Abstract: | An Approach to Resolving the Conflicts Between the Fishing Industry and Marine Conservation Interests. This article is about the conflicts and some of the common features between the fishing industry and marine conservation interests in the German-Polish Odra Estuary Region. In the Odra Estuary Region commercial fishing has a long tradition. The number of commercial fishers is steadily declining, however, due to the fact that younger persons no longer take up this profession. In contrast to the fishing industry, nature protection has increased in marine areas: here the variety of different types of protected areas is nearly the same as that which one would find on land. At present, the relationship between the fishing industry and marine protection interests is mainly characterised by conflict, despite the fact that both groups have some common interests such as the sustainable usage of fish stocks. The existing conflicts between these two groups of interests have a factual, substantive basis, namely, dispute over utilization of the area and restrictions on the fishing industry; but the conflicts are also related to communication problems and problems which have resulted from disputes in the past. Any approaches to resolving these conflicts must first of all attempt to improve communication and reduce prejudice on both sides. That is, heavy conflicts on the relational level must subside to the extent that problems on the factual level can be approached. In this case, the most important factor will be common goals such as sustainable usage, the replenishing of rare populations or nearly extinct fish species from other areas where they still thrive to replace already extinct ones, reducing value conflicts, decreasing the negative ecological impacts of the fishing industry and developing sound management plans for the NATURA 2000 areas. Ultimately, the solution to the problems should not be to try to resolve these in isolation. Although many problem aspects could surely be solved that way, to do so could, at the same time, be disadvantageous for others users of the marine area. In this sense, a problem is not solved but rather shifted onto other user groups. |
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PDF: | 14_michaelsen.pdf (335.376 Bytes) | |
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