Do Stakeholder Forum

Subtask Description:
Finalize the output package.

Action points of the implementation:

Complete the Output Package by including a report from the stakeholder forum
Do it per email, post or website publication
Ensure transparency for audience and those unable to attend.

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:
The preparation of the Output Package was very much discussed among the Thermaikos Gulf team. Previous experience in the preparation of similar documents has shown that most of the stakeholders will not bother to read a document that would seem to them as technical or difficult to get through. The need to create an information package easy to manage and read and at the same time carrying all the necessary information, along with the rather good feedback the team received for the presentation prepared for the 1st Common Stakeholder meeting, gave the idea for a multicolour document that would constitute mainly from the slides prepared for the presentation, accompanied with comments, remarks and additions when the slides were not self – explaining enough. Additionally, to the end of this document, a table with the basic conclusions of the forum was added as also some crucial feedback points and a list of the participants.

Figure 1: Sample pages from the printed output package of Thermaikos gulf team.

A challenging part was how to translate the way that the management tool is formulated and working. It was considered useless to include any technical information concerning the model, i.e. equations, formulation tips or literature, but at the same time it was necessary to avoid presenting the model as a black box where you ask the questions and you get the answers without knowing anything about the interior process. Keeping the same structure as the presentations proved convenient, as special conceptual representations were created in order to explain in a more transparent way what kind of data and information were combined to produce certain results. Those conceptual models along with more detailed comments and explanations were used in order to familiarize the reader with the function of the model. In succession this information was used so the scenarios could be more understandable.
The Output package was printed in a coloured edition and sent via e-mail to all the stakeholders that was initially invited to the meetings, serving a double purpose: informing the people that were not able to attend the meetings but also provide a memory of the effort accomplished during the project.

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