The importance of rebuilding trust in fisheries governance in post-Brexit England

The sustainable management of common pool resources, like fisheries, relies heavily on trust and reciprocity between managers and stakeholders (fishers). The UK Fisheries Act of 2020 and the Joint Fisheries Statement of 2022 seek to reinvent post-Brexit fisheries governance and the economic and environmental sustainability of the sector. Management of the fisheries sector through Fisheries Management Plans (FMPs) is still under development but changes in governance arrangements are likely to significantly impact fishers’ livelihoods. This highlights a need for improved collaboration between fishers and the governing institutions. Using a novel survey design, representatives of the English fisheries sector were surveyed to capture their level of different forms of trust (rational, affinitive, system-based) towards national and regional governing institutions. Overall, low levels of trust were found, although regional institutions (i.e., Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities) were more trusted than national institutions (i.e., Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs and Marine Management Organisation). Exploring different forms of trust revealed nuance between the institutions and distinctive regional differences. To build on this, interviews were conducted revealing feelings of apathy and conflict towards the governing institutions rather than inclination towards collaborating. Trust has a role in fostering more resilient fisheries management and fishers discussed the need for sustained institutional efforts to rebuild trust post-Brexit through greater transparency, face-to-face interaction, and meaningful consultation. Our research also reveals that FMPs will need to factor in geographical differences and that current institutions will need to work more collaboratively in order to foster local adaptive management

Shared values and deliberative valuation:Future directions

Valuation that focuses only on individual values evades the substantial collective and intersubjective meanings, significance and value from ecosystems. Shared, plural and cultural values of ecosystems constitute a diffuse and interdisciplinary field of research, covering an area that links questions around value ontology, elicitation and aggregation with questions of participation, ethics, and social justice. Synthesising understanding from various contributions to this Special Issue of Ecosystem Services, and with a particular focus on deliberation and deliberative valuation, we discuss key findings and present 35 future research questions in eight topic areas: 1) the ontology of shared values; 2) the role of catalyst and conflict points; 3) shared values and cultural ecosystem services; 4) transcendental values; 5) the process and outcomes of deliberation; 6) deliberative monetary valuation; 7) value aggregation, meta-values and ‘rules of the game’; and 8) integrating valuation methods. The results of this Special Issue and these key questions can help develop a more extensive evidence base to mature the area and develop environmental valuation into a more pluralistic, comprehensive, robust, legitimate and effective way of safeguarding ecosystems and their services for the future

Group Virtues: No Great Leap Forward with Collectivism

A body of work in ethics and epistemology has advanced a collectivist view of virtues. Collectivism holds that some social groups can be subjects in themselves which can possess attributes such as agency or responsibility. Collectivism about virtues holds that virtues (and vices) are among those attributes. By focusing on two different accounts, I argue that the collectivist virtue project has limited prospects. On one such interpretation of institutional virtues, virtue-like features of the social collective are explained by particular group-oriented features of individual role-bearers that are elicited by institutional structures or goals. On another account of groups as moral agents unbound by formal institutional constraints, to the extent that group characteristics meet the collectivist requirement, they fail to stand up as virtues in the substantive sense of a character trait. These two positions’ respective drawbacks and insights support a non-collectivist conclusion: Where there is a substantive virtue of some social group, it consists only in certain group-specific attitudes and motives of individuals qua members of that group. I end by outlining some risks in adopting collectivism about virtues as an explanatory or normative doctrine, and suggesting that we can abandon it without embracing an equally undesirable individualism in virtue theory

The ecosystem engineering and trophic effects of the water vole : species loss and ecosystem processes

We investigated the engineering and trophic effects of an endangered burrowing herbivore, the water vole Arvicola terretris in upland environments. Plant community composition and structure was altered around burrows. There were also shifts in the relative composition of plant functional groups. Landscape scale heterogeneity was increased by the metapopulation of structure of water vole colony patches. The intensity of past occupancy was a determinant of community composition and structure in patches. Greater past occupancy and more burrowing disturbance had occurred in more species rich patches. Time since patch abandonment was also an important factor influencing vegetation composition. Burrow systems were extensive and had a drying effect on the surrounding soil belowground. Burrowing also altered soil biological properties. Levels of microbial biomass and activity were enhanced in tunnel walls. We carried out a simulated clipping experiment to determine the relative impacts of above and belowground herbivory. The two treatments had additive negative effects on grasses. Grass species with higher shoot-root ratios were more vulnerable to aboveground herbivory. Belowground clipping had less severe effects on plant growth and reduced the competitive dominance of one species over another. A short term exclosure experiment showed little change in community composition. Total vegetation density was significantly lower where water voles were present but there were no changes of diversity in exclosures. Vegetation in exclosures in an area of high burrow density showed little regrowth, indicating that the effects of burrowing were persistent. The data suggest that the rapid decline of water voles in the UK will reduce habitat heterogeneity and lead to greater abundance of dominant grass species, resulting in lower community diversity.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo