World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis (Fish and Aquatic Resources)

World Fisheries A Social-Ecological Analysis

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Fish and Aquatic Resources Series Series Editor: Tony J. Pitcher Professor of Fisheries Policy and Ecosystem Restoration in Fisheries, Fisheries Centre, Aquatic Ecosystems Research Laboratory, University of British Columbia, Canada The Wiley-Blackwell Fish and Aquatic Resources Series is an initiative aimed at providing key books in this fast-moving field, published to a high international standard. The Series includes books that review major themes and issues in the science of fishes and the interdisciplinary study of their exploitation in human fisheries. Volumes in the Series combine a broad geographical scope with in-depth focus on concepts, research frontiers, and analytical frameworks. These books will be of interest to research workers in the biology, zoology, ichthyology, ecology, and physiology of fish and the economics, anthropology, sociology, and all aspects of fisheries. They will also appeal to non-specialists such as those with a commercial or industrial stake in fisheries. It is the aim of the editorial team that books in the Wiley-Blackwell Fish and Aquatic Resources Series should adhere to the highest academic standards through being fully peer reviewed and edited by specialists in the field. The Series books are produced by Wiley-Blackwell in a prestigious and distinctive format. The Series Editor, Professor Tony J. Pitcher, is an experienced international author, and founding editor of the leading journal in the field, Fish and Fisheries. The Series Editor, and Publisher at Wiley-Blackwell, Nigel Balmforth, will be pleased to discuss suggestions, advise on scope, and provide evaluations of proposals for books intended for the Series. Please see contact details listed below. Titles currently included in the Series 1. Effects of Fishing on Marine Ecosystems and Communities (S. Hall) 1999 2. Salmonid Fishes (Edited by Y. Altukhov et al.) 2000 3. Percid Fishes (J. Craig) 2000 4. Fisheries Oceanography (Edited by P. Harrison and T. Parsons) 2000 5. Sustainable Fishery Systems (A. Charles) 2000 6. Krill (Edited by I. Everson) 2000 7. Tropical Estuarine Fishes (S. Blaber) 2000 8. Recreational Fisheries (Edited by T. J. Pitcher and C. E. Hollingworth) 2002 9. Flatfishes (Edited by R. Gibson) 2005 10. Fisheries Acoustics (J. Simmonds and D. N. MacLennan) 2005 11. Fish Cognition and Behavior (Edited by C. Brown, K. Laland and J. Krause) 2006 12. Seamounts (Edited by T. J. Pitcher, T. Morato, P. J. B. Hart, M. R. Clark, N. Haggan and R. S. Santos) 2007 13. Sharks of the Open Ocean (Edited by M. D. Camhi, E. K. Pikitch and E. A. Babcock) 2008 14. World Fisheries (Edited by R. E. Ommer, R. I. Perry, K. Cochrane and P. Cury) 2011 15. Fish Cognition and Behavior, Second Edition (Edited by C. Brown, K. N. Laland and J. Krause) 2011 For further information concerning existing books in the series, please visit: www.wiley.com To discuss an idea for a new book, please contact: Nigel Balmforth, Life Sciences, Wiley-Blackwell, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK Tel: +44 (0) 1865 476501 Email: [email protected]

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World Fisheries A Social-Ecological Analysis Edited by

Rosemary E. Ommer Department of History, University of Victoria, Canada

R. Ian Perry Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Pacific Biological Station, Nanaimo, Canada

Kevern Cochrane United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, Rome, Italy

Philippe Cury Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Centre de Recherche Halieutique Méditerranéenne et Tropicale, IRD – IFREMER & Université Montpellier II, France

A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication

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This edition first published 2011 © 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing programme has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell. Registered Office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK Editorial Offices 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, P019 8SQ, UK 2121 State Avenue, Ames, Iowa 50014-8300, USA For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell. The right of the authors to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data World fisheries : a social-ecological analysis / edited by Rosemary E. Ommer … [et al.] p. cm. — (Fish and aquatic resources series) Based on a symposium held in Rome in July 2008, sponsored by the Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics Program and other bodies Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 978-1-4443-3467-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Fishery management. 2. Marine fishes—Ecology. 3. Fisheries—Environmental aspects. 4. Fisheries—Social aspects. 5. Sustainable fisheries. I. Ommer, Rosemary. II. Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics (Program) SH328.W67 2011 338.3′727—dc22 2010031135 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This book is published in the following electronic formats: ePDF (9781444392227); Wiley Online Library (9781444392241); ePub (9781444392234) Set in 10/13 Times New Roman PS MT by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India 1

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2011

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Contents

List of Contributors Series Foreword Acknowledgements Part I Social-Ecological Systems in Fisheries 1 Introduction Rosemary E. Ommer and R. Ian Perry

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1 3

Reference

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Restoring Unity: The Concept of Marine Social-Ecological Systems Fikret Berkes

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Introduction Social-ecological systems concept and background Complexity, globalization, and social-ecological systems Participatory management and governance Conclusions Acknowledgements References Part II Modeling 3 Predicting the Impacts and Socio-Economic Consequences of Climate Change on Global Marine Ecosystems and Fisheries: The QUEST_Fish Framework Manuel Barange, Icarus Allen, Eddie Allison, Marie-Caroline Badjeck, Julia Blanchard, Benjamin Drakeford, Nicholas K. Dulvy, James Harle, Robert Holmes, Jason Holt, Simon Jennings, Jason Lowe, Gorka Merino, Christian Mullon, Graham Pilling, Lynda Rodwell, Emma Tompkins, and Francisco Werner Introduction Framing the problem Geographical and temporal framework The role of GCMs and RCMs Developing physical-biological models for the shelf seas

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Estimating potential fish production Estimating socio-economic consequences Methodology for national vulnerability assessment Methodology for global assessment of a marine-based commodity: fishmeal Opportunities and boundaries of the QUEST_Fish approach Endnotes References 4

Fleets, Sites, and Conservation Goals: Game Theoretic Insights on Management Options for Multinational Tuna Fisheries Kathleen Miller, Peter Golubtsov, and Robert McKelvey Introduction Background – Tuna exploitation and management in the Western and Central Pacific The model The single-season subgame: The split-stream extensive model The two-fleet interior game The RFMO-guided seasonal game between distant-water fleets and coastal countries Simulations and implications Game structure of RFMO–sites–fleets interaction Policy choices for sustaining stocks Effects of coalition-formation Climate-related shifts in distribution of stocks Summary, policy implications and future directions Acknowledgement Endnotes References

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Fishing the Food Web: Integrated Analysis of Changes and Drivers of Change in Fisheries of the Bay of Biscay Olivier Thébaud and Fabian Blanchard Introduction Patterns of change in fisheries landings by French fleets Drivers of change Institutional context: a case of “regulated open access” Increased competition in markets for fish Effects of sea warming on the fish community structure Perspectives Acknowledgements Endnotes References

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Interdisciplinary Modeling for an Ecosystem Approach to Management in Marine Social-Ecological Systems Anthony M. Starfield and Astrid Jarre

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Introduction Focusing attention and setting objectives A model of a model Rapid prototyping The question of balance Frame-based modeling People and resources Concluding remarks Acknowledgements References

105 106 108 109 111 112 115 117 118 118

People’s Seas: “Ethno-oceanography” as an Interdisciplinary Means to Approach Marine Ecosystem Change Maria A. Gasalla and Antonio C. S. Diegues

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Introduction Defining “ethno-oceanography” Ethnoecology approach The significance of key communication: Ethno-oceanography and changes in marine social-ecological systems of Brazil “Ethno-oceanography” as a framework to approach climate and marine ecosystem change Looking beyond uncertainty: Implications of climate change to fisheries Redefining the reach of ethno-oceanography: a conceptual approach Concluding remarks Acknowledgements Endnotes References Part III Knowledge 8 The Utility of Economic Indicators to Promote Policy-Relevant Science for Climate Change Decisions Judith Kildow Introduction Indicators Economic indicators: a framework Economic indicators function in multiple ways The evidence from society Conclusion Endnotes References

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Scientific Advice for Fisheries Management in West Africa in the Context of Global Change Bora Masumbuko, Moctar Bâ, P. Morand, P. Chavance, and Pierre Failler Introduction West African context Method ECOST/ISTAM survey results Scientific advice: content and processes Use and non-use of scientific advice and its implications Improvement of the quality of scientific advice and its use in the decision process Discussion Conclusion Acknowledgements Endnotes References

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Knowledge and Research on Chilean Fisheries Resources: Diagnosis and Recommendations for Sustainable Development Eleuterio Yáñez, Exequiel González, Luis Cubillos, Samuel Hormazábal, Héctor Trujillo, Lorena Álvarez, Alejandra Órdenes, Milton Pedraza, and Gustavo Aedo Introduction Framework System structure, elements, interactions, and knowledge to be considered Current status of knowledge Governance of the fisheries system (a system of problems) Discussion Future research path for fisheries management Endnotes References

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Moving Forward: Social-Ecological Interactivity, Global Marine Change and Knowledge for the Future Barbara Neis

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Introduction Social-ecological knowledge Knowing where we want to go and finding our way there Conclusion Endnote References

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Part IV Values 12 Unaccounted Values: Under-reporting Sardine Catches as a Strategy Against Poverty in the Bali Strait, Indonesia Eny Anggraini Buchary, Tony J. Pitcher, and Ussif Rashid Sumaila

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Introduction Area description The Lemuru fishery Materials and methods Data collection Analytical methods Results and discussion Fate of landed lemuru and distribution of reported catch Estimated true catch Financial insecurity: lending schemes and debt-to-assets ratio Measuring relative poverty in fisheries Conclusions Acknowledgements Endnotes References

203 204 205 206 206 207 211 211 214 215 217 218 219 220 221

“You Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone”: The Case for Spiritual Values in Marine Ecosystem Management Nigel Haggan

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Introduction Golden Rule #1: Love your neighbor as yourself Golden Rule #2: The one with the gold makes the rules Golden Rule #3: The gold goes where the gold grows Concepts of value The roots of whole ecosystem evaluation Formal frameworks, 1987–1991 Measuring ecosystem value A bridge between intrinsic and instrumental value Conclusion Acknowledgements Appendix 1: Catagories used in total economic value and ecosystem services frameworks References

224 226 227 227 228 229 230 231 234 236 237

Social-Ecological Restructuring and Implications for Social Values Grant Murray

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Introduction Approach and methods

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237 239

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Social-ecological restructuring: Putting climate change in context Changes in social structures and processes Size and connection with fishing industry Age structure Internal stratification Fishing as a way of life: Now and in the future Discussion Conclusion Endnotes References 15

Economic Valuation of Mangroves in the Niger Delta: An Interdisciplinary Approach Godstime K. James, Jimmy O. Adegoke, Ekechukwu Saba, Peter Nwilo, Joseph Akinyede, and Sylvester Osagie Introduction Study area Integration of remote sensing and socio-economic data Economic valuation of mangrove resources Methodology Remote sensing analysis Focus group analysis Household survey Empirical data processing Estimation of net income from the sale of mangrove resources Estimation of the mangrove area that supported mangrove income (Ak) Annual household net income at the community level Results and analysis Socio-economic characteristics of household survey respondents Area of mangrove that support income stream (Ak) Results from the economic valuation Conclusions References

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US Marine Ecosystem Habitat Values Ussif Rashid Sumaila, Jackie Alder, G. Ishimura, William. W. L. Cheung, L. Dropkin, S. Hopkins, S. Sullivan, and A. Kitchingman

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Introduction Geographical scope of study Assigning use and non-use values to habitat types Direct use: Habitat associated commercial values

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Direct use: Habitat associated recreational values Non-use and indirect value: Habitat values based on iconic species The results Direct use: Habitat associated commercial values Direct use: Habitat associated recreational values Non-use and indirect value: Habitat values based on iconic species Concluding remarks Acknowledgements Endnotes References Part V Governance 17 Historical Transitions in Access to and Management of Alaska’s Commercial Fisheries, 1880–1980 Emilie Springer Introduction Early days: Gold and salmon; 1867–1919 1899 Report by Jefferson Moser, United States Navy Commander of the steam ship Albatross 1920–1939: The records of Hubbell and Waller The mid-century era of fisheries: 1940–1969 1954–1970 Total Catch Statistics Species shift, changing technology, improved access, and awareness of off-shore waters: 1970s–1980s Three Alaskan competitors: Japan, Russia/Soviet Union, and Korea Organization of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) Discussion and conclusions Endnotes References 18

Can Fishers’ Virtuous Behavior Improve Large Marine Ecosystem Health? Valentina Giannini Introduction Guatemala: A case study Vicious chains: Exploitation and degradation Virtous chains and the Red: A partial solution to conflict and overfishing Discussion Conclusions Acknowledgements References Useful websites

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Ecosystem-based Management in the Asia-Pacific Region Mitsutaku Makino and Hiroyuki Matsuda

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Introduction Global comparison of fisheries sectors Ecosystem-based management at the Shiretoko World Natural Heritage, Japan Discussion Conclusion Acknowledgement Endnotes References

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A Network Approach to Understanding Coastal Management and Governance of Small-scale Fisheries in the Eastern Caribbean Kemraj Parsram and Patrick McConney

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Introduction Coastal and fisheries resources Governance issues Network governance thinking Tuna fishery management Fisheries science networks Regional fisher folk organization Conclusion References

334 335 337 340 341 343 346 347 348

Uncertainty Demands an Adaptive Management Approach to the Use of Marine Protected Areas as Management Tools Michel J. Kaiser

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Introduction Quantifying the performance of MPAs The “plaice-box” as a case study Climate effects on MPA performance metrics Dealing with future uncertainty References

351 352 353 355 356 357

Building Resilience to Climatic and Global Change in High-Latitude Fishing Communities: Three Case Studies from Iceland and Alaska James R. McGoodwin

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Introduction Impacts that are forecast for marine ecosystems and the world’s coastal fishing communities Case studies from three high-latitude fishing communities

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Case Study 1: Heimaey, Iceland Case Study 2: Dillingham, Southwest Alaska Case Study 3: The Yup’ik community, Southwest Alaska Conclusion: recommendations for increasing the resilience of the three high-latitude coastal fishing communities Recommendations for Heimaey, Iceland Recommendations for Dillingham, Southwest Alaska Recommendations for the Yup’ik community, Southwest Alaska General recommendations Regarding ordinary climatic variability Regarding severe coastal storms and extreme weather events, sea-level rise, and saltwater intrusion Regarding changes in marine ecosystem compositions Regarding building the capacity of fisheries-management systems to more effectively deal with global warming and change Regarding future fisheries research Regarding regional fisheries management organizations Acknowledgements Endnotes References 23

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Coping with Environmental Change: Systemic Responses and the Roles of Property and Community in Three Fisheries Bonnie J. McCay, Wendy Weisman, and Carolyn Creed

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Introduction Case Study 1: Fogo Island, Newfoundland, Canada Case Study 2: Pacifico Norte, Baja California Sur, Mexico Case Study 3: US Surfclam Fishery Conclusion: Enclosures, feedback, and the future Acknowledgements References

381 383 386 391 394 396 397

Part VI Conclusions 24 Conclusion: Hierarchy, Power, and Potential Regime Shifts in Marine Social-Ecological Systems Rosemary E. Ommer and R. Ian Perry References Index

401 403

406 407

A color plate section falls between pages 208 and 209

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List of Contributors

Jimmy O. Adegoke Department of Geosciences University of Missouri Kansas City, Missouri, USA Gustavo Aedo Universidad de Concepción Box 160-C, Concepción Chile Joseph Akinyede Space Application Department Nigerian Space Research and Development Agency Garki-Abuja, Nigeria Jackie Alder United Nations Environment Programme United Nations Drive Gigiri, Nairobi, Kenya Icarus Allen Plymouth Marine Laboratory Prospect Place, Plymouth, PL13DH, UK Eddie Allison The WorldFish Center PO Box 500 GPO, 10670 Penang, Malaysia Lorena Álvarez Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso Box 1020, Valparaíso, Chile

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Moctar Bâ Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) Research Unit Osiris, Route des Hydrocarbures, BP 1386, Dakar, Senegal Email: [email protected] Marie-Caroline Badjeck The WorldFish Center PO Box 500 GPO, 10670 Penang, Malaysia Email: [email protected] Manuel Barange Plymouth Marine Laboratory Prospect Place, Plymouth, PL13DH, UK Email: [email protected] Fikret Berkes Natural Resources Institute University of Manitoba Winnipeg MB R3T 2N2, Canada Email: [email protected] Fabian Blanchard IFREMER Laboratoire des Ressources Halieutiques BP 477, 97331 Cayenne Cedex, French Guyana Julia Blanchard Centre for the Environment, Fisheries and Aquatic Science Lowestoft Laboratory, Pakefield Road Lowestoft NR33 0HT, UK

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List of Contributors

Eny Anggraini Buchary Fisheries Centre University of British Columbia 2202 Main Mall Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada Email: [email protected]

Antonio C. S. Diegues Graduate Course of Environmental Sciences/NUPAUB University of São Paulo (USP) Cidade Universitária, 05508-060 SP Brazil

P. Chavance Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) CRH IRD Avenue Jean Monnet 34200 Sète France Email: [email protected]

Benjamin Drakeford Centre for the Economics and Management of Aquatic Resources University of Portsmouth St George’s Building Portsmouth PO1 2HY, UK

William W. L. Cheung School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK Kevern L. Cochrane Fisheries and Aquaculture Department Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, via delle Terme di Caracalla Rome 00153 Email: [email protected] Carolyn Creed Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA Luis Cubillos Universidad de Concepción Box 160-C, Concepción, Chile Philippe Cury IRD UMR EME-212 (Ecosystème Marins Exploités-Exploited Marine Ecosystems) CRH (Centre de Recherche Halieutique Méditerranéenne et Tropicale IDR, Ifremer & Université Montpellier II Avenue Jean Monnet, BP 171 34203 Sète Cedex France

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L. Dropkin EdgeResearch 1901 N Ft. Myer Road, Suite 702 Arlington, VA, USA Nicholas K. Dulvy Department of Biological Sciences Simon Fraser University Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada Pierre Failler Centre for the Economics and Management of Aquatic Resources (CEMARE) University of Portsmouth, St George’s Building 141 High Street Portsmouth, PO1 2HY, UK Email: [email protected] Maria A. Gasalla Fisheries Ecosystems Laboratory (LabPesq) Department of Biological Oceanography Instituto Oceanográfico, University of São Paulo (USP) Cidade Universitária, 055080-900 SP, Brazil Email: [email protected] Valentina Giannini Ca’ Foscari University Cannaregio 873, I-30121 Venice, Italy Email: [email protected]

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List of Contributors

Peter Golubtsov Physics Department Lomonosov Moscow State University Leninskiye Gory, Moscow, 119991, Russia Exequiel González Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso Box 1020, Valparaíso, Chile Nigel Haggan UBC Fisheries Centre 2202 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4 Email: [email protected] James Harle Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory Joseph Proudman Building 6 Brownlow Street, Liverpool L3 5DA, UK Robert Holmes Plymouth Marine Laboratory Prospect Place, Plymouth, PL1 3DH, UK Jason Holt Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory Joseph Proudman building 6 Brownlow Street, Liverpool L3 5DA, UK

Godstime K. James Space Application Department Nigerian Space Research and Development Agency Garki-Abuja, Nigeria Email: [email protected] Astrid Jarre Marine Research (MA-RE) Institute University of Cape Town Private Bag X3, Rondebosch 7701, South Africa Email: [email protected] Simon Jennings Centre for the Environment, Fisheries and Aquatic Science Lowestoft Laboratory, Pakefield Road Lowestoft NR33 0HT, UK Michel J. Kaiser School of Ocean Sciences College of Natural Sciences Bangor University, Menai Bridge, UK Email: [email protected] Judith Kildow National Ocean Economics Program 12645 Summit Ridge Road Nevada City, CA 95959, USA Email: [email protected]

S. Hopkins EdgeResearch 1901 N Ft. Myer Road, Suite 702 Arlington, VA, USA

A. Kitchingman UBC Fisheries Centre 2202 Main Mall Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4

Samuel Hormazábal Universidad de Concepción Box 160-C, Concepción, Chile

Jason Lowe Met Office, Hadley Centre FitzRoy Road Exeter, EX1 3PB, UK

G. Ishimura School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

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Mitsutaku Makino Fisheries Research Agency, Japan Email: [email protected]

