Research

Cases

We have selected 3 case studies:

1. Stockholm County: Known for its high populations of seals and cormorants, it has seen conflicts arising in parallel with emergent activities like seal-related tourism.
2. Gävleborg County: cormorant populations are rising. Undernourished seals suggest the impact of industrial trawl fishing outside county waters, which also affects small-scale and recreational fishing.
3. Östergötland County: This region has experienced increases in seals and cormorants, with now the densest grey seal population in Sweden. Declining fish populations are expected in the coming years.

Disentangling conflicts

We analyze conflicts as networks of different issue types. These include issue-based conflicts (disagreement on solutions), relational conflicts (between public managers and/or stakeholders), and structural conflicts (such as differences in problem framing). We have gathered international and national policy documents relevant to Swedish aquatic ecosystem management over the last 20 years, such as the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, the Marine Spatial Planning Directive, the Habitats Directive, the EU's Common Fisheries Policies, or HELCOM policy documents. National-level documents, like management plans for cormorants and seal species and Sweden’s wildlife and fisheries strategies are also analyzed. Moreover, we conduct semi-structured interviews and network surveys with a broad range of stakeholders, including public officers involved in fisheries, conservation, environmental protection at the national level, and municipal and county administrative boards. We also interview stakeholders from civil society, such as environmental groups, hunters, and fishers’ associations. With these data, we will build three types of networks: a) collaboration networks (shared resources, joint activities), b) conflict networks (to understand different conflict types), and c) narrative or discourse networks—reflecting visions of the problem through explicit positioning and practices. These narrative networks help break down the conflicts into diverse topics. Additionally, data from the interviews and policy documents is thematically analysed to illuminate the varied logics and competing interests at play in the field.

Assessing conflicts' impact on aquatic ecosystems

We assess how conflict and collaboration patterns affect aquatic ecosystems and their management over time. While increasing populations of seals and cormorants in the Baltic Sea have sparked management conflicts, less is understood about how these conflicts influence ecosystem trajectories. Counties may reach different decisions, such as setting different fisheries regulations, by weighing interests differently. In some cases, frustrated individuals might resort to illegal actions, like hunting or destroying cormorant nests. These legal or illegal actions can lead to local reductions in seal and cormorant populations or cause them to relocate. This could have consequences for the rest of the ecosystem. Both species have been shown to reduce perch and pike populations, which could trigger a trophic cascade, ultimately benefiting nuisance algae. Additionally, cormorant colonies contribute significant nutrients to the water. These complex dynamics emphasize the need for diverse public competencies and stakeholder involvement in managing the ecosystem holistically. Our work builds on ongoing studies (e.g., FORCE, BalticWaters) but set a specific focus on conflictive patterns in specific cases, to link ecological effects with governance actions. Using systems thinking, we will develop causal loop diagrams (CLD) to identify how conflicts affect ecosystems, which may, in turn, escalate conflicts, creating a feedback loop, or open opportunities for collaboration to address degradation threats as well as how actions in one county may affect others. We will use monitoring data on seals (from the Swedish Museum of Natural History), cormorants (county board data), fish, and vegetation (SLU monitoring) to analyze ecosystem developments following management interventions. Additionally, our work disentangling conflicts will help identify key milestones in implementing aquatic governance measures.

Future dimensions and ways forward

We experiment with different participatory methods to move forward in situations of dissensus. We conduct a literature review to identify possible future events, such as continued pollution, extreme weather events or changes in legal measures, such as expansions of Natura 2000 areas restricting hunting, which could shift power among social-ecological networks. These scenarios will be presented to participants in a second round of interviews and network-surveys to build future influence networks. These networks will help identify which stakeholders are perceived as influential in shaping specific future trajectories and who could gain influence if those futures materialize.

To explore ways to move forward in the face of dissensus, we will conduct three workshops with four representative groups (national level and each case study). In these workshops, we will test various action-oriented participatory research methods to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each to navigate conflictive situations. The different methods will be compared through a typology that will then be made available to participants and disseminated more broadly. Methods will include circles of dialogue (promoting learning, empathy, and conflict recognition), vignettes, forum theatre and video forums (examining conflict scenarios and potential resolutions), 3Horizons (envisioning desirable futures and identifying current obstacles and leverage points), and Joint Fact Finding, a method used for co-producing knowledge around scientific disputes on cormorants and fishing conflicts in Finland, which we will compare with results from Sweden. The thematic focus of the workshops will be informed by analyses conducted in WP1. The results of the workshops will be analysed using thematic analysis.

Interdisciplinary work and communication

Throughout our project we aim at building interdisciplinary knowledge, which is challenging but essential for creating synergies to ensure interdisciplinarity tasks. It guarantees a systemic approach where governance competencies and stakeholders are informed by ecosystem dynamics, such as the impact of seals and cormorants beyond their trophic roles. We emphasize the importance of our communication plan to support transdisciplinary and participatory goals.

Besides the papers which will be published here as they come up, we also aim at developing a typology of co-production methods to navigate conflictive situations. We will also develop and post podcasts based on narrative emerging from the participatory workshops (one on each workshop), three policy briefs and a final webinar.