Marine governance is shown to be quite challenging due to conflicting interests and system complexity. Sustainable fisheries and the protection of biodiversity and ecosystems are two key issues within marine governance that are associated with partly overlapping and partly conflicting aims. Although both sustainable fisheries and protection depend on healthy ecosystems, the two associated governance streams are based on different worldviews and involve different actors. The quite ambitious objective of this book is to understand and explain how the governance of marine fisheries and the governance of biodiversity conservation have developed and interacted. The book presents marine governance from a broad range of scales and perspectives: global, regional, national and local – economic, historical, spatial, scientific, juridical, institutional, capacity, interests, roles, etc.
The contents of the book are as follows. The forewords of the book are written by external authors representing different academic disciplines and roles in marine governance. The book chapters are then structured in six parts. The first part covers the main global developments regarding the two streams of governance, i.e. marine fisheries and biodiversity conservation. In this part, key ideas and events developing each of the streams are presented, supplemented with an assessment of to what extent and how the two streams have developed in relation to each other. Whether there has been a coevolution or convergence is discussed, and some of the challenges of integrating the streams are presented.
While Part I sketches the overall lines of development, Part II goes deeper into six central features of governance. These are what the authors denote as bio-ecological, economic, social, legal, spatial and scientific dimensions of the governance streams. The chapters present an overview of the main ideas, principles and instruments related to governance within each dimension. Part III is on global governance. It seeks to explain why it is difficult to reach international agreements and why the two streams are not integrated more than they are. Further, some of these integration obstacles are exemplified through a presentation of two central issues in both streams: the risk of extinction and area protection, where the streams operate with different criteria for labelling extinct species and vulnerable or significant areas.
The next part moves the focus from dealing with the streams on a global scale to a regional scale. Part IV begins by presenting conditions and frameworks for regional governance, followed by chapters on selected regional governance bodies. These are described and accompanied by discussions on successes and challenges. The part on regional governance is followed by a part on national governance. Part V provides examples of national frameworks from both developed and developing countries, drawing quite different pictures of conditions for successes and failures. These chapters have fisheries as a starting point and discuss processes, factors and tools derived from both streams that have influenced governance outcomes. The described and discussed features range broadly and include political will, enforcement, knowledge basis, stakeholders’ conflicting goals, fishermen’s livelihood, the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), participatory processes, etc. Several of these chapters are on small-scale fisheries. The last part of the book, Part VI, consists of one chapter, synthesizing the book. It offers reflections on presented challenges and on the streams’ future development.
The main thread throughout the book is naturally the two governance streams. Some of the chapters deal explicitly with explaining differences between the two streams and how they have interacted through coevolution or convergence (the first part and the last chapter in particular). Other chapters handle the topic more descriptively – presenting regulatory or conceptual frameworks of the streams. Although integrating the two streams has been shown to be challenging, the implementation of regulations often constitutes a far greater obstacle. Part V in particular discusses these problems and how to overcome them. The book thus contains developments of the two governance streams, descriptions of relevant concepts, laws, conventions and institutions, and discussions on challenges.
A significant strength of the book is its multi-disciplinary approach combined with the contributors’ collective hands-on experience. Together they offer considerable insights and rich descriptions. Each chapter offers new insights in the topic, and no chapter is redundant. Because of the book’s richness of perspectives and its structure, it is excellent for looking up various topics of interest, whether the reader is a newcomer to the field or is knowledgeable in areas of the book. The book is therefore suitable for anyone addressing fisheries governance and/or biodiversity conservation. It is not a book you read from cover to cover; rather, it may serve as a reference book with relevant discussions and reflections.
The style of the chapters varies. The first four parts in particular are written in a rather textbook style, offering thorough descriptions of the topic from various points of departure, whether this is an economic incentives point of view or a regional institutional point of view. Tensions and conflicts are treated rather secondarily and often introduced in chapter conclusions, as for instance on whether there is a convergence or coevolution of the two streams (Chapter 2). References may be made to controversial issues and crisis situations without making explicit reference to what these are (e.g. Chapter 16). Chapter 6 on equity challenges, on the other hand, puts conflicts at the centre of debates, and Chapters 10 and 11 on global governance refer to particular conflicts at identified meetings on global agreements, which gives the reader a feel for what was considered to be at stake. Also, the chapters on national governance provide insights in conflicts of interests, in particular related to the small-scale fisheries.
