Conversations with the IFCA FINAL

Conversations with the IFCA Inshore Fisheries & Conservation Authorities of England

Summary For Policy Makers

Authored by Dr Sarah Coulthard, Newcastle University

December 2024

Conversations with the IFCA

Full report available at

www.association-ifca.org.uk/ report-out-on-ifcas-performance/

Citation: Coulthard, S (2024). Conversations with the IFCA. Recognising achievement and strengthening capacity in the delivery of regional co- management of England's inshore waters, Summary for policy makers. Prepared by Newcastle University for the Association of Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities.

This summary for policy makers presents findings from the ‘Conversations with the Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority (IFCA)’ project, which, in 2024, interviewed over 70 IFCA staff and committee members to capture their reflections on how IFCAs are doing in terms of achievements, challenges, and opportunities to further strengthen IFCA capabilities. The interviews give new and detailed insights into the lived experience of delivering management of our inshore waters; the importance to IFCAs of ensuring a balanced and evidence-based approach to their management, clear successes in achieving effective management of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) through DEFRA’s revised approach, and the operationalisation of co-management, which IFCAs deliver by their design, enabling quality assurance to management outcomes in IFCA districts. Collectively, the interviews serve as a compelling testimony to the benefits of regional fisheries co-management. Recognising achievement and strengthening capacity in the delivery of regional co-management of England’s inshore seas Conversations with the IFCA

conversations with ifcas

IFCA as a vehicle for fisheries co-management The Joint Fisheries Statement, which lays out government’s vision for achieving the objectives of the Fisheries Act 2020, commits government to more collaborative forms of fisheries co-management. The ten regional IFCAs have, by design, been delivering co-management of fisheries and marine resources in England’s inshore seas (up to 6 nautical miles) since their inception in 2011 under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009.

The ten IFCA regions in England Cornwall Devon & Severn Eastern Isles of Scilly Kent & Essex

North Eastern North Western Northumberland Southern Sussex

how an ifca works

The way an IFCA works, in essence, is as follows. IFCA officers collect data and monitor the condition of fish stocks, wider environmental conditions, and the protected features in marine protected areas, within their specific regions. The staff then use that data, which includes inputs from stakeholders, to assess the status and condition of the fisheries and protected areas, and requirements for management interventions. These recommendations then go through multiple rounds of stakeholder consultation, prior to being openly debated in quarterly public meetings with the IFCA committee’s membership. This committee is made up of a diverse range of stakeholders who collectively represent coastal society in that region. IFCA committees vary in size, but must include representation of elected councillors who sit on local authorities within the region, three statutory organisations (the Environment Agency, the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) and Natural England) who contribute perspectives from their individual organisations but also secure the important connection between regional decision-making and national policy and strategic vision, and general members, volunteers who are selected by the MMO following an application and interview process, based on the knowledge they bring to the authority. General members always include local commercial and recreational fishers, conservation and environmental groups, and usually academics. These members do not formally represent their sector of origin but are charged with bringing their specific knowledge and experience to the decision-making table. It is then down to the authority members to discuss the evidence presented to them by the IFCA staff, weighing up the pros and cons according to the different knowledges they bring, and stakeholder positions they are most familiar with.

The discussion is facilitated by the IFCA committee chair. When considering new management measures, it is the committee members, not the IFCA staff, who make the decision on whether to accept, request further evidence, or reject proposed recommendations from the IFCA officers. If accepted, by a majority vote in favour of the recommendation, the IFCA then has legislative powers to create a byelaw or use other means (such as permit conditions) to implement the management measure. If a majority of the committee members do not vote in favour of a recommendation, they can direct the IFCA staff produce more evidence, or a new proposal. The enforcement teams of the IFCA are charged with enforcing and monitoring compliance, which feeds back to inform the IFCA about the legitimacy and workability of the management they have implemented. Byelaws are reviewed every five years and many IFCAs have now adopted flexible permit-based management approaches, which afford them greater flexibility to adapt to the changes and needs that may emerge from the fishery.

The public deliberation of management that IFCAs embody through the involvement of multiple stakeholders, the decision- making powers that reside within them to legislate, and stakeholder ownership over the whole process from identification of need, through to design and ultimately enforcement of management, are the elements that make IFCAs a distinctive model of fisheries co-management.

The IFCA triangle of regional co-management The findings of this research demonstrate a consistent view across all IFCAs that they provide an advanced model for democratic regional co-management and have used this model to deliver, with success, fisheries and marine resource co-management for over a decade. Arguments regarding the strength of the IFCA model can be arranged around three key points: Regionality, Balance and Democratic decision making.

Conversations with the IFCA

Regionality

Fisheries management that operates at regional levels provides multiple benefits. These include the generation of in-depth knowledge and understanding that is relevant to the region’s inshore fishery and wider marine environment, facilitated by IFCAs through monitoring and environmental research programmes, regularly enhanced by working with commercial fishers and other organisations, including universities. IFCAs have high embeddedness in fishing communities; IFCA staff often live in coastal communities in which they operate and are widely known to fishers, regularly seen at the quayside and at sea, providing the foundation for long-term relationships to be established and maintained. Relationships between fishers and managers, which of course can oscillate in terms of quality depending upon context, personality, and the issue of the day, are the cornerstones of co-management. Regularly maintained relationships are fundamental to achieving engagement, two-way flows of information, and feedback on the state of the fishery and the workings of the management in place. enforcement officers at sea, further enables IFCA responsiveness to changes in the fishery, which are multiple, fast paced and unpredictable. IFCAs’ regionality therefore makes them well placed to deliver climate proofing of fisheries, strengthening resilience. This regionality also allows for, and embraces, difference and complexity; one size fits all approaches, as embodied in national level planning, are likely to be most effective when adapted to place and relevance in the regions. This is widely argued in the academic literature on co-management that advocates the subsidiarity principle, which IFCAs exemplify, that decisions should be taken at the lowest possible level or closest to where they will have their effect. The IFCA model also speaks to procedural justice where people have a basic right to have some involvement in fisheries management decisions that directly affect their lives. The closeness of feedback between fishers and managers, facilitated by extensive consultation processes and the engagement via the IFCA officers, including

Balance The national IFCA vision is to “lead, champion and manage a sustainable marine environment and inshore fisheries, by successfully securing the right balance between social, environmental and economic benefits to ensure healthy seas, sustainable fisheries and a viable industry”. IFCAs therefore are built on a concept of sustainability that focusses on balance between the needs of society, environment and economy. This is not always the case in other organisations or policies which prioritise one pillar of sustainability over others. The IFCA commitment to delivering balance, which was a central feature in many interviews, demonstrates it is a ‘living’ vision across all IFCAs and a lot can be learned from them about the realities of operationalising balance in practice. The IFCA model facilitates the management of the sea as a resource for all society (not just one group) and, via its sustainability remit, future generations too, democratically navigating competing claims over marine resources to find balance between diverse priorities and multiple agendas. It is this breath of engagement and knowledge within the IFCA, and decentralised power to make decisions at regional levels, that make IFCAs a clear model of co-management. Genuine co-management is only achieved when power is shared between users, not devolved to one particular group over another. From a practical perspective alone, if central government were to pursue a co-management model with just one stakeholder group at a time it would end up with a highly fragmented and unmanageable sets of parallel relationships, government and fishing industry, government and recreational anglers, government and conservation groups etc., all generating very different expectations regarding the management of marine resources, with central government being left to decide between the competing priorities. Of course, other consultative engagement efforts abound, where stakeholders are invited to comment, and sometimes co-design marine management options, but ultimately cannot influence decisions made. That power always resides within central government and is therefore not co-management, since government is not legally bound to act on any consultation findings. IFCAs are similarly not legally bound to act on consultation findings, but the accountability afforded by the multi-stakeholder public forum, and majority committee voting, by which decisions are made, means that evidence cannot easily be assumed away. Delivering co-management is not easy. IFCAs use (what will always be) imperfect evidence to navigate balanced management, as dictated by the 2009 Act, that can incorporate different needs of stakeholders whilst ensuring sustainability across social, economic and environmental criteria. IFCA members can vote to accept or reject recommendations from officers, often employing experience-based skills of ‘disagreeing agreeably’ in order to progress action. This means IFCAs usually make decisions that are not universally popular but are bounded by the legal duties of the authority; as one IFCA officer put it ‘if no one is livid but no one is happy, we’ve probably got our management about right’. This reality, that all IFCAs face, is important to consider in any external evaluations that are perceptions-based.

10 12

Conversations with the IFCA

Democratic decision making The democratic approach that IFCAs bring to balance in decision-making, which is dependent upon informed coastal stakeholders from the region, can contribute to more legitimate management outcomes via greater stakeholder buy-in and compliance with regulations. The IFCA injects high quality social-economic considerations from data (where it exists), which combines also with the lived experience of members who live in, or near to, the affected coastal area. The authority also mitigates the influence of elite capture over decision-making by one organisation, group of people, or individual with particular interests, through regulations for declaring self-interests, and from the inclusive engagement with stakeholders that IFCAs conduct. IFCA led consultations are rarely dependent solely on public meetings (that are easily hijacked by influential actors) or online participation (often inadequately engaged with), albeit IFCAs must continually monitor a risk of “elite capture”.

Highlight findings from the report

1 Delivering fisheries co-management

Whilst there is a great deal of discussion about whether and how to deliver co-management, IFCAs by their very design are already doing it. It’s important to note the distinction between community-based management (which mainly focusses on the prioritisation of communities), and co-management which is about partnership between government and communities. The latter realises the benefits of local voices and knowledge, enabling people to have a say in policies which affect their lives, but within the context of national strategic governance and vision, where the national benefit and public good is centre stage. Established literature on co-management attests that true co-management requires representation of multiple coastal stakeholders, capable of managing marine resources for all society, rather than one single group, accompanied by decentralisation of powers to implement decisions to an organisational level that can balance different interests.

