MARE People and the Sea X

Chaired by: Kraan, M.

Operationalizing and guiding sustainability in aquaculture. Web-portal with sustainability indicators for salmon farming in Norway.
Eirik Mikkelsen, Kine Mari Karlsen, Roy Robertsen, Ulf Winther & Roger Richardsen

Sustainability is an elusive term, yet one that is widely used, not least in policy documents. This is true also regarding aquaculture in Norway. The Norwegian Aquaculture Act has the term as part of its stated purpose (§1), and the parliamentary white paper that lead to the latest major change in management regime for the industry had the term in its title. As the management and public policies for Norwegian aquaculture include both economic, social and environmental dimensions of aquaculture, and also ambitions and arrangements for growth, it fit well into the policy paradigm of blue and sustainable growth. This presentation will introduce a web-portal with sustainability indicators for Norwegian salmon and trout farming, and discuss how indicators there relate to existing and possible management rules and regulations. This will be analysed together with results from a survey on which sustainability themes that people in Norway are particularly concerned about regarding salmon aquaculture.


Automatic Identification Services and Maritime Rescue
Terence Rudolph

What happens when small, unsafe and unregistered boats loaded with migrants come up against the massive cargo and tanker ships that sustain the global economy? My central research question focuses on identifying the factors that influence decisions by commercial ship captains to rescue, or not to rescue, migrants on the Mediterranean Sea. Semi-structured interviews with 24 maritime professionals formed the basis of this research project. These interviews provide insights into data gathered from an empirical method for tracking commercial ships that have been involved in a rescue. Information collected from freedom of information requests (FOI’s) provides, in some cases, the names of commercial ships that have rescued migrants in the central Mediterranean. It provides important empirical data and categories of analysis for humanitarian maritime rescue efforts. The use of Automatic Identification Services —which is mandated by the International Convention of the Law of Sea— allow vessel traffic services VTS to identify and locate a ships, position, permits, course and speed at sea. Humanitarian organizations, state-sponsored security organizations, the commercial shipping industry and human smugglers employ these geographic surveillance technologies. They render the human geography of the most deadly contemporary migratory routes more visible.



Acceptance of aquaculture growth by non-aquaculture industry stakeholders
Jahn Petter Johnsen & Signe A. Sonvisen

There is a vision of a fivefold increase in Norwegian aquaculture production by 2050 (the 2050-vision). Given that the ocean and the coastal zone is not mare nullius, there is an ongoing discussion of the effects of this growth on other ocean and coastal industries. This paper explores the social acceptance of the 2050-vision by exploring how the vision is received by non-aquaculture industry stakeholders. As social acceptance is a discursive phenomenon constructed in a relational system of meanings, ideas, knowledge and experience, this paper studies discursively how knowledge, interests and expression related to the 2050-vision is expressed in policy documents in stakeholder organizations.