Collaborative Governance in Fisheries Management

Collaborative governance in fisheries management refers to institutional arrangements and decision-making processes in which government agencies, fishers, scientists, non-governmental organisations and other stakeholders share authority, responsibility and resources to plan, implement and monitor sustainable fisheries. By moving away from top-down regulatory approaches, collaborative governance seeks to integrate diverse sources of knowledge—ranging from quantitative stock assessments to local ecological observations—and to align incentives through co-management, stakeholder partnerships and participatory decision-support. Central objectives include building trust among actors, enhancing legitimacy of management measures, reducing conflict and promoting adaptive responses to ecological and social change. In practice, this can involve joint data-collection programmes, transdisciplinary research platforms, community-based monitoring and formal advisory councils. Such arrangements have been shown to improve compliance, generate more relevant data and foster resilience in socio-ecological systems. With marine ecosystems under pressure from climate change, overexploitation and shifting policy landscapes, collaborative governance is increasingly recognised as a means to reconcile ecological sustainability with the economic and cultural needs of fishing communities worldwide.

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Collaborative Governance in Fisheries Management publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in collaborative governance in fisheries management across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Collaborative governance: A framework in which multiple stakeholders share decision-making authority and responsibility to manage common resources.

Co-management: A system of resource governance in which government bodies and resource users jointly develop and enforce management measures.

Transdisciplinary processes: Integrated approaches that combine disciplinary expertise with stakeholder knowledge to address complex socio-ecological problems.

Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK): Place-based observations and understanding of marine systems held by fishers and other coastal communities.

Social capital: The networks of trust, norms and mutual obligations that facilitate cooperation among stakeholders in governance contexts.

References

1. Navigating diverse commercial fisher perspectives for effective knowledge exchange in fisheries research and management. Environmental Science & Policy (2024).
2. A will-o’-the wisp? On the utility of voluntary contributions of data and knowledge from the fishing industry to marine science. Frontiers in Marine Science (2022).
3. Reflecting on the importance of open communication and social capital for the co-creation of knowledge in Irish fisheries. Frontiers in Marine Science (2023).