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List of Contributors

Bora Masumbuko BP 1618 Ouagadougou Burkina Faso Email: [email protected] Hiroyuki Matsuda Yokohama National University, Japan Bonnie J. McCay Department of Human Ecology, Rutgers University 55 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA Email: [email protected] Patrick McConney Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus, Barbados Email: [email protected] James R. McGoodwin Department of Anthropology 233 UCB, University of Colorado Boulder, CO 80309 USA E-mail: [email protected] Robert McKelvey Professor Emeritus of Mathematical Sciences, University of Montana, USA Gorka Merino School of Earth, Ocean and Environmental Sciences University of Plymouth Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK Kathleen Miller Climate Science and Applications Program, National Center for Atmospheric Research PO Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307, USA Email: [email protected]

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P. Morand Département Ressources Vivantes Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) 93143 Bondy Cedex, France Christian Mullon Unité de Recherche Ecosystèmes d’Upwelling Centre de Recherches Halieutiques Avenue Jean Monnet, 34200, Sète, France Grant Murray Institute for Coastal Research Vancouver Island University Nanaimo, BC V9R 5S5, Canada Email: [email protected] Barbara Neis Department of Sociology Memorial University of Newfoundland St. John’s NL A1C 5S7, Canada Email: [email protected] Peter Nwilo Department of Surveying and Geoinformatics University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria Rosemary E. Ommer Department of History University of Victoria PO Box 1700 STN CSC Victoria BC V8W 2Y2, Canada Email: [email protected] Alejandra Órdenes Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso Box 1020, Valparaíso, Chile Sylvester Osagie Department of Labor Relations The Pennsylvania State University Altoona, PA

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List of Contributors

Kemraj Parsram Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus, Barbados Email: [email protected] Milton Pedraza Universidad de Concepción Box 160-C, Concepción Chile R. Ian Perry Fisheries and Oceans Canada Pacific Biological Station 3190 Hammond Bay Road Nanaimo, BC, V9T 6N7, Canada Email: [email protected] Graham Pilling Centre for the Environment, Fisheries and Aquatic Science Lowestoft Laboratory, Pakefield Road Lowestoft, NR33 0HT, UK Tony J. Pitcher University of Brirish Columbia Fisheries Centre 2202 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4 Email: [email protected] Lynda Rodwell School of Earth, Ocean and Environmental Sciences University of Plymouth Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK Ekechukwu Saba Map and Image System Ogunu Road, Warri Delta State, Nigeria Emilie Springer Department of Anthropology University of Alaska Fairbanks 310 Eielson Building, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA. Email: [email protected]

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Anthony M. Starfield 6080 Thursby Avenue Dallas, TX 75252, USA S. Sullivan EdgeResearch 1901 N Ft. Myer Road, Suite 702 Arlington, VA, USA Ussif Rashid Sumaila Fisheries Centre University of British Columbia 2202 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4 Canada Email: [email protected] Olivier Thébaud CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research 233 Middle Street Cleveland, 4163, QLD, Australia Emma Tompkins School of Earth and Environment University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK Héctor Trujillo Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso Box 1020, Valparaíso, Chile Wendy Weisman Rutgers University New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA Francisco Werner Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences Rutgers University 71 Dudley Road New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA Eleuterio Yáñez Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso Box 1020, Valparaíso, Chile

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Series Foreword

Hari Seldon and the order of consilience It is the custom of scholars when addressing behavior and culture to speak variously of anthropological explanations, psychological explanations, biological explanations, and other explanations appropriate to the perspective of individual disciplines. I have argued that there is intrinsically only one class of explanation. It traverses the scales of space, time and complexity to unite the disparate facts of the disciplines by consilience, the perception of a seamless web of cause and effect. E.O. Wilson It has long been known that, to manage fisheries, we have to manage people, a notoriously messy process, as well as deal with the natural world of ecology and all its uncertainties, another set of messy processes. Yet, reflecting Wilson’s strictures, the understanding of fisheries systems has proceeded largely in the separate solitudes of social and natural sciences and this has meant a lack of integrative solutions to chronic fisheries problems. And until recently, practical ways of moving towards Wilson’s consilience have been inept at best, and disastrous in the worst cases (Pitcher and Lam, 2010). Many seeking consilience of the social and ecological aspects of humans look enviously at the Foundation series of books, classics of 1950s science fiction, in which Isaac Asimov’s protagonist, Hari Seldon, spends his life developing psychohistory, a concept of mathematical sociology analogous to mathematical physics.1 Using the law of mass action, Seldon’s algorithm can predict the future, but only on a large scale. It works on the principle that the behaviour of a mass of people is predictable if the quantity of this mass is very large (quadrillions in Asimov’s envisioned galaxy of humans, inhabiting millions of star systems throughout the Milky Way). The larger the number, the more predictable is the future. Using his algorithm, Seldon foresees the imminent fall of the Galactic Empire, and a dark age lasting 30,000 years before a second great empire arises. To shorten the period of barbarism, he creates two Foundations, small, secluded havens of all human knowledge, at “opposite ends of the galaxy” and the stories follow the fortunes of this venture. If only we understood Seldon’s math, all would be well in the world of fisheries ecosystems and their embedded fish and fishers. Barbasi (2005) suggests that something along the lines of the Seldon formula may emerge from interdisciplinary team research on a vibrant consumer society that has developed webs of myriad electronic tags. But while Asimov’s fictional Seldon solved E.O.Wilson’s unity of knowledge, unfortunately, in real life things

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Series Foreword

are not so easy and we are still waiting for the critical theory to be invented. In the meantime, the social-ecological approach fostered by this book points a hopeful way forward. In Asimov’s stories, Seldon’s theory could not handle innovation. To make sure that the predictions worked, the Foundation tried to freeze technological development and was ultimately unsuccessful. In fisheries, technological innovation has changed the ground rules for traditional coastal fishing societies where a sustainability ethic may emerge (Trosper 2009). The process has led to massive serial depletion of most of the world’s major fisheries resources (Pitcher 2001, and for example, deep water and seamount fisheries, Pitcher et al., 2010), This process has prejudiced ecological sustainability and the very existence of many linked human livelihoods. The principal sufferers have been small-scale coastal communities, largely the subjects of this book. This pioneering book, bringing together social and natural science into a fresh socialecological perspective, presents case studies and concepts that point the way forward. The 24 chapters derive originally from a conference held at the Rome headquarters of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations in 2008 that attracted over 200 of the world’s leading researchers in this field. While there are significant other challenges, for example in establishing safe operating limits for the major biogeochemical global systems (Rockstrom et al., 2009), socialecological systems may be key to human survival of the coming eco-crisis. Although they are vulnerable to disruptions of the biogeochemical norms, social-ecological systems nevertheless have significant adaptive capacity and may be able to sustain human well-being through difficult changes (Chapin et al., 2009). On a 50-year time-scale, many forecast a dark age of mayhem and destruction, while the human population grapples with serious food shortages of all kinds caused by ignoring the mismatch between ecology and unfettered human behaviour. This includes the catastrophic loss of the productive capacity of the world’s oceans and fisheries. We can hope that the insight provided by the social-ecological approach will be analogous to Asimov’s Foundation in averting or at least mitigating this impending catastrophe.

Endnote 1. Asimov’s publisher, John W. Campbell of Astounding magazine (where Foundation first appeared), reported that Asimov’s inspiration came from the logical analysis of historical trends in Gibbon’s 1776 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Asimov said he used, “a little bit of cribbin’ from the works of Edward Gibbon.”

References Barbasi, A. -L. (2005) Network Theory – the emergence of the creative enterprise. Science 308, 639–641. Chapin, T., Carpenter, S. R., Kofinas, G. P., Folke, C., Abel, N., Clark, W. C., Olsson, P., Smith, D. M., Walker, B., Young, O. R., Berkes, F., Biggs, R., Grove, J. M., Naylor, R. L., Pinkerton, E., Steffen, W. and Swanson, F. J. (2009) Ecosystem stewardship: sustainability strategies for a rapidly changing planet. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 25(4), 241–249

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Pitcher, T. J. (2001) Fisheries managed to rebuild ecosystems: reconstructing the past to salvage the future. Ecological Applications 11(2), 601–617. Pitcher, T. J. and Lam, M. (2010) Fishful thinking: rhetoric, reality and the sea before us. Ecology and Society 15(2), 12, 27pp. Pitcher, T. J., Clark, M. R., Morato, T. and Watson. R. (2010) Seamount Fisheries: do they have a future? Oceanography 23(1), 134–144. Rockstrom, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, A., Chapin, F. S., Lambin, E. F., Lenton, T. M., Scheffer, M., Folke, C., Schellnhuber, H. J., Nykvist, B., de Wit, C. A., Hughes, T., van der Leeuw, S., Rodhe, H., Sorlin, S., Snyder, P. K., Costanza, R., Svedin, U., Falkenmark, M., Karlberg, L., Corell R. W., Fabry, V. J., Hansen. J., Walker, B., Liverman, D., Richardson, K., Crutzen, P. and Foley, J. A. (2009) A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 461, 472–475. Trosper, R. L. (2009) Resilience, reciprocity and ecological economics: Northwest coast sustainability. Routledge, London, UK and New York, New York, USA. Wilson, E. O. (1998) Consilience. Knopf, NY, 332 pp.

Professor Tony J. Pitcher Series Editor, Wiley-Blackwell Fish and Aquatic Resources Series Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC, Canada

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Acknowledgements

An international symposium on “Coping with global change in marine social-ecological systems” was held at the Rome headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), 8–11 July 2008. It was sponsored by the Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics Program (GLOBEC: a core project of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program, the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research, and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation), the European Network of Excellence for Ocean Ecosystems Analysis, and FAO. The central goals of the symposium were to: 1. explore conceptual issues relating to social-ecological re- sponses in marine systems to global changes; 2. analyse case studies of specific examples of social-ecological responses in marine systems to significant environmental changes manifested locally; 3. synthesise the work of natural and social scientists and build comparisons of socialecological responses in marine ecosystems subjected to major environmental variability; 4. develop innovative approaches to the use of science and knowledge in management, policy and advice; and to 5. identify policy initiatives that would enhance marine govern- ance structures such that they would encourage the building of resilient social-ecological systems. The symposium was supported by the French Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Institut Francais de Recherché pour l’Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER), the Institute for Coastal and Oceans Research (University of Victoria, Canada), the Scientific Committee for Oceanic Research(SCOR), the North Pacific Marine Science Organisation (PICES), the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas(ICES), the Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research program(IMBER), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and the International Human Dimensions Program (IHDP). The editors of this book, along with convenors of the symposium wish to thank each of these organisations for their generosity. The editors also wish to thank Joy Austin, Kari Marks and Graeme Bock of ICOR, and Andrew P. Delaney of St. John’s, Newfoundland, for secretarial and technical assistance with text and index preparation. They also wish to thank Raschad Al Khafaji, Cassandra de Young, Michel Lamboeuf, Susana Siar, Jogeir Toppe and Rine Sola of the local FAO symposium organising committee. Finally, the convenors also thank GLOBEC, Eur-OCEANS and FAO for their support and funding.

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Plate 1 The QUEST_FISH domains defined by the 800m contour plus 200 km of open ocean.

World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Plate 2 Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory Coastal-Ocean Modelling System (POLCOMS) – European Regional Seas Ecosystem Model (ERSEM) diagram.

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Plate 3 Simulated (a) and satellite-derived (b) climatologies of mean net primary production (mg C m–2 d–1) in the Humboldt domain. Also shown (c) are areas within the domain with a statistically significant difference between primary production under pre-industrial climate forcing, and primary production under the SRES A1B emissions scenario (years 2085 to 2094).

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Sole Cuttlefish Sardine Hake Pollack Nephrops Monkfish Seabass Anchovy

70000 60000 50000 40000 30000 20000 10000

Year

Sardine Hake Pollack

300000 200000

Nephrops Monkfish Seabass

100000

Anchovy 02

00

04 20

20

20

96

98 19

94

92

19

19

90

19

19

02

04 20

00

20

20

96

94

98 19

19

92

19

19

90

Sole Cuttlefish

400000

0

0 19

Landings in value (KEuros)

Landings in volume (Tons)

80000

Year

Plate 4 Patterns of change in fisheries landings from the Bay of Biscay by French fleets for nine key commercial species, 1990–2005 (see Steinmetz et al., 2008 for a longer-term analysis including a larger set of species, and showing similar trends). Top left: total landings in volume for the major species landed by French fleets; Top right: total first sale value of landings for these species; Bottom: evolution of the composition of landings per year (x-axis) and per average first-sale price of species ( y-axis, in Euro/kg); darker colour indicates a greater tonnage landed for a given year at a given annual average price. Source: data from FranceAgriMer; bottom graph by C. Mullon (see www.projet-chaloupe.fr, Atlas).

Plate 5 Typical bio-geographic distribution area of boreal (left map), temperate (central map) and subtropical species (right map) encountered in the Bay of Biscay as sampled by the bottom-trawl surveys carried out yearly by Ifremer since 1987.

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60° 45° 30° 15° (b)

0° –15° –30°

–45° –60° Plate 6 Global map of altimeter-derived SSH trends from the difference of two means between periods 1993–99 and 1999–2006 divided by the time difference (from Polito and Sato, 2008. Global Interannual Trends and Amplitude Modulations of the Sea Surface Height Anomaly from the TOPEX/Jason-1 Altimeters. Journal of Climate, 21: 2824–2834. ©American Meteorological Society. Reproduced with permission). See the increasing trend for the South Atlantic circled area as a possible scientific correspondence to fisher’s perception on sea-level rise in Figure 7.2.

NAO – SE

NINO – SE –15

–15 0.3

–20

0.2

0 –20

–0.2

0.1 –25

–25 0

–30 –50 –45 –40 –35

–0.1

–0.1

–0.3 –0.4

–30 –50 –45 –40 –35

Plate 7 Correlation between the AVHRR sea surface temperature anomalies from the Pathfinder project v5 and interannual indices of El Nino and the NAO for the period 1985–2006. The anomalies are estimated by removing the annual and semi-annual signals from the time series (From Sato and Constantino- Courtesy of Olga Sato). See different correlations inside the bight and offshore as possible eventual correspondence of the different perceptions of both small-scale and canoe fishers from the industrial fishers in terms of cooling or warming between fishing zones.

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Float

Purse line Boats

Plate 8 Bali Strait-style purse seines, locally known as Slerek, are usually composed of a pair of boats, the net boat (left, see photo) and the fish boat (right, see photo) that work in tandem (see diagram). Net hauling is operated manually by 25 to 50+ crew (in 2004), and fish schools are eye-spotted by the skipper/Captain sitting at the high bench, also called ‘the stage’ (see arrow) of the net boat. Schematic diagram from Wudianto (2001), modified and reprinted here with permission. Photo credit: Eny Buchary, 2004.

Plate 9 Ceremonial cedar doors at the University of British Columbia Longhouse carved by Heiltsuk Nation artist Bradley Hunt show how people, salmon and cedar trees contain and support each other. Photo A. Rivera, with permission.

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Large Marine Ecosystems

California Current East Bering Sea Gulf of Alaska Gulf of Mexico Northeast U.S. Continental Shelf Southeast U.S. Continental Shelf

Plate 10 Map of US Large Marine Ecosystems.

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6

Brown bear

Sea eagles Fisheries

Steller sea lion

5

Toothed whales

SnailsSeabirds Sharks

S

Snails Rays Trophic level

Yellowtail 4

O OP

Cods

G

BT

R

Walleye pollock

F

3

Squids

A.G. SC Prawn

Sea cucumber

Bivalves

Snails

Sardine

Other fishes Sea squirt

Baleen Anchovy whales

PS

PH SL

2 Echinoids

Mackerel

SF

Starfish Crabs

Tuna

Salmonids

Polychaetes

Zooplankton (copepods, euphausiids)

1 Sea weed and Sea grass

Phytoplankton (ice algae)

Detritus

Plate 11 Food web of the Shiretoko World Natural Heritage area (as depicted by the Marine Area Working Group of the Scientific Council). AG: arabesque greenling; BT: bighand thornyhead; F: flatfishes; G: greenlings; O: octopus; OP: ocean perch; PH: Pacific herring; PS: Pacific saury; R: rockfish; S: seals; SC: saffron cod; SF: sandfish; SL: sand-lance.

Subsistence Catch Total, all four villages

Number of fish

50,000 Chinook

40,000

Sockeye

30,000

Coho

20,000

Chum Pink

10,000 0 1980

Total Salmon 1985

1990

1995

2000

Year Plate 12 Subsistence catch of Pacific salmon in four native Yup’ik communities in Alaska. Source: Alaska Department of Fish and Game – Division of Subsistence.

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Part I

Social-Ecological Systems in Fisheries

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Chapter 1

Introduction Rosemary E. Ommer and R. Ian Perry

The ocean is fundamental to life on this planet, covering 70% of its surface and playing a major role in regulating the Earth’s climate and the biogeochemical cycling of key elements. Yet it remains comparatively little understood, while being hugely exploited in response to human food requirements, and the need for other resources such as oil and gas. Human beings are having a huge impact on our oceans, without understanding the long-term consequences of our actions; the oceans also impact on human beings. The relationship between human beings and the oceans is two-way: humanity and the sea are inter-dependent, and we will not manage marine matters wisely until we make that an everyday part of our thinking. It is important to look at the linkages between oceans and ourselves, and to start to understand these linkages as part of how we think about, and act as stewards of, our oceans. Failure to recognize the full implications of this humans-in-nature concept (Berkes and Folke, 1998) has left oceans, and many fish-dependent communities in both the developed and the less-developed world, in trouble, since both industrial and artisanal or small-scale fisheries are stressed as more and more fish stocks shrink or even become endangered. Fishing nations are now becoming more concerned about “species at risk”, but there has been insufficient analysis that ties people and fish together in ways that will alter management thinking about the ways in which non-industrial and “industrial” coastal communities are also at risk. In short, the management of the world’s fish and fishers remains deeply problematic, not least because, by separating fish from fishers and by not recognizing the interdependence of these two, what are really interdependent problems have been thought of in separate spheres. There are two distinct modes of management that exist in today’s fisheries. The first concerns the technologically-sophisticated deepwater ocean fleets that may be nationally based, but operate internationally. They are managed, for the most part, through quotas and regulations aimed at servicing the needs of the multinational and commercially important business enterprises. They fish their own territorial waters but are also invited into the waters of some nations that are resource-rich but fiscally less well endowed, with access granted World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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them for a sum of money that boosts national wealth over the short term, while depleting national resources over the longer term. The second concerns the management of small-scale and artisanal fisheries, usually thought of as commercially less important or important only in the less-developed world, although small-scale fisheries also exist in the developed world (e.g., Newfoundland and Norway). As a result, an analytical divide exists in the academic (natural and social scientific) and management policy literatures. All too often, analysis of “small coastal”, “small boat”, “inshore”, or “artisanal” fisheries, and that of industrial high technology, large-scale fleets are not found in the same journals. The debate about management at the national level in the developed world, and to some degree globally, is found mostly in policy and management journals, national and international. They focus on regulatory concerns to do with the equitable access of large-scale fleets to the world’s fish. By contrast, the literature on small-scale fisheries is to be found more often in the development, resilience, and ecological literatures. This reflects a perception that the big fleets are the important fisheries sector contributors to national wealth, and hence of primary concern to national and international regulators. By contrast, small-scale fisheries seem to be perceived to be primarily subsistent in purpose, and thus not of equal status, since the “wealth” they may generate is of a different scale and nature, frequently not going into national employment statistics and tax coffers or contributing to industrial profits, expenditures, and wages. This “separate silos” approach to different scales of fishing activity ignores the fact that subsistent economies relieve the state of the need to provide other kinds of costly support, be that in welfare payments or the costs of crime that are so often the downstream result of unremitting poverty. In this book, therefore, we take a different view, dismissing neither the importance of industrial fleets nor that of local fisheries. Instead, while acknowledging the significant distinctions between them, we also recognize that both are part of the world’s interdependent social-ecological systems (see Berkes, Chapter 2). This means that they must bear responsibilities as well as rights when prosecuting global marine resources on which they ultimately depend and on which they have significant impacts. By extension, then, not only are they subject to quota regulations and international agreements, but they also bear responsibility for impacts that are all too often seen as “externalities” – costs to the ecological part of the global social-ecological system that are frequently ignored or seen as impossible to regulate. This book grew out of an international symposium on these topics, lead by the Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics (GLOBEC) program, by Eur-OCEANS Work Package 6 on the Ecosystem Approach to Marine Resources, and by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), and held at FAO Headquarters in Rome in July 2008. It is not just a collection of papers from that symposium, however. Rather, the central goal of the publication is to bring together work on social-ecological marine research that cuts across disciplines, identifies key common elements and approaches that promote resilience of marine social-ecological systems in the face of global changes, and points to next steps. The book comprises contributions on conceptual issues relating to social-ecological responses in marine systems to global changes; offers illustrative case studies of specific examples of social-ecological responses in marine systems to significant environmental changes manifested locally; develops a synthesis between natural and social scientists on the topic; and points the way forward with innovative approaches to the use of science and knowledge in management, policy, and advice.

