From user-groups to stakeholders? The public interest in fisheries management

Fisheries management has long been characterised by strong user-group invol vement, created to enhance the legitimacy and proficiency of decisions. Due to perennial problems of overfishing and resource depletion, the privilege d position of users are increasingly being challenged, and there have been calls for more inclusive and democratic institutions. Fish, it is argued, i s a public resource and should be managed through institutional arrangement s that take the public interest into account. Taking the demands for more i nclusive and transparent management institutions as our starting point, the article addresses some of the issues emanating from a stakeholder approach to fisheries management. Against the backdrop of stakeholder theory, as it has been developed in the literature on business management, we attempt to identify-and classify-those with a legitimate stake in the fisheries. We a lso address some of the problems and complexities of stakeholder management , and conclude with a discussion of some of the central issues and challeng es pertaining to the creation of more inclusive and transparent institution s in fisheries management. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserv ed.