FISH FARMERS AND PUBLIC SERVANTS COPING WITH THE WICKEDNESS OF AQUACULTURE

From the perspective of both fish farmers and public servants, governing and managing aquaculture should be viewed as a wicked problem. The concept of "wicked problems" was coined by Rittel and Webber (1973) as problems that are difficult to define and delineate from other problems, which lack consensus as to their interpretation and solutions, and that persist and rarely have a final solution. While coastal governance earlier has been described as a wicked problem (e.g. Jentoft 2007), few contributions have explicitly discussed aquaculture, and taken into account the specific characteristics of aquaculture production as highly industrial, intensive and sophisticated. Furthermore, the perspectives of fish farmers and the authorities set to regulate the industry are rarely heard in discussions of governance approaches to aquaculture. The objective of the material presented here remedies this.

Based on interviews with both fish farmers and authorities across different regions in Norway, the research question investigated is: What is wicked about aquaculture, and which coping strategies do fish farmers and public servants apply?

Fish farmers are well aware of the wickedness in managing aquaculture, and the authorities set to regulate the industry likewise. The biological system is fraught with unknowns and uncertainties, while the regulative system is viewed as hierarchical, fragmented and inconsistent. Regulations and restrictions aiming for control of disease, parasites and escapees are abundant in the legal framework of salmon aquaculture. However, these create a complex web of regulations and laws between a multitude of governmental agencies and levels of jurisdiction. The uncertainty in both the biological and regulatory system, and the institutional complexity, makes aquaculture hard to manage and govern.

Both fish farmers and authorities attempt to cope with the limitations of governability. Fish farmers rely on experiential knowledge, informal coordination, and pragmatic problem solving. Authorities attempt to create cross-sectorial networks allowing for information sharing and mutual adjustments in case handling. Both fish farmers and public servants describe how the interaction with each other is fundamental in maintaining updated knowledge, and in shaping regulations to fit with the realities of aquaculture production. The governability of aquaculture is determined by the system-to-be -governed and the governing system (Jentoft 2007), as well as the interaction between these two systems. The system-to-be-governed is foremost a biological production system situated in close interaction with a wild environment, while the governing system is a social and organisational system which is historically developed, layered, fragmented, and consisting of a wide range of governmental agencies. In both systems, wickedness is handled on a day-to-day basis by those involved, even though both groups acknowledge the potential for improving the governing system towards a more longitudinal, comprehensive (larger geographical areas) and strategic mode.