Participatory Modelling in EU Fisheries Management: Western Horse Mackerel and the Pelagic RAC

In 2006 the stakeholders of the Pelagic Regional Advisory Council (Pe - lagic rac) contacted scientists with expertise on western horse mackerel and asked them to assist the rac in developing a long-term management plan. This article reports on that process and contributes to the knowledge of best practices for interactive processes between scientists and stakeholders. Overall, the partici - pants considered the process, which led to the first step of the implementation of the management plan from 2008, as a considerable success. As such, the proc - ess could serve as an inspiration for stakeholders, researchers and policy-makers wishing to do similar exercises. dg mare), the part of the European Commission that is responsible for the administration of the European Union's (eu ) Common Fisheries Policy ( cfp). racs are stakeholder fora consisting of representatives of the fishing industry, con - servation groups and other marine fisheries stakeholders. Two thirds of the seats in the racs are allocated to the fisheries sector and one third to other interests. In the late summer of 2006 the Pelagic rac contacted scientists with exper - tise on horse mackerel and asked them to assist in developing a long-term manage- ment plan for western horse mackerel. The stakeholders on the rac were in doubt about whether the western horse mackerel stock was being harvested optimally and suspected that the development and adoption of a management plan was not a priority for the fisheries managers in dg mare. Moreover, the Pelagic rac wished to explore ways to develop management plans by stakeholder consensus, rather than waiting for a plan to arise from the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ices). What emerged from this initiative was an interesting process from several perspectives. The first is simply as a programmatic way to circumvent the usual cumbersome procedures of the cfp that result from it being the only serious effort on the planet to directly manage fisheries at a continental scale. As such it offers