Small-Scale Fisheries in Europe: Status, Resilience and Governance (eBook)

This book offers a comprehensive account of the status and dynamics of people participating in the small-scale fisheries (SSF) of Europe. It covers the situation of SSF in 25 coastal countries, thereby providing a portrait of almost every coastal country on the continent and analyzing the recent evolution of the sector. Small-scale fisheries are argued to be extremely important in Europe, as they provide employment and welfare, while increasing food sovereignty and maintaining communities in coastal areas. The recent worldwide focus on SSF derives from their environmental sustainability, which distinguishes many of their activities from those of large-scale fisheries. This book analyses the diversity of SSF and shows how fishing communities have sometimes developed successful governing models, demonstrating social and economic resilience. While the book emphasizes the strengths of SSF and the synergies that occur with other marine sectors, it also presents cases of failure, in which collective action and policy have actually contributed to a weakening of the sector. In this context, the book shows how governmental policies toward SSF vary considerably from country to country, in a way that is not entirely consistent with European policies.

José J. Pascual-Fernández is a Professor of Social Anthropology at the Universidad de La Laguna (Tenerife, Spain). His research has been related to fisheries and coastal zones, focusing on governance, gender, marine protected areas, coastal tourism, recreational marine activities, fisher organizations, and fisheries markets. In the last 10 years, he has been involved as a principal investigator at the ULL in more than 20 competitive projects or research contracts, including several involving market innovations in partnership with fisher organizations. He is currently the Director of the Institute of Social Research and Tourism (ISTUR) at ULL.

Cristina Pita, PhD in Social and Environmental Sustainability, is a Senior Researcher at Center of Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM) and the University of Aveiro, Portugal. She has been engaged in several projects and has published extensively on small-scale fisheries, seafood value chain and market initiatives for small-scale fisheries, fisheries governance, coastal community development, fisheries (commercial and recreational) management and socioeconomics, and sustainable use of marine resources.

 Maarten Bavinck is a Professor in the Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies (GPIO) of the University of Amsterdam and a member of the Governance and Inclusive Development programme group. He also holds a chair in coastal resource governance at the Norwegian Fisheries College of UiT - The Arctic University of Norway. Dr. Bavinck specializes in the governance of capture fisheries, particularly in the South, and is especially interested in the fate of small-scale fisher peoples. He is the founder and co-director of the social-science Centre for Maritime Studies (MARE).