Abstract
Norway is the world's leader in the production and export of farmed Atlantic salmon, and authorities there recently established a new management regime for the industry with a view to promoting substantial long-term growth in the industry. The decision by the government suggests broad acceptance for the industry in Norway, but there have been some danger signs with respect to the industry's social acceptance. This paper examines the comments submitted by a wide variety of key stakeholders on the 2014 management proposal to extract the major concerns of Norwegian stakeholders, map how wide-spread these are and evaluate whether they suggest a problem for the social acceptance of the industry at the general and local levels. Findings are analyzed using Wüstenhagen et al.’s three-fold classification of social acceptance: socio-political, community and market acceptance. In addition, findings are compared to six factors commonly suggested to affect community acceptance for innovations such as aquaculture sites. Results suggest that there are widespread environmental and socio-economic concerns with respect to the salmon aquaculture industry. Stakeholder concerns regarding issues of distributional justice may be addressed while stakeholders with strong concerns about the environmental impact of the industry are unlikely to be appeased, especially if environmental concerns are related to issues of identity or aesthetics. Submissions from Northern Norway, likely to be a major area for industry expansion indicate, a strong division on the social acceptability of the industry.
Highlights
Norway is the world’s leader in the production and export of farmed Atlantic salmon ([1] p. 44), and authorities have recently established a new management regime for the industry with a view to promoting long-term growth in the industry [2,3]
The “Draft white paper for the Storting [Parliament] on growth in salmon and sea trout aquaculture” (Høringsnotat – melding til Stortinget om vekst i norsk lakse-og ørretoppdrett) [8] proposed three alternative frameworks for the expansion of the industry: 1) continuing the current system of allocation rounds with objective criteria to be determined at each round, 2) a fixed annual growth rate, or 3) a system based on ”action rules” that would determine whether growth would be permitted in each of several “production areas” ([8] p. 5)
To investigate the social acceptance of the salmon aquaculture in dustry and its expansion in Norway, we looked at stakeholder comments to the draft white paper (DWP) submitted in late 2014 or early 2015
Summary
Norway is the world’s leader in the production and export of farmed Atlantic salmon ([1] p. 44), and authorities have recently established a new management regime for the industry with a view to promoting long-term growth in the industry [2,3]. There seems to be broad social acceptance for salmon aquaculture [4,5] – what Wüstenhagen et al [6] call socio-political acceptance – at the level of the general public in Norway. Such an assumption is reasonable: Norway has several decades of experience with the industry, a strong research community and a capable state with a strong tradition of monitoring and oversight. An industry expansion of this size requires broad general social acceptance in the country Because it will require new aquaculture sites and the expansion of capacity in established locations, it will require acceptance at the level of the local communities that will have to host these sites. Alternative three is referred to here as “the proposed plan”
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