Farmed and capture fisheries products have become important globally traded commodities. This can lead to social and economic dependency in the regions where production occurs. Major shocks (environmental or socio-political) to demand and supply may affect the resilience of the seafood sector and the associated dependent producing regions. Here, we describe the results of a collaborative and interdisciplinary expert workshop on how two particular seafood industries, farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and North-east mackerel (Scomber scombrus), have responded to such shocks and what this means for sectoral and regional resilience.
We identified several key findings. Firstly, we established that a reliance on healthy natural ecosystems, the existence of outside drivers for production and certain employment patterns were elements of low resilience. Secondly, we pinpointed industry consolidation and the central role of government in assisting the seafood sector as elements of high resilience. Moreover, we found that the farmed salmon and wild mackerel industries share characteristics which have enabled them to be resilient to many of the shocks which have affected them in recent years.
Our approach aimed to expand the seafood production debate from purely ‘food security’ based themes to an interdisciplinary paradigm which incorporates social and ecological sustainability. The approach taken in this study seemed particularly effective in analysing a sector which cuts across ecological, economic, social and political spheres and may be well placed to contribute towards emerging approaches in ecosystem based management.