Incorporating Sociocultural Values in Fisheries Ecosystem Planning

The need for holistic ecosystem-based approaches to fisheries management is recognized in both legal and scientific frameworks where sustainable ecological, economic and social outcomes are established goals of well-managed fisheries. In practice, however, understanding and accounting for non-economic social outcomes and values have proven more difficult. These difficulties stem as much from issues related to lack of science capacity as they do from ecosystem values diversity, limited data availability, scale mismatch and inadequate participation in decision-making. As a result, broad and robust sociocultural considerations are frequently neglected in ecosystem assessments and planning. This presentation outlines concrete steps that can be taken to incorporate sociocultural values into fisheries ecosystem plans. An array of sociocultural dimensions (e.g. way of life, sense of place, local knowledge, social cohesion and equity) will be identified, laying the groundwork for a discussion on opportunities and challenges to incorporating sociocultural considerations in fisheries ecosystem management. Guidance is then provided for including these components when assessing tradeoffs and vulnerabilities in marine ecosystems. Neglecting sociocultural information in ecosystem assessments is not simply a problem of underdeveloped planning tools; rather this omission may have implications for equity, fulfilling legal mandates, and socio-ecological sustainability.