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Introduction

5

The book has six parts. Part I introduces the concept of marine social-ecological systems with a chapter by Berkes. Part II presents examples of conceptual and numerical modeling approaches to marine social-ecological systems, including integrated models from climate to people, bio-economic models, and conceptual models for developing true inter-disciplinary studies of marine ecosystems and global change. Part III is about knowledge, and how knowledge relates to understanding, management, and the power which provides the basis for wise use of ocean systems in a world of social and environmental change. Part IV discusses values, the economic values of marine habitats and ecosystems but goes further to consider social and spiritual values. Part V addresses issues of governance, and includes case studies of how marine social-ecological systems have addressed (or not) global changes. Part VI provides a synthesis of the lessons learned and the next steps towards developing integrated and adaptive marine social-ecological systems for a changing world. In Part I, Berkes describes how fisheries are not purely ecological systems isolated from human influence, nor are they purely social systems that function independently of the ecosystems that support them. Rather, fisheries are linked social-ecological systems in which human activities modify the ecological subsystem; the nature of resources and their availability in turn modifies the social subsystem. The necessity of considering natural and social systems together is a conceptual development that has implications for adapting to global change. Some of the key elements of these conceptual shifts include: 1. changing perspectives on the notions of resources and their management; 2. formulation of fishery objectives that consider ecological, economic, and social concerns, including livelihood needs, responding to the broader notion of sustainability; 3. expansion of the scope of management information to include fishers’ knowledge and learning, and the use of deliberative methods and multiple epistemologies to deal with complexity; and 4. development of participatory governance with community-based institutions and attention to multi-scale linkages from local to global as a way of dealing with complexity and change. Conceptual and numerical modeling approaches to marine social-ecological systems are presented in Part II. In the first chapter, Barange et al. describe a large-scale modeling approach in which results from global climate models are down-scaled to regional marine ecosystem models, which then simulate the implications of climate change for the productivity of these ecosystems. Barange et al. then extend these regional ecosystem models to include their impacts upon humans, by assessing the vulnerability of fisheries in national economies and fish-based global commodity markets to climate change. Their results provide a new framework and new insights into the complex interactions between nature and humans under climate change. Miller et al. provide a specific example of bio-economic modeling as applied to the management of tuna fisheries in the Pacific Ocean. This situation involves fish which migrate between the exclusive economic zones of coastal and small island nations and the high seas, and the allocation of fishing privileges and benefits between these coastal and island nations and distant-water fishing nations. The study illustrates well the interplay between climate variability, fish distributions, alternative

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World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis

management strategies, and the division of benefits among distant-water fishing nations and small island and coastal nations. Thébaud and Blanchard provide an integrated biophysical and economic analysis of changes in fish production and fisheries, and the drivers of these changes, at multiple scales from the northeast Atlantic to the Bay of Biscay. They demonstrate how ecosystem modifications caused by both the direct and ecosystem effects of fishing can be reinforced by biophysical impacts of climate change (i.e., warming sea temperatures) and large-scale economic changes relating to declining prices for fish. The last two chapters of this part address the issues of how to do interdisciplinary modeling of these complex marine social-ecological systems. Starfield and Jarre describe the inherent difficulties, but also the opportunities, in developing such models, which cut across and involve many (often very different) scientific disciplines. They discuss six crucial considerations for interdisciplinary modeling, and propose frame-based modeling as one suitable approach. Gasalla and Diegues describe an approach to interdisciplinary modeling that goes further than Starfield and Jarre, to include interactions with fishers and to incorporate their environmental knowledge. Gasalla and Diegues call their approach “Ethno-oceanography”. It represents an interdisciplinary feedback framework combining fishers (“bottom-up”) and science (“top-down”) systems of knowledge. It leads to Part III of this book, on knowledge. Part III considers knowledge about marine social-ecological systems: who has it, and how it can be used to promote a better future. It begins with the chapter by Kildow, in which she draws a comparison between environmental “tipping points” or thresholds and those in human social systems. Perceptions of economic risk help to create societal “tipping points”, and economic indicators can provide evidence of the pace and direction of these changes. What these economic indicators cannot get at, however, are issues of culture, education, and social cohesion, which underlie the shifts that these indicators measure. This is followed by Masumbuko et al., who describe the role that scientific knowledge plays in fisheries management in West Africa, in particular when faced with the uncertainties of climate change. They highlight important needs for improved scientific information, in particular as fisheries are impacted by global changes, needs for human resources in order to obtain scientific information, and for mechanisms to move scientific information from professionals to knowledge users such as decision-makers. Yanez et al. present a case study of the knowledge needs in Chile to ensure the sustainable use of fisheries resources. They find that research in Chile has focused on fish biology studies, with little work on oceanographic, economic, social, or governance factors. They conclude that work which integrates the social and governance aspects with oceanographic, biological, technical, and economic factors of Chilean fisheries is essential to ensure their sustainability. The final chapter in this part, by Neis, is an important reminder that all knowledge is context-dependent, patchy and partial, and derives in part from the social-ecology of those who produce it. She argues in particular for stronger institutional recognition and support for the value of collaborative knowledge production from a variety of different sources, that can cut across disciplinary and expert/local divides to allow knowledge to inform wise action and valued outcomes. Part IV considers the values of marine social-ecological systems, in which “value” is defined to include much more than the purely economic. This part begins with a chapter by Buchary et al., who examine illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in Indonesia in the context of fisheries management practices and poverty. They conclude that financial

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Introduction

7

insecurity is the principal reason fishers under-report their catches: they value the necessary income more than the regulations. Buchary et al. therefore suggest social management approaches, which may reduce this problem. Haggan begins with a discussion of ecosystem economic valuation, but expands this to include spiritual values. He concludes that including non-economic consideration in the valuation of marine social-ecological systems has significant potential to express the intrinsic value of species and seascapes. Murray expands on these ideas, but emphasizes the social values concerned, using comparative case studies in Canada and the United States to illustrate how social values and ecosystem services are altered and shaped by their interactions with global changes. He shows how these marine social-ecological systems have been restructured by global environmental and social changes, and how these changes in turn have altered human community structures and processes and their associated social values. The final two chapters of this part on values, by James et al. and Sumaila et al., provide case-study examples of techniques and methods for assessing the economic values of marine social-ecological systems, including direct and indirect uses. Part V examines the governance issues of marine social-ecological systems, largely using a case study, contrast and compare, approach. The first three chapters (Springer, Giannini, and Makino and Matsuda) provide case studies of the drivers of change in marine social-ecological systems in Alaska, Guatemala, and the Asia-Pacific-Japan region, respectively, and the governance responses to these changes. They conclude that the involvement of local stakeholders (fishers) is essential to providing the flexibility for governance systems to be able to adjust to changes. Parsram and McConney build on this conclusion, by illustrating the necessity of coastal and fisheries networks to facilitate the governance and adaptive capacities of small-scale fisheries in the Eastern Caribbean. They find that smallscale fisheries are often marginalized and excluded from governance and public sector policy development in the region. They illustrate how application of a network perspective to coastal and marine resource governance can help to analyse and design effective governance systems. The chapter by Kaiser provides an example of one type of tool for managing ocean fisheries that currently is very popular as a hedge against uncertainty, that being marine protected areas. He notes that the ability of marine protected areas to deliver their stated objectives and targets is likely to be challenged under a rapidly changing climate. Such changes will be greatest in shallow coastal areas where multiple physical and human stressors impinge on marine habitats and species. Links between fish abundance and prey biomass mediated by physical stress highlight the sensitivity of coastal carrying capacity to changes in the physical environment. Adaptive management approaches are required to accommodate changes in the capacity of coastal systems to deliver desired objectives. The final two chapters of this part (McGoodwin, McCay et al.) compare how marine socialecological systems in Alaska and Iceland, and Atlantic Canada and the United States and Pacific Mexico, respond to significant global changes, and the governance challenges that build (“deviation-mitigating”) or reduce (“deviation-amplifying”) the adaptability of these systems. They conclude by affirming the importance of increased preparedness (planning and coordination) for future changes (uncertainty), including enhanced observations, monitoring, and integration of large- and local-scale management approaches, and exclusive and secure property rights and community-oriented decision-making. Part VI provides the conclusions to this social-ecological analysis of world fisheries. It illustrates that we need to study all the aspects of human-ocean interactions, since this is

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World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis

what will provide compelling insights into a better future, in which the oceans are recognized as an integral part of our planetary home. Our understanding should not be limited to the purely economic and scientific, forgetting about culture, spirituality, psychology, and the lessons of the past. It has become urgent that we try to understand how our oceans function, and what might be the wisest ways to acknowledge and manage the interdependence of human interactions with marine resources so as to sustain both fish and fisheries in a more sustainable future. The symposium in Rome in July 2008 was sponsored by the Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics program (GLOBEC: a core project of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program, the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research, and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation), the European Network of Excellence for Ocean Ecosystems Analysis, and FAO. It was supported by the French Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Institut français de recherche pour l’exploitation de la mer (IFREMER), Scientific Committee for Oceanic Research (SCOR), the North Pacific Marine Science Organisation (PICES), the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES), the Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research program (IMBER), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and the International Human Dimensions Program (IHDP). We thank each of these organizations for their generosity. We also thank our five anonymous reviewers (one per part of the book, excluding Part VI), who vastly improved it, and Joy Austin, Kari Marks, and Graeme Bock (of the Institute of Coastal and Oceans Research at the University of Victoria) for the index, typing, and technical assistance.

Reference Berkes, F. and Folke, C. (eds) (1998) Linking Social and Ecological Systems. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK.

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Chapter 2

Restoring Unity The Concept of Marine Social-Ecological Systems Fikret Berkes

Abstract The term “social-ecological system” is used to emphasize the integrated concept of humans-in-nature, and to stress that the delineation between social and ecological systems is artificial and arbitrary. Social-ecological systems may be defined as integrated complex systems that include social (human) and ecological (biophysical) subsystems in a two-way feedback relationship. The term emphasizes that the two parts (social system and ecological system) are equally important, and they function as a coupled, interdependent, and co-evolutionary system. To restore unity in managing marine social-ecological systems, there is a need to reconnect natural science, social science, and humanities perspectives, and reconcile the various disciplines with largely different scientific traditions. In place of conventional fishery approaches, the ongoing search for alternatives involves: 1. recognizing the significance and implications of the interconnected nature of the social and ecological subsystems; 2. developing complex adaptive systems approaches to deal with these social-ecological systems for a contextualized understanding of the drivers of change, from local to global levels; and 3. integrating participatory methodologies at all levels for knowledge production, adaptive management, and social learning for the governance of marine ecosystems. Keywords: Social-ecological systems, governance, complexity, globalization, drivers, fisher knowledge, adaptive management, co-management, social learning

World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis

Introduction Humans are integral components of marine ecosystems, especially in an age in which human activities have started to play a decisive role in influencing natural systems at all levels from local to global. Marine ecosystems have biophysical subsystems and human subsystems, including economic, political, social and cultural components, management, and governance. As fisheries science became more specialized in the last century, the study of biophysical subsystems became largely disconnected from the study of human subsystems. Yet these two major components are highly interconnected and interactive, not only in the bio-economic realm (Hilborn and Walters, 1992), but also across the full range of biophysical and human subsystems (Berkes et al., 2001; Kooiman et al., 2005; Cochrane and Garcia, 2009). Thus, one point of departure in this chapter, and the book, is to reconnect natural science, social science, and humanities perspectives. Rather than seeing the biophysical and the social as separate and distinct systems, the two should be considered inseparable and intertwined. This requires reconciling the various disciplines with largely different scientific traditions (natural scientists vs. social scientists vs. humanists). Obviously, much of the research on marine ecosystems will still pursue disciplinary traditions, but understanding global issues will require collaborating with other disciplines to interpret causes, to deal with consequences, and to design policies for mitigation and adaptation. As driving forces of change are increasingly internationalized, the impacts of these drivers emerge independent of the place where they are produced (MA, 2005). This necessitates the pursuit of a science of sustainability in which understanding the impacts of drivers uses contextualized, place-based cases studied by interdisciplinary teams (Kates et al., 2001; Turner et al., 2003). A second point of departure is that the two major subsystems are interconnected with two-way relationships. The dominant biophysical discourse on global environmental change tends to investigate how human activities are affecting ecosystem conditions and processes, with social science input often limited to information on population change, economic growth, technology, and development. However, to deal fully with the interconnections of the two subsystems, it is not sufficient to regard humans as merely stressors and/or managers of the ecosystem. Rather, the analysis needs to seek a detailed understanding of the mechanisms of this two-way relationship. The discourse needs to expand into a discussion of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity, along with an exploration of the various ways in which the dynamics of the social subsystem can match the dynamics of the biophysical subsystem. The conceptual tools to do so include adaptive management, co-management, social and institutional learning, collaborative research and monitoring, partnerships for capacity building, and multi-level governance (Folke et al., 2005; Kooiman et al., 2005; Armitage et al., 2007). Related to the first two, a third point of departure is that the approach to re-integrate social and ecological subsystems in world fisheries also needs to reconcile global environmental change (largely in the purview of natural scientists) with globalization (largely in the purview of social scientists and humanists). Both are important. Marine ecosystems are increasingly coming under the impacts of global environmental change. For example, climate-related changes are already occurring in marine ecosystems. Biodiversity loss,

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habitat destruction, and pollution – which used to be predominantly local and regional – are becoming global in nature. In addition to these, global changes are taking place in human systems – globalization, sometimes defined as the compression of space and time-scales with regards to flows of information, people, goods, and services (Young et al., 2006). Such changes, including the globalization of trade in marine products, are also impacting marine ecosystems. Furthermore, these two categories of major impacts (global environmental change and globalization) are actually themselves crucially interconnected and interactive (Leichenko and O’Brien, 2008). There is no common agreement on the way ahead, but there is an ongoing search for alternative approaches. These approaches entail: ●

●

●

recognizing the significance and implications of the interconnected nature of the social and ecological subsystems; developing complex adaptive systems approaches to deal with these social-ecological systems for a contextualized understanding of the drivers of change, from local to global levels; and integrating participatory methodologies at all levels for knowledge production, adaptive management, and social learning for the governance of marine ecosystems.

This chapter expands on each of these points.

Social-ecological systems concept and background Fishing is a human activity. As with many natural resource systems, fisheries are not purely biophysical systems isolated from human influence, nor are they purely social systems that function independently of the ecosystems that provide services and resources that humans need. Although many studies of fisheries have examined some aspect or another of humannature interactions in fisheries, the complexity of coupled social-ecological systems has not been well understood or appreciated (Mahon et al., 2008). This lack of progress is partly due to the disciplinary separation of ecological and social sciences in the study of fisheries. A number of fields have traditions of human-environment integration. In geography, the human ecology school of the 1930s developed the notion that nature is the base on which society rests (Park, 1936). Also starting in the 1930s, the cultural ecology approach of the anthropologist Steward (1955) dealt with adaptive processes by which societies lived in and used their environment. Ingold’s “dwelling perspective” elaborates this integrative concept of humans-in-nature. Seen as the basis for putting humans back into the ecosystem, it involves the “skills, sensitivities, and orientations that have developed through long experience of conducting one’s life in a particular environment” (Ingold, 2000: 25). Over the last few decades, a bewildering array of human-nature models has been developed in a number of disciplines (Glaser, 2006). Natural and social scientists have been rediscovering the unity of people and nature well known to traditional and indigenous societies through such concepts as vanua in Fiji (a named area of land and sea, considered an integrated whole with its human occupants) and aschii/aski of the Cree people in northeast Canada (integrated concept of “land”, consisting of living landscape, humans, and spiritual beings) (Berkes, 2008).

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World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis

Nested Social

Nested Governance Filter

Ecosystems

Systems

Fig. 2.1 Social-ecological system consisting of nested social (human) and ecological (biophysical) subsystems, and integrated by two-way feedbacks through institutions or governance. Various versions of this concept have been offered by Berkes et al. (2003), Glaser (2006), Kotchen and Young (2007).

Berkes and Folke (1998) used the term social-ecological systems to emphasize the integrated concept of humans-in-nature, and to stress that the delineation between social and ecological systems is artificial and arbitrary. Social-ecological systems may be defined as integrated complex systems that include social (human) and ecological (biophysical) subsystems in a two-way feedback relationship (Fig. 2.1). The term emphasizes that the two parts (social system and ecological system) are equally important, and they function as a coupled, interdependent, and co-evolutionary system. Human actions affect biophysical systems, biophysical factors affect human well-being, and humans in turn respond to these factors. Several authors have argued that the most appropriate analytical unit for the study of sustainability is the social-ecological system, also called the socio-ecological system (Gallopin, 1991; Gallopin et al., 2001) or coupled human-environment system (Turner et al., 2003). For example, the Millennium Ecological Assessment is not about ecosystem services or about human well-being alone but about the relationships of the two (MA, 2005). The sustainability science approach is neither about the global biophysical system alone nor about social-economic-political systems alone, but uses place-based models that enable the study of the interaction of people and their environment (Kates et al., 2001). The resilience perspective, which has proved to be valuable in understanding the dynamics of social-ecological systems, often focuses on biophysical and social subsystems together because it is the interaction of the two that is particularly informative about non-equilibrium processes and surprises that account for the behavior of the system as a whole (Folke, 2006; Liu et al., 2007). Further exploring the concept, Fig. 2.1 depicts both social subsystems and biophysical subsystems as nested (or hierarchical). Nested ecosystems (e.g., Adriatic Sea – Mediterranean – North Atlantic …) is the obvious choice of scale for the biophysical subsystem. Nested social systems can be institutions, jurisdictions, or a hierarchy of resource management systems. Following Gibson et al. (2000) and Cash et al. (2006), scale is defined as the spatial, temporal, quantitative, or analytical dimensions used to measure a phenomenon, and levels are defined as the units of analysis located at different positions on a scale. Figure 2.1 shows the two-way interaction between the two subsystems of a coupled social-ecological system as going through a governance filter, incorporating institutions, policies, and management measures, all based on ecological knowledge and understanding. Kotchen and Young (2007) suggest that this “governance filter” is what mediates the

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interaction between human actions and biophysical processes. Instead of the governance filter, we may insert a number of alternative terms to highlight the different aspects of the relationship that link the social and ecological systems: institutions, ecological knowledge, or environmental values, culture, and worldview. The important point remains that the system shown in Fig. 2.1 is a coupled system with two-way feedback. The full implications of this two-way relationship are still being explored. Conventional resource management has in the past concentrated: on regulating the impacts of the volatility of biophysical systems on human welfare. What is new is the need to regulate the impact of human actions on large-scale biophysical systems. In other words, the vector connecting human systems to biophysical systems in Fig. 2.1 is growing increasingly important (Kotchen and Young, 2007: 150). We might add that the vector connecting biophysical systems to human systems is also increasingly important – but in different ways. Given the increasing recognition of the essential and irreducible nature of ecological uncertainty and variability (Charles, 2001), the vector is less and less about reducing the variability in the flow of resources for human welfare, and more about maintaining the structure/function or the biodiversity and resilience of the biophysical subsystem that provides those resources (Holling and Meffe, 1996; MA, 2005). This new emphasis, in turn, has led to a rethinking of resource management objectives, away from the conventional output-oriented fishery objectives such as MSY and MEY, and toward objectives that seek to maintain the health and integrity of the socialecological system as a whole (Francis et al., 2007; Cochrane and Garcia, 2009). Figure 2.1 highlights the importance of rights, rules, decision-making systems, knowledge systems, research, and communication, all of which are created by humans to mediate the two-way interactions between the two subsystems. This governance system is important to dampen the impact of humans on the global system. But it is also important for providing mechanisms, such as insurance schemes and emergency assistance programs, that help cushion the impact of biophysical factors (e.g., hurricanes, sea-level rise) on human systems (Kotchen and Young, 2007). The social-ecological system at the global level, the “earth system” in the terminology of international global environment change research programs, is not the only level of interest. Consistent with hierarchy theory (Ahl and Allen, 1996), complex systems function at several different levels, and all of these levels are important. The implementation plan of the parties to the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development had 81 references to “at all levels” in just 50 pages (Cash et al., 2006), indicating the international recognition that we can no longer deal with global problems at only one or two levels. The social-ecological system can be specified for any level within a scale, for example, from the local community to the international. The links between social and ecological subsystems are different at different levels of a scale. For example, the people of a fishing community may be primarily interested in obtaining fish, shellfish, and other marine products from their local ecosystem for their livelihood needs, whereas the national government may be primarily interested in stimulating the production of high value export commodities such as aquaculture shrimp. As well, driving forces for change that are operating at the level of the community or region may be quite different from those at the national level.

