A “watered-down” solution? Deconstructing the ecosystem approach in Swedish policy affecting fisheries management

Abstract

This study seeks to deconstruct an ecosystem approach in Swedish national policy pertaining to fisheries management, not least because fisheries are integral to the global agenda of improved marine environmental status. The ’ecosystem approach’ is identified across European Union (EU) policy as the pathway for sustainable management of natural resources, due to its ambition to balance a diversity of interests and account for social and ecological interdependencies within and across ecosystems. Yet an ambiguous and inconsistent representation of the ecosystem approach in policy makes it difficult to implement. In EU policy and many other contexts, the ecosystem approach is largely uncontested as the solution for sustainably managing resources yet can lead to unintended material consequences based on how it is implemented. It therefore becomes pertinent to critically analyze what the ‘ecosystem approach’ solution is represented to be across policy calling for its implementation. Using a poststructuralist approach to analyze three of Sweden’s national policy documents pertaining to fisheries, my study finds that the ecosystem approach in these policy documents is ‘watered-down’ in terms of its use as a solution for making fisheries management more sustainable. At a minimum, implementing an ecosystem approach in fisheries requires a consistent definition of what this entails. Yet differences between the documents in terms of whether they assume a systemic approach that accounts for intersectoral impacts, and the extent to which they prioritize industry, people, or nature, makes the implementation of an ecosystem approach in Swedish fisheries management improbable. Should policy pertaining to fisheries in Sweden wish to manage ecosystems sustainably, I suggest it needs to better account for land-sea interactions to incorporate the social and ecological impacts of the fishing sector more strategically.