The state of the Northeast Atlantic fisheries in recent years has highlighted implementation as the Achilles heel of modern fisheries management: discards, unreported or misreported landings are in many cases recognised to effectively subvert sound conservation goals. Implementation is thus a key factor in avoiding fisheries crises. While social science literature on fisheries management has tended to regard the implementation of resource conservation policies as a question of effective enforcement, this book seeks to widen the perspective taken on implementation in fisheries management. The cases presented in this volume addresses legal, administrative, and political challenges regarding implementation of resource conservation policies. The book addresses problems relating to goal achievement, but also causes of deliberate change of political goals during implementation. Fisheries management systems are embedded in inert social structures and natural conditions that vary among different states. Consequently, the book takes a historical and comparative approach, describing the historical developments of national implementation systems and the conditions that shaped their development. It thus seeks to explain why national fisheries management systems have evolved differently, focusing on Norwegian, Faeroese, and EU/Danish management systems. The descriptive and explanatory outlines are accompanied by qualitative assessments of the systems effectiveness as tools for collective action.

Zusammenfassung
The state of the Northeast Atlantic fisheries in recent years has highlighted - plementation as the Achilles heel of modern fisheries management: discards and unreported or misreported landings are in many cases recognised to effectively subvert sound conservation goals. Social science literature on fisheries mana- ment has tended to regard the implementation of resource conservation policies mainly as a question of effective enforcement. This literature regards surveillance and penalty as the key mechanism through which fishermen keep to catch restr- tions and loyally report their catches. This book emerged because several years of research on fishermen's compliance had made us uneasy about this rather narrow approach to the problem of implementation. This uneasiness motivated us to widen the approach to the question of implementing conservation policies in the fisheries. Taking Norway as an example, its fishing fleet consists of some 7,000 vessels spread along a coastline of more than 20,000 km, populated by less than 5 million people. The idea of ensuring desirable behaviour through surveillance and - forcement alone is almost absurd in such a context, as the task is impossible by any reasonable means. The Norwegian implementation system has thus had to rely heavily on the incentives provided by the rules and legitimacy created through a century of state/industry collaboration. Different coastal states face very different conditions in terms of solving typical implementation problems such as discards and misreporting.

Inhalt
The Problem of Implementing Policies for Sustainable Fishing.- The Arrival of Modern Fisheries Management in the North Atlantic: A Historical Overview.- Implementation of Resource Conservation Policies in the Norwegian Fisheries: A Historical Outline.- From Catch Quotas to Effort Regulation: Politics and Implementation in the Faeroese Fisheries.- Recovery Plans and the Balancing of Fishing Capacity and Fishing Possibilities: Path Dependence in the Common Fisheries Policy.- Implementation Politics: The Case of Denmark Under the Common Fisheries Policy.- The Politics of Implementation in Resource Conservation: Comparing the EU/Denmark and Norway.