8/13/2019 FDI 2014 Keynote Kraan
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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.
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