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World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis

Drivers of change affect social-ecological systems in complex and unpredictable ways, and offer the primary evidence that we are dealing with complex adaptive systems phenomena (Levin, 1999). It is the interaction of the two subsystems that is often responsible for some of the more puzzling kinds of complexity. In many sustainability problems, the investigation of the social subsystem or the ecological subsystem alone gives an incomplete (and sometimes misleading) understanding of the issue. To understand the behavior of the system as a whole requires analysing at all levels, both social and ecological subsystems together. That is, many “socio-ecological systems are non-decomposable systems” (Gallopin, 2006: 294). This non-decomposability is illustrated by simple mathematical models of lake-andmanager systems based on the Northern Highland Lake District of Wisconsin (Carpenter et al., 1999). The analysis of the behavior of these coupled social-ecological systems showed that unwanted collapse could occur even when ecosystem dynamics were perfectly known and managers had perfect knowledge and control of human actions. Such insights could not have been obtained by analysing social and ecological subsystems separately. Additional evidence comes from Liu et al. (2007), who studied the complexity of coupled human and natural systems across six well documented cases of social-ecological systems. The authors found that these systems exhibited complex patterns and processes – non-linear dynamics with thresholds, surprises, reciprocal feedback loops, time lags, legacy effects, and resilience. Many of these patterns and processes were not evident when the cases were analysed by social or natural scientists separately (Liu et al., 2007). All of these examples indicate that integrated social-ecological systems are complex adaptive systems (Berkes et al., 2003). The double-feedback relations between the social and the ecological subsystem, the non-decomposability of the system, and the unpredictable ways in which drivers act, are all indicators of complexity. A complex adaptive system has a number of attributes not observed in simple systems, including scale, uncertainty, nonlinearity, and self-organization, and each of these has implications for the management of marine social-ecological systems. The following section illustrates these ideas further, and expands on some of the complexities.

Complexity, globalization, and social-ecological systems Many of the complex processes and behaviors of social-ecological systems emerge from the dynamic interplay between the two subsystems. One way to illustrate this dynamic interplay is by examining processes of global environmental change and globalization. There is a large and well developed literature on fisheries and global environmental change in such areas as biodiversity loss, habitat loss, pollution, and climate change (Grafton et al., 2008). This literature has been examining both vectors in Fig. 2.1, that is, both the impact of these changes on fisheries, and the ways and means by which the impact of human actions on the biophysical subsystem may be regulated. By contrast, the literature on fisheries and globalization, and the interaction between global environmental change and globalization is poorly developed and often obscure (Leichenko and O’Brien, 2008). However, these interactions provide some of the best examples of the complexity of social-ecological systems in action, and help us develop conceptual tools to deal with complexity. Table 2.1 provides some examples of drivers of change involving globalization.

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Table 2.1 A sample of drivers of change related to globalization. Drivers

Comment

Reference

Globalized markets for marine products

Rapid development and invasiveness of international markets affect fisheries management at all levels Fair trade and change in marketing have potential impact on technology use, species, and areas targeted, and the way fisheries are carried out Unintended capture of non-target species is increasingly coming under scrutiny, affecting activities of fishing fleets, areas, and technologies used, as in tuna-dolphin and turtle by-catch controversies Fishing communities are among the highest-risk groups in countries with high rates of HIV/AIDS, for a number of reasons related to their mobility and other factors of vulnerability International consensus on best practices, codes, and ethics is beginning to shape the way fisheries are carried out worldwide, by drawing attention to wider environmental considerations MDGs, target date 2015, may result in new fisheries policies related to poverty alleviation, sustainability, food security, equity, and livelihoods, for example, by emphasizing decentralization policies

Berkes et al. (2006)

Certification and eco-labeling Environmental monitoring and activism concerning by-catch

Infectious diseases and fishers

Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries

United Nations Millennium Development Goals

Marine Stewardship Council (2010) Project Global (2010)

Allison and Seeley (2004)

FAO (1995)

UNDP (2009)

Internationalization of the shrimp trade, one of the best known examples of globalization of markets for marine products (Deutsch et al., 2007), is seen as a driver of both coastal habitat loss and biodiversity loss in many parts of the world. Its impact on coastal mangroves has been particularly damaging (Primavera, 1997). The loss of mangroves, in turn, has made people more vulnerable to coastal disasters. For example, the 2004 Asian tsunami was a natural disaster, yet the devastation in countries such as Sri Lanka and Thailand was in part due to loss of mangroves and their buffering capacity, associated with the expansion of shrimp aquaculture for global markets (Adger et al., 2005). The motivations for, and impacts of, the globalization of shrimp are not seen only at national and international levels; they are also apparent at local and regional levels. The actual mechanisms may be understood as a mix of national economic policies (the desire to generate foreign exchange), regional (economic development), and local-level decisionmaking. At the local level, factors at work may include the desire of coastal landowners to make quick profits, the ability of local influential people to seize control of government land by clearing mangroves and other coastal vegetation, and the dependence of the local poor on wage employment opportunities (Primavera, 1997; Bhatta and Bhat, 1998). For example, in Kerala, south India, shrimp (“prawn” in local terminology) was transformed from fertilizer for coconut palms to “pink gold”, as international demands and prices rose sharply in the 1970s (Kurien, 1992). South India has a long tradition of coastal brackish water aquaculture, using a rotation of salt-tolerant pokkali rice and a mix of fish and invertebrates. This system disintegrated with the advent of intensive shrimp aquaculture.

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The conversion of pokkali areas into permanent monoculture shrimp ponds resulted in irreversible change. Once the tide-operated water intakes of the traditional polyculture system fell into disuse, coastal ponds were excavated and the remaining natural vegetation destroyed, the area was not easily restored to its natural state (Bhatta and Bhat, 1998). Yet, the new system was not sustainable. Lack of tidal flushing resulted in the accumulation of salt in the ponds, use of chemicals to keep the system as a monoculture, and shrimp disease imported through seed stock, resulted in the eventual collapse of the system. A recurring pattern of declining production and profits is common in intensive shrimp aquaculture throughout Southeast Asia (Primavera, 1997). Some areas such as the Gulf of Thailand show a boom-and-bust cycle that travels around the coast as intensive aquaculture runs its course, leaving behind a devastated coastal landscape and moving on to another site (Huitric et al., 2002). This boom and bust pattern has been typical of export oriented resource economies of colonial administrations (Ommer, 1990). A similar boom-and-bust pattern results from the activities of “roving bandits”. These are mobile fleets and mobile buyers that move around the globe, exploiting resources in response to global market opportunities. They proceed by mining the resource from one area and then moving on to another. In the case of highly localized stocks such as abalone, the resource may vanish even before the problem is noted. In the case of more widely distributed and relatively abundant species such as sea urchins, serial depletion of local stocks will be masked by spatial shifts in exploitation (Berkes et al., 2006). Global commercial sea urchin harvests began largely for export to Japanese sushi markets, after Japan’s own resources declined around 1960. Waves of exploitation-depletion reached Korea in 1960, Washington State and Oregon (1971), Baja Mexico and California (1972–1973), Chile (1975), Alaska and British Columbia (1980), Pacific Russia (1982), and finally the Northwest Atlantic (1987–1989). The global harvest peaked in about 1990, but declined after that because there were no frontiers left to exploit (Berkes et al., 2006). The sea urchin case illustrates the impact of globalization of markets on the abundance of ecologically significant species, in this case sea urchins, which graze on kelp and other species and have the capacity to alter marine food webs. The depletion in one area only serves to increase the pressure on another area, and the globalization of taste (the internationalization of sushi) results in an additional positive feedback loop by increasing overall demand. There are other cases of rapid, sequential depletion cycles, for example, with the live reef-fish trade for luxury restaurants and the aquarium tropical fish trade. The resulting simplification of food webs and loss of biodiversity may erode the resilience of marine ecosystems and increase their vulnerability to regime shifts (Hughes et al., 2003). On the social side, the push for quick profits can destroy local place-based livelihoods (Coward et al., 2000). Roving bandits pose an enormous challenge for marine resource governance. Rapid development of markets and the resulting high-speed exploitation often overwhelms the ability of local institutions to respond. National level response is too slow, international level even slower (Berkes et al., 2006). Not all globalization examples in Table 2.1 are accompanied by drivers that bring negative change for social-ecological systems. In fact, the use of certification and eco-labeling (Marine Stewardship Council, 2010) is one of the ways in which roving bandits can be slowed down or controlled. The major stumbling block here is the global trend toward unrestricted free trade. That in turn may be counteracted, for example, by local and regional

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environmental activism (e.g., the movement in Australia against roving bandits), and vigilance of scientists and citizens against by-catch of mammals and birds, as in the appropriately named Project Global (2010). Some of the globalization drivers were hardly on the radar screen of fishery managers until recent years. For example, it came as a surprise a few years ago that HIV/AIDS infection rates among fishers in some countries were unexpectedly high. This high vulnerability has been explained in terms of fisher lifestyle and risk-taking, but the causes seem to be a great deal more complex than that. Allison and Seeley (2004) and Westaway et al. (2007) attribute high HIV/AIDS infection rates to a complex of interacting causes that include mobility, time spent away from home, periodic access to cash in an overall context of poverty, availability of commercial sex in ports, as well as the fisher subculture of risky behavior. Other sectors in fisheries, such as fish vendors who tend to be women in some countries, are also vulnerable due to their daily interaction with fishers. The problem is sufficiently prevalent that some fisheries development programs in Africa and Asia have incorporated HIV/AIDS awareness in their planning (Allison and Seeley, 2004). The feedbacks involved in fishers and HIV/AIDS indicate a complex problem of socialecological systems and globalization: it is driven by the dynamics of a “shrinking” world. For example, fishers from Bangladesh may seek employment across the Bay of Bengal in India, boom-and-bust in incomes may follow roving banditry, and the commercialization of livelihood resources creates vulnerability. As in the case of many African agricultural workers, HIV/AIDS infected fisher-folk are often too sick to work, becoming dependent on others and further stressing local food security and the local social-ecological system as a whole. Some international policies with the potential to impact national fisheries policy and practice should also be considered as part of globalization, with drivers affecting marine social-ecological systems. The well-known example here is the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries that is the most comprehensive set of guidelines yet devised to guide marine social-ecological systems toward sustainability. The guidelines address (among others) ecosystem stewardship, dispute resolution, the precautionary principle, international law, and international trade in fish products and rely on the voluntary compliance of nation states (FAO, 1995). Initiated formally by the FAO in 1991, the Code was developed in response to the management crisis in global fisheries. By the late 1980s, it had become clear that new approaches to fisheries management were needed, embracing conservation and environmental considerations, and leading to responsible, sustainable fisheries. The Code and its technical guidelines were partly shaped by the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), and were intended to be consistent with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and other international agreements. A number of other international agreements and conventions can also be listed here, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, with its stipulations concerning endangered and vulnerable species, but also about benefit-sharing rights of indigenous peoples and other rural communities. Not directly involved in fisheries governance but of potential impact are the Millennium Development Goals (UNDP, 2009). The program has eight major goals, including the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, relevant for livelihoods, food security, and fishing incomes. Targets regarding environmental sustainability include integrating the principles of sustainable development into country policies, and

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reversing the loss of resources and loss of biodiversity. The strength of Millennium Development Goals comes from the tracking of some 60 measurable indicators, and the guidance they provide for development interventions. Some of these international agreements and conventions result in policies that interact in influencing fisheries governance at various levels, and create both new opportunities and new problems. For example, a key premise in the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries is that marine resources, renewable but finite, need to be managed for their contribution to the nutritional, economic, and social well-being. To achieve this, states and other levels of management need to adopt measures for long-term sustainable use. These measures are meant to meet a number of goals, including the Millennium Development Goal to reduce by half the number of poor and food-insecure people by 2015. Allison and Horemans (2006) show that achieving such international goals has implications for regional, national, and local resource management policies. In the West African Region, governments are committed to poverty-reduction, decentralization, and civil service reform through Poverty Reduction Strategy programs. These have led to the redefinition of the roles of central and local governments, with some of the responsibilities devolved to the local level. The premise here is that decentralization brings government planning closer to primary users, and generates new opportunities for their participation in resource management (Allison and Horemans, 2006). But the experience is that newly devolved power, as a result of decentralization, tends to be captured by the local elite. Thus, making decentralization work as governance reform requires paying attention to factors such as the distribution of power. To make new fisheries governance work, a number of conditions have to be met, such as setting up downward accountability mechanisms (Béné and Neiland, 2006). Policy drivers such as Millennium Development Goals are relevant to marine socialecological systems also, because they interact with other social-ecological systems in agriculture and other livelihood systems. For example, reducing poverty in the overall system has an impact on fishery management as well. High rates of HIV/AIDS impede the ability of fishing communities to escape from poverty and hunger. Such a broader social-ecological approach to fishery management is fundamentally different from treating management merely as stock assessment. Addressing complexity in marine social-ecological systems means paying attention to drivers, and dealing with a number of characteristics of complex adaptive systems ignored by conventional resource management. The examples in this chapter draw particular attention to scale issues, making the point that governance occurs at multiple levels, although not all levels are necessarily important in a given situation. The shrimp aquaculture and roving bandit examples show that various levels have roles to play, and that the role of the local level is particularly important. The example of Poverty Reduction Strategy programs in the West African Region also shows that a major problem in implementing decentralization is related to power relationships at the local level. The idea of reducing bureaucracy to devolve powers and to decentralize decision-making is important for the governance of marine social-ecological systems. The idea derives from the Catholic principle of subsidiarity (O’Brien, 2008). The subsidiarity principle has been incorporated into the Maastricht Treaty that lays out the framework for establishing the European Community: “decisions [should be] taken as closely as possible to the citizen”. It articulates the objective that decisions affecting peoples’ lives should be

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made by the lowest feasible level of social organization (McCay and Jentoft, 1996). But implementing the idea is fraught with complications related to the accountability and responsibility of local decision-makers to the users (Béné and Neiland, 2006). One of the insights from complexity thinking is the multiplicity of scales and levels, and the fact that they are all relevant and important. The choice of scale and level is politically significant, as it may privilege one perspective over another (Reid et al., 2006). But there is no one “correct” perspective in a complex adaptive system. A fishing community may focus on livelihoods, regional managers on user-group conflicts, and the central government on export earnings from shrimp aquaculture. The perspective depends on the interest of the observer and their reading of the history and context of the fishery. A complex social-ecological system cannot be captured using a single perspective. It can be best understood by the use of a multiplicity of perspectives, which is one of the arguments for the use of participatory approaches in the management of social-ecological systems.

Participatory management and governance Participation of users in natural resources and environmental management is based on the premise that people whose lives are affected by a decision should participate in the decision-making process. The participation of various actors in the management of marine social-ecological systems helps establish responsibility and accountability mechanisms (Béné and Neiland, 2006), and legitimizes decisions to make them more acceptable to the users (Jentoft, 2000). It also broadens the range of knowledge available (Johannes, 1998), brings a more diverse set of interests and values into the decision-making process (Jentoft, 2006), and enables participatory research (Wiber et al., 2009) and collaborative learning (Armitage et al., 2007). A great deal of scientific information has been accumulated on marine ecosystems and fisheries. Yet, there often is insufficient knowledge to manage fish stocks, let alone social-ecological systems (Mahon, 1997). Lack of sufficient knowledge is compounded by uncertainties, thresholds, non-linear effects, and surprises that tend to characterize complex adaptive systems. Adaptive management and resilience scholars point out that these uncertainties are inherent in the system; they are not due to lack of sufficient research or data. Ecosystems are intrinsically and fundamentally unpredictable (Charles, 2001; Gunderson and Holling, 2002). What are the options for dealing with imperfect data and inherent uncertainties that challenge the governance of social-ecological systems? Here I focus on three areas, all of which are dependent on participatory approaches: ways to increase the range of available knowledge, use of adaptive management, and social and institutional learning. First, increasing the range of available knowledge is feasible, especially if we are willing to expand the definition of acceptable knowledge. Our education has impressed us that fisheries management requires extensive research, sophisticated models, large amounts of data, and highly trained experts. However, there are practical and cost-effective approaches that can be used alongside non-conventional sources of information. (See Part III in this book on Knowledge.) Johannes (1998) has argued that management can work by supplementing limited scientific data with qualitative indicators and local and traditional knowledge. In the case of small-scale fisheries of the Asia-Pacific, he advocated “data-less” management because

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he did not foresee sufficient scientific data ever becoming available, given the cost of research and the number of species and stocks that need to be managed over such a large area. What would be the source of the information used in place of conventional scientific data? For Johannes (1998) the most likely source was a combination of baseline data from marine protected areas and fisher knowledge. He knew from his earlier work in Palau that fishers in fact hold much relevant information, such as lunar spawning cycles of reef fish, and in fact they knew more in that regard than scientists did at that time. He also became knowledgeable about reef and lagoon tenure systems, and was surprised to find that almost every basic fisheries conservation measure devised in the western world had been in use in the tropical Pacific centuries earlier (Johannes, 1981). Use of indigenous knowledge for management is not easy; it requires caution. For example, some of these reef and lagoon tenure systems serve the purposes of conflict reduction, rather than purely conservation (Chapman, 1987). As well, there are practical and methodological problems such as accessing and verifying knowledge. Accessing knowledge is complicated by sampling problems: knowledge is not distributed evenly among a group of fishers and finding the “right” informant is difficult. Specialized knowledge by social group and gender creates additional complications. For example, women tend to have special knowledge of lagoon fish and invertebrates in many parts of the Asia-Pacific region. Knowledge is gendered in many indigenous knowledge systems (Berkes, 2008). Despite these complications and limitations, use of fisher knowledge has been receiving much attention as a source of management information (Haggan et al., 2006; Lutz and Neis, 2008). Good management requires mobilizing as wide a range of information as possible and fishers’ direct input into management. The ability to take the steps needed to improve a fishery will be strengthened when stakeholders can agree on the measures used. The key element is consensus. Given the uncertainties inherent in marine social-ecological systems, consensus decision-making, using measures that can be understood by all actors, is a risk-reduction strategy. Pluralism in perspectives is related to pluralism in knowledge. In fishery management disputes, local knowledge may sometimes appear at odds with science. However, in many cases, the differences in knowledge have do to with differences in the level at which information is obtained. Since understanding a social-ecological system requires the input of actors at various levels, fisher knowledge can complement science, not only in terms of adding to the range of information available, but also in terms of scale. This gives a more complete accounting of the various levels of analysis from local to global (Reid et al., 2006). Second, use of the adaptive management approach has been challenging the dominant philosophy of resource management based on positivism. The tradition of positivistic science starts with the assumption that the world is predictable and controllable; this is implicit in the term management. However, contemporary ecology is abandoning the notion of equilibrium and adopting the idea that ecosystems are multi-equilibrium systems in which alternate states may exist over time, and an ecosystem may “flip” from one state to another (Levin, 1999; Folke et al., 2004). According to this thinking, we can never possess more than an approximate knowledge of an ecosystem, and our ability to predict the behavior of multi-equilibrium complex systems, such as marine social-ecological systems, is limited. Once the idea of controlling nature is set aside, then management can proceed with the more humble but realistic idea of learning-by-doing. Adaptive management, the

