Governability of Fisheries and Aquaculture: Theory and Applications

384 Pages·2013·3.9 MB·English

by  Ratana Chuenpagdee

MARE Publication Series 7
Maarten Bavinck
Ratana Chuenpagdee
Svein Jentoft
Jan Kooiman
Editors
Governability
of Fisheries and
Aquaculture:
Theory and
Applications
Governability of Fisheries and Aquaculture:
Theory and Applications
MARE Publication Series
Volume 7
Series Editors
Svein Jentoft, University of Tromsø, Norway
[email protected]
Maarten Bavinck, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
[email protected]
The MARE Publication Series is an initiative of the Centre for Maritime Research (MARE).
MARE is an interdisciplinary social-science network devoted to studying the use and
management of marine resources. It is based jointly at the University of Amsterdam and
Wageningen University (www.marecentre.nl).
The MARE Publication Series addresses topics of contemporary relevance in the wide fi eld of
‘people and the sea’. It has a global scope and includes contributions from a wide range of social
science disciplines as well as from applied sciences. Topics range from fi sheries, to integrated
management, coastal tourism, and environmental conservation. The series was previously hosted
by Amsterdam University Press and joined Springer in 2011.
The MARE Publication Series is complemented by the Journal of Maritime Studies (MAST)
and the biennial People and the Sea Conferences in Amsterdam.
For further volumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/10413
Maarten Bavinck • Ratana Chuenpagdee
Svein Jentoft • Jan Kooiman
Editors
Governability of Fisheries
and Aquaculture:
Theory and Applications
Editors
Maarten Bavinck Ratana Chuenpagdee
Department of Human Geography Department of Geography
Planning and International Development Memorial University of Newfoundland
Studies St. John’s, NL, Canada
University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Svein Jentoft Jan Kooiman
Faculty of Biosciences, Fisheries Centre for Maritime Research
and Economics University of Amsterdam
University of Tromsø Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tromsø, Norway
ISSN 2212-6260 ISSN 2212-6279 (electronic)

