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Research and development in the aquaculture industry tends to focus on environmental and economic outcomes. However, with increasing use of marine space, competition between different industries and priorities for coastal communities is a social issue that is coming to the fore. Public perception and local social acceptability have been identified by the industry as key factors in the sustainable growth of finfish aquaculture. With the EU, and the UK and Scottish Governments targeting Blue Growth sectors for development, the drivers of social acceptability issues with finfish aquaculture require attention. Social Licence to Operate (SLO) is a theory which has proved useful in describing the relationship between industry and local communities. This study thematically analyses public comments made on planning applications for new finfish farms in Scotland, and uses SLO theory to explore local scale social interactions and the drivers of public perception of the aquaculture industry. It reveals the complexities of SLO, including areas of concern for engaged members of the public and shows that there are key actors which shape and drive engagement with the debate around whether finfish farms are acceptable. It finds that information used by the public to make decisions around aquaculture is often compiled and distributed by the key actors. This brings into question how much influence local communities have in SLO negotiations. Finally, it reflects that further thought and dialogue within and between research institutes, regulators, industry and local communities is needed to create a more equitable approach to negotiating SLO for finfish aquaculture.

The growing popularityof community land trusts as a mechanism for greater community participation in the control of local improvement is a particularly significant aspect of sustainable rural development in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Combining purposive selective interviews with members of a local Land Trust,observations at public meetings, anda review of recent literature on the development of the region, a case study of the Galson Estate Trust, Isle of Lewis, Scotland, is presented. Community ownership of land is seen as being instrumental in the shift inperceptions from short-term, marginal, externally-dependent activities towards solutions that are long-term (as indicated by schemes for renewable energy generation and environmental enhancement),core identity (seen as greater community confidence and enhanced local democracy) and locally driven developmental priorities (supported by revenue income streams). The process of local empowerment accompanying this shift in perceptions is regarded as having substantial benefits for social capital and skills acquisition at the community level. Early results from Trust activities indicate that ownership of the land, together withthe capacity-building process of communityparticipation in its management, has encouraged growth in a sense of local empowerment, together with providing employment, confidence, and other social improvements.

The need for more sustainable sources of food, chemicals, and energy, combined with the European Union's Blue Growth Agenda and national policies of European Economic Area member states, has facilitated increasing interest in the cultivation of seaweed in European waters. There have been several research projects looking at the economic and environmental feasibility of seaweed cultivation as a low carbon commercial endeavour, however there is very little in the way of contextual social research. Given mounting evidence of a decline in social acceptability of aquaculture activities (both shellfish and finfish) at a site level, it is imperative to improve understanding of where seaweed cultivation might fit within this picture. The aim of this study is to explore site-scale social interactions of seaweed cultivation using social license to operate as the analysis framework. Two in-depth case studies in were chosen to cover a developing commercial seaweed cultivation industry (France) and an embryonic one (Scotland) in addition to a survey of seaweed cultivation organisations across five European countries. The findings show that interpersonal relationships, perceptions of environmental risk, scale of decision-making and of operations, and communication were key to local perceptions of seaweed cultivation operations in both case studies. The views of seaweed cultivation organisations on social interactions and the usefulness of the social license to operate concept for this emergent industry is discussed.

Marine aquaculture is the most promising industry for ensuring future provision of seafood. Yet, the worldwide growth and expansion of this industry have been slower than expected, calling for the identification of environmentally suitable sites while accounting for all factors that could constrain or benefit its establishment. Here, we determine the main obstacles and risks hindering the growth and expansion of marine aquaculture, as well as the needs and recommendations to overcome such constraints. Our analysis is based on results obtained from a consultation process held in 16 study sites located around the world with the participation of 614 stakeholders representing the research community, aquaculture industry, government, conservation groups, and education and fishermen associations. A high level of commonality exists in the main issues hindering aquaculture growth and expansion in coastal, off‐the‐coast and offshore aquaculture with most being attributed to interactions with other maritime activities, including conflicts with other users and administrative procedures, including licensing. Critical needs for improved management and expansion of the aquaculture industry are related to planning and management of developments and technological advances, with economic and market needs featuring to a lesser extent. Key procedures recommended to assist further aquaculture growth are the standardisation and simplification of regulatory frameworks, improvement of governance, and the adoption of participatory processes to facilitate meaningful and productive stakeholder engagement. We strongly recommend stakeholder participation to enhance insights on the full environmental and human dimensions of marine management and for implementation of ecosystem‐based marine spatial planning.

