Alternatives to sustainable seafood certifications: Transitions of small-scale fisheries governance in northeastern Japan

Abstract

Landscape pressures in fisheries governance systems ranging from the impacts of climate change to the detrimental impacts of overfishing are beginning to pressure regime actors to act. One way regime actors have responded to fisheries issues is through the promotion of sustainable seafood certification. In this paper, we utilize the Pathway for Transitions (Geels and Schot, 2007) as a theoretical lens to examine how the sustainable seafood certification innovation represents a transformation pathway through regime actors' power. In addition, we bring light to alternative niche groups which base their governance strategies on local ecological knowledge and work to be inclusive of small-scale fishers. In many traditional fishing communities in Japan, local knowledge structures regarding social-ecological systems are crucial for sustainable governance. While some studies have been done on sustainable seafood certification, how they impact local knowledge structures has yet to be fully examined. We found, despite local knowledge structures theoretically acknowledged, powerful political-economic actors do not draw from them, but instead push for sustainable seafood certification as a way to cope with external shocks. Our research illuminates three groups which highlight important aspects of sustainable governance at the niche level, demonstrating the need to incorporate power dynamics as a factor in sustainability transitions. They include; 1) a NGO actively governing through local knowledge, 2) inclusive governance activities, and, 3) a platform for small-scale fishers’ agency. If regime-level innovations, such as sustainable seafood certification, continue to determine how sustainability should be practiced, local knowledge structures will be lost to standardization. We contend that by acknowledging and utilizing local knowledge from local actors, it could contribute to a more just form of governance through equitable participation of small-scale fishers and their local ecological knowledge validated.