Activities & Events

Members of FISHGOVNET get together in various constellations at workshops, conferences and meetings all around the world. Often these gatherings involve presentations and discussions of papers, or the planning of new projects. The biennial MARE People and the Sea Conference (next to be held in July 2011) is the regular rendez-vous site.

Following the publication of Fish for Life (2005) and Interactive governance for fisheries: a guide for practice (2005), the network decided on a new collective enterprise – the elaboration of the concept ‘governability’. Governability – defined as the propensity for successful governance –  emerged in the last chapters of Fish for Life. The network felt that this concept, which links theory with practice and raises interesting questions with regard to assessment, could be the cornerstone of a new set of joint activities with regard to fisheries and aquaculture. The realization of a special issue in the Journal Transdisciplinary Environmental Studies (Volume 7.1, 2008) on governability and interactive governance was the first step. An organized symposium attended by several members of the Network at the American Fisheries Society 138th Annual Meeting in Ottawa in 2008 culminated in a special issue in the September 2010 issue of Fish and Fisheries. Currently, the network is preparing a full-fledged monograph centering on the governability topic. It will hopefully be published in 2011 in time for the MARE People and the Sea Conference VI.

Other key gatherings include:

  • Fisheries Governance course, Wageningen, 26th of September till 14th of October 2011 (for more information see: http://www.cdi.wur.nl/UK/newsagenda/agenda/Fisheries_governance.htm)
  • ‘Fisheries Governance: New Lenses for Sustainable Futures’ symposium at the American Fisheries Society 138th Annual Meeting, Ottawa, August 2008
  • ‘MPA Governability’ symposium at International Marine Conservation Congress, Washington DC, USA, May 2009
  • ‘Assessing the Governability of Fisheries in a Global Perspective: Where to Look (1) and (2)’ and ‘Governability Analysis and Step Zero in MPAs’ organized panels at MARE People and the Sea Conference V, July 2009
  • ‘Fisheries as Wicked Problems’ symposium, St. John’s, Canada, November 2009
  • ‘Globalization of MPAs: Trends and Governability Challenges’ symposium at the Society for Applied Anthropology 70th Annual Meeting, Merida, Mexico, March 2010
  • World Small-Scale Fisheries Congress, Thailand, Bangkok, October 2010