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contemporary scientific version of age-old trial-and-error learning, starts with the assumption of incomplete information, and relies on repeated feedback learning in which science and management are treated as one, and policies are treated as experiments from which to learn. Such adaptive management, combined with participatory approaches, has been referred to as adaptive co-management, defined by Folke et al. (2002: 20) as “a process by which institutional arrangements and ecological knowledge are tested and revised in a dynamic, on-going, self-organized process of learning-by-doing”. Smallscale fisheries co-management in many parts of the world shows this adaptive character (Wilson et al., 2006). McClanahan et al. (2009) point out that many of the solutions to the problems of small-scale fisheries arise from historical trial-and-error management, and suggest a social-ecological system emphasis in approaching these fisheries. Participation of fishers and other users in adaptive management is important because their perspective and knowledge are important and because such an approach spreads the risk of making the wrong decision. Co-management, or the sharing of power and responsibility between the government and local resource users, is a partnership arrangement (Pinkerton, 1989). It has some common features with other kinds of partnerships and cooperative environmental governance arrangements involving multiple actors. But the hallmark of co-management is to have at least one strong vertical linkage involving the government and a user group, and some formalized arrangement for sharing power and responsibility. Co-management is about shared decision-making, but we can also have co-managed research and monitoring, knowledge co-generation, and collaborative learning involving government managers, scientists, and fishers (Berkes, 2009). Much recent work has focused on ways of combining adaptive management with comanagement. Examining a set of international cases, Armitage et al. (2007) found that time-tested co-management builds on experience and tends to become adaptive comanagement over time. Combining co-management with adaptive management produces a synthesis that is different from either. By recognizing the importance of vertical linkages (co-management) and considering science and management together (adaptive management), the synthesis offered by adaptive co-management brings local knowledge directly into decision-making. As well, it shows an expanded view of the temporal scope, organizational level, and capacity building. Adaptive co-management is more explicitly attuned to the needs of resource users than is adaptive management, and more cognizant of learning and adapting than is co-management (Armitage et al., 2007). Third, participatory approaches are important for the use of social and institutional learning. It is generally accepted that organizations as well as individuals can learn. In many co-management cases, self-organized learning seems to emerge through networks that involve a diversity of actors and cut across two or more levels of organization. These networks constitute “learning communities” or “communities of practice”, emphasizing learning-as-participation and the codification of shared practices (Wenger, 1998). Co-management cases that have a time depth show that effective cooperation evolves through time and relies on learning-as-participation, with each round of problem solving leading to another (Olsson et al., 2004). Participatory approaches seem to be central to learning by groups because they create the mechanism by which individual learning can be shared by other members of the group

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and reinforced. In the process, social learning may proceed from simple, single-loop learning to learning-to-learn and double-loop learning that can result in fundamental changes in behavior. Important feedbacks seem to be occurring among the use of participatory approaches, social learning, and the enhancement of social capital, which in turn may facilitate further collaboration (Plummer and FitzGibbon, 2007). Successive loops of learning-as-participation combine elements of adaptive management with elements of co-management, and can be depicted as expanding cycles over time (Berkes, 2009). Each cycle starts with observation and problem identification, and the selforganization of a problem-solving network. The identification of problems and opportunities leads to planning for the formulation of solutions; outcomes are monitored, followed by reflection that leads to the next cycle. Each iteration provides new information that can be incorporated into the subsequent round of solutions – the basis of adaptive management. At the same time, each observation-planning-action-outcome cycle is also a learning step, leading to co-management at successively larger scales over time (Pinkerton, 2003). Managing resources in a rapidly changing, globalized world requires continual learning and adapting, aided by collaborative problem solving. These adaptive processes include slow processes such as muddling through, as well as rapid changes that occur in the form of radical innovation and transformation. Interactive governance theory suggests the use of institutional experimentation to stimulate learning and to serve as a prelude to finding the right mix of governance regimes specific to a situation (Kooiman et al., 2005). Learning processes can be structured in such a way that the actors learn from each other and reflect on what they have learned. Learning-by-doing should be interactive because effective learning requires collaboration. The use of participatory approaches and methodologies at all levels is a growing trend in the management of marine social-ecological systems, as well as in other resource and environmental management areas (Berkes, 2009). Collaborative knowledge production, monitoring, and learning lead to collaborative governance in general. But in many parts of the world, participation is at the level of mere consultation. Real collaboration in which fishers are involved in deliberative decision-making (Stern, 2005) is rare. But participation is not merely a democratic nicety; it is a necessity for governance. Dealing with uncertainty and complexity requires building the capacity to learn from crises, respond to change, nurture social and ecological memory, monitor the environment, and manage conflicts (Berkes et al., 2003). Working partnerships between managers and resource users help incorporate all the actors into the management process, leading to risk sharing between the management agency and fishers to deal with uncertainty. Such a process requires collaboration, transparency, and accountability, so that a learning environment can be created and management practice builds on experience.

Conclusions This book and the FAO conference that preceded it started with the premise that social and ecological subsystems are interconnected and should be recognized as integrated socialecological systems. To do so would help reconnect natural science, social science, and humanities perspectives. As Jentoft (2006: 678) puts it, “A fisheries management techne that

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draws on both episteme of the natural sciences and phronesis of the social sciences and humanities would require a healthy, pragmatic balancing act, rooted in empirical research and/ or practical experience …” Jentoft goes on to quote Aristotle: “Phronesis is not concerned with universals only; it must also take cognizance of particulars, because it is concerned with conduct, and conduct has its spheres in particular circumstances” (Jentoft, 2006: 678). These are wise words of caution in developing complex adaptive systems approaches and tools to deal with social-ecological systems. The various characteristics of socialecological systems as discussed here and elsewhere leave little doubt that we are dealing with complex adaptive systems phenomena. In doing so, social determinism becomes a potential issue, that is, there is a danger of thinking that the behavior of human systems can be equated with that of natural systems (Ommer et al., 2008). Human actions are responsible for many of the drivers that impact social-ecological systems, both in the area of global environmental change and globalization. However, the outcomes are not mechanistic or predetermined. Human agency, including the role of individuals, leaders, and institutions, is important and influences outcomes in major ways. This is why sustainability science requires contextualized, place-based, social-ecological system cases (Kates et al., 2001; Turner et al., 2003). Universal models, no matter how sophisticated, do not serve well to understand local level dynamics. In recognition of this, the Millennium Ecological Assessment included a volume on local and regional level cases to explore in detail the relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being (Capistrano et al., 2005). It is the interplay between place-based cases and global trends that provides an understanding of the whole (MA, 2005). The tools needed for such an analysis include the use of the concepts of scale and level (Cash et al., 2006) and a vocabulary to deal with the interplay of various institutions at different levels (Young, 2002; Young et al., 2008) and how they can deal with marine ecosystem dynamics across scales (Galaz et al., 2008). Co-management provides an application of this rapidly developing field of institutional interplay in relation to marine ecosystem stewardship (Olsson et al., 2008). The seemingly endless possibilities for combinations of horizontal and vertical linkages help visually describe integrated social-ecological systems and the institutional interactions in their governance (Armitage, 2005; Berkes, 2007). The analysis of possibilities of institutional interplay informs how co-management tools for example, can be used not only for marine turtle co-management at the local and national levels, but also at the international regional level (Campbell et al., 2008). The shift in governance towards large-scale ecosystem-based adaptive co-management of 70 marine habitats of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, is another example (Olsson et al., 2008). Recognizing the interconnected nature of the social and ecological subsystems, and using ideas of complex adaptive systems and institutional development (Ostrom, 2005) inform the analysis of system behavior. For example, this provides the insight that comanagement is path-dependent, as the theory of complex adaptive systems would predict. That is, the history of interactions among the actors in a particular case strongly conditions the outcome of co-management. A case that starts with particularly acrimonious relations among the actors has little chance of success in building trust and cooperation (Chuenpagdee and Jentoft, 2007). Considerations such as these help build a set of concepts, approaches, and tools to deal with the dynamics of marine social-ecological systems and processes of change.

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The notion of drivers of change is one of the key ideas in this regard. The global project, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, brought the analysis of drivers into common usage (MA, 2005). The analysis of drivers reveals, in such cases as the lake-and-manager systems in Wisconsin (Carpenter et al., 1999), globalization of the shrimp trade (Adger et al., 2005), and the roving bandits of the global sea urchin trade (Berkes et al., 2006), that the investigation of the social subsystem or the ecological subsystem alone would give an incomplete understanding of the behavior of the system as a whole. The social-ecological system has to be the unit of analysis because it is not decomposable (Gallopin, 2006). Whereas the old-school conventional fishery manager could carry out his/her trade by doing little more than stock analysis, the contemporary manager needs to look much farther afield to govern the marine social-ecological system, including such factors as the incidence of HIV/AIDS among fisher-folk. Also part of the transition from old-school conventional fishery management to socialecological system management is the changing role of the manager. He/she is no longer the unquestioned decision-maker using expert-knows-best science to control a predictable system. Instead, the role of the manager is a more humble one as co-manager, facilitator, and co-producer of knowledge, integrating participatory methodologies into all levels. Such management is not control-oriented; rather, it is about governance, learning, and adaptive management. It serves to maintain the productive capacity and resilience of the linked social-ecological system, including the well-being of the fishers and fisher communities.

Acknowledgements Many of these ideas were developed jointly with Carl Folke and members of the international team that produced the volumes, Linking Social and Ecological Systems (1998) and Navigating Social-Ecological Systems (2003). I thank Rosemary Ommer, Ian Perry, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. My work has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canada Research Chairs program (http://www.chairs.gc.ca).

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Part II

Modeling

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Predicting the Impacts and Socio-Economic Consequences of Climate Change on Global Marine Ecosystems and Fisheries The QUEST_Fish Framework Manuel Barange, Icarus Allen, Eddie Allison, Marie-Caroline Badjeck, Julia Blanchard, Benjamin Drakeford, Nicholas K. Dulvy, James Harle, Robert Holmes, Jason Holt, Simon Jennings, Jason Lowe, Gorka Merino, Christian Mullon, Graham Pilling, Lynda Rodwell, Emma Tompkins, and Francisco Werner

Abstract Climate change is accelerating and is already affecting the marine environment. Estimating the effects of climate change on the production of fish resources, and their dependent societies, is complex because of: 1. difficulties of downscaling Global Climate Models (GCM) to scales of biological relevance; 2. uncertainties over future net primary production and its transfer through the food chain; 3. difficulties in separating the multiple stressors affecting fish production; and 4. inadequate methodology to estimate human vulnerabilities to these changes. QUEST_Fish, a research project led from the UK, is addressing some of these challenges through an innovative, multi-disciplinary approach focused on estimating the added impacts that climate change is likely to cause, and the subsequent additional risks and vulnerabilities of these effects for human societies. The project uses coupled shelf seas biophysical ecosystem models forced by GCM forecasts to predict ecosystem functioning in past, World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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present, and future time-slices. For each slice, and for 20 Large Marine Ecosystems, we estimate plankton production and use this to estimate size-based fish production through models based on macro-ecological theory. Ways of assessing vulnerability of fisheries to future climate change are developed, including the market consequences for fish-based global commodities. The results provide a new framework and new insights into the complex interactions between humans and nature. Keywords: Climate change, marine ecosystems, bio-physical modeling, fish production, macro-ecological theory, vulnerability assessment, economic impacts, marine commodities

Introduction The fourth IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) assessment report concluded that over the period 1961–2003 almost 90% of all the heat in the climate system had been taken up by the ocean (Bindoff et al., 2007). The same report noted that there were only 85 known examples on which to base conclusions about the impacts of climate change on marine and freshwater ecosystems: less than 0.3% of the number of examples available for terrestrial ecosystems (Richardson and Poloczanska, 2008). This reflects the inaccessibility of most marine systems, the relatively limited sustained monitoring of the marine environment, and thus the paucity of long-term observations on which to base assessments. As a result, we currently lack an adequate framework with which to assess the impacts of climate change on global marine ecosystem goods and services. Capture fisheries are one of the largest services provided by marine ecosystems. Over 80t of fresh fish are caught annually (FAO, 2007) in regions subject to very different degrees of exploitation, management, and control (FAO, 2005). Direct consumption of fish and seafood products is on the rise. It currently accounts for ca. 16 kg person−1 year−1 globally. This rate has doubled in developing countries in the last 30 years and, combined with the doubling in the population size of developing countries over the same period, indicates an very large growth in the demand for fish (Delgado et al., 2003). The value of fish production to the developing world goes beyond its direct impact as food. Net fish exports to developed countries surpass the monetary value of many other traditional developingcountry agricultural exports (Delgado et al., 2003; FAO, 2007). Consequently, the future of marine fisheries has significance in terms of global food security but even more significance in terms of the economy and livelihoods of the developing world. At the same time, it is well known that capture fisheries are in a state of crisis. Total catches reached a plateau in the 1990s, and appear to have since declined (Pauly et al., 2003). Continued growth in the production of both low-value (e.g., grass carps) and high-value (e.g., shrimp and salmon) aquaculture products has, until recently, compensated for the lack of growth in capture fisheries, but concerns have been raised about environmental risks associated with the ongoing intensification and spread of fish production, and about competition between traditional fishers – many of whom live in poverty – and large-scale operations. Additional pressures on capture fisheries come from increasing demand for fishmeal for aquaculture production (Deutsch et al., 2007). On top of these, the ecological impacts of climate change, on what is in a severely stressed global production system, are largely unknown.

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Nevertheless, there is enough information to suggest that climate changes will have profound consequences for marine ecosystems and fisheries (Barange and Perry, 2009; Edwards et al., 2002; Hall-Spencer et al., 2008; Harvell et al., 2002; Lehodey et al., 2006; Perry et al., 2005; Stenseth et al., 2005). It is expected that in general terms ocean warming may result in increasing vertical stratification, reduced vertical mixing, and reduced nutrient supply, thereby decreasing overall productivity. Increasing stratification may also alter the balance between pelagic and benthic recycling of material, favoring pelagic pathways at the expense of the benthos (Frank et al., 1990). Fish production predictions, however, will not only depend upon changes in net primary production, but also on its transfer to higher trophic levels, about which there is low predictive confidence (Brander, 2007). Observations and models agree that severely contrasting geographical differences resulting from climate change impacts are likely to be observed (Fréon et al., 2009). For example, net primary production may increase in some high latitudinal regions because of warming and reduced ice cover, but decrease in low latitude regions because of reduced vertical mixing and replenishment of nutrients (Gregg et al., 2003; Sarmiento et al., 2004). Low productivity ocean regions are already expanding in size, a trend that is expected to continue in the future (Polovina et al., 2008). Changes in species composition (Bopp et al., 2005) and seasonality (Hashioka and Yamanaka, 2007; Edwards and Richardson, 2004; Mackas et al., 1998) of plankton may cause mismatches between early life stages of fish and their prey. The warming of the oceans is already affecting the distribution of particular species (Hawkins et al., 2003; Mackas et al., 2007; Sissener and Bjørndal, 2005; Ware and McFarlane, 1995), particularly moving species towards the poles and to greater depths (Dulvy et al., 2008; Perry et al., 2005). In addition, fishing is believed to affect the sensitivity of fish populations to climate change (Anderson et al., 2009; Perry et al., 2010). The above processes involve many unknowns, and depend on the transfer of processes through complex food chains, so predicting climate change impacts and directions for specific species can only be done with low confidence (Brander, 2007). However, predicting net impacts on fish communities (i.e., total biomass or productivity) may be possible because of compensatory dynamics among the members within the various functional groups that make up that community (Jennings and Brander, 2009; Mackas et al., 2001). Jennings et al. (2008), for example, observed that marine ecosystems have remarkably constant and simple relationships between body size, energy acquisition and transfer, suggesting that basic macro-ecological rules can be brought to bear to assess the role of a changing climate, through food web processes, on global fish production (Brown et al., 2004). Unveiling the impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems tells only part of the story. As marine ecosystems respond to the physical changes brought about by climate change, these responses will in turn affect the human communities that use and depend upon the benefits provided by marine ecosystems. Climate change impacts cannot thus be estimated without incorporating an understanding of the vulnerability to ecosystem change of the marine fisheries and the communities, industries, and nations that rely on them. According to the IPCC, vulnerability to climate change depends upon three key elements: the frequency and magnitude of exposure to external shocks (e.g., climate changes), the degree of sensitivity to those impacts (i.e., how they are experienced), and the adaptive

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Global Circulation Models

Physical-Biological Shelf-Sea Models

Potential Fish Production Estimates

Marine Commodity Production and Market Dynamics

Vulnerability Assessments Fig. 3.1 Conceptual diagram of the QUEST_Fish approach to estimate the impacts and consequences of climate change on marine ecosystems and global fish production.

capacity of the group or society experiencing those impacts (i.e., how capable they are of self-recovery). Vulnerability of a system thus involves an external dimension (exposure) and an internal dimension (sensitivity and adaptive capacity) (Füssel and Klein, 2005; Perry et al., 2009; Smit and Wandel, 2006). The continued growth of human populations and fish consumption will place additional demands on heavily exploited ecosystems (Delgado et al., 2003). Predicting the impacts of climate change on global marine fisheries would further require an understanding of the social and economic dynamics of fleets, fishing communities, national and global markets, and their capacity to adapt to change. This calls for a two-pronged approach to develop detailed global-scale “physics-to-fish-to-fishers” models, on the one hand, while using indicators in combination with a risk-assessment or vulnerability framework at national level on the other (McClanahan et al., 2008; Turner et al., 2003; Villa and McLeod, 2002). The QUEST_Fish approach attempts to frame the problem by developing a set of models and tools interfacing processes from the physics of climate to people, across a diversity of scales (temporal and geographical), disciplines, and modeling principles (Fig. 3.1). We start by using Global Circulation Model (GCMs, otherwise referred to as Global Climate Models) outputs to force a series of high-resolution physical-biological regional models throughout the world. Generic principles that describe the relationships between organisms and their environment at large spatial scales are then used to estimate fish production based on the output of such regional models. Finally, potential fish production changes are used to investigate the impacts of such changes on the production/consumption system of the largest marine-based global commodity: fishmeal and fish oil. In addition, an indicatorbased analysis is applied to estimate the relative vulnerabilities of a number of countries to climate change-driven fish production changes. The results provide a framework, applicable to the study of other global resources, to investigate how environmental change will re-shape the interactions between human societies and nature in searching for global sustainability.

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Framing the problem Geographical and temporal framework Assessing climate change impacts at the global scale requires division of the task along geographical scales that respect the integrity of the ecosystems for which physical, biological, ecological, economic, and social principles need to be extracted. The concept of Large Marine Ecosystems (LME) is particularly suited for this purpose. LMEs are regions of ocean space with unique biogeochemical properties, encompassing coastal areas from river basins and estuaries to the seaward boundaries of continental shelves and the outer margins of the major current systems (Longhurst, 1998). They are relatively large regions characterized by distinct bathymetry, hydrography, productivity, and trophic interactions. LMEs are also the appropriate size to address the problem of fit between institutional arrangements and biophysical systems, taking into account jurisdiction and governance scale, as well as ecological processes. Since the early 1990s, the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and its implementing agencies (World Bank, UNDP, FAO, UNEP) have used the LME as a framework to study, protect, and restore marine ecosystems (Sherman, 2005). It is thus appropriate to conduct assessments along LMEs, recognizing their unique and homogeneous characteristics, and their link to global management. Therefore, while the domain of QUEST_Fish is global, the work will be framed at the level of regional LMEs. Because of resources and computational investment, the implementation of QUEST_Fish will initially be limited to a total of 20 LMEs. These were selected on the basis of fish catch volumes as well as diversity of ecosystem types, so that extension of the conclusions to other areas could be done by proxy (Fig. 3.1, Table 3.1). The LMEs selected contribute over 60% of the world’s fish catch, thus they are likely to reflect the major trends in global production. They also include over 40 nations, an important component for the assessment of vulnerabilities to climate impacts, as described later on. QUEST_Fish thus computes ecosystem and fish production estimates, and socioeconomic consequences of these impacts, for the 20 LMEs listed in Table 3.1. Four fixed

Table 3.1 Primary production, area and fish catch for the 20 LMEs considered in the QUEST_Fish project, contributing >60% of the world fish catches. Data from www.seaaroundus.org LMEs East China Sea/Yellow Sea Humbolt Bay Bengal South China Sea/Sulu Celebes/Indonesian Sea North Sea/Central Biscay Shelf East BS/West BS NW Africa Norwegian Shelf Benguela Iceland Shelf/East Greenland California NE US/Scotian shelf/Newfoundland Labrador

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mgC.m−2.d−1

103.km2

2003 Catch

% catch

1,058 737 568 619 908 609 1,280 498 1,158 509 501 916

1,212 2,544 3,660 3,269 1,449 3,349 1,121 1,116 1,456 634 2,208 1,199

8,193,703 7,882,524 4,005,393 3,400,611 3,270,453 2,660,944 1,963,028 1,767,790 1,415,244 1,320,155 692,277 614,389

13.28 12.77 6.49 5.51 5.30 4.31 3.18 2.86 2.29 2.14 1.12 0.99

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temporal scenarios are considered: pre-industrial (1850), present (2005), and future (2050 and 2100), allowing for the quantification of climate impacts relative to past and present situations. For each time slice a total of 10–15 years of data will be extracted, to make sure that we capture both the interannual climate variability as well as the longer-term anthropogenic climate change signals. For the future runs, up to two IPCC emission scenarios (and associated socio-economic storylines) will be considered (SRES, Nakicenovic and Swart, 2000). These scenarios were set up to encapsulate different developments that might influence the emission of greenhouse gases. While it is impossible to predict future emissions, SRES scenarios provide “alternative futures” to analyse the effects of future emissions and to develop mitigation and adaptation measures. The scenarios considered in QUEST_ Fish provide two contrasting world views. The first one is the A1B scenario, characterized by rapid economic growth, a peak in population growth by 2050, a spread of new and efficient technologies, and a balance of energy demands across all sources. Like the rest of the A1 family, this scenario is for a more integrated world, based on economic development and convergence of income (Leggett et al., 1992; Nakicenovic and Swart, 2000). The second scenario has not been agreed upon, but will respond to a low emissions framework, possibly following the B1 SRES model. The central elements of the B1 future are a high level of environmental and social consciousness combined with a globally coherent approach to a more sustainable development. In the B1 storyline, governments, businesses, the media, and the public pay increased attention to the environmental and social aspects of development. Technological change plays an important role, but the storyline does not include any climate policies (Nakicenovic and Swart, 2000). Recent developments, however, suggest that it may be possible to use a modification from the B1 model, associated with aggressive mitigation policies of CO2 emissions to an equivalent atmospheric concentration of 450 ppm (Bouwman et al., 2006). Either model provides a more environmental alternative to the A1B model.