Until very recently, governments of many countries, as well as their supporting organizations, have primarily addressed the biological, technical and economic aspects of aquaculture. In contrast, social and cultural aspects of aquaculture production have taken a backseat. Drawing on the observation that aquaculture development in Western Societies has largely failed to address these social effects across different scales and contexts, this paper offers a new way of capturing and visualising the diverse social dimensions of aquaculture. It does so by testing the ability to operationalise a set of social dimensions based on categories and indicators put forward by the United Nations, using several case studies across the North Atlantic. Local/regional stakeholder knowledge realms are combined with scientific expert knowledge to assess aquaculture operations against these indicators. The approach indicates that one needs to have a minimum farm size in order to have an impact of a visible scale for the different social dimension categories. While finfish aquaculture seems to be more social impactful than rope mussel farming, the latter can hold important cultural values and contribute to place-based understanding, connecting people with place and identity, thus playing a vital role in maintaining the working waterfront identity. It could be shown that aquaculture boosts a potential significant pull-factor to incentivise people to remain in the area, keeping coastal communities viable. By visualising the social effects of aquaculture, a door may be opened for new narratives on the sustainability of aquaculture that render social license and social acceptability more positive.

This paper focuses on the availability of economic indicators and metrics to assess effects of marine aquaculture production in the North Atlantic area (the EU, Norway, Canada and USA), including also social and environmental effects. We consider how aquaculture planning and management is organised in the different countries and the usefulness of economic information to address different aquaculture‐related policies. We find that the most relevant economic data for aquaculture management should be at the local and regional levels rather than nationally. The availability of such economic data is mapped for national, regional and local level. The focus is on data that are publicly available from authorities or research institutions. The availability of data is generally fairly good for national and regional data on the direct economic effects of aquaculture. Data on how aquaculture‐related products or input markets are affected are however poorly available, as are economic data on external effects from aquaculture. Countries with a larger aquaculture sector tend to have better availability of aquaculture‐related economic data than those with a smaller sector. An index is developed and calculated to show more specifically where the countries have relatively good or poor data availability compared to their needs. While it will not always be cost‐effective or meaningful to collect economic data on the effects of aquaculture, our study indicates that several countries could benefit from expanding such data collection. It can make trade‐off decisions more consistent and easier to perform, and aquaculture policies and measures can be better tailored to specific contexts.

This paper focuses on the availability of economic indicators and metrics to assess effects of marine aquaculture production in the North Atlantic area (the EU, Nor-way, Canada and USA), including also social and environmental effects. We con-sider how aquaculture planning and management is organised in the different countries and the usefulness of economic information to address different aqua-culture-related policies. We find that the most relevant economic data for aqua-culture management should be at the local and regional levels rather than nationally. The availability of such economic data is mapped for national, regional and local level. The focus is on data that are publicly available from authorities or research institutions. The availability of data is generally fairly good for national and regional data on the direct economic effects of aquaculture. Data on how aquaculture-related products or input markets are affected are however poorly available, as are economic data on external effects from aquaculture. Countries with a larger aquaculture sector tend to have better availability of aquaculture-re-lated economic data than those with a smaller sector. An index is developed and calculated to show more specifically where the countries have relatively good or poor data availability compared to their needs. While it will not always be cost-ef-fective or meaningful to collect economic data on the effects of aquaculture, our study indicates that several countries could benefit from expanding such data col-lection. It can make trade-off decisions more consistent and easier to perform, and aquaculture policies and measures can be better tailored to specific contexts.

