Making Fisheries Management Work: Implementation of Policies for Sustainable Fishing

245 Pages·2008·3.589 MB·English

by  Stig S. Gezelius (auth.), Stig S. Gezelius, Jesper Raakjær (eds.)

Making Fisheries Management Work
Reviews: Methods and Technologies in Fish Biology and Fisheries
VOLUME8
Serieseditor:
JenniferL.Nielsen
U.S.GeologicalSurvey,
Alaska Science Center
Anchorage,Alaska
For other titles published in this series, go to
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Making Fisheries
Management Work
Implementation of Policies
for Sustainable Fishing
edited by
Stig S. Gezelius
Norwegian Agricultural Economics Research Institute (NILF),
Oslo, Norway
and
Jesper Raakjær
Innovative Fisheries Management (IFM),
Hirtshals, Denmark
Editors
StigS.Gezelius JesperRaakjær
NorwegianAgricultural InnovativeFisheriesManagement(IFM)
EconomicsResearch AalborgUniversityResearchCentre
Insitute(NILF) POBox104
0030Oslo 9850Hirtshals
Norway Denmark
[email protected] [email protected]
ISBN:978-1-4020-8627-4 e-ISBN:978-1-4020-8628-1
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2008931412
©2008SpringerScience+BusinessMediaB.V.
Nopartofthisworkmaybereproduced,storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted
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Cover photo by Stig S. Gezelius
Printedonacid-freepaper
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Contents
Foreword ..............................................................................................................ix

Abbreviations......................................................................................................xiii

Glossary of Fisheries Management Terms .......................................................xv

1 The Problem of Implementing Policies for Sustainable Fishing...................1
By Stig S. Gezelius
1.1 Introduction..................................................................................................1
1.2 Discourses on the Failures of Fisheries Management..................................3
1.3 Types of Resource Management..................................................................7
1.4 Resource Management and Distribution: The Tail Wagging the Dog?.......9
1.5 What is a “Successful” Management System?...........................................11
1.6 The Problem of Implementing Catch Regulations.....................................12
1.7 The Problem of Implementation Drift........................................................15
1.8 The Cases...................................................................................................17
1.9 What Can We Learn from a Study Such as This?......................................20

2 The Arrival of Modern Fisheries Management in the North
Atlantic: A Historical Overview....................................................................27
By Stig S. Gezelius
2.1 Introduction................................................................................................27
2.2 1900–1960: Growing Concern About Overfishing....................................28
2.3 1960–1980: TACs Emerge as the Dominant Management Form..............31
2.4 Concluding Remarks..................................................................................36

3 Implementation of Resource Conservation Policies in the Norwegian
Fisheries: A Historical Outline
By Stig S. Gezelius ..........................................................................................41
3.1 The Subject and the Actors........................................................................41
3.2 1945–1977: From Industry Development to Resource Management.........44
3.2.1 Preconditions Developed Before 1945............................................44
3.2.2 Early Post-war Policies....................................................................46
3.2.3 The Development of a Legal Framework for Fisheries
Management....................................................................................48
3.2.4 The Emergence of an Enforcement Apparatus................................54
3.3 1977–2000: The Formation of Modern Fisheries Management.................56
3.3.1 A New International Regime for Resource Conservation................56
3.3.2 Catch Quotas Gain Ground as a Resource Management Tool ........57
v
vi Contents
3.3.3 A Legal Framework for the Implementation of TACs –
The Saltwater Fishing Act of 1983................................................. 60
3.3.4 Towards Alignment of Fishing Mortality with
Catch Restrictions – The System Takes Effect...............................64
3.3.5 Organisation of the Resource Control.............................................70
3.3.6 The Logistics of Information...........................................................76
3.4 2000 – : Globalising the Implementation Effort........................................77
3.5 Legitimation Strategies..............................................................................79
3.6 Concluding Analysis: Causes of Continuity in Norwegian
Fisheries Management...............................................................................85
3.6.1 Continuity........................................................................................85
3.6.2 The State of the Fish Stocks as a Cause of Continuity................... 86
3.6.3 Path Dependence and Functional Implementation as
Causes of Continuity.......................................................................86
The Lucky Strike of History......................................................86
Viability of Conservation Goals................................................89

