The introduction of a voluntary sustainability assessment scheme in the Belgian fishery based on the VALDUVIS tool

In 2011, a research team at the Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research (ILVO) started with
the development of a sustainability assessment tool called ‘VALDUVIS’ (Kinds et al., 2016). On
demand of the fishing sector and the Department for Agriculture and Fisheries, a tool needed to be
developed to assess and monitor the sustainability of the Belgian fishery at different hierarchical
levels: the fleet as a whole, the fleet segments, individual vessels and fish boxes. The aim of the
VALDUVIS project (2011-present) is to guide the Belgian fishery towards a higher degree of
sustainability, using individual sustainability assessments as a starting point. Once the tool had been
developed, a pilot project with five fishers was carried out to test the use of the tool in practice. Based
on feedback from this small sample of fishers, some of the indicators were adjusted and a concept for a
Fisheries Improvement Program (FIP) was suggested. In 2017-2018, this concept will be implemented
on a voluntary basis in the Belgian fishery. The project is supported by the producer organization and
barriers to participate were kept at a minimum to ensure a high degree of participation. This paper
explores the participatory process that shaped the tool and its subsequent applications and assesses its
effectiveness as a new governance framework for the Belgian fishery. Although the participatory
process was successful in creating a sense of direction for the implementation of the tool among
stakeholder groups, its legitimacy among fishers remains unclear. First, only eight fishers have been
present at the discussions about the development and applications of the tool. Second, whereas most
indicators are calculated based on readily-available electronic logbook data, some indicators use
additional data that need to be collected through personal communication with fishers (currently
reference data are used). Third, the scope of the application has shifted numerous times over the past
years, making it hard for fishers to know what is being presented now. We set out to collect
information about the views, perceptions and hopes of fishers about this newly developed framework
in order to assess its effectiveness in guiding the fishery towards sustainability and identify where
changes should be applied.