanding of different stakeholders, their practices, expectations and interests. Today, many scientists and resource managers agree that the involvement of stakeholders is a key factor for a successful management regime in the marine environment. The way stakeholders are involved in the process must reflect, or at least address, the existing complexity of the specific context. A comprehensive method that allows doing this is by use of stakeholder analysis and mapping. This article will focus on the various types and stages of stakeholder participation in a marine spatial planning process, and will illustrate how to conduct a stakeholder analysis that allows the involvement of stakeholders in an adequate way that is sustainable over time.     

How to dance? The tango of stakeholder involvement in marine governance research

The added value of involving stakeholders in research, especially related to marine governance, seems to be understood today by many researchers and policy makers. This is clearly reflected by the many (EU) research calls explicitly asking for stakeholder involvement. The way in which to involve stakeholders in a meaningful way is however not all that clearly defined. In the EU funded project Options for Delivering Ecosystem-Based Marine Management (ODEMM) an explicit question was the development of options for alternative governance settings, including stakeholder involvement, to implement the Marine Strategy Framework Directive in the EU. In order to arrive at these possible alternative governance set-ups the ODEMM project developed a layered methodology, including structured and unstructured interviews, a survey and roundtable discussions to develop diverse governance options for future ecosystem based models at the regional seas. This paper describes the methodologies used, compares them with best practice from literature, and finally classifies the approach as a joint knowledge production, a tango, in which scientists take the lead but need the stakeholders to come to a dance.     

Management of the Kenyan coast

We describe the changes in the management of marine resources in Kenya from traditional management, through the era of marine protected areas and the fisheries sector, towards the initial developments of an integrated coastal area management system, which has only been active since the early 1990s. The first meetings between sectors were held in the mid-1990s where the responsibilities of management were agreed upon and from which a number of memorandums were initiated as part of the integrative process that was lead by the Coast Development Authority. Two integrated coastal management (ICM) pilot projects started in the mid- to late 1990s were undertaken to test the effectiveness of the process in two tourist beaches north of Mombasa and later Diani. These ICM programs primarily focused on infrastructural development and resource access issues and participants needed to be reminded that that the objectives of the ICM process were to improve natural resource management and protect biodiversity. There was also the problem that government and the larger economic interests were involved in policy and planning but the poor and associated communities were often marginalized because they lacked effective formal organizations and finances to represent them. The financial support for projects prior to 2003 was generally less than US $150 000 and this and the poverty of the institutions and difficulties of establishing financial sustainability limited the programs and their problem solving. Nonetheless, there has been sustained progress and lessons learned concerning interactions with stakeholders, zoning of activities, linkages among groups, and improvements in the environment that should form the basis for further integration and solutions.     

The cooperative framework for ocean and coastal management in the Pacific Islands: Effectiveness,constraints and future direction

The framework for management of the ocean and coasts of the Pacific Islands region has been evolving since the early 1970s when Pacific Island countries played a significant role in the negotiations leading to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Commencing with a summary of the provisions of relevant international instruments, this paper presents a broad overview of regional arrangements for ocean and coastal management in the Pacific Islands region. It considers the work of the various regional intergovernmental organizations with active programmes in ocean research and governance and the consultative arrangements that support coordination and collaboration. Consultative arrangements involving other stakeholders, such as local, regional and international nongovernmental organizations are summarised. To improve environmental governance and address increasing environmental threats, particularly in relation to coastal area management, consultative arrangements need strengthening. This applies equally to national and regional level consultation. The institutional and policy framework for the management and conservation of oceanic fish stocks that Pacific Island countries have been refining over a period of 25 years is suggested as providing useful lessons for strengthening coastal management processes and strategies in the region.     

Engaging Los Angeles County subsistence anglers in the California marine protected area planning process

Ecosystem-based management is more successful when a great diversity of stakeholders is engaged early in a decision-making process. Implementation of the California Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) has been stakeholder-based, coordinating the participation of a wide range of people including divers, fishermen, conservationists, local officials, business owners and coastal residents. Although commercial and recreational fishermen have actively participated throughout the MLPA implementation process, and research related to California’s sport and commercial fisheries has been integrated into the process, pier and shore anglers have been relatively unengaged as stakeholders. This study was completed to generate information about pier angler understanding and sentiment towards marine protected areas (MPAs), as well as to educate anglers on the MLPA implementation process in southern California and inform them on involvement opportunities. Of the 3030 pier anglers surveyed over 12 months, 78% only fish for subsistence from piers and from shore (never from boats); 84.6% are of non-White/Euro-American ethnicity and speak English as a second language; and 82% indicated that they were supportive of establishing a strong network of MPAs in southern California, specifically fully-protective no-take marine reserves. This study is an example of an alternative and customized method of outreach designed to reach a unique and previously unengaged stakeholder group, which stands to be affected by the implementation of the MLPA in California. Engaging such non-traditional stakeholders in public policy may be critical for decision makers to gauge all views from those standing to be affected by a policy—not just the views of those that regularly attend policy meetings—and for the ultimate success of policy implementation and community support.     

Small-scale marine fisheries policy in Vietnam

Vietnam's marine fisheries are considered to be small scale and are concentrated in coastal near-shore waters. This has resulted in heavy pressure on near-shore fisheries resources. Near-shore fisheries are considered by fishers and the government to be over-exploited, causing hardship for many coastal communities. This paper reviews and analyzes changes in policy towards small-scale fisheries in Vietnam over the last two decades. The primary issues facing the small-scale fisheries in Vietnam are to restructure the near-shore fisheries and to address over-capacity. Recommended actions include improved fisheries statistics, resources for provincial fisheries staff, and a coordinated and integrated approach involving a mixed strategy of resource management; resource restoration; economic and community development; and new governance arrangements.