Santiago Cerviño

Bioeconomic multistock reference points as a tool for overcoming the drawbacks of the landing obligation

Dorleta Garcı́a1*, Raúl Prellezo1, Paz Sampedro2, José Marı́a Da-Rocha3,4, José Castro5, Santiago Cerviño5, Javier Garcı́a-Cutrı́n3, and Marı́a-José Gutiérrez6 Marine Research Division, Azti, Sukarrieta, Spain Instituto Español de Oceanografı́a, A Coruña, Spain University of Vigo, Vigo, Spain Instituto Tecnológico de México, ITAM, México Instituto Español de Oceanografı́a, Vigo, Spain University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Bilbao, Spain

To shape or to be shaped: engaging stakeholders in fishery management advice

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of the collaboration between stakeholders and scientists in the construction of a bio-economic model to simulate management strategies for the fisheries in Iberian Atlantic waters. For three years, different stakeholders were involved in a model development study, participating in meetings, surveys and workshops. Participatory modelling involved the definition of objectives and priorities of stakeholders, a qualitative evaluation and validation of the model for use by decision-makers, and an iterative process with the fishing sector to interpret results and introduce new scenarios for numerical simulation. The results showed that the objectives of the participating stakeholders differed. Incorporating objectives into the design of the model and prioritising them was a challenging task. We showed that the parameterization of the model and the analysis of the scenarios results could be improved by the fishers’ input: e.g. ray and skate stocks were explicitly included in the model; and the behaviour of fleet dynamics proved much more complex than assumed in any traditional modelling approach. Overall, this study demonstrated that stakeholder engagement through dialogue and many interactions was beneficial for both, scientists and the fishing industry. The researchers obtained a final refined model and the fishing industry benefited for participating in a process, which enables them to influence decisions that may affect them directly (to shape) whereas non-participatory processes lead to management strategies being imposed on stakeholders (to be shaped).