The role of GCMs and RCMs Our understanding of the global climate and of the role of human activities in driving changes in the climate has developed rapidly in recent years, particularly in respect to land use change (Hegerl et al., 2007). The understanding has been greatly enhanced by the use of general circulation models (GCMs) of the atmosphere and ocean. Comparisons between observations and model results have demonstrated that GCMs have the power to simulate many aspects of the real climate. GCMs are constructed using the equations governing the large-scale circulation and thermodynamics of the atmosphere and oceans. In order to make the computational problem manageable they split the world into a series of interconnected atmospheric and oceanic horizontal grid cells, and solve the equations numerically for each cell. Current models typically have a horizontal resolution of 100–300 km2 with 20–40 vertical levels in the ocean and a similar number in the atmosphere. Those smaller-scale processes that can impact on the larger scale (such as formation of clouds) are usually represented by simplified relationships known as parameterizations, derived from observations or limited area models with much higher resolution and complexity. These same ocean-atmosphere GCMs can be forced with estimates of future greenhouse gas emissions to project future climate conditions several decades or even a hundred years into the future. However, they cannot yet directly simulate detailed impacts in relatively

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local shelf seas because they do not resolve small spatial scales (<100 km) in the ocean. Key features that determine ocean productivity, such as upwelling, eddy formation, and the wind and tidal mixing of shelf seas are poorly represented by such models. In QUEST_Fish the problem of spatial scale is overcome by using the GCM to provide boundary conditions for a more detailed local model of the atmosphere (simulating 25 km scales), which in turn provides the surface fluxes for the shelf ocean models. In QUEST_Fish, the GCMs are used to drive shelf-seas hydrodynamic models (POLCOMS, Holt and James, 2001) as described in the next section.

Developing physical-biological models for the shelf seas Shelf and coastal seas play an important but largely unquantified role in the Earth System. Their significance is due to their exceptionally high biological productivity and close interaction with human activity. Coastal seas comprise only 18% of the Earth’s surface, yet support half the world’s fish and marine mammal biodiversity and provide more than half of global primary production, global denitrification, and carbonate deposition and most of the global fisheries catch (Longhurst et al., 1995; Sloan et al., 2007; Walsh et al., 1988; 1991). The processes mediating this re-supply include heterotrophic nutrient recycling (by zooplankton and bacteria in pelagic and benthic ecosystems), coastal upwelling, crossfrontal transport, and land-derived inputs. Investigation of the causes and effects of climate change (recent, future, historical, and paleontological) currently involves the use of GCMs, which increasingly include biological and biogeochemical processes in addition to the physics (Friedlingstein et al., 2001). However, such models invariably give a very poor representation of the land-ocean interface and the shelf seas. There are three reasons for this, related to resolution and process representation. First, for typical Ocean General Circulation Models (OGCM) grid scales of 1° (~100 km), the topography of continental shelves is not resolved. Second, the dominant scale affecting shelf processes is determined by the barotropic Rossby radius, which for water depths of ~80 m at mid-latitudes is ~200 km. This can barely be captured by ~100 km Ocean GCMs. In addition to resolution, many processes important in coastal and shelf seas are generally not well represented in global models. Examples include tides, sea bed processes (e.g., benthic ecosystems and fluxes of nutrients back to the water column), or the optical properties of coastal seas. And finally, while the equations of motion for the deep ocean and shelf seas are the same, the approach to solving them for the deep ocean differs widely. In the case of OGCMs, long gravity waves are often prevented altogether (by a rigid lid approximation) or damped using a filtering method. In coastal seas, however, these waves are often the dominant signal, since they represent the astronomical tide and windgenerated, coastally-trapped waves. The representation of the flow over the sea bed and turbulent mixing at multiple boundary layers are also often not well represented in OGCMs, which tend to have very limited vertical resolution in shallow water. Other issues include the representation of benthic and microbial processes in ecosystem models and optical properties of the water column. In the open ocean, optical properties are generally determined solely by phytoplankton pigments (known as Case I waters), whereas in coastal seas colored dissolved organic material (CDOM) and suspended particulate material (SPM)

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both make a substantial contribution to the inherent optical properties of the water (Case II water). These properties in turn determine the depth to which solar heating penetrates and the light climate in which phytoplankton grow. This can have a substantial effect on nearcoastal primary production. The most practical option to address these issues, given current modeling technology and computer resources, is the grid nesting approach, which we follow here. Nesting is standard practice in downscaling from an ocean basin scale domain to a particular coastal region of interest. In the context of QUEST_Fish the aim of this work is to estimate primary (phytoplankton) and secondary (zooplankton) production in key coastal-ocean fisheries around the world under climate change scenarios, using key domains from the Global Coastal Ocean Modelling system (GCOMS; Holt et al., 2009). The GCOM system provides a flexible framework within which to set up any number of regional models of the continental shelf over the globe (Plate 1 in the color plate section shows an example of the selected regions/LMEs), taking lateral boundary conditions from a global OGCM to drive the POLCOMS-ERSEM (Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory Coastal Ocean Modelling System–European Seas Regional Ecosystem Model) modeling system (Allen et al., 2007; Blackford et al., 2004; Plate 2 in the color plate section). The framework enables multiple regional model configurations to be generated from user defined domain boundaries. The POLCOMS system (Holt and James, 2001) is a three-dimensional hydrodynamic model, with a sophisticated representation of vertical mixing provided by the General Ocean Turbulence Model (Umlauf and Burchard, 2005). The European Regional Seas Ecosystem Model (ERSEM, Baretta et al., 1995) was developed to simulate nutrient cycling and ecosystem response in European shelf seas. It is a generic model which incorporates eight plankton functional types (PFT: picoplankton, autotrophic flagellates, diatoms, dinoflagellates, heterotrophic bacteria, heterotrophic nanoflagellates, microzooplankton. and mesozooplankton; see Plate 2 in the color plate section), which describes the cycling of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and silicate through the pelagic ecosystem and includes dynamic C:N and C:P ratios for each PFT. We use a generic parameter set, which was devised by fitting to data at six diverse stations (well mixed and a stratified, oligotrophic, upwelling, etc., Blackford et al., 2004), allowing us to use the same ecosystem model in all regions. The model configuration is arranged on a regular latitude-longitude grid of 1/10° horizontal resolution and with 42 levels in the vertical. The domains (LMEs) used are defined in Table 3.1 and illustrated in Plate 1 in the color plate section. The bathymetry is interpolated from the GEBCO 1-arcminute dataset1 onto the model grid (some minimal smoothing is required where there are extreme changes in water depth), and the coastal mask is defined by the World Vector Coastline. Within each rectangular domain an automatic procedure is used to define the coastal region. The shelf and slope regions are included and coupling to the OGCM occurs in deep water. The locations of the open boundary and boundary condition data are automatically extracted from global datasets. Surface fluxes are calculated within POLCOMS using a bulk formula approach (COARE 3.0, Fairall et al., 2003). Fluvial discharge into coastal grid cells is estimated from river gauge data held by the Global Runoff Data Centre2 (GRDC). The location of the discharge is determined using the Simulated Topological Network (STN-30p; Vörösmarty et al., 2000). The barotropic tidal boundary conditions for the GCOMS domains are obtained

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from the global inverse tidal model TPXO6.2,3 eight tidal constituents are used here (K2, S2, M2, N2, m2, K1, P1, O1, and Q1). The surface and oceanic boundary conditions provide the vectors by which large-scale climatic conditions impact on the shelf seas. For this work we consider two classes of simulations: 1. re-analysis forced simulations (i.e., atmospheric model runs constrained by observations through data assimilation) provide the reference simulations; and 2. simulations forced by coupled ocean-atmosphere models (OAGCMs) allow us investigate climate change impacts. For this work, we adopt a time-slice approach whereby the model is initialized from the OAGCM at a recent past and several future stages, and then run forward for several years. The difference between the model statistics at each time-slice then provides the climate change signal. The need to distinguish between the long-term drift and inter-annual variability leads us to a 15-year time slice. For the re-analysis forced simulations, we use ERA-40 atmospheric model output and ORCA025 ocean boundary conditions. For the climate forced simulations we choose two of the AR4 models: HadCM3 (as a well established UK climate model) and IPSL-CM4 (since this has a common ocean model to the re-analysis forcing). Initial and boundary conditions for the ecological state variables are taken from the World Ocean Atlas nutrient climatology,4 which provides nitrate, phosphate, and silicate data. To initialize the model, the inorganic nutrient values are taken to be indicative of the total concentration of the corresponding element present in the water column, and are distributed among the state variables. Organic carbon concentrations within each plankton group are then derived from the corresponding nitrogen and phosphorous concentrations using the Redfield ratio. Boundary conditions for inorganic nutrient variables are advected into the model domain using an up-wind scheme on inflow conditions. The remaining ERSEM variables are subject to a zero-gradient boundary. The computational effort for these simulations as a whole is substantial: all the timeslices for all the domains adds up to about 1.5M CPU hours. However, the system can be flexibly deployed across a range of computer resources, such as the 11,000 core HECTOR system available to UK researchers (www.hector.ac.uk). With efficient use of these massively parallel computers, the largest domain takes ~30 days to complete a total 100 years simulation (using 512 processors). Through this modeling structure we will simulate the production of the planktonic communities under past, present, and future climate conditions, aiming to establish the sensitivity of the primary and secondary production to changes in heat flux, stratification, ocean-shelf exchange, and wind forcing and, where information is available, river run-off and nutrient loading. As noted in the Introduction, IPCC scenarios will provide past, present, and future oceanic and atmospheric climatic forcing and re-analyses simulations will provide accurate present-day conditions for use as a benchmark. This will provide the background physical and lower trophic level conditions, upon which the rest of QUEST_Fish will be built. As a test run, Plate 3 in the color plate section shows a comparison of simulated and observed (SeaWifs satellite data) annual primary production from the Humboldt LME off

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Peru and Chile. Visual comparison suggests that the model reproduces upwelling driven production in the region, but may underestimate it. Also shown are P values for differences between primary production from a pre-industrial climate simulation, and primary production from a simulation under the SRES A1B emissions scenario over the period 2085–2094. This initial test shows significant changes in net primary production over much of the domain.

Estimating potential fish production The next stage in the QUEST_Fish process is to predict how changes in temperature and primary production influence fisheries production. As well as being accurate, ideal predictions of potential fish production should be regionally explicit and species based, because most assessment and management units, and many of the social and economic responses to changes in fisheries production, are region and species dependent. However, longstanding experience with single species models has demonstrated that predictions of population distribution and abundance on decadal time-scales are too inaccurate to support management needs. Thus predictions of total fishery production that are based on predictions for multiple populations may also be inaccurate, especially when interactions between populations change as they redistribute and change in abundance. Walther et al. (2002) have also suggested that “the complexity of ecological interactions renders it difficult to extrapolate from studies of individuals and populations to the community or ecosystem level.” An alternative approach is to ask how the aggregate properties of communities or ecosystems might be influenced by climate change and to consider whether there are levels of crossspecies aggregation at which climate effects become more predictable. Such an approach would parallel and inform work that focuses on the responses of populations (Cheung et al., 2008). Despite offering greater potential to give accurate predictions of total fish production, the disadvantage of a community approach is that it focuses on aggregate fish production rather than the potential value of the catch. Predictions will therefore be more valuable in countries where fisheries yields primarily meet subsistence needs and/or are converted to fishmeal. Three methods for predicting aggregate fish production from temperature and primary production are being used in the QUEST_Fish project. These vary in complexity and parameter demands and the time and spatial scales at which they can be applied. The first draws on the tradition of linking primary production and fish catches by statistical methods. The second uses macro-ecological theory to predict the steady-state properties of marine food webs. The third approach uses dynamic size-based models that capture the effects of short-term variability in primary production and temperature and allow catches to be predicted given assumed rates of fishing mortality. There have been many statistical explorations of links between primary production and fish production, using direct correlations or methods that account for differences in the trophic levels or categories of fish production. At large spatial scales primary production is broadly correlated with fish yields (Iverson, 1990), and positive relationships between primary production (or annual mean chlorophyll a concentration used as a proxy for primary production) and long-term average fishery catches have since been

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Fig. 3.2 Relationship between annual phytoplankton production and the production of carnivorous fishes in open ocean and coastal ecosystems. After Iverson (1990). Copyright (1990) by the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, Inc.

described for 9 fisheries areas in the mid-latitude region of Northwest Atlantic (Frank et al., 2006), 11 fisheries areas in the Northeast Pacific (Ware and Thomson, 2005), and 14 European eco-regions (Chassot et al., 2007) (Fig. 3.2). Information on primary production also improved the fit of a statistical model to predict maximum catches from 1,000 exploited fish and invertebrates (Cheung et al., 2008). Technically, the strength of correlations will depend on comparable rates of exploitation in different areas or fisheries, though at large scales the fisheries in many of the systems are fully or over-exploited. Other examples of these correlations and the factors that influence them are provided by Dulvy et al. (2009). The significance of relationships between primary production and fish catches can be increased by accounting for the trophic level of the catch, since potential catches will be lower at higher trophic levels when energy transfer through the food web is inefficient (Ware, 2000). In QUEST_Fish, statistical models that link primary production and fish production, after accounting for trophic level and temperature, will be developed and applied to predict potential future catches from estimated primary production. The strength of these models is that they are well supported by data and that the relationships have been shown to hold among ecosystems and through time. The weakness is that predictive power at local scales may be relatively low and there is uncertainty about the extent to which the trophic composition of the present catch would be sustained through time. The second method for predicting future fish production from projected primary production and temperature relies on macro-ecological theory (Jennings et al., 2008). The method assumes that the fundamental size-based processes that determine the use and transfer of energy in communities respond to changes in temperature and primary production in consistent and predictable ways, based on empirical observation of these processes in contemporary marine ecosystems ranging from the poles to the tropics.

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log abundance (N )

high PP

h b =(log TE/ log PPMR)–0.75 low PP

s low PP

e

r

high PP

log body mass (M ) Fig. 3.3 Conceptual illustration of the process used to predict the slope and intercept of the size spectrum and the contribution of fish to the total biomass predicted by the spectrum. The height (h) of the size spectrum and the smallest size class (s) in the spectrum are functions of primary production (PP, which affects phytoplankton biomass and size composition). Fish are assumed to be part of total community of animals larger than the size of their eggs (e) and their biomass in all size classes is predicted in relation to an assumed biomass in a given size class (r). The slope of the spectrum is predicted from transfer efficiency (TE) and the predator-prey mass ratio (PPMR).

For a given temperature and rate of primary production, size-based methods allow biomass and production of consumer communities to be calculated from estimates of the primary production available to support them, accounting for the factors that affect the rate and efficiency of energy processing. These factors are: 1. temperature, which affects rates of metabolism and hence growth and mortality; 2. the ratio of predator to prey body mass, which determines the number of steps in a food chain; and 3. trophic transfer efficiency, which measures how much energy is lost at each step. The method predicts the intercept and slope of the size spectrum, the relationship between numbers of individuals by body mass class vs. body mass, from the abundance and body mass distribution of primary producers, the ratio of predator mass to prey mass and trophic transfer efficiency (Fig. 3.3). Well established power laws (Brown et al., 2004) that link production and biomass at body size can be used to translate between the currencies of biomass and production, and integration of the biomass or production spectrum between defined body mass classes gives total biomass or production (Boudreau and Dickie, 1992). Methods of predicting size spectrum slopes from the ratio of predator mass to prey mass and trophic transfer efficiency are well supported by theory (Andersen et al., 2008; Borgmann, 1987). The predator-prey mass ratio can be used to define the number of trophic steps to any body mass class and hence the trophic level body mass relationship. Body mass and abundance at the intercept of the size-spectrum can be fixed from knowledge of the relationship between size distributions of primary producers and primary production (Agawin et al., 2000). While temperature and production do not affect predator-prey mass ratios, transfer efficiency, or the slope of the spectrum, temperature does influence rates such as production. To account for temperature effects, a temperature term based on the Arrhenius form can be added to the relevant scaling relationships.

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Fig. 3.4 Conceptual illustration of two size structured communities with trophic interactions resulting in growth and mortality. The pelagic community consists of predators feeding on increasingly larger prey, as they themselves grow larger. Animals in the benthic zone share and compete for the same food: sinking detrital particles that are comprised of phyto-detritus, feces, and dead animals. Reproduced from Blanchard et al. (2008), with permission of Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

The first and second methods of describing fish production are discrete and static, and do not explicitly account for the continuous time-dependent processes of growth and mortality that arise from fluctuations in primary production, predation, and human exploitation. For this reason, fish production will also be predicted using a dynamic size-based method. This third method will also allow us to investigate how different rates of fishing might modify responses to climate change, to simulate seasonal variation in potential production, and to look at effects on production of predator (predominantly pelagic fish and squid) and detritivore (predominantly benthic invertebrate) communities. The model builds on the work of Silvert and Platt (1978, 1980), who defined partial differential equations for size spectra with growth and mortality as continuous functions of size and time, and accounted for food-dependent growth by relating the growth at one size to mortality at another using a predator-prey size ratio. Subsequent developments have assumed that a probability density function rather than a fixed value defines realized prey size (Benoît and Rochet, 2004; Camacho and Solé, 2001). The third method captures the dynamics of interacting predator and detritivore communities (Fig. 3.4), and the model predictions of size-spectrum slopes in detritivore and predator communities have been validated with data (Blanchard et al., 2008). The model will be extended to incorporate temperature effects on feeding rates of predators. Model inputs from the POLCOMS-ERSEM models are a size spectrum of primary producers and temperature. The model can accept inputs on a daily time step to capture the effects of short-term variation in temperature and production. Model outputs are biomass and production of predators and detritivores, by body mass and through time, for specified rates of fishing mortality.

