Understanding Fishermen-Scientist Collaboration in Galician Small-Scale Fisheries (NW Spain): Validating a Methodological Toolbox Through a Process-Oriented Approach

Abstract

In the early 1990s, Galician Regional Government introduced a community-based fishery management system for some sedentary-invertebrate resources. This meant the introduction of territorial use rights, which provided greater autonomy to decision-making, regulation, control, management and resources assessment. Nevertheless, after three decades, shallow achievements were built upon the collaboration between science and fisheries. The GAP Galician Case Study was born as an attempt to strengthen long-term collaboration among fishermen, scientist, and policy-makers. Taking into account the background and lessons learnt in similar processes, the research team tried together with relevant fishing actors, to collect meaningful information, to initially conduct a building process of a marine reserve, establishing new management formulas through the exploration of use rights for local users. Social and political constraints resulted in an adjustment of the original approach, focusing the CS on the collection of information on marine ecosystems and fisheries. Recovering local knowledge through the design and implementation of participatory tools, it was possible to address accurate spatial information about marine ecosystems and fishing activity, always challenging to achieve in small-scale fisheries. Beside technical outcomes, the Galician CS was an experiment to put some light into process-oriented approaches that enable collaboration among fishermen, scientists and policy-makers.