The Belgian fisherman and the North Sea. Towards a co-managed, sustainable fishery.

This thesis examines the specific social, political and ecological position of Belgian fishermen within European fisheries governance. It then asks what a more participatory model would look like in light of a more sustainable way of fishing under the Belgian flag. It moves through three parts, each using a different method. Part one maps the institutional context: EU Common Fisheries Policy, quotas, Maximum Sustainable Yield, and Belgium's small, heavily regulated fleet. It draws on policy analysis and existing literature (Clover, Pauly) to show that this small fleet faces a disproportionately dense and inefficient governance system. Part two is ethnographic: days spent aboard a beam trawler out of Ostend, following Michael Taussig's thick description and Despret and Porcher's ethics of research. It treats fishermen as co-producers of knowledge, not informants, and moves outward from the cabin to the deck to the bridge. The goal is to listen to how they define their job and their connection to the sea and its conservation. Part three is an attempt to create a future perspective based on the newly understood dynamics. It builds a political ecology argument, drawing on commons theory and Fikret Berkes's work on co-management and Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Measured against commons-governance criteria, Belgian fisheries are intensively monitored but rarely consulted. The thesis closes with concrete proposals for a Belgian co-management model, treating fishermen's knowledge as evidence rather than an obstacle. The central claim is already clear: governing with fishermen, not just over them, is both more just and more effective.