Do Stakeholder Forum

Subtask Description:
Stakeholder forum introduction.

Action points of the implementation:

Explain the objective of your meeting
Recapitulate the process for transparency referring to the Design Step, the Formulation Step, the Appraisal Step and to the engagement process
Make sure to take advantage of the Design Step activities and tools provided
Show the usefulness and limits of scenarios to the audience
Evaluate the process as you go along (in the forum)
Never stop referring to the “real” world. Show the impacts and implications for themselves to the Stakeholders at any time.
Extrapolation from the model results to implications in the real systems should be explicitly highlighted.

Area:
Chalastra Bay, Thermaikos gulf, Greece

Policy Issue:
Sustainable management of mussel farming activity

Human Activities:
Mussel aquaculture, agriculture, urban and industrial activities, fisheries.

General Information:
About half of the national mussel harvest is produced in the area. The unique environmental conditions resulted in mussels with very high condition index achieved in a very short time and also in two reproduction and growth circles in the same year. During the last 10 years, mostly due to excessive cultivation techniques, an annual reduction of the mussel production is taking place, both in means of quality and quantity along with an elongation of the growing period. At the same time due to a number of institutional failures, there is an important legal gap creating institutional problems and obstructing the management of the activity, allowing black market, illegal employment, etc. The main stakeholder concerns are connected to the design and implementation of the legal framework and the optimization of the mussel production.

Example of Implementation:

Thermaikos gulf scientific team decided to appoint as facilitator of the first stakeholder forum Mrs. Xenia Louzidou, a civil engineer MSc and PhD candidate in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (in the field of participatory coastal management) as she has a long experience in working with stakeholders as a project and company consultant. Several meetings were contacted between the facilitator and the team during the course of the SAF implementation so she was familiar with the goals and the progress, in particular with the work done in Thermaikos gulf. She was also familiarized with the area of Chalastra, the policy issue and the management problems encountered.

The team discussed with the facilitator about the organizational details of the meeting, as the venue, the reception and the timings of the different parts of the event and co-decided about them. The main role that the facilitator should play was thoroughly discussed also and it was decided that she was to deal with the general introduction and welcome to the participants and also inform them about the timetable of the forum, highlighting the importance of the questions and deliberations part at the end of the presentations. An extra responsibility would be to “present the presenters” and give some brief information for each of them and also make sure to keep the deliberations civilized and on schedule. She received a list with the participants and information, including their basic stakes, opinions and level of implication in the policy issue in order to get familiarised with the audience she had to confront. The information was based on the experience the team had with the stakeholders from the previous private interviews contacted.

The facilitator asked not to get familiarized with the actual presentation prepared for this particular meeting and the presentation of the scenarios, in order for her to be able to react objectively towards the presentation and the following deliberations and to provide an accurate feedback for the results of the forum. After the end of the forum she provided the team with an analytical report about the organisation from her point of view.

Contact: Zoi Konstantinou, zkon@civil.auth.gr.