The challenges of sustainable fisheries and biodiversity protection are plentiful. First of all, the two governance streams are based on different worldviews, where one is related to protecting ecosystems for the sake of food supply and income, while the other is related to protection for the sake of nature itself. Although the worldviews are different, the book shows how common goals have resulted in similar evolutions or cooperation between the streams. These worldviews are essential for understanding the two governance streams. They are naturally referred to in several places in the book, but to get a deeper understanding, the book might have benefited from further elaborating on the worldview differences.
The book further displays a range of challenges to the governance streams at every spatial level and also interactions between levels. The great variety of examples showing that a success in one domain does not necessarily ensure success in others makes this book a significant contribution. For instance, Part V shows that global agreements do not guarantee that these are followed on a regional or national level. Explanatory factors include lack of power or political will (Chapter 25) or lack of overlapping or collaborating institutions that ensure that global agreements are made operational (Chapters 23 and 26). Perhaps more important, some governance instruments may be practical in developed countries, but because of political realities and/or because peoples’ livelihoods critically depend on local fisheries, the instruments may be rather irrelevant in developing countries (Chapters 21, 24 and 25). An addressed problem is that global governance processes are dominated by countries in the north (Chapter 16), which for instance challenges the EU’s collaboration with other Mediterranean countries (Chapter 17). However, even within the EU, fisheries regulations are not effective because there is no control system in place (Chapter 20).
The success stories in the book provide some hope and guidance for future development, but at the same time, the examples show dependency on sometimes fragile conditions for success. The chapter on governance of the Antarctic marine ecosystems demonstrates its success in terms of conservation and ecosystem-based fisheries, but points out that there is a fragility in that one dissent among the state members can ruin what has been achieved (Chapter 18). Another interesting success story in the book is related to selected tropical small-scale fisheries (Chapter 23). The authors show that co-management is a key to success and describe how sectors and NGOs are involved throughout all management stages. They also argue that the stakeholders need to feel the consequences of unsustainable practice immediately in order for participatory processes to be efficient. Capacity-building among stakeholders and institutions is another argued criterion for success (Chapters 25 and 26).
The book often highlights co-management and other participatory processes as a key to the future success of the two governance streams, and that especially governance of biodiversity needs to move more in this direction. The collected discussions on successes and failures in the book indicate that co-management is challenging, and that this is an area that needs further elaboration.
Another topic recurring in the book is the need for more scientific knowledge and to standardize science, in particular in relation to cooperation between the governance streams. A chapter of its own is devoted to the scientific foundations of the streams (Chapter 9) and explains why scientific knowledge can never be complete, but will always be associated with uncertainty. The book provides pertinent examples of uncertainty that cannot be eliminated or controlled where it describes the different ways the streams have chosen to make concepts operational related to species extinction (Chapter 13) and to significant or vulnerable areas (Chapter 14). With frequent calls for improved scientific knowledge, the book might have benefited from discussing whether the tensions between the two governance streams also may be constructive for developing new ideas for knowledge production and for avoiding too rigid scientific frameworks. Is there a limit to how common science should be within the two streams? The same question could be asked concerning shared values. An underlying value assumption throughout the book is that challenges would be reduced if the two governance streams are further merged, and that it will serve the good.
The synthesizing chapter (Chapter 29) concludes that there are limits to how much the two governance streams can merge due to value perspectives on what is the right outcome. It suggests that a third governance stream – a multi-sectoral governance stream – might be a way to deal with the multi-faceted interests of marine usage and its many challenges. The book rarely mentions sectors besides fisheries, but conflicts with the offshore petroleum sector are brought up (Chapter 19) and a multi-sectoral approach in participatory processes is called for (Chapter 23). The multiple interests and conflicts of the oceans are pertinent indeed, but there are limits to what a single book can contain. This means that although this book is thorough and extensive on many aspects of marine governance, a follow-up is called for where other marine sectors and co-management is discussed in depth.
Taken together, the book is an accomplishment in that it has managed to include perspectives from a range of disciplines, providing a unique richness of perspectives and detailed descriptions of management bodies, instruments, frameworks, concepts, ideas, regulations and laws. It is a valuable book for anyone addressing fisheries governance and/or biodiversity conservation and a must for a wide range of libraries.
Kjellrun Hiis Hauge
Associate Professor
Department of Education, Bergen University College, PO 7030, 5020 Bergen, Norway
E-mail: [email protected]
© 2015 Kjellrun Hiis Hauge