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Estimating socio-economic consequences Methodology for national vulnerability assessment Vulnerability assessments are conducted to address different goals: to identify specific targets for mitigation, to provide recommendations on adaptation measures for specific regions and sectors, and to prioritize resource allocation for research and for adaptation at the national and international level (Füssel and Klein, 2005). Few studies have looked at vulnerability to climate change from a fishery sector perspective. Assessments of the potential impact of climate change on fisheries have tended to emphasize predicted changes in resource production and distribution (Brander, 2007; Cheung et al., 2008; Perry et al., 2005) and make only broad inferences about consequent socio-economic vulnerabilities. Only one study to date has assessed the vulnerability of national economies to potential climate change impacts on their capture fisheries (Allison et al., 2009). Using a conceptual framework based on the IPCC definition of vulnerability (Fig. 3.5), the authors captured present-day vulnerability of national economies using an indicator-based approach. While this analysis provides a valuable means of identifying the countries where potential impacts of climate change on fisheries are of greatest social and economic significance, it has a number of limitations. First, the indicator of exposure only incorporates one driver – climate change (only reflecting changes in ambient temperatures). Second, the assessment provides a static picture of vulnerability, because it focuses on “current vulnerability” to future climate change (current socio-economic conditions are used to define a countries’ capacity to adapt to future climate change). Third, it takes no account of historical processes of increasing vulnerability. The QUEST_Fish vulnerability assessment in contrast seeks to understand multiple pathways of climate change impacts on fisheries systems through the development and use of scenarios. In so doing, the vulnerability assessment takes into account non-climatic drivers of change and acknowledges that global environmental change

EXPOSURE (E)

SENSITIVITY (S)

Nature and degree to which countries are exposed to predicted climate change

Degree to which economies & people are likely to be affected by fishery-related changes

POTENTIAL IMPACTS (PI) All impacts that may occur without taking into account planned adaptation (E+S)

ADAPTIVE CAPACITY (AC) Abilities and capacity to cope with climate-related changes

VULNERABILITY V= f (PI+AC) Fig. 3.5 Conceptual model for vulnerability assessment of national economies to potential climate change impacts.

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Table 3.2 Construction of composite vulnerability index (adapted from Gall, 2007; OECD and European Commission, 2008). 1. Framework and initial data collection ● Conceptual underpinning ● Relevance, coverage, accessibility, quality, and completeness of data 2. Exploration of data and normalization ● Statistical exploration (e.g., multivariate analysis) to assess the suitability of the dataset and provide an understanding of the implications of the methodological choices ● Harmonize units of data selected 3. Weighting and aggregation ● Understand the different dimensions of vulnerability ● Expert elicitation process, identify relevance, and importance of indicators for current vulnerability (e.g., Analytic Hierarchy Process, conjoint analysis) 4. Robustness and sensitivity ● Assess weighting schemes, country rankings, and indicators definition ● Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis (e.g., inclusion-exclusion of sub indicators, several weighting schemes, expert selection) 5. Validation, visualization and dissemination ● Compare index output with other vulnerability indices to identify analytical overlap and explanatory trajectories ● Maps (GIS) ● Reports, peer-reviewed articles

unfolds over different scales. Assessing how vulnerability to global climate change might itself change requires a dynamic assessment framework that accounts for changes in all elements of vulnerability over time (Füssel, 2007). Scenarios are useful tools to estimate future socio-economic conditions, accounting for the dynamic nature of vulnerability and the multiple external drivers a system is or will be exposed to (Belliveau et al., 2006). Scenarios can be defined as plausible descriptions of how the future may develop, based on a coherent and internally consistent set of assumptions about key relationships and driving forces (Nakicenovic and Swart, 2000). It must be noted that while they are a useful tool for exploring uncertainties that may shape the future of fishery systems, they are not predictions or forecasts (Nakicenovic and Swart, 2000; Biggs et al., 2007). In QUEST_Fish we build on the work of Allison et al. (2009) by coupling an indicatorbased approach with a conceptual framework based on the IPCC definition of vulnerability (Fig. 3.5, Table 3.2). At both the national and global scales we thus investigate exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity in the context of multiple stressors. The vulnerability assessments will be linked across the geographical scales through a nomenclature based on the work of Zurek and Henrichs (2007) for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA). “Soft” links will be created between scales through a parallel development process (i.e., using the common conceptual framework). For the global-scale assessment, after the creation of a small expert panel, the scope and boundaries of the scenario building exercise will be clearly defined. In a second step, the past and current status of the fisheries systems will be assessed to identify major trends and driving forces, select proxy values to represent important elements of socio-economic conditions and non-climatic driver(s) of change currently and for 2050, and generate qualitative storyline(s) of the future (Fig. 3.6). These simple qualitative storylines describe

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Sensitivity & Adaptive Capacity Sectoral Baseline Indicators

Exposure Non Climatic & Future Climatic Drivers of Change Proxy Indicators

+

Current Vulnerability Indices

=

Understanding Pathways of Global Environmental Change Adaptability & Transformability Future Sensitivity & Adaptive Capacity Projections* of Sectoral Baseline Indicators

+

Future Exposure Projections* of Non Climatic & Future Climatic Drivers Proxy Indicators

=

Future Vulnerability Indices

Without Scenarios With Scenarios for 2050 Fig. 3.6 QUEST_Fish conceptual framework for the vulnerability assessments of national economies to the effect of climate change and other drivers on fisheries systems. *Projections can be based on a quantitative (e.g. % of change) or qualitative (e.g. direction of change) approach.

pathways of change in fisheries systems without taking into account climate change (referred to as the “climate ceteris paribus” scenario(s) in Fig. 3.7) and will also form the basis of the future scenarios that will incorporate projections from the QUEST_Fish physical-biological models. Thus four fishery systems scenarios (possible futures A, B, C, and D) are created, each incorporating one IPCC scenario of climate change (storylines A from IPCC), producing a set of four scenarios by combining the fisheries and climate scenario. The future scenarios will be coherent to the storylines attached to the two IPCC scenarios described in the section on Framing the problem. Coherent scenarios follow the same logic or rationale, while comparable scenarios are independent but address the same issue (Zurek and Henrichs, 2007). Throughout the scenario-building process a larger group of identified international experts in the field of climate change research and fisheries social-ecological systems will be involved in the identification and weighting of key drivers as well as in the review and validation process (Fig. 3.7). Final activities in the scenario building process will include a pilot testing exercise in which QUEST_Fish and associated scientists will analyse a set of policy options using the scenarios developed. Techniques such as “wind-tunneling” and “backcasting” will be used to understand the implications of the future scenarios for current policies as well as the pathways leading to these alternative futures. “Backcasting” involves working backwards from a vision of the distant future (in this case in 15-year time-slices) to the present to identify the pathways to these alternative futures.5 “Wind tunneling” in contrast considers the logic and plausibility of the internal structure against a set of policy options. These techniques have been widely used in sectoral scenario-building processes in the UK.6 They involve working backwards from a vision of

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Scenario Panel

Pilot Testing

Scope & Boundaries

Secondary data Interviews

47

Driving Forces Matrix & Proxy Indicators

Critical Issues Identified Surveys or/ & Workshop

Scenarios ‘Climate ceteris paribus’

Uncertainties Importance of Drivers Direction of Change

Scenario Drafts

Input from Module 1 & 2

Final Scenarios

Biophysical Drivers of Change based on IPCC Review & ‘in-house workshop’ Validation Fig. 3.7 QUEST_Fish scenario development. The main difference in the scenario building process across scales is the level of involvement of experts and secondary stakeholders. All scenarios are for 2050.

the distant future to the present, asking in increments what steps 10, 20 years in advance can lead to these alternative futures (backcasting), and looking at the logic and plausibility of the internal structure against a set of policy options (wind-tunneling7). Also at the global scale, the second aspect of the vulnerability assessment is the identification of relevant indicators for each component of the vulnerability index through a combination of secondary data and expert elicitation (Table 3.2). Expert judgement and computational methods such as multivariate analysis (e.g., multiple components and factor analysis) will be used to weight and aggregate the individual indictors of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity into a composite vulnerability index. The biophysical models developed in Module 1 and 2 will provide the basis for the exposure component and will be complemented by non-climatic driver(s) of change identified in the scenario-building exercise such as trade (changes in tariffs, protectionism, changes in consumption preferences) or utilization (changes in demand for fish as food or animal feed). One key challenge will be to develop sensitivity and adaptive capacity indicators that are not only developmentdriven (e.g., relying on Human Development Index trends) but possess specific elements relating to the vulnerability of the fishing sector (e.g., level of diversification of the fleet, types of property rights, flexibility in utilization of fish products). The national scale level vulnerability assessment will be applied in two case studies: the Humboldt Current Large Marine Ecosystem (HCLME), with a country focus on Peru, and the South China Sea (SCS) LME, with a country focus on Vietnam. The HCLME is the most productive large marine ecosystem in the world, providing about 15% of the world’s fisheries catch (FAO, 1998). Peru is the largest producer of fishmeal and fish oil

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worldwide, with the overall production absorbed by aquaculture, one of the fastest growing animal food producing sectors dominated by China and the Asian Pacific region. The price and availability of fishmeal and fish oils from Peru play an important role in the global trade of fisheries products and are dependent on a highly fluctuating environment, because Peruvian fisheries are strongly influenced by El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) effects on the distribution and abundance of pelagic resources. Localized changes in the productivity of Peruvian marine waters induced by climate change and increased climate variability, management decisions, and global drivers such as market changes are thus critical to the fishery and the aquaculture sectors globally. The South China Sea LME is a diverse marine ecosystem incorporating eight countries, including Vietnam, which is the third producer of aquaculture in terms of volume in 2004 (FAO, 2007). In addition, fish is an important part of the diet, representing around 40% of animal protein intake (Briones et al., 2004). With an important national demand for fish as food and feed, and a key role in the global aquaculture sector, changes in the fisheries systems of Vietnam in the context of climate change will have significant implications for local livelihoods and global markets. The two case studies represent a key producer of fishmeal and fish oil, and important consumers of aquaculture feeds, respectively. The scenarios and indicators developed will inform and contextualize the results of the bio-economic models developed in QUEST_ Fish to assess the impact of climate change on the global trade in fishmeal and fish oil. National stakeholders as well as international experts will be included in the scenario and indicator development processes of both case studies. While links between food systems and the environment are well documented, few interdisciplinary studies have investigated the vulnerability of fishery production systems to climate change and other drivers of change. The QUEST_Fish vulnerability assessment presented here seeks to understand the pathways of climate change impacts on fisheries systems through the development of scenarios. In addition, the proposed vulnerability assessment accounts for non-climatic drivers of change and acknowledges that global environmental change unfolds over different scales. The outputs are expected to provide decision support system tools for decision-makers at multiple scales (national through regional and international), enhancing their ability to adapt and transform while promoting the sustainable use of fisheries resources. The project results will be used to increase awareness regarding the opportunities and negative impacts that climate change brings, promoting planned adaptation, thereby reducing vulnerability to climate change.

Methodology for global assessment of a marine-based commodity: fishmeal The complexity of fisheries and the factors that drive them limit our ability to parameterize simulation models, which can be useful tools to inform wider scenario-building. Such models can, however, be constructed for sub-sectors of the fishery where the main structural features of the system are simpler, and where the main drivers of change are relatively easy to discern. The most suitable and important fishery systems whose dynamics can be simulated in this way are those associated with marine-based, global commodities: fishmeal and fish oil. These products are the result of reducing around 20% of the

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8

Fishmeal

7

5 4 3 2

Fishmeal price ($/t)

Price Ratio

6

500

Soybean meal Ratio

400

900

600

300

300

200

Soybean meal price ($/T)

1200

1 0

Jan- Jan- Jan- Jan- Jan- Jan- Jan- Jan- Jan- Jan90 92 94 96 98 00 02 04 06 08 Fig. 3.8 Price dynamics for fishmeal and soybean meal in international markets from January 1990, and price ratio between both commodities.

world’s marine fish catch (mostly small pelagic fisheries, i.e., anchovy, sardine, herring, etc.) to a high protein powder and oil compounds. They are used extensively as aquaculture feeds, but also in other animal husbandry industries and as health supplements for human consumption. As global commodities, fishmeal and oil are traded freely in the international market. Unprecedented increases in fishmeal demand and price have been observed in recent years (Fig. 3.8). The causes are complex, but are particularly linked to two factors: i) concerns over climate impacts, particularly El Niño events, on global fishmeal production (Hansen et al., 2006); and ii) aquaculture development driving up demand. The impacts of climate on fishmeal producing species are well established (Checkley et al., 2009). Humboldt anchovy (Engraulis ringens) in particular, contributes almost 50% of the world fishmeal production, and is negatively affected by El Niño events (Chavez et al., 2003), which have been predicted to increase in intensity in a warmed world (Hansen et al., 2006). The impacts of regional fluctuations in fishmeal are felt globally, allowing us to estimate the vulnerabilities of this climate-driven trade at different scales. Currently aquaculture absorbs almost 70% and 90% of the total fishmeal and fish oil production, respectively (Tacon and Metian, 2008), raising concerns over whether aquaculture can contribute to satisfying the increasing global demand for fish while depending so heavily on capture fisheries (Asche and Tveterås, 2004; Delgado et al., 2003; Deutsch et al., 2007; Kristofersson and Anderson, 2006; Naylor et al., 2000; Tacon and Metian, 2008). In QUEST_Fish we aim to investigate the global and regional capacity for fishmeal and oil production under a number of climate and emission scenarios, as well as feedbacks with international markets. We do this through a bio-economic model, which couples the ecological and the economic dynamics of these global resources into a multi-species, multiproducer, and multi-market model (Mullon et al., 2009). The result is a network in the framework of network economics (Nagurney, 1993) with a bi-layered structure with a set of production systems from fish to fishmeal and fish oil, on the side of supply, and a set of

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Fish meal markets Sales: Q Prices: P

MODEL

Factories Coef. meal tM Coef. oil tO

Meal Prod. QM M Costs T

Shipment E Costs T Meal

Aquaculture

Landing Y

Fisheries Boats: FC Fishing costs TF

Pigs Poultry Ruminants

Shipment E Costs T

Oil Prod. QO Costs T O

Fish oil markets Sales: Q Prices: P

Health

Fish Stock X

Fig. 3.9 Supply and markets for the global fishmeal trade. Reproduced from Mullon et al., 2009, with permission of Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

fish product markets, and the economic exchanges between them, on the demand side (Fig. 3.9). Modeling principles lie in simultaneously identifying: 1. the economic equilibrium between production systems selling on fish products markets; and 2. deterministic evolution rules for production systems and fish products markets. The basis of the model is that fishmeal/oil producers exploit their regional resource with the objective of maximizing their profits. Production systems are characterized by the available stock biomass, yield and fishing and transforming industries. Stocks evolve following surplus production dynamics, depending on a set of biological parameters (intrinsic growth rate, carrying capacity, and the catch, Schaefer, 1954), which can be parameterized based on ecosystem and fish model outputs described in previous sections. In the model, entities are national production systems and markets, including dedicated fleet and associated transformation factories. Peru, Chile, Japan, Thailand, China, USA, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Morocco, and South Africa are the main production systems, representing more than 70% of the world production of small pelagic fish. The main fishmeal markets considered are China, Japan, Taiwan, UK, Germany, Chile, Norway, Denmark, Russia, and Indonesia, while fish oil markets considered are Norway, Denmark, Chile, Japan, and USA, representing more than 80% of the world fish product consumption.

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The model evaluates the paths between production systems and markets. The quantity of the commodity placed in a market will be the sum of its imports from the production systems and the model allows for simulated expansion, i.e. increasing the price of the same amount of commodity traded. Within each market, commodity prices are estimated by means of a simple linear supply-price relationship based on recent records for each time step, allowing for potential changes in commodities demand. Landings are reduced into fishmeal or oil at observed transformation rates. Income is estimated from the sale of the commodity at a price in each of the markets. Each production system trades a fraction of the commodity to each market. Investments can change fishing capacity as a result of income and production costs, capital, and amortization costs. The model applies to any common resource where single production systems share their access to globalized markets. Producers interact through a market externality (Oakerson, 1992); each producer’s quantity placed on a shared market will affect the price of the product for the other producers. Consequently, each producer’s trade, production, and exploitation will be the result of a profit maximization strategy designed to take into account other producers’ and markets’ behavior, as well as individual fishing, transforming, and shipping costs. The network is solved in terms of a Nash solution for non-cooperative games (Nash, 1951), i.e., producers will determine their production strategy (fishing and shipping) taking into account other producers’ access to markets and individual regulation and technical limitations. Producers place their product on the available markets, depending on the prices they will get as a result of the market demand. Sensitivity analyses of specific input parameters in the model have been conducted to evaluate the robustness of the overall system to such changes and show that local responses of production systems and markets cannot be considered in isolation from the set of interactions at global level (Mullon et al., 2009). Initial runs of this model have also been conducted to interpret the dynamics of the fishmeal price in recent years, based on two alternative 10-year simulation scenarios, based on random climate variability on the climate side, and either a stable fishmeal market (no expansion or contraction) or an expansion of the fishmeal market (increased demand at a rate similar to the global aquaculture expansion) on the economic side. Preliminary results indicate that the sustainability of the fishmeal system, and the fisheries underpinning this system, in the face of climate variability and change, depends more on how society responds to climate impacts than on the magnitude of the climate alterations per se (Merino et al., 2010). This highlights an important principle behind QUEST_Fish activities: the impacts of climate change on renewable natural resources provide only half of the story, the other half being the response of human societies to these impacts. QUEST_Fish modeling of future scenarios for the use of marine-based products will consider the potential for substitution as a key element to allow the continued growth in aquaculture production. The substitution of fishmeal is governed by several factors (e.g., growth, palatability, product quality, etc.) but ultimately “new feeds” will need to be both technically and economically efficient if they are to be adopted commercially. Substitution in carnivorous aquaculture (e.g., salmon) is nowadays limited (Drakeford and Pascoe, 2008), but the increasing price of fishmeal represents an incentive to innovate on direct replacements (Kristofersson and Anderson, 2006).

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Opportunities and boundaries of the QUEST_Fish approach The main objective of QUEST_Fish is to provide a framework to assess climate change impacts on the potential production for global fisheries resources in the future and to estimate the added vulnerability of these effects on national and regional economies, and on specific elements of the fishery system. One of the motivations to develop this framework was to respond to concerns that current approaches to modeling socialecological system response to environmental change often produce a highly selective or reductive consideration of the system. For the ecological system, the prevalent use of single species traits, simple ecological interactions, and/or steady states, leads to concern about how accurately these approaches will capture future responses to environmental change in real biological systems (Savage et al., 2007). In the marine fisheries context, the social system has usually been left out of the analysis altogether (Allison et al., 2005), and where it is incorporated, once again, it is usually either considered on the basis of poorly resolved global and national data (Allison et al., 2009) or case studies using climate variability as a proxy for future climate change (Hamilton et al., 2000; McGoodwin, 2007). The QUEST_Fish approach is unique in its focus on assessing the relative change between pre-industrial, present, and future scenarios, based on climate change effects, and in its quasi-global nature. The focus on “relative change” is important as it shifts the emphasis from the changes estimated using the same framework and models to the accuracy of particular regional model outputs for particular time periods. QUEST_Fish is structured along three modeling interfaces: from climate to primary production processes, from primary production to potential fisheries production, and from potential fisheries production to the consequences for human society. Each one of these interfaces has specific characteristics that define the uses and limitations of the results. The “climate to primary production” interface is defined by high geographical (1/10°) and temporal (daily) resolution regional shelf seas models. This high resolution is required to capture the main processes responsible for fish production, and its coupling with GCMs ensure that the additional impact of climate change is adequately estimated. While these regional models are not coupled, they are nested, ensuring that the boundary conditions are permeable with respect to the outputs of neighboring regions. The validity of the approach is, however, limited by two factors: 1. ecosystem processes are parameterized according to present conditions, and thus stationarity in these parameters is assumed; and 2. future runs depend on socio-economic emission scenarios and associated storylines, and thus should be considered as probable outcomes given the assumptions considered in those storylines rather than actual predictions. The “primary production to fisheries” interface limits its remit to potential production for global fisheries resources, and in two of the three approaches followed (see section 4 on Estimating potential fish production) this potential is considered in the absence of exploitation. This approach was preferred over more complex ones, given

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the uncertainties regarding management and exploitation patterns in the future. However, the “dynamic size spectrum” method can make use of specified rates of fishing mortality, thus it would be possible to attach specific management scenarios to the socioeconomic storylines considered. Apart from this consideration, QUEST_Fish is particularly focused on the bottom-up impacts of climate change, understood as impacts that translate from the climate through the marine food web from its primary producers to fish. As for the first interface of QUEST_Fish, this interface suffers from the fact that the predictive power at local scales may be relatively low, although this shortcoming is balanced by the value of having a quasi-global prediction. The use of size-based estimators and reliance on robust macro-ecological considerations is intended to by-pass the difficulty of extrapolating complex ecological interactions at the ecosystem level based on studies of individuals and populations (Walther et al., 2002). The strength of our approach is that predictions of potential fish production would be regionally explicit, but a shortcoming is that they will not be species based. Many of the trade and national income-generation related responses to changes in fisheries production will be species-dependent (in terms of access, management, trade, and value), but experience with single species models has demonstrated that predictions on decadal time-scales are too inaccurate to support management needs. However, size-based multispecies fisheries, which tend to be the mainstay of the majority of the subsistence and artisanal fisheries practiced by the lower-income coastal fishers, may well be best represented by size-based model outputs. This approach requires innovative and flexible ways of estimating the social consequences of the fish production estimates. The third and last interface of QUEST_Fish involves “from fish production to societies”. This is undertaken following two approaches. The first is the development of a detailed global “physics-to-fish-to-fishers” model for one particular set of global fishbased commodities (fishmeal and fish oil) and the second is a pragmatic approach that uses indicators in combination with a vulnerability framework. The former has a number of additional interests in the context of climate change: its dynamics depend not only on climate-driven production changes, but also on the responses of commodity markets to these changes, and their interaction with markets for other food commodities (e.g., soy). Such structure provides opportunities to explore the two-way connectivity between climate change and economic development (O’Brien and Leichenko, 2000). The second consists of a vulnerability assessment framework developed to identify countries highly exposed to hazards related to climate change, where livelihoods and economic growth depend on climate-sensitive industries, such as agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and tourism, and where limited resources, infrastructure, and societal capacity constrain adaptation. The work builds on existing vulnerability assessments (Allison et al., 2009) but improves substantively on their parameterization and scope by using a much more direct measure of exposure to climate-induced changes (including climate-driven size-based fish abundance changes), incorporation of other risks to which the fishery sector and the national economies it contributes to is exposed (including possible scenarios for changes in trade and fishery governance, or competing uses for coastal waters that affect fisheries), and improved measures of adaptive capacity that are based on an understanding of how the fishery sector (fleets, processing lines, value chains, governance arrangements) in different national contexts is able to adapt to change.

