Taskforce on Ocean Governance

Fisheries

People all over the world rely on fisheries for food, jobs, and ecosystem services, yet many fish stocks are moderately to severely overfished. Despite a proliferation of new actors (Agency) involved in fisheries (Allocation and Access) and their repeated attempts to reform (Adaptiveness) the variety of institutions governing these fish stocks (Architecture), illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing remains significant in many places and even regulated areas continue to see negative outcomes (Accountability). Many people in the fishing industry struggle due to the combined pressures of overfishing, overcapitalization, climate change, coastal development, marine pollution, globalization (trade, market, labor, and human trafficking issues), technological development, and organized crime.

The current governance system of international fisheries governance has tremendous room for improvement. We observe that there are few social scientists involved in international fisheries management and few large-scale social science research initiatives. One way in which this section can help is by fostering the sharing of disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary insights within a broad fisheries governance community. Members of this section explore all of these different aspects of fisheries governance and may have cross-cutting interests with Aquaculture, Climate Change, Coastal Communities, Conflict and Diplomacy, Space and Ecosystem Based Management, and Trade and Globalization, among others.

If you’d like to join the cluster, please click here to become a member. This will allow you to post information on the page and give you the opportunity to receive information and updates via the Oceans Taskforce listserve.

While we do not have funding ourselves, we do hope to foster joint projects via Working Groups, which would bring together cluster members to write grant proposals, put together collected volumes/special issues, or develop webinars, workshops, syllabi, or similar products. All projects should focus on the cluster topic and fit within the ESG Science Plan (http://www.earthsystemgovernance.org/research-agenda/). Working group members should come from more than one institution and should have sufficient expertise to accomplish project goals. Forming a working group can help you to expand your professional network. It will also provide mentoring from the cluster leaders and access to logistical support like web-conferencing from ESG headquarters. To submit a Working Group proposal, please fill out this form and send it to the cluster leader(s) listed below. If you’d like to propose a Working Group that fits in more than one cluster, please send it to the leaders of each cluster in a single e-mail. Scroll down for descriptions of active Working Groups.

Cluster Leaders:

Atsushi Ishii
Tohoku University, Japan
atsushi.ishii.b7@tohoku.ac.jp

Jennifer Bailey
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
jennifer.bailey@svt.ntnu.no

James Hollway
Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Switzerland
james.hollway@graduateinstitute.ch

Active Working Groups: