Serving the industry or undermining the regulatory system? The use of special purpose licenses in Norwegian salmon aquaculture

Abstract

Aquaculture governance can be challenging as a number of stakeholders have different objectives and visions for the industry. A license is an important tool in ensuring an orderly development of an industry, providing rights as well as obligations. However, the constraints imposed by a license can also prevent desirable activities. In the Norwegian aquaculture industry this has been addressed by creating special purpose license to promote some activities such as education and research, but which are operated in collaboration with commercial farms. While these licenses are not regarded as a part of the industry's regulatory system, the paper shows that that this can be a challenge as 17% of the current production capacity is in the form of special purpose licenses. This raises the questions of how well the special purpose license achieve their objectives or whether they undermine the regulatory system. This challenge is particularly pertinent in an industry with high profitability and strong barriers to further growth.