Introduction
The Norwegian aquaculture industry is a highly successful one seen in terms of production growth (Garlock et al., 2020), and this rapid production growth is seen as a result of a number of innovations that have improved productivity and competitiveness (Bergesen & Tveterås, 2019). However, the industry is also controversial as it constitutes a new way of utilizing aquatic ecosystems, and there are significant concerns with respect to its environmental sustainability (Belton et al., 2020). The regulation of salmon aquaculture in Norway, is strongly dependent on a licensing sy stem where license gives the right to produce at a given location under a number of conditions that put limitations on how the production can occur (Hersoug et al., 2019). The past decade, increasing concerns with respect to the industry’s environmental sustainability has prevented distribution of new commercial licenses for salmon production in Norway. A new regulatory system for growth has been implemented, and growth in terms of increased biomass is awarded through a traffic light evaluation, depending on the environmental performance of all actors within specific geographical areas. The political regulation of the successful, yet controversial, industry must take into account different concerns such as industry growth and development, but also environmental and societal sustainability.
This paper investigates the most recent addition to the licensing system, the development licenses, from the viewpoint of regulation, as a policy instrument and governing tool . The objective of the development licenses is to support the development of new technology that will improve environmental sustainability and benefit the entire industry. These licenses function as both a carrot and a stick, attempting to optimize both legitimacy and effectiveness. With these licenses the Norwegian government introduced a new path towards technology development, spurred by an implicit subsidy as the development license can be converted to standard commercial licenses once the project are completed at the low price of 10 million NOK per license independently of the project’s outcome. Importantly, there are no requirements as to further use of the tested technology, after the initial project period is over. The scheme was designed as a competition at a “first-come, first-served” basis, where the degree of innovation in later applications would be compared to already awarded concepts. From the licenses were launched in 2015, 104 applications were filed before the deadline in 2017. Less than 20% of the applied concepts were accepted, however, these sum up to a total of 107 licenses, representing a substantial increase in the national capacity to produce salmon at a time where environmental concerns made it politically impossible to increase production by awarding new ordinary commercial licenses.
Materials and methods
The empirical data for this paper is publicly available material related to Norwegian aquaculture regulation in general, and documents concerning the development licenses in particular, e.g. white papers, green paper, responses to hearing round for the development license scheme, policy papers, regulations, and award and rejection letters from the Directorate of Fisheries and/or Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries. In addition, the material is supplemented with interviews with public authorities.
Results and discussion
This paper draws on interactive governance theory, and our analytical starting point is the relationship between two systems that has earlier been termed the governing system and the system-to-be-governed (Jentoft, 2007) . The governing system consists of institutions, and regulatory tools and mechanisms. It is a social system created by politicians and bureucrats , and influences by other stakeholder. The system-to-be-governed, on the other hand, is partly social and partly natural, and consists of the aquaculture industry, other users and stakeholders of the marine environment, as well as nature itself. The governing system aim to impact and steer the behavior of stakeholder in the system-to-be-governed, and though these actors aim to influence the natural system. Although it is too early to evaluate whether the development licenses ultimately will result in major technological advancement for the aquaculture sector, our findings show that the design and implementation of these licenses as a regulatory tool has implications for both the governing system; the overall system of aquaculture regulations, and for the impact that these tools have on the system-to-be-governed; aquaculture production and the aquaculture industry, and for the relationship between the two systems.
We further discuss if this scheme with development licenses is fit for purpose. In a political atmosphere where growth of the Norwegian aquaculture industry has been a contested issue for many years, possible avenues towards growth needs to be coupled with ambitions to improve or solve negative environmental impacts to be politically acceptable. The competition arena, with the first-come, first-serve principle, may not be perceived as fair. The assessment took much time and resources at the Directorate, as the number of applications was much higher than expected and the assessment of the technological advancements was a laborious and difficult task. As the value of commercial licenses rapidly increased, the scheme ended up being much more favorable than planned, giving strong inc entives for the industry to suggest more projects as the main motivation for applying may have been (cheap) access to new production capacity. The crucial role of the relationship between significant investments and the estimated value of the awarded licenses in the assessment of the applications, might have led some concepts with high costs to be awarded while others with lower costs to be rejected. The latter group may have had more efficient concepts.
The introduction of development licenses as a tool in 2015 gave environmental issues increased attention since these licenses were to be awarded to companies that would develop technological innovations that ultimately reduce the problem with salmon lice and escapees. However, the development license also provided a venue for obtaining new licenses in a period when no ordinary commercial licenses were awarded because of the environmental concerns.
References
Belton, B., Reardon, T., & Zilberman, D. (2020). Sustainable commoditization of seafood. Nature Sustainability , 3(9), 677–684. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0540-7
Bergesen, O., & Tveterås, R. (2019). Innovation in seafood value chains: The case of Norway. Aquaculture Economics & Management , 23(3), 292–320. https://doi.org/10.1080/13657305.2019.1632391
Garlock, T., Asche, F., Anderson, J., Bjørndal, T., Kumar, G., Lorenzen, K., Ropicki , A., Smith, M. D., & Tveterås, R. (2020). A Global Blue Revolution: Aquaculture Growth Across Regions, Species, and Countries. Reviews in Fisheries Science & Aquaculture , 28(1), 107–116. https://doi.org/10.1080/23308249.2019.1678111
Hersoug, B., Mikkelsen, E., & Karlsen, K. M. (2019). “Great expectations” – Allocating licenses with special requirements in Norwegian salmon farming. Marine Policy , 100, 152–162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2018.11.019
Jentoft, S. (2007). Limits of governability: Institutional implications for fisheries and coastal governance. Marine Policy , 31(4), 360–370. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2006.11.003