4 From Catch Quotas to Effort Regulation: Politics and Implementation
in the Faeroese Fisheries
By Stig S. Gezelius..........................................................................................99
4.1 Fisheries Governance in the Faeroe Islands...............................................99
4.2 The Fisheries Management Challenge.....................................................100
4.3 The Early Resource Management System...............................................101
4.4 Crisis and the Requirement for Modernised Fisheries Management.......102
4.5 The Effort Regulation System.................................................................107
4.5.1 Basic Features................................................................................107
4.5.2 Allocation of Fishing Rights..........................................................109
4.5.3 Fishing Days as a Resource Management Tool.............................111
4.6 Implementation of Fisheries Regulations................................................114
4.6.1 Implementing Fishing Capacity Policies.......................................114
4.6.2 Implementing the Fishing Day Regime.........................................115
4.6.3 Implementation of Measures to Protect Juvenile Fish...................118
4.6.4 Procedures for Monitoring Fishing Mortality and
Implementing Catch Quotas.........................................................119
4.6.5 Enforcement..................................................................................122
4.7 How Could Effort Regulation be Adopted in the Faeroese Fisheries?.....124

5 Recovery Plans and the Balancing of Fishing Capacity and Fishing
Possibilities: Path Dependence in the Common Fisheries Policy
By Troels Jacob Hegland and Jesper Raakjær..........................................131
5.1 Introduction..............................................................................................131
5.2 The Common Fisheries Policy.................................................................132
5.3 Towards a Common Fisheries Policy......................................................134
Contents vii
5.4 1983 to 1992 – Muddling Through Without Change...............................140
5.5 1993 to 2002 – Turning the Blind Eye to an Emerging Crisis.................146
5.6 Adoption of Recovery Plans – Hope for the Future?...............................150
5.7 Political Cleavages in EU Fisheries Policy-Making................................152

6 Implementation Politics: The Case of Denmark Under the Common
Fisheries Policy
By Troels Jacob Hegland and Jesper Raakjær..........................................161
6.1 Introduction..............................................................................................161
6.2 The Legal and Institutional Set-Up..........................................................164
6.3 Danish Fisheries and Their Management.................................................170
6.3.1 The Geographical Setting..............................................................170
6.3.2 The Fisheries and the Fish.............................................................171
6.3.3 Allocation of Fishing Rights..........................................................174
6.3.4 Structural Policy and the Fleet.......................................................179
6.3.5 Control and Enforcement...............................................................183
6.4 Danish Implementation Strategy – Domestic Driving Forces..................184
6.4.1 National Room for Manoeuvre......................................................184
6.4.2 Cleavages and Dilemmas Within Fisheries and
Within Management......................................................................185
6.4.3 Strong Individual Actors and the Existence
of Windows-of-Opportunity.........................................................188
6.4.4 Differences in Perspectives – Individual versus Collective...........196
6.5 Evaluation and Implications.....................................................................198

