Establishing attitudes and perceptions of recreational boat users based in the River Hamble Estuary, UK, towards Marine Conservation Zones

Research has suggested there is a need for an increased attention to the socio-cultural lifeworlds of fishers and fisheries and its importance for fisheries management. An emerging response to this call has been to examine the social and cultural contexts of ‘good fishing’ – an idea which, drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, has sought to move the discussion beyond simply the economic aspects of fishing to also understand the importance of other forms of capital. Utilising these concepts together with the conceptual idea of ‘knowledge cultures’, the following paper examines the ‘cultural sustainability’ of different ways of governing fishing practices – in particular Marine Conservation Zones and voluntary lobster v-notching using a case study approach to the small-scale fishery of Llŷn peninsula, North Wales (UK). The paper observes that those approaches that allow fishers to demonstrate skills and recognises the temporal contingency of fishing lives can be considered more culturally sustainable than others. This paper also notes that culturally acceptable changes to fishing practices can be supported by fishing regulations and, the paper suggests, such innovations are more likely to be taken up by fishers in their everyday fishing practices. The paper recommends that policies seeking to alter fishing practices consider: i) the importance fishers hold in demonstrating their skills; ii)how social relations are as important as economic aspects to fishers long-term uptake of new practices; and iii)the past and the future (such as if a successor is present) holds significance for fishers actions in the present.

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From stormy seas to the doldrums: The challenges of navigating towards an ecologically coherent MPA network through England’s Marine Conservation Zone process

10.31230/osf.io/duaxq ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Louise M. Lieberknecht ◽

Peter JS Jones

Keyword(s):

Marine Protected Areas ◽

Marine Conservation ◽

Stakeholder Groups ◽

South West ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Single Feature ◽

Form Part ◽

Scale Network ◽

Conservation Zones ◽

South West England

There is an on-going process to establish Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) in England, to form part of a coherent and representative network of marine protected areas under national and EU legislation. From 2009 to 2011, the MCZ process included strong participatory elements. Four regional multi-sector stakeholder groups developed MCZ recommendations collaboratively, in line with ecological guidance provided by the Government's nature conservation advisers. This guidance was based on Government policy principles, including that MCZs should be designated based on ‘best available evidence’. This paper analyses the multi-dimensional conflicts that emerged within the stakeholder group in south-west England, which were magnified by uncertainty about future MCZ management. In September 2011, after working through these conflicts through trade-offs and negotiations, the stakeholder groups jointly recommended 127 MCZs to Government. The process subsequently shifted to a top-down approach, with further stakeholder engagement limited to bilateral consultation. There was a concurrent shift in policy, from a broad-scale network-level focus towards single-feature conservation. A lengthy series of evidence reviews concluded that the existing evidence at the time was insufficient to progress with the designation of most sites, marking a clear departure from the policy principle of proceeding with the designation of a representative network based on ‘best available evidence’, and effectively undermining the work carried out by stakeholder groups. Though MCZ designation was originally timetabled for 2012, in November 2013 just 27 of the recommended 127 MCZs were designated in a first tranche. At the time, no clear timetable was in place for subsequent tranches.

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