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Jónas Rúnar Viðarsson
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jonas@matis.is
Coastal communities and coastal fisheries in the N-Atlantic (Kystsamfund): A summary report on conference proceedings
A conference titled “Coastal fisheries and coastal communities in the N-Atlantic” was held on September 27th 2014 in connection with the Icelandic Fisheries Exhibition www.icefish.is, which took place in Kópavogur, Iceland on September 25-27. The motivation for the conference is that coastal fisheries and coastal communities in the N-Atlantic are currently faced with numerous operational and social challenges, but at the same time new opportunities have arisen. Some of these challenges and opportunities are specific to each country and some are common to the area as a whole. The aim of the conferences was to identify these challenges and opportunities, and to discuss how they can be addressed at national and / or cooperative Nordic level. The conference was attended by fifty stakeholders from seven N-Atlantic countries. At the conference, representatives from Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Greenland and Newfoundland had presentations on the coastal fishing sector and the coastal communities in their countries. They also deliberated on the future prospects of the traditional fishing villages, taking into consideration current trends and upcoming opportunities. These country profiles were followed by a presentation on a Nordic research project that is set to examine wages in the Nordic coastal sectors and to compare them with other professions. The last presentation of the conference was aimed at comparing operational environment in the coastal sector in Iceland and Norway, as Icelandic fishermen working in Norway introduced their experience in running their business in Norway as opposed to Iceland. The planned agenda included a presentation from the chairman of the Icelandic Regional Development Institute, which had intended to deliberate on the institute's strategy to support regional development. But he unfortunately had to cancel with only a few hours advance, which made it impossible to find a replacement. Following is a short summary of each presentation, but pdf versions and video recordings along with numerous other supporting material is available at the project's web-page www.coastalfisheries.net.