Aquaculture and sustainable development : a regulatory or governance system ?

Governance is defined as a process allowing actors to contextualise the regulatory system and, as a result, to transform sustainable development (SD) into an instrument of action. It will be all the easier for actors to familiarise themselves with SD and its implementation measures if these measures are similar to their representation on SD and its consequences on their activity and social life. In a research project carried out on the production of SD indicators, regulatory systems and the representation that actors have of aquaculture were analysed in various environments (Cameroon, Cyprus, France, Indonesia, and the Philippines). The main assumption is that implementing SD requires and leads to a deconstruction/construction process of the actors' activity. This process is supported by a collective organisation and depends on individual and collective learning about technical and organisational aspects, in particular regarding the (re)definition of activities and governance methods of aquaculture areas.