the ENGO “high-water mark” of influence over the reformed CFP
came with the Green Paper in 2001. After that, opposition to the
environmental agenda hardened in the Council because the
ENGO influence within southern member states (the self-styled
“Friends of Fishing” countries) is too weak. Regarding the UK,
Symes and Boyes (2005: p. 39) do not deny that the fishing indus-
try is heavily regulated, but they claim that the strict regulation is
still designed for fisheries protection, not for environmental pro-
tection (cf. Coffey, 1996: p. 289).
Moreover, even when environmental legislation is in place to
curb fisheries, there is often little attempt to enforce it. For
example, Richartz (2005: p. 7) reports extensive backsliding by
France and Italy in evading the 1998 EU driftnet ban: “gaping
holes in compliance with the EU drift net ban established by
Regulation 1239
/
98
. . .
call into question the Member States’
commitment to sustainable fisheries in the Mediterranean”.
Which conception of environmental stewardship?
In our opinion, the case for environmental stewardship as a new
form of fisheries governance is stronger than the case against: on
balance, there does seem to have been a shift from fisheries protec-
tion to environmental protection. However, is this newly emer-
gent environmental stewardship founded upon the conception of
nature conservationism or the conception of sustainable develop-
ment? We find elements of both conceptions embedded in five of
the six sources of environmental stewardship identified earlier.
For example, marine scientists are divided between advocates
of nature conservation and advocates of sustainable development.
Similarly, while most international regimes adopt the nature
conservation perspective, at least one, the FAO, strongly endorses
the sustainable development perspective, as outlined by Pope
et al.
(2006: p. 3): “Long-term management of fisheries is linked
closely with the concept of sustainable development .
. . .
The
modern concept of sustainability is seen as having at least four
components: bio-ecological; social; economic; and institutional”.
Government policies also reveal ambiguity, repeatedly qualify-
ing their commitments to nature conservation by adding socio-
economic riders. For instance, in its discussion document on the
EMS, CEC (2004: p. 1) states that this “thematic strategy for the
protection and conservation of the European marine environ-
ment” has the “overall aim ‘
to promote sustainable use of the seas
and conserve marine ecosystems’”
(emphasis in the original). The
same applies to UK government rhetoric: in his address to the
Coastal Futures Conference, Morley (2005) says that: “We wish to
protect and enhance what we have whilst at the same time deriv-
ing sustainable economic and social benefit”.
Even ENGOs, in their collaborative mode, support sustainable
development objectives, by assisting sustainable fisheries, while
the media extol the place of fish protein in a healthy diet and
public
opinion
sympathizes
with
the
plight
of
beleaguered
fisheries-dependent communities. Only NCAs seem to enunciate
an
