Fishing practices adapted in commercial fisheries: review

Stakeholder Engagement

3.1 Introduction

In order to test and validate the findings of the literature review, a round of stakeholder engagement was undertaken, targeting commercial fisheries stakeholders in Scotland. The list of stakeholders contacted as part of this exercise is provided in Appendix C. The online questionnaire which was used for this exercise is available to view separately and has been published as a supporting document^[39]. A key aspect of this second phase of work was the development of a targeted questionnaire for commercial fisheries stakeholders, informed by the findings and outputs from the literature review.

3.2 Approach

A phased approach to stakeholder engagement was undertaken to maximise the level of engagement and quality of feedback. In order to achieve this, the following four tasks were completed:

• Preliminary stakeholder contact;
• Submission of targeted questionnaire to stakeholders;
• Direct commercial fisheries stakeholder engagement; and
• Review and analysis of feedback from stakeholders.

3.2.1 Preliminary stakeholder contact

Initial contact with all stakeholders was undertaken via email in tandem with the literature review phase. The primary aim of this exercise was to ensure early engagement, validate contact details of all stakeholders, raise awareness of the project and inform them of the next steps in the process.

3.2.2 Submission of targeted questionnaire to stakeholders

A targeted stakeholder engagement questionnaire was developed and submitted to all stakeholders via email. Results from the literature review were incorporated into the development of the questionnaire, to ensure that responses address gaps in understanding and gaps in the literature. In addition, building the questionnaire in a stepwise approach and utilising learning from the literature review, served to ground truth initial findings and set these more firmly within the Scottish context.

3.2.3 Commercial fisheries stakeholder engagement

All stakeholders were contacted by phone (or email in some instances where a phone number was not available), to maximise the response rate to the online questionnaire. This was an opportunity to discuss the respective stakeholders' responses to the questionnaire as well as documenting any other specific feedback in relation to the project topic. All responses were anonymised.