Community Relations

Aquaculture can be an important contributor to local employment and social and

economic development, especially in remote rural areas where opportunities are limited.
Yet aquaculture has sometimes been criticized for its detrimental effects on surrounding
communities through negative environmental or social impacts.

Aquaculture facilities can take a number of steps to ensure positive and productive
relations with members of the communities they impact. The issue of community
relations is complex, and the quality of relationships between aquaculture facilities and
the communities in which they operate sometimes depends on attitudes and
relationships among people.

Companies and individuals engaged in aquaculture should strive to benefit local

economies and community life. This can be done through contributions to the local
economy, employment, tax base and infrastructure, and through respecting small-scale
fisheries, agriculture and forestry interests.

Legal Compliance
The legal framework in relation to community rights and other users is context-specific
and includes multiple pieces of legislation in most cases. Aquaculture can impact the
general environment and biodiversity in a locality. It can also affect the use of land or
shore waters by others for recreation or income. Legislation on these issues can spread
across varied environmental laws and land use and zoning regulations.

The Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries of the Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations provides a general framework for regulation of responsible
fisheries and aquaculture, including provisions for integrating aquaculture with local
communities. However, there is no single international convention that can be used as
guidance for establishing and maintaining positive community relations. Depending on
the situation, various conventions can be used to guide action.

If, for example, a facility is to be established in an area were indigenous people have
traditional user rights, the convention on indigenous people’s rights may provide useful
additional guidance. If the facility is in an area with many migrant workers, the

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International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and
Members of Their Families may be useful. It should be stressed that user rights do not
only apply to indigenous communities. Traditional user rights can exist in any host
community.

In addition, the principles of equality and non-discrimination, and the right to freedom of
association described in Lesson 1 can be viewed as essential elements of complying with
the legal framework around communities. This also applies to processes to register
businesses, as well as environmental protection and labor laws, once production is up
and running. Strict compliance with such laws is an essential element of establishing and
maintaining good community relations.

As always, legal compliance is much more complicated when operating in an

environment where laws are outdated or unclear, and where law enforcement is weak.
Such situations leave individual operators on their own with limited guidance. Moreover,
unclear legal frameworks over land and water use tend to fuel confrontational disputes.
In such circumstances, producers and processors often need to go beyond the law to
promote good community relations. Engaging in open and genuine dialogue with
communities, no matter what the legal requirements are, is a worthwhile investment.

Community Impacts
Aquaculture production and processing is often located in rural areas with limited
economic opportunities. Therefore, an aquaculture facility can very easily become the
primary employer in an area, carrying substantial responsibility for local livelihoods and
well-being.

Aquaculture typically also creates spin-off business when using local suppliers, hence
contributing to the development of a thriving entrepreneurship culture and longer-term
development and diversification of the local economy. In addition, taxes paid by the
industry strengthen local tax bases and help support public provisions for healthcare
and education – contributing to positive long-term economic and social development.

Aquaculture has also sometimes been associated with negative impacts on communities.
For example, large-scale aquaculture facilities can impact small-scale fishing and
agriculture through limiting access to land and water. Environmental impacts can alter

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livelihoods through, for example, destruction of wetlands or effects on wild fish stocks.
Such problems naturally create tension within local communities.

Conflicts over land and water rights between local communities and aquaculture facilities
span the globe. From First Nation communities in North America, whose traditional
association with the land is under pressure, to coastal communities in East Africa, Asia
and Latin America, whose traditional livelihoods are destroyed with damage to
mangroves, aquaculture must consider its varied effects on those both in and around its
operations.

Poorly managed relations with local communities can result in further marginalization of
vulnerable groups, loss of livelihoods and poverty, or labor rights violations. Conversely,
well-managed aquaculture production can make real contributions to eliminating
poverty, social marginalization and labor rights abuse.

The impacts of aquaculture may not always be immediately obvious. For example,
increased traffic to and from a facility can place the surrounding communities at
increased risk of traffic accidents. Therefore, risk assessments/community impact
assessments must be wide in scope to pave the way for sustainable solutions.

Learning Check
Stop and think about the places you have worked. Did you ever experience a conflict
with communities? How was it resolved?

Recommended Practices
The principles in Lesson 1 must be applied to processes from registering a business to
adherence to environmental, labor and tax laws once production is up and running. It is
an obligation of every aquaculture facility’s management to fully understand and apply
all relevant legislation, no matter how cumbersome, in their operations.

Aquaculture enterprises must comply with national and local legislation regarding land
and water use and obtain necessary permits. This includes compliance with rules
established by traditional authorities such as indigenous chiefs or village councils.

