Stakeholder preferences for Danish fisheries management of sand eel and Norway pout

What does stakeholder involvement mean for fisheries management?

“…In the context of managing European Union (EU) fisheries, we identified the most important stakeholder groups as (1) the top of the decision-making tree in top-down governance structures, consisting of administrative entities, which encompass the European Commission and national authorities such as managers and policy makers; (2) the scientists who provide management advice, based both on biological status of the commercial stocks and social considerations such as employment; (3) the stakeholder groups with an economic interest in fisheries activities including fishers, fishers' organizations, fishing companies, the processing industry, and marketing and export organizations; and (4) civil society organizations, including environmental nongovernmental organizations (ENGOs), e.g., bird or whale watchers, and the more traditional ENGOs such as Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund, which have over recent decades taken an increased interest in the impacts of fisheries activities (Mardle et al 2004, Hatchard 2005, Nielsen and Mathiesen 2006. The general public may also have interest in http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol19/iss4/art35/ fisheries, but we assumed that they would have to form pressure groups and thus be a part of the ENGOs to have any effect on fishing activities.…”

“…Both approaches demonstrated that maintaining regional employment, a subcategory under objective 2, was of greatest importance, followed by sustainable commercial stocks, a subcategory under objective 1, and that this ranking was uniform across all stakeholder groups. Nielsen and Mathiesen (2006) and Pascoe et al (2009) each also used the AHP approach on their own data sets. Nielsen and Mathiesen (2006) included 12 stakeholder groups: 3 groups representing the harvest sector, 1 group representing the processing industry, 2 groups representing national administration, 1 group each representing trade union and scientists, and 4 groups representing ENGOs; of these, 9 were domestic, i.e., Danish, and 3 foreign, i.e., United Kingdom, in their study of management preferences in the industrial fisheries for Norwegian pout (Trisopterus esmarkii) and sandeel (Ammodytes marinus) in Denmark.…”

“…Nielsen and Mathiesen (2006) and Pascoe et al (2009) each also used the AHP approach on their own data sets. Nielsen and Mathiesen (2006) included 12 stakeholder groups: 3 groups representing the harvest sector, 1 group representing the processing industry, 2 groups representing national administration, 1 group each representing trade union and scientists, and 4 groups representing ENGOs; of these, 9 were domestic, i.e., Danish, and 3 foreign, i.e., United Kingdom, in their study of management preferences in the industrial fisheries for Norwegian pout (Trisopterus esmarkii) and sandeel (Ammodytes marinus) in Denmark. They considered economic, political, and biological interests, and demonstrated that the harvest, processing, and trade union stakeholder groups scored economic interests as most important; all other Danish stakeholders scored highest on biological interests.…”

Preference Modeling to Support Stakeholder Outreach toward the Common Fishery Policy Objectives in the North Mediterranean Sea

“…Regarding the AHP, which is used in a very wide range of areas with complex decision and evaluation problems (Andalecio, 2010;Kavadas et al, 2015;Rossetto et al, 2015), we identified clear benefits such as eliciting priorities among stakeholders and taking responsibilities (Nielsen and Mathiesen, 2006). AHP is also an empowering, communicating, and quantifying tool that may allow stakeholder engagement, which is usually omitted from the formal decision-making process (Leung, 2006;Brooks et al, 2015).…”

“…Conversely, higher preferences were given to the ecological indicators, indicating that stakeholders focus more on population state indicators than on impact indicators, as also pinpointed by Nielsen and Mathiesen (2006) in an AHP application.…”