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Keynote address

Imagine all the people* Implications of an increasing role of

stakeholders (fishers) in fisheries governance and research.

Dr. Marloes Kraan

Thursday 6 March 2014

That there is a role to play for stakeholders (fishers) in fisheries management and research is

increasingly being acknowledged. What that role should be, and what it means is however not often

that clear. Having fishermen involved in research makes sense as they have a lot of knowledge about

where and how to catch fish. Likewise having them involved in management makes sense as

compliance improves if rules are understood and agreed upon. Many will acknowledge that fisheries

management is more about managing people than about managing fish. Even stronger one might

argue that if people depend on fisheries for their livelihood they will have developed rules to manage

the activity; thus management and governance is not an act of governments alone. Nevertheless

there are a couple of aspects that need to be taken into account. Involving stakeholders in

management and research also asks for: time, room to manoeuvre, dealing with uncertainty,

discussing underlying principles, dealing with worldviews and knowledge environments, allowing for

complexity and it requires new skills for scientists and managers. Based on research in Ghana and the

Netherlands I will describe the role fishermen play in fisheries governance and research and reflect

upon what is needed. By doing so, 2 big elephants in the room will be addressed; the issue of trust

and policy implications of cooperative research.

*John Lennon

8/13/2019 FDI 2014 Keynote Kraan

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Dr. Marloes Kraan

Marloes Kraan is a social scientist in the field of fisheries. Marloes Kraan completed her PhD at the

University of Amsterdam on a reseach in Ghana amongst Anlo-Ewe beach seine fishermen in three

villages along the Ghanaian coast. Her PhD thesis provides a detailed empirical description and

analysis of the Anlo-Ewe beach seine fishery in Ghana. It shows how the Anlo-Ewe beach seine

fishermen actively negotiate livelihood space in a situation of multiple governance structures and

migration.

Since 2011 she works as a researcher at IMARES (Wageningen University), a leading, independent

research institute into strategic and applied marine ecology. She is currently involved in EU projects

such as GAP2 and ODEMM and in several national projects that link fisheries, science and policy. Self-

sampling approaches are an important theme in here work. She is actively contributing to increasing

transdisciplinarity in fisheries research and improving the applicability of social science in fisheries

management. She has research experience in demersal mixed fisheries at the North Sea, small scale

fisheries in the Netherlands and Ghana, stakeholder participation processes in marine governance

and research cooperation projects.

Marloes Kraan also is an associate researcher at the Centre for Maritime Research (MARE) in

Amsterdam, an interdisciplinary social science network organization that focusses on the use and

management of marine resources.

Previously, Marloes Kraan has worked as policy officer sustainable fisheries at the Dutch Fish Product

Board.