“I actually think the IFCA model’s brilliant – we’re like the full cycle of what fisheries management is but just condensed into a little local bundle. We’ve got science teams that collect data…and we go out and enforce the legislation that we’ve brought in. And if we get feedback that the legislation isn’t working right we can do some more research that informs the policy so it’s full cycle between science, data, policy and legislation, and enforcement”

IFCA Officer, Interview 31

“The meticulous attention to detail is the plus side of the IFCA, … we’d never create a byelaw that’s unenforceable because we’re the ones that have got to enforce it, so we know it’s got to be watertight and evidence-based.”

IFCA Officer, Interview 42

Conversations with the IFCA

2 Effective MPA management inshore

“The IFCA do what they can to keep the fishery sustainable and going, but they’re all just battling…if they’re not battling Natural England, they’re battling with NGOs, the Environment Agency, government, everything’s a big battle….We’d be gone if it weren’t for the IFCA, industry would be finished, matter of fact. The trouble is that industry sees it as the IFCA imposing those limitations and closed areas on us, because it’s the IFCA telling them to do this, and do that, but they’re only doing that so that we can keep some form of fishery going, but the Industry don’t see that side of it”.

Commercial Fisherman Member, Interview 25

How IFCAs are perceived

Co-management of marine resources, through democratic deliberation where balance between multiple, often competing, interests must be navigated, is not easy and requires skill and experience to find middle ground through evidence- based reasoning to progress a decision. Decisions that reflect a balance between different sets of priorities cannot please all stakeholders and will invariably result in a degree of disappointment for some. This does not mean that, where present, poor stakeholder relationships should be left unaddressed, but this reality is important for the wider fisheries management community, including central government and public bodies, to comprehend. Perception-based evaluations of IFCA performance (both formal and informal) must take into full account the IFCAs’ remit to deliver balance across multiple stakeholder interests. If a single stakeholder group were fully satisfied with an IFCA decision it is a probable indicator of unbalanced management. More evidence is required to ascertain the extent to which stakeholder dissatisfaction with IFCAs, if it exists, is a product of IFCA performance, or attributable to a lack of communication between the IFCA (staff and members) regarding its management approach and the broader coastal community who do not sit on an IFCA or attend its public meetings.

83.7 % of IFCA staff and members surveyed agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: “As part of the IFCA I feel my voice is heard and that my views matter”.

As part of this research, an online survey was distributed across IFCA staff and members. Not all IFCAs participated in the survey, but it is a representative sample (from 86 respondents) at national level.

Conversations with the IFCA

moving forward

Commercial Fisherman Member, Interview 25

There are opportunities to strengthen collaboration and partnership between IFCAs and other organisations and to achieve greater consistency across IFCAs in generic areas of activity where

2 Effective MPA management inshore a joined-up approach is beneficial. These include improving stakeholder communications, responding to

In our inshore seas, IFCA delivery of Defra’s revised approach (2014-2024) to MPA management has involved a meticulous navigation of balance between effective protection and maintaining a viable inshore fishery, using a combination of Natural England data and IFCAs’ own detailed evidence. In the last decade, IFCAs have assessed over 13,500 interactions between commercial fishing gear and designated European Marine Site features, implementing a diverse and often complex range of approaches to manage fishing activities in MPAs. This has included protection of 25.5% of England’s MPA network from bottom trawling through relevant IFCA byelaws, implemented on a case-by-case basis of demonstrable necessity. Where appropriate, and whenever possible, this process has enabled balanced, detailed and evidence-based management in place of broad-brush precautionary approaches. The cockle dredge fishery in Poole harbour, which achieved MSC status in a heavily protected marine site, and the adaptive management approach underway in Cromer, that is producing the evidence required to underpin continuing co-existence of the Cromer crab fishery alongside a fragile protected chalk bed reef, are two excellent examples of where IFCAs are achieving evidence-based balance. IFCAs provide an important line of defence for our inshore seas and the fishing communities who depend upon Given the widespread decline in our inshore fishing fleet across our coastal towns and villages, and the fact that over 50% of inshore waters are now designated as a protected area, finding co-existence for sustainable fisheries and effective marine conservation has never been so important. The effective management of MPAs by IFCAs is sometimes unappreciated by fishermen who are bearing the brunt of ever more regulation to their activities and fighting for their way of life. them. Their management defends inshore waters from more intensive fishing operations, whilst providing a complaints and grievances effectively, and protecting the wellbeing of staff and committee members, which will improve accountability and trust whilst ensuring IFCAs are consistently attractive places in which to work and engage with. One of the biggest changes IFCAs would like to see, alongside more secure long-term funding, is greater recognition of their value and contribution by central government and the wider public. democratic quality assurance to diverse coastal communities, that policies are relevant and workable in their regions.

Authored by Dr Sarah Coulthard, Newcastle University

December 2024

Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16

Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online