ISBN 978-94-007-6106-3 ISBN 978-94-007-6107-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-6107-0
Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg New York London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013934113
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
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Foreword
Around four decades ago professionals working on fi sheries problems generally
agreed there was a crisis in the world’s fi sheries. The world’s fi sh catch had leveled
off, many formerly productive fi sheries were badly depleted, and a few had utterly
collapsed. Since then some progress has been made, but the overall trend worldwide
has continued downward. True, the world’s total fi sh supply increased over this
time, but that was mainly a result of increased targeting of smaller species further
down the marine food web, and also the phenomenal growth of aquaculture. Indeed,
aquaculture contributed only around 3% of the world’s fi sh supply four decades
ago, but now contributes almost 40% – and now raises environmental concerns that
were only dimly anticipated before its phenomenal surge.
Over the past years several theoretical approaches have been proposed for ana-
lyzing and alleviating this crisis, but perhaps none have proposed a theoretical
framework as holistic and promising as the one in this ambitious book, which urges
that fi sheries and aquaculture systems be viewed through the lens of g overnability ,
or their capacity for governance.
The present volume is a follow-up to the authors’ earlier book, Fish for Life
(2005), which only raised the topic of governability in its concluding chapters. It
precedes a planned third volume that will explore methods for applying governabil-
ity theory in real-world situations.
The core authors here have been collaborating on the theoretical development of
the governability concept for more than a decade, and this volume represents the
fruition of their many formal discussions, meetings, workshops, research, and
scholarly work. And now joined by more than a dozen additional authors, here
presented is a rich diversity of intellectual, philosophical, theoretical, and method-
ological insights, as well as case studies that explore these insights in six different
culture regions.
For assessing a particular system’s capacity for governance, the authors urge
beginning by conceptually deconstructing the system into three sub-systems: the
system to be governed, the governing system, and t he governing interactions between
these two. Then, with each part’s components and dynamics richly illuminated, they
v
vi Foreword
urge synthesizing an “image” of the system’s g overnance capacity by focusing on
its inherent components and dynamics, which either promote or discourage that.
Furthermore, they suggest the s ystem to be governed should be analyzed with
regard to four cardinal features of all social systems: d iversity, complexity, dynam-
ics , and differences in scale . And they also suggest that it should be investigated
from the perspective of a set of concerns that impact governability – here emphasiz-
ing such contemporary concerns as s ocial justice, livelihoods, food security , and
ecosystem health .
For analyzing the g overning system a number of foci are likewise suggested,
including the g overnance realms that pertain to t he state, markets, civil society , and
hybrids of these. And to analyze the dynamics of the g overning interactions , they
urge looking for interactional factors that ultimately promote or inhibit effective
governance.
Obviously, by taking such a broadly holistic approach, it is unlikely that a pana-
cea will emerge, much less a formulaic set of rules for assessing the governability
of a fi sheries or aquaculture system. Each system will still have to be studied with
regard to its own particular history, organization, dynamics, and contemporary
circumstances – whatever these may be.
The authors also acknowledge that the governance of some social systems may
pose a “wicked problem,” that is, a problem that is so complex that it is highly resis-
tant to resolution or improvement. In such cases no solution may be possible, and
there may be no foreseeable end point at which the problem could ever be consid-
ered to be resolved. But into these seemingly hopeless situations the authors now
beam a new ray of light, stressing that by viewing them through the lens of govern-
ability their internally contradictory concerns, disjointed components, confounded
interactional dynamics, and other obstacles to their governability can be identi fi ed.
Indeed, the governability approach’s emphasis on discovering governing interactions
is what distinguishes it from most of the other major theoretical approaches that
have been offered heretofore.
It now seems clear that the crisis in the world’s fi sheries was a much larger and
more complex problem than many had imagined. Yet, examining it through the lens
of governability may offer the best hope for alleviating it – as well as alleviating
similar crises in other social systems.
James R. McGoodwin
James R. McGoodwin is author of Crisis in the World’s Fisheries: People, Problems,
and Policies (Stanford University Press, 1990). A former Fellow in the Marine
Policy and Ocean Management Program of the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution, he is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology, and
Research Af fi liate in the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of
Colorado, Boulder, Colorado
Preface
Coasts and seas are special environments that give rise to a set of unique activities,
cultures and governance issues. This volume highlights the situation of capture
fi sheries and aquaculture from a global perspective, and takes an interactive gover-
nance approach. It is a sequel to an earlier publication in the series entitled, F ish for
Life – Interactive Governance for Fisheries (2004). The present volume continues
where the earlier book left off, and explores the concept of governability and its
application to fi sheries.
The MARE Publication Series commenced in 2004 under the auspices of
Amsterdam University Press and produced fi v e volumes on coastal and marine topics.
This is the fi rst volume to be produced in collaboration with Springer Academic
Publishers. We are particularly grateful to Martine van Bezooijen(†) and Fritz
Schmuhl for facilitating the transition and taking us on.
As we have contributed to this volume, Dr. Mirjam Ros-Tonen (University of
Amsterdam) has stepped in as guest series editor. We are grateful for her help.
University of Tromsø Svein Jentoft
University of Amsterdam Maarten Bavinck
vii
He began to pity the great fi sh that he had
hooked. He is wonderful and strange and
who knows how old he is, he thought. Never
have I had such a strong fi sh nor one who
acted so strangely. Perhaps he is too wise to
jump. He could ruin me by jumping or by a
wild rush. But perhaps he has been hooked
many times before and he knows that this is
how he should make his fi ght.
Ernest Hemingway
( The Old Man and the Sea)
Here is the Sea of Indifference, glazed with salt […]
this is the sea town of myth and story when the fi shing fl eets
went bankrupt here is where the jobs were on the pier
processing frozen fi shsticks hourly wages and no shares […]
then yes let it be these are small distinctions
where do we see it from is the question
Adrienne Rich
(An Atlas of the Diffi cult World)
Acknowledgements
This book has been some years in the making. The idea originated back in 2005
with the publication of a preceding volume – Fish for Life – that launched the
concept of governability in its fi nal chapters. The members of the Fisheries
Governance Network (FISHGOVNET), which had been established through proj-
ect funding by the European Commission, agreed that this topic was critical for
the development of the interactive governance approach and decided to take it
forward, fi rst through a special issue for the J ournal of Transdisciplinary
Environmental Studies . The Stockholm resilience conference of 2008 then
provided the editors with an occasion to decide on the outline and schedule of this
volume. Other meetings – some with a fuller group of authors, others with the
editors alone – took place at regular intervals in Ottawa, Gothenburg, St John’s,
Bangkok and Amsterdam.
The present volume could not have come about without the encouragement
and support of a number of people and organizations. The editors would fi rst of
all like to mention the backing of the University of Amsterdam, Memorial
University, and the University of Tromsø, that provided them with the opportunity
to pursue their interests in this fi eld. Ratana Chuenpagdee also acknowledges
support from Canada Research Chairs program and Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada. Svein Jentoft acknowledges the support
from the POVFISH project and the POVPEACE program of the Norwegian
Research Council.
We would like to thank Miriam Ros for coordinating the review process on
behalf of the editors of the MARE Publication Series. The two reviewers provided
important, and in some respects, contradictory views on how to improve the manu-
script – we have taken their suggestions to heart and integrated them in our own
way. We are more than grateful to Philip van der Krogt, who did a wonderful job
language-editing the manuscript. Our thanks are also due to Fritz Schmul and
others at Springer Publishers, who have guided us skillfully through the publishing
process. Russ McGoodwin was willing to go through the manuscript and write a
scintillating foreword, for which we extend our gratitude.
ix