This paper focuses on the availability of economic indicators and metrics to assess effects of marine aquaculture production in the North Atlantic area (the EU, Norway, Canada and USA), including also social and environmental effects. We consider how aquaculture planning and management is organised in the different countries and the usefulness of economic information to address different aquaculture‐related policies. We find that the most relevant economic data for aquaculture management should be at the local and regional levels rather than nationally. The availability of such economic data is mapped for national, regional and local level. The focus is on data that are publicly available from authorities or research institutions. The availability of data is generally fairly good for national and regional data on the direct economic effects of aquaculture. Data on how aquaculture‐related products or input markets are affected are however poorly available, as are economic data on external effects from aquaculture. Countries with a larger aquaculture sector tend to have better availability of aquaculture‐related economic data than those with a smaller sector. An index is developed and calculated to show more specifically where the countries have relatively good or poor data availability compared to their needs. While it will not always be cost‐effective or meaningful to collect economic data on the effects of aquaculture, our study indicates that several countries could benefit from expanding such data collection. It can make trade‐off decisions more consistent and easier to perform, and aquaculture policies and measures can be better tailored to specific contexts ; This article is based upon work from COST Action OceansPast Platform (OPP – IS1403), supported by COST (Euro-pean Cooperation in Science and Technology). We gratefully acknowledge support also from the institutions of the authors, and discussions in the ICES Working Group onSocial and Economic Dimensions of Aquaculture. In particular, we thank Max ...

This paper focuses on the availability of economic indicators and metrics to assess effects of marine aquaculture production in the North Atlantic area (the EU, Norway, Canada and USA), including also social and environmental effects. We consider how aquaculture planning and management is organised in the different countries and the usefulness of economic information to address different aquaculture-related policies. We find that the most relevant economic data for aquaculture management should be at the local and regional levels rather than nationally. The availability of such economic data is mapped for national, regional and local level. The focus is on data that are publicly available from authorities or research institutions. The availability of data is generally fairly good for national and regional data on the direct economic effects of aquaculture. Data on how aquaculture-related products or input markets are affected are however poorly available, as are economic data on external effects from aquaculture. Countries with a larger aquaculture sector tend to have better availability of aquaculture-related economic data than those with a smaller sector. An index is developed and calculated to show more specifically where the countries have relatively good or poor data availability compared to their needs. While it will not always be cost-effective or meaningful to collect economic data on the effects of aquaculture, our study indicates that several countries could benefit from expanding such data collection. It can make trade-off decisions more consistent and easier to perform, and aquaculture policies and measures can be better tailored to specific contexts.

Marine aquaculture is the most promising industry for ensuring future provision of seafood. Yet, the worldwide growth and expansion of this industry have been slower than expected, calling for the identification of environmentally suitable sites while accounting for all factors that could constrain or benefit its establishment. Here, we determine the main obstacles and risks hindering the growth and expansion of marine aquaculture, as well as the needs and recommendations to overcome such constraints. Our analysis is based on results obtained from a consultation process held in 16 study sites located around the world with the participation of 614 stakeholders representing the research community, aquaculture industry, government, conservation groups, and education and fishermen associations. A high level of commonality exists in the main issues hindering aquaculture growth and expansion in coastal, off-the-coast and offshore aquaculture with most being attributed to interactions with other maritime activities, including conflicts with other users and administrative procedures, including licensing. Critical needs for improved management and expansion of the aquaculture industry are related to planning andmanagement of developments and technological advances, with economic and market needs featuring to a lesser extent. Key procedures recommended to assist further aquaculture growth are th standardisation and simplification of regulatory frameworks, improvement of governance, and the adoption of participatory processes to facilitate meaningful and productive stakeholder engagement. We strongly recommend stakeholder participation to enhance insights on the full environmental and human dimensions of marine management and for implementation of ecosystem-based marine spatial planning.