# Ethics to Intersect Civic Participation and Formal Guidance
## 3 Marine Complex-Adaptive Social-Ecological Systems  
### First Example: Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF)  
Compared to industrial fisheries, artisanal, small-scale fisheries (SSF) are much more labour intensive, less capital and energy intensive per ton of fish caught and tend to have a much lower impact on the environment [37]. Small-scale fisheries land between a fourth or a third of the global catch of fish according to global catch reconstructions. Small-scale production is by commercial artisanal, subsistence and recreational fisheries. The artisanal catch accounted for approximately 22 million tons in 2010. It is still gradually growing, while industrial fisheries are declining since the mid-1990s [38]. Small-scale fisheries employ most of the fisheries workforce of approximately 40.3 million people in the primary sector. Selective studies suggest possibly similar numbers in the secondary sectors--processing, marketing and other pre- and post-harvest activities where women tend to play essential roles, but which suffer from very little systematic data recordings [39]. Small-scale fisheries, if supported by appropriate policies, could be a model of sustainability, that is, if they could continue contributing directly to food and livelihood security, poverty reduction and wealth creation and coastal and rural development of many, not only developing, countries [40]. The operation, particularly of long-range industrial fisheries, illustrates the impact of these activities on third country taxes and commercial activities, on distant environments, and on realms of different legal or regulatory jurisdiction. The association with illegal, unregulated and unregistered (IUU) fishing and doubtful, even criminal, practices have become a serious concern in recent years [41; 42; 43; 44; 45]. The intersection of industrial fishing and artisanal fisheries shapes a complex-adaptive SES driven by natural, technological, institutional and social dynamics. Contradictory values, different interests and stakeholder relations build complex-adaptive features in the governance structures [46]. To tackle this \"wicked game\", the Committee of Fisheries of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) adopted in 2014 a rights-based framework, the Voluntary SSF Guidelines [37; 47]. Analysing the empirical evidence reveals how to relate formal guidance and ethical frameworks in complex-adaptive SES [48]. First, facilitated by the political choice to make the practical adherence by stakeholders voluntary, the SSF Guidelines could be comprehensive regarding topics covered. They could integrate social, cultural and economic sustainability issues. They address resource access (allocation) as well as use rights matters guided by human rights principles. They allow flexible approaches to accommodate country and region-specific conditions. Hence, the SSF Guidelines are an opportunity to adjust governance towards a coordinated, yet flexible, strategy for any institutional and individual agent to ensure the sustainability of small-scale fishes and their communities; most of all directed to governments to review the prime policy focus on industrial fisheries. Second, implementing the SSF Guidelines will require policy-relevant intervention and innovation at many levels. Contributions by a range of government departments, of civil society organisations, and academia are needed, together with the empowerment ofishers as participants in decision-making processes. Hence, effective implementation of the SSF Guidelines will package many threads of (top-down and bottom-up) action in a context-specific and actor-dependent manner. It will be a challenging case-by-case approach, whether at local, national, or regional levels [40]; however, driven by a common ethical orientation. Third, the SSF Guidelines are grounded in a human-rights-based approach to social development and an empowerment process for community organisations (including decision-making power of women). The SSF Guidelines, therefore, favour civic participation.