7 The Politics of Implementation in Resource Conservation:
Comparing the EU/Denmark and Norway
By Stig S. Gezelius, Troels Jacob Hegland, Hilary Palevsky,
and Jesper Raakjær......................................................................................207
7.1 Introduction..............................................................................................207
7.2 The Development of Multiple Agendas in Fisheries Management..........209
7.3 Mechanisms Allowing Implementation Drift..........................................213
7.4 Mechanisms Preventing Implementation Drift........................................220
7.5 Conclusion...............................................................................................225
Index...................................................................................................................231
Foreword
The state of the Northeast Atlantic fisheries in recent years has highlighted im-
plementation as the Achilles heel of modern fisheries management: discards and
unreported or misreported landings are in many cases recognised to effectively
subvert sound conservation goals. Social science literature on fisheries manage-
ment has tended to regard the implementation of resource conservation policies
mainly as a question of effective enforcement. This literature regards surveillance
and penalty as the key mechanism through which fishermen keep to catch restric-
tions and loyally report their catches. This book emerged because several years of
research on fishermen’s compliance had made us uneasy about this rather narrow
approach to the problem of implementation. This uneasiness motivated us to
widen the approach to the question of implementing conservation policies in the
fisheries.
Taking Norway as an example, its fishing fleet consists of some 7,000 vessels
spread along a coastline of more than 20,000 km, populated by less than 5 million
people. The idea of ensuring desirable behaviour through surveillance and en-
forcement alone is almost absurd in such a context, as the task is impossible by
any reasonable means. The Norwegian implementation system has thus had to rely
heavily on the incentives provided by the rules and legitimacy created through a
century of state/industry collaboration.
Different coastal states face very different conditions in terms of solving typical
implementation problems such as discards and misreporting. Fisheries manage-
ment systems are embedded in inert institutional and political structures and natu-
ral conditions that vary greatly among different states. Consequently, the research
problem invited a comparative approach, enabling us to address variety and its
causes in depth. The inertia of fisheries management systems also invited taking a
historical perspective, comparing the structural conditions and processes that
shaped the systems’ development.
The development of this project is quite illustrative of the need to widen the
perspective taken on implementation in fisheries management. In 2005, Gezelius,
with his background from fisheries compliance research in Norway, contacted Ra-
akjær, who had a background from fisheries compliance research in Denmark/ the
EU, about the need for a comparative, historically-focused project that thoroughly
addressed legal and administrative challenges associated with implementation of
fishery resource conservation goals. Gezelius’ initial idea was to compare these
challenges and solutions in Norway, the Faeroe Islands and the EU. Raakjær
subsequently got his colleague Troels Jacob Hegland involved. In their study of
implementation in the EU context Raakjær and Hegland soon realised that the
analytical perspective had to be widened even further to fully grasp the chal-
lenges of implementation in the multi-lateral context of the EU, as national
political concerns and deep conflicts of interest had distinct consequences to the
ix
x Foreword
implementation of conservation policies. Furthermore, in an EU context imple-
mentation of conservation policies cannot be separated from structural policies,
which has added to the political sensitivity of implementation. Consequently, we
had to add a new comparative dimension to the project: causes of deliberate
change of political goals during implementation. It is more than likely that includ-
ing more than the four cases described in this book would reveal other highly-
relevant aspects of the problem of implementing conservation goals in fishing.
Nevertheless, this book shall be regarded as an attempt to open a new and important
research field paying careful attention to the various aspects of implementation in
studies of fisheries management performance. We have no illusions in terms of pro-
viding a complete picture of this field, and we will use this opportunity to encourage
other scholars to supplement our work and thus strengthen our knowledge of the
often overlooked issue of implementation in fisheries management.
The research project was entitled Implementation of TACs in the Atlantic Fish-
eries (ITAC) and funded by the Research Council of Norway (NFR). It was car-
ried out from January 2006 to March 2008. The research was carried out by the
Norwegian Agricultural Economics Research Institute (NILF) in Oslo, Norway,
and Innovative Fisheries Management (IFM), Aalborg University, located at the
North Sea Centre, Hirtshals, Denmark. The research team was composed of Dr.
Stig S. Gezelius (project leader) and Dr. Maria L. Loureiro from NILF, and Pro-
fessor Jesper Raakjær and Troels Jacob Hegland from IFM.
This book has benefited from the contributions of a number of people outside
the research team and we will in particular mention Hilary Palevsky who has com-
mented on several chapters, and participated in preparatory discussions and pro-
vided writing assistance in relation to the comparative Chapter 7, which made it
natural to include her as co-author on that chapter. We have received substantial
input in turning our manuscripts into a proper book format, and we hereby express
our gratitude to Dr. Frode Veggeland and Guro Skarstad at NILF for fruitful
comments on Chapter 1, and Kirsten Klitkou at IFM for undertaking proof reading
of Chapters 1, 5–7. Thanks also to Jens Helgi Toftum at the Faeroese Ministry of
Fisheries and Marine Affairs, Jóhan Simonsen at the Faerose Fisheries Inspection,
Jakup Reinert at the Faeroese Fisheries Laboratory, Henrik Old at the Faeroese
Parliament, and Óli Jacobsen at the Faeroese Fishermen’s Association for their as-
sistance in relation to Chapter 4, and Kjartan Hoydal at NEAFC for his input to
Chapters 1 and 4. Thanks to Till Markus, University of Bremen, for providing use-
ful comments particularly on the legal aspects of the CFP in Chapter 5. We are
grateful to Christian Olesen, Danish Pelagic Producers’ Organisation and Profes-
sor Emeritus Staffan Zetterholm, Aalborg University, for very constructive com-
menting on Chapter 6. Last, but not least we are thankful to all our informants in
the Norwegian, Faeroese, and Danish fisheries administrations and fishing indus-
tries for setting aside time to discuss the problems of implementation in fisheries
management with us. Without their input, we would never have been able to write
this book together.
Foreword xi

For all chapters authors have been listed in alphabetical order, whereas the
order of the editors reflects the fact that Gezelius has undertaken the prime
editorial responsibilities, and Raakjær has been assisting in this process. Finally it
is our hope that you will enjoy the book as much as we did writing it.

Stig S. Gezelius and Jesper Raakjær