A basic tenet is to ensure that land and water rights issues are considered. It is very
important to not block access to resources by other users. If, for example, facility

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operations block an existing path that communities have used to get to water bodies,
this can be addressed by constructing a new road, rehabilitating a disused path or any
other means that ensures community members’ access.

Environment
Aquaculture facilities must take real and effective steps to conserve the local
environment and ensure their activities do not undermine the livelihoods of community
members. This begins with a thorough impact assessment when applying for licenses
and includes regular monitoring of potential impacts and sustained dialogue with
communities that may be affected by those impacts.

If identified, all negative impacts (e.g., contamination of local waterways) must be

addressed and remediated immediately. This means that facilities must have emergency
response plans in place to be able to respond quickly. The response plans are built upon
the identification of high-risk areas for emergencies (e.g., waste spills, pollution of
waterways) as part of facilities’ impact assessments.

Employment and Social Support

Impact assessments should consider not only environmental impacts, but also social and
economic impacts. For example, will a new facility create much-needed additional
employment in a remote, rural area, or will it generate a labor shortage that may impact
smaller-scale and artisanal operations? When assessing employment impacts, it should
be noted that aquaculture-generated employment is not only fish rearing and processing
– it also includes areas such as transportation, packaging, distribution and mechanical
services.

Promoting stable and positive community relations with communities is not only about
remediation of negative impacts. Facilities can demonstrate their commitment to local
economic and social development through support of community projects. It is
important, however, that such projects are not undertaken as a trade-off for negative
impacts that could have been mitigated.

In localities with poor social service infrastructure, employers can demonstrate

commitment to their communities by supporting local health clinics, schools, child-care
facilities or community recreation centers. Supporting social services generates not only

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harmonious community relations, but also contributes to a better-educated, healthier
and more productive workforce in the longer term. In the short term, it may contribute
directly to stamping out human rights problems in the supply chain, such as the use of
child labor.

Aquaculture facilities can also contribute to local communities through their regular
business activities. For example, training and apprenticeship programs for local youths,
who may otherwise have very limited opportunities, can be made a part of regular
operations. This expands the trained labor force from which to recruit and also makes a
real contribution toward preventing precarious migration practices and human
trafficking.

The way a facility organizes its production also creates social impacts within its host
community. How do large fish farms or processing facilities source their supplies and
raw materials, for example? Using local suppliers with formalized contracts yields a direct
contribution to local economic diversification and livelihoods.

Fair pricing and living wages are preconditions for facilities to be seen as genuinely
interested in local communities. Fair prices allow realistic conditions around hiring of
workers and non-use of child labor by suppliers.

Communication
Regardless of the state of the legal framework, aquaculture facilities are encouraged to
pursue sustained dialogue and cooperation with the communities they impact. Part of
respectful, sustained dialogue must invariably be managing expectations on both sides.

In the long run, respectful dialogue is more likely than fences and guards to ensure
business is not interrupted, although such measures may of course be needed for other
reasons. In this regard, it should be stressed that the use of guards must always be done
with proportionality. Excessive force is unacceptable and likely to cause tension with
workers and communities alike. It may also be a red flag for conditions of forced labor.

The starting point for dialogue is clear communication and mutual respect, where both
parties feel comfortable sharing views without fear of repercussions. Therefore, it may
be necessary to meet “on neutral ground” outside the facility and bring in

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representatives of local government or civil society organizations to facilitate the
dialogue. For the dialogue to have value, it is of utmost importance that all stakeholders
respect the outside facilitators and trust that they will mediate objectively.

Sometimes, personal style can make or break positive dialogue and harmonious
relations. In British Columbia, Canada, a seafood company and a First Nation community
were able to repair and strengthen relations when the seafood company brought a new
staff member on board whose personal style inspired confidence among community
members.

It will often aid dialogue to institute regular meetings between facility management and
elected community representatives, as well as formal mechanisms to handle complaints
and resolutions that involve direct stakeholders and outside experts and local
authorities.

It is important to remember that communities are not necessarily uniform entities and
that differing priorities exist within their members. One community faction may wish to
see conservation of a pristine shoreline, while another values the construction of new
social infrastructure. A third group may prioritize employment opportunities.

Ensuring that varied interests are reflected in community dialogue is critical for
meaningful cooperation and solutions. It is not sustainable to hold a dialogue with only
one stakeholder group in a multi-stakeholder community. Gender balance in
representation can be key to sustainable solutions, as women and men sometimes have
different needs and interests. Similarly, and depending on the specific context, ensuring
that different age groups or ethnic groups are engaged in dialogue can be important in
finding effective solutions.

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