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Abstract:Interactions between environmental and social change are complex and require deep insights into human perceptions, values, motivations and choices. Humanities disciplines can bring these insights to the study of marine social-ecological systems in the context of global environmental challenges. Such systems can be defined on a range of scales, but the cases most easily studied include those of small islands and their communities. This paper presents findings from three studies in the Western and Northern isles of Scotland, concentrating on some of the processes involved in social sustainability that contribute on the one hand to protecting what a community has, and on the other hand allowing a community to evolve so as to adapt to new conditions. It relates the several sorts of transformations involved, to the role and impact of external institutions such as those of governance of the natural environment, the energy market, and academic research, which together make up the environment of the transformation. By examining the world-views of different groups of actors, this paper illustrates that an understanding of the mental constructs underlying these world-views can help marine governance through integrating different ways of knowing. This paper identifies where it would be useful to employ a transdisciplinary 'translator' or a 'space' for dialogue in order to capture the diverse 'visions' and perceptions that these groups have in relation to management of the marine environment, where there are synergies and where more should to be done to negotiate between competing values and needs. It illustrates the practical contributions to operational policy that can emerge through challenging the dominant management discourses for the marine environment.

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.

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