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The subject of this chapter is the increasing role of statutory nature conservation agencies (NCAs) in fisheries governance in the UK. There are three main sections: in the first section, we set out the powers and responsibilities of UK NCAs in relation to the designation of marine sites and the potential for them to be protected from fishing activity. In the second section, we explain the wider strategic role of NCAs in helping to shape future fisheries policy at European, UK, national and local levels. In the third section, we discuss how effective NCAs are in fulfilling each of these roles, and what the main obstacles are to improving their effectiveness.

This chapter explores the evolving role played by environmental NGOs (ENGOs) in UK fisheries governance in recent years. This role has grown exponentially, as the environmental dimension of fisheries activity has become increasingly understood and accepted by regulators and even by fishermen. There are three sections in the chapter: the first section explains how ENGOs have moved on from ‘problem identification’ to embrace ‘problem solving’; the second section provides five illustrations of ENGO engagement in problem solving; and the third section addresses the challenges of the future, focusing on ENGO participation in the new European Regional Advisory Councils (RACs), and discussing ways in which ENGOs can fulfil their vastly increased workload in relation to fisheries governance.

This chapter considers the role of the British media in European and UK national fisheries governance politics. It is divided into three parts. First, I shall argue that the national print and television media has influenced, and continues to influence, fisheries policy, but that this is largely in the direction of environmentalism and marine conservation, at the expense of fishing. Second, I shall argue that, by contrast, regional newspapers sometimes influence fisheries policy in favour of fishermen. Third, I shall argue that the direct influence exerted by the specialist fishing trade press over fisheries policy is negligible, but that it plays an important role in speaking up for the fishing industry and fisheries-dependent communities.

In the North Atlantic, formal international agreements to provide a co-ordinated been in place for over 100 years. In this chapter, I consider how marine science has been used during that period, and the extent to which failures in fisheries management result from deficiencies or misuse of the science. My analysis of our failures in the past leads me to a consideration of ways to avoid such failures in the future, including an account of the possible role for marine science in an objective-based management regime, such as the ‘ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management’. This role will include a significant element of prediction of the ecosystem effects of management scenarios, and also much greater dialogue with industry stakeholders and society to allow the informed selection of management objectives. The traditional fisheries science sector is inadequately prepared for this task, and much greater use of the wider marine science community will be required. In addition to the scientific challenges, the development of effective communication mechanisms between marine scientists and fisheries scientists, and between the science sector and society, must be acknowledged as necessary conditions for the success of these initiatives.

Canada has made a policy commitment that the science peer review and advisory processes of government departments should be transparent and inclusive of diverse sources of knowledge. During this policy’s development, the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat experimented with many approaches to include fishermen and others with experiential knowledge in the science-based meetings to assess fish stock status and produce harvest advice. Approaches explored included a) “open door”, b) institutional representatives, c) invited individuals, d) industry “observers” without full intervention privileges, e) alternating technical meetings of scientists and non-technical meetings with industry. This paper reviews the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Among the lessons learned are: a) Invited individuals with full participation rights has the most strengths and fewest weaknesses. b) Never designate an individual at a science meeting as a representative of an organisation or sector. c) The presence of media is highly disruptive. d) Skilled chairs of inclusive meetings are essential (and hard to find) e) ‘Consensus advice’ does not mean all participants must agree on a single interpretation of stock status and harvest. It is enough to reach consensus on the risks and the evidence consistent and not consistent with competing interpretations, and let the political process manage the risks.

Amidst the failures of fisheries across the globe and the perceived failure of scientific fisheries management, some recent scholarship has focused attention on the nature and collection of fishers’ knowledge, and on the potential utility of that knowledge to fisheries management. This chapter summarises the results of recent research on fish harvesters’ local ecological knowledge (LEK) and its interactions with fisheries science and management in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. We treat LEK, science and management as parallel, interacting socio-ecological knowledge systems that are internally complex and dynamic. We begin by characterising the dynamism of LEK in Newfoundland fisheries and then describe the rise of a linked fisheries science and management framework in Canada in the 1970s and 1980s that contributed to the marginalisation of fish harvesters’ LEK, particularly that of small boat fishers. We then explore the changing interactions between LEK, governance and science in Newfoundland, associated with a recently shifting international discourse that highlights the need for participation and the devolution of some responsibility and authority for fisheries management from centralised state bureaucracies and government-funded and controlled fisheries science to harvesters and other ‘stakeholder’ groups. Two case studies, comparing and contrasting the role of harvesters and LEK in the management of Atlantic cod ( Gadus morhua ) and American lobster ( Homarus americanus ) fisheries in Newfoundland and Labrador since 1992, are then used as examples of the interactions between these actors and their knowledge systems in practice. We conclude with a discussion of some of the potential benefits and dangers associated with this emerging contemporary relationship between harvesters and their knowledge, fisheries science, participation and governance in Newfoundland and Labrador.

This chapter discusses three different ways of using collaborative learning in fisheries governance, all of which have been applied in the Coasts Under Stress (CUS) project in Canada. The three modes are: hierarchy; networks; and community. The hierarchical mode entails top-down computer modelling techniques, in which the experiential knowledge that is gathered from fishers’ haul data is integrated with scientists’ survey data into management plans. The networks mode entails developing an understanding of complex marine ecosystems by sharing knowledge between individuals and groups interacting in discussions about ecosystem structures and recovery strategies. The community mode entails the involvement of local communities in knowledge sharing. Our finding is that, in whatever mode it occurs, collaborative learning is of inestimable value in improving fisheries governance, especially by removing mutual misunderstandings. But techniques of collaborative learning cost time and money, and governments must be willing to devote the necessary resources to make them work.

The focus of this chapter is on the problem of scale in fisheries governance. This is the problem of what is the appropriate scale of the marine ecosystem for fisheries management purposes. Current fisheries management regimes largely bypass this problem by focusing their attention on scale-less, single species populations. But such an approach rests on an inadequate mental model that ignores the complexity of the marine ecosystem. By contrast, the ecosystem-based approach offers an alternative mental model that deals with this complexity, not by bypassing it, but by scaling down to local ecosystem levels, which are best managed by decentralised, co-management governance arrangements that make full use of resource users’ knowledge and also ensure accountability.

The participatory mode of fisheries governance is based on effective communications that are able to bring together the viewpoints of many stakeholders so that management decisions can be generated. This chapter offers a discussion of the relationship between stakeholder participation as it is taking place on a European scale and the generation of formal scientific knowledge for the management of fish stocks under the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). It examines the demersal stocks in the North Sea in particular. Stakeholder participation has been an important factor leading to demands for changes on the ways in which formal scientific advice is generated and communicated. The impacts on scientific deliberations of three such demands are examined: a) a demand that advice shift from the fish stock to the fishery as its basic unit of reference; b) a demand that advice not be open to different interpretation by the various stakeholders; and c) a demand that the results of existing technical fisheries management measures be examined when preparing advice. The chapter concludes that a flatter decision making hierarchy could make possible both a richer knowledge base and greater public support for management decisions.

Three central themes about participatory fisheries governance that lie at the heart of the chapters of this book are discussed in this final chapter: the benefits and deficiencies of stakeholder participation; the relationship between stakeholder participation and the ecosystem-based approach; and the role of fishers’ knowledge in fisheries governance