No abstract

Brexit poses a major challenge to the stability of European fisheries management. Until now, neighbouring EU Member States have shared the bounty of the living resources of the seas around Britain. Taking full responsibility for the regulation of fisheries within the UK's Exclusive Economic Zone will cut across longstanding relationships, potentially putting at risk recent recovery and future sustainability of shared fish stocks. The paper considers the meaning of Brexit in relation to fisheries and the issues that will need to be resolved in any rebalancing of fishing opportunities within the UK EEZ. It examines the longer term implications for the governance of fisheries and the likely restructuring of institutional and regulatory arrangements, emphasising the prior need for a shared vision and robust modus operandi for collaboration between the UK and EU to ensure the sustainability of resources, viability of fishing activity and the health of marine ecosystems.

No abstract

This article discusses the precarious situation of Europe's coastal fisheries in an increasingly complex world where environmental, economic, political and social instabilitieseither separately or interactively -threaten their future sustainability. It draws particular attention to key lessons from resilience thinking and the role that social sciences can play in developing a deeper understanding of the nature of change and the processes shaping the vulnerability, resilience and adaptation of fishing communities and livelihoods, as well as the dangers implicit in certain aspects of fisheries policy. The article concludes by introducing the articles in this special issue of Sociologia Ruralis on 'Resilience and Adaptation of Fishing Communities'.

The European Union (EU) has been slow to recognise the benefits of regionalising the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and even now the Commission's advocacy appears to lack the assuredness of conviction. To understand this reluctant conversion, the paper explains how increasing pressures for radical reformenlargement, increasing diversity, expanding scope, budgetary pressures, the quest for good governance and an awareness of the CFP as a failing system -have encountered powerful forces for conservatism both within the legal structures of the EU and the development of the CFP itself which discourage transformational change. The paper traces the history of regionalisation up to its inclusion in the 2012 reform agenda and explores alternative forms of regionalising EU fisheries management and some of the key issues surrounding the successful completion of the project. Regionalising the CFP is seen not as an end in itself but as a means of repairing its damaged reputation and securing the effective delivery of the Policy's objectives.