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In summary, QUEST_Fish provides a framework capable of investigating the complex relationship between natural resources and human societies in the context of climate change. This framework allows investigations at different spatial scales, by using specific nested modeling interfaces, and can provide essential information for the development of policy options at international, regional, and national levels that can help minimize negative impacts of climate change, improve on mitigation and prevention, and maintain and build adaptive capacity to climate change (cf. FAO, 2008). While specifically focused on fish and fisheries, this framework is applicable to other natural resources subject to similar multi-scale, multi-driver impacts.

Endnotes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

http://www.bodc.ac.uk/projects/international/gebco/ http://grdc.bafg.de/ http://www.esr.org/polar_tide_models/Model_TPXO62.html http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/WOA05/pr_woa05.html Backcasting must not be confused with hindcasting. Hindcasting involves using historical evidence to understand past events and trace human responses in order to help forecasting and to assess probable reaction to future problems; it is widely used to test the validity of models. Backcasting involves an imaginary moving backwards in time, step-by-step to understand mechanisms that lead to a future scenario (Barrow, 2005: 28). 6. http://horizonscanning.defra.gov.uk 7. Kees van der Heijden – at the Graduate Business School of Strathclyde University, Glasgow – coined the phrase, referring to trying out a new aeroplane wing in a wind tunnel before letting it take off in the sky (see http://horizonscanning.defra.gov.uk).

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Cheung, W. W. L., Close, C., Lam, V. W. Y. et al. (2008) Application of macroecological theory to predict effects of climate change on global fisheries potential. Marine Ecology Progress Series 365, 185–197. Delgado, C. L., Wada, N., Rosegrant, M. W. et al. (eds) (2003) Fish to 2020: Supply and demand in changing global markets, Washington, DC (US) and Penang (Malaysia). Deutsch, L., Gräslund, S., Folke, C. et al. (2007) Feeding aquaculture growth through globalization: Exploitation of marine ecosystems for fishmeal. Global Environmental Change 17, 238–249. Drakeford, B. and Pascoe, S. (2008) Substitutability of fishmeal and fish oil in diets for salmon and trout: A meta-analysis. Aquaculture Economics and Management 12, 155–175. Dulvy, N. K., Rogers, S. I., Jennings, S. et al. (2008) Climate change and deepening of the North Sea fish assemblage: a biotic indicator of warming seas. Journal Applied Ecology 45, 1029–1039. Dulvy, N. K., Hyde, K., Heymans, J. J. et al. (2009) Climate change, ecosystem variability and fisheries productivity. In: Remote Sensing in Fisheries and Aquaculture: The Societal Benefits (eds T. Platt, M. -H. Forget and V. Stuart). International Ocean-Colour Coordinating Group, Dartmouth, Canada. Edwards, M., Beaugrand, G., Reid, P. C. et al. (2002) Ocean climate anomalies and the ecology of the North Sea. Marine Ecology-Progress Series 239, 1–10. Edwards, M. and Richardson, A. J. (2004) Impact of climate change on marine pelagic phenology and trophic mismatch. Nature 430, 881–884. Fairall, C. W., Bradley, E. F., Hare, J. E. et al. (2003) Bulk parameterization of air-sea fluxes: updates and verification for the COARE algorithm. Journal of Climate 16, 571–591. FAO (1998) Yearbook of Fisheries Statistics. Food and Agriculture Organisation, Rome, FAO (2005) Review of the state of world marine fishery resources. FAO Fisheries technical paper, 457. Rome, 235 p. FAO (2007) The state of world fisheries and aquaculture. Rome, 162 p. FAO (2008) FAO expert workshop on climate change implications for fisheries and aquaculture. Rome, 7–9 April 2008. FAO Fisheries report 870: 41 p. Frank, K. T., Perry, R. I. and Drinkwater, K. F. (1990) The predicted response of Northwest Atlantic invertebrate and fish stocks to CO2-induced climate change. Transactions American Fisheries Society 119, 353–365. Frank, K. T., Petrie, B., Shackell, N. L. et al. (2006) Reconciling differences in trophic control in midlatitude marine ecosystems. Ecology Letters 9, 1096–1105. Fréon, P., Werner, F. E. and Chavez, F. (2009) Conjectures on future climate effects on marine ecosystems dominated by small pelagic fish. In: Predicted effects of climate change on SPACC systems. In: Climate Change and Small Pelagic Fish (eds D. Checkley, C. Roy, J. Alheit and Y. Oozeki) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, pp. 312–343. Friedlingstein, P., Bopp, L., Ciais, P. et al. (2001) Positive feedback between future climate change and the carbon cycle. Geophysical Research Letters 28(8), 1543–1546. Füssel, H. -M. (2007) Vulnerability: A generally applicable conceptual framework for climate change research. Global Environmental Change 17, 155–167. Füssel, H. -M. and Klein, R. J. T. (2005) Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments: An Evolution of Conceptual Thinking. Climatic Change 75, 301–329. Gall, M. (2007) Indices of social vulnerability to natural hazards: a comparative evaluation. Thesis, Department of Geography, University of South Carolina. Gregg, W. W., Conkright, M. E., Ginoux, P. et al. (2003) Ocean primary production and climate: Global decadal changes. Geophysical Research Letters 30, 1809, doi:10.1029/2003GL016889. Hall-Spencer, J. M., Rodolfo-Metalpa, R., Martin, S. et al. (2008) Volcanic carbon dioxide vents show ecosystem effects of ocean acidification. Nature 454, 96–99.

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Hamilton, L., Lyster, P. and Otterstad, O. (2000) Social Change, Ecology and Climate in 20th-Century Greenland. Climatic Change 47, 193–211. Hansen, J., Sato, M., Ruedy, R. et al. (2006) Global temperature change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 103, 14,288–14,293. Harvell, C. D., Mitchell, C. E., Ward, J. R. et al. (2002) Climate warming and disease risks for terrestrial and marine biota. Science 296, 2158–2162. Hashioka, T. and Yamanaka, Y. (2007) Ecosystem change in the western North Pacific associated with global warming using 3D-NEMURO. Ecological Modelling 202, 95–104. Hawkins, S. J., Southward, A. J. and Genner, M. J. (2003) Detection of environmental change in a marine ecosystem – evidence from the western English Channel. Science Total Environment 310, 245–256. Hegerl, G. C., Zwiers, F. W., Braconnot, P. et al. (2007) Understanding and Attributing Climate Change. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (eds S. Solomon, D. Qin, M. Manning, et al.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York. Holt, J. T. and James, I. D. (2001) An s-coordinate density evolving model of the North West European Continental Shelf. Part 1: Model description and density structure. Journal of Geophysical Research 106(C7), 14,015–14,034. Holt, J., Harle, J., Proctor, R. et al. (2009) Modelling the global coastal-ocean. Transactions Royal Society of London A 367, 939–951. doi:10.1098/rsta.2008.0210 Iverson, R. L. (1990) Control of marine fish production. Limnology and Oceanography 35, 1593–604. Jennings, S. and Brander, K. (2009) Predicting the effects of climate change on marine communities and the consequences for fisheries. Journal Marine Systems 79, 418–426. Jennings, S., Mélin, F., Blanshard, J. L. et al. (2008) Global-scale predictions of community and ecosystem properties from simple ecological theory. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 275, 1375–1383. Kristofersson, D. and Anderson, J. L. (2006) Is there a relationship between fisheries and farming? Interdependence of fisheries, animal production and aquaculture. Marine Policy 30, 721–725. Leggett, J., Pepper, W. J. and Swart, R. J. (1992) Emissions Scenarios for IPCC: An Update. In: Climate Change 1992. The Supplementary Report to the IPCC Scientific Assessment (eds J. T. Houghton, B. A. Callander and S. K. Varney), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, pp. 69–95. Lehodey, P., Alheit, J., Barange, M. et al. (2006) Climate variability, fish and fisheries. Journal of Climate 19, 5009–5030. Longhurst, A. R. (1998) Ecological Geography of the Sea. Academic Press, San Diego. Longhurst, A. R., Sathyendranath, S., Platt, T. et al. (1995) An Estimate of Global Primary Production in the Ocean from Satellite Radiometer Data. Journal of Plankton Research 17(6), 1245–1271. Mackas, D. L., Goldblatt, R. and Lewis, A. G. (1998) Interdecadal variation in developmental timing of Neocalanus plumchrus populations at OSP in the subarctic North Pacific. Canadian Journal Fisheries Aquatic Science 55, 1878–1893. Mackas, D. L., Thomson, R. E. and Galbraith, M. (2001) Changes in the zooplankton community of the British Columbia continental margin,1985–1999, and their covariation with oceanographic conditions. Canadian Journal Fisheries Aquatic Science 58, 685–702. Mackas, D. L., Batten, S. and Trudel, M. (2007) Effects on zooplankton of a warmer ocean: Recent evidence from the Northeast Pacific. Progress in Oceanography 75, 223–252. McClanahan, T. R., Cinner, J. E., Maina, J. et al. (2008) Conservation action in a changing climate. Conservation Letters doi: 10.1111/j.1755-263X.2008.00008.x

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McGoodwin, J. R. (2007) Effects of climatic variability on three fishing economies in high-latitude regions: Implications for fisheries policies. Marine Policy 31, 40–55. Merino, G., Barange, M. and Mullon, C. (2010) Climate change scenarios for a marine commodity: Modelling small pelagic fish, fisheries and fishmeal in a globalized market. Journal Marine Systems 81, 196–205. Mullon, C., Mittaine, J. F., Thebaud, O. et al. (2009) Modelling the global fish meal and fish oil markets. Natural Resource Modelling 22(4), 564–609. Nagurney, A. (1993) Network Economics: A Variational Inequality Approach. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dortmund. Nakicenovic, N. and Swart, R. (eds) (2000) IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK. Nash, J. F. (1951) Non-cooperative games. Annals of Mathematics 54, 286–295. Naylor, R. L., Goldburg, R. J., Primavera, J. H. et al. (2000) Effect of aquaculture on world fish supplies. Nature 405, 1017–1024. Oakerson, R. J. (1992) Analyzing the commons: A framework. In: Making the Commons Work: Theory, Practice and Policy. (ed. D. W. Bromley), ICS Press, San Franciso CA, pp. 41–59. O’Brien, K. L. and Leichenko, R. M. (2000) Double exposure: assessing the impacts of climate change within the context of economic globalization. Global Environmental Change 10, 221–232. OECD and European Commission (2008) Handbook on Constructing Composite Indicators: Methodology and User Guide. OECD Publishing, p. 162. Pauly, D., Alder, J., Bennett, E. et al. (2003) The future for fisheries. Science 302, 1359–1361. Perry, A. L., Low, P. J., Ellis, J. R. et al. (2005) Climate change and distribution shifts in marine species. Science 308: 1912–1915. Perry, R. I., Cury, P., Brander, K. et al. (2009) Sensitivity of marine systems to climate and fishing: concepts, issues and management responses. Journal Marine Systems 79, 427–435. Perry, R. I., Ommer, R. E., Badjeck, M. -C. et al. (2010) Interactions between changes in marine ecosystems and human communities. In: Global Change and Marine Ecosystems (eds M. Barange, J. G. Field, R. H. Harris, et al.), Oxford University Press, Oxford UK, pp. 221–251. Polovina, J. J., Howell E. A. and Abecassis, M. (2008) Ocean’s least productive waters are expanding. Geophysical Research Letters 35, L03618. Richardson, A. J. and Poloczanska, E. S. (2008) Under-resourced, under threat. Science 320, 1294–1295. Sarmiento, J. L., Slater, R., Barber, R. et al. (2004) Response of ocean ecosystems to climate warming. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 18, GB3003, doi: 10.1029/2003GB002134, 23 pp. Savage, V. M., Webb, C. T. and Norberg, J. (2007) A trait-based framework for studying the effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning. Journal of Theoretical Biology 247, 213–229. Sherman, K. (2005) The Large Marine Ecosystem approach for assessment and management of ocean coastal waters. In: Sustaining Large Marine Ecosystems: The Human Dimension (eds T. Hennessey and J. Sutinen), Elsevier, Amsterdam. pp. 3–16. Silvert, W. and Platt, T. (1978) Energy flux in the pelagic ecosystem: a time-dependent equation. Limnology and Oceanography 23, 813–816. Silvert, W. and Platt, T. (1980) Dynamic energy flow model of the particle size distribution in pelagic ecosystems. In: Evolution and Ecology of Zooplankton Communities (ed. W. Kerfoot), University Press of New England, Illanover, NH, pp. 754–763. Sissener. E. and Bjørndal, T. (2005) Climate change and the migratory pattern for Norwegian springspawning herring – implications for management. Marine Policy 29, 299–309. Sloan, N. A., Vance-Borland, K. and Ray. G. C. (2007) Fallen between the cracks: Conservation linking land and sea. Conservation Biology 21, 897–898.

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Smit, B. and Wandel, J. (2006) Adaptation, adaptive capacity and vulnerability. Global Environmental Change 16, 282–292. Stenseth, N. C., Mysterud, A., Ottersen, G. et al. (2005) Ecological effects of climate fluctuations. Science 297, 1292–1296. Tacon, A. G. J. and Metian, M. (2008) Global overview on the use of fish meal and fish oil in industrially compounded aquafeeds: Trends and future prospects. Aquaculture 285, 146–158. Turner, B. L. II, Kasperson, R. E., Matson, P. A. et al. (2003) A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 100, 8074–8079. Umlauf, L. and Burchard, H. (2005) Second-order turbulence closure models for geophysical boundary layers. A review of recent work. Continental Shelf Research 25(7–8), 795–827. Villa, F. and McLeod, H. (2002) Environmental vulnerability indicators for environmental planning and decision-making: guidelines and applications. Environmental Management 29, 335–348. Vörösmarty, C. J., Fekete, B. M., Meybeck, M. et al. (2000) A simulated topological network representing the global system of rivers at 30-minute spatial resolution (STN-30). Global Biogeochemical Cycles 14, 599–621. Walsh, J. J., Biscaye, P. E. and Csanady, G. T. (1988) The 1983–84 Shelf Edge Exchange Processes (SEEP)–I experiment: Hypothesis and highlights. Continental Shelf Research 8, 35–56. Walsh, J. J., Biscaye, P. E. and Csanady, G. T. (1991) Importance of continental margins in the marine biogeochemical cycling of carbon and nitrogen. Nature 359, 53–59. Walther, G.-R., Post, E., Convey, P. et al. (2002) Ecological responses to recent climate change. Nature 416, 389–395. Ware, D. M. (2000) Aquatic ecosystems: properties and models. In: Fisheries Oceanography: and Integrative Approach to Fisheries Ecology and Management (eds P. J. Harrison and T. R. Parsons), Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Oxford UK, pp. 267–295. Ware, D. M. and McFarlane, G. A. (1995) Climate-induced changes in Pacific hake (Merluccius productus) abundance and pelagic community interactions in the Vancouver Island Upwelling System, In: Climate Change and Northern Fish Populations (ed. R. J. Beamish), Can. Spec. Public. Fish. Aquat. Sci., 121, pp. 509–521. Ware, D. M. and Thomson, R. E. (2005) Bottom-up ecosystem trophic dynamics determine fish production in the northeast Pacific. Science 308, 1280–1284. Zurek, M. B. and Henrichs, T. (2007) Linking scenarios across geographical scales in international environmental assessments. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 74, 1282–1295.

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Chapter 4

Fleets, Sites, and Conservation Goals Game Theoretic Insights on Management Options for Multinational Tuna Fisheries Kathleen Miller, Peter Golubtsov, and Robert McKelvey

Abstract The management of tropical tuna fisheries is complicated by the highly migratory nature of the fish stocks, by the nature of the fisheries exploiting them, and by the effects of climate-driven variability in the location and productivity of the stocks. In addition to the management problems introduced by stock migrations across EEZ boundaries and into the high seas, particular challenges are presented by the fact that there are two distinct types of players who seek to derive benefits from these resources. Much of the harvesting is carried out by industrial fleets owned by citizens of distant-water fishing nations (DWFNs) who harvest tuna in the waters of a number of small-island and coastal nations, as well as on the high seas. Regional Fishery Management Organizations (RFMOs) have been established to control harvesting pressure and promote a fair division of fishery benefits in these fisheries. The outcomes of the policies pursued by these RFMOs will depend on the interactions among the fleets, the fishing sites, and the RFMO itself – an interplay that can be formally modeled as a multi-party harvesting and management game. This chapter describes such a model, and uses it to explore the consequences of alternative policies for: a) the total returns to the fishery; b) the condition of the fish stocks; and c) the division of benefits between the fleets and the sites. Model results suggest that policy consequences will vary considerably depending on the design of the policy and the biological and physical details of the situation. In particular, climate-related shifts in the distribution of the stocks between EEZs and the high seas can affect the biological and economic consequences of the RFMO policy choices. The implications of these results are discussed in light of current RFMO policy processes in the Western and Central Pacific.

World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Keywords: Tuna, Western and Central Pacific, regional fisheries management organization, fisheries policy, distant-water fishing, management

Introduction A central management problem for multi-national oceanic fisheries is the need to constrain competitive harvesting in order to avoid the depletion of fish stocks and the dissipation of potential resource rents that could otherwise occur. Innovations in international law governing marine resources have focused on creating effective institutions to accomplish that task. These developments include the 1982 United Nations Law of the Sea (LOS) Convention, the 1993 FAO Agreement to Promote Compliance with International Conservation and Management Measures by Fishing Vessels on the High Seas (FAO Compliance Agreement), and the 1995 United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement (UNFSA) (IGIFL, 2008a; Munro et al., 2004). The latter agreement provides a strengthened international legal framework for creating Regional Fishery Management Organizations (RFMOs) to govern harvests of straddling and highly migratory fish stocks. The membership of an RFMO includes both fishing nations and the coastal nations whose EEZs encompass portions of the fishing grounds. Questions remain, however, about the effectiveness of these international bodies and their ability to respond to the evolving impacts of global change – including both biophysical changes arising from climate change and socioeconomic changes arising from population and economic growth, technological developments, and changing tastes. In order to better understand the forces that may impede effective cooperative management of internationally shared fish stocks, it is helpful to formally model the competitive dynamics of these fisheries. Such models can provide insights into the potential reactions of key actors to particular policy choices, as well as to changes in the status of the fish stocks and in the markets for those fish. This chapter utilizes a game-theoretic model of the management of a trans-boundary marine fishery through an RFMO, where the fish stock’s range intersects several coastal nations’ EEZs as well as international waters, and the harvest is carried out jointly by a number of independently-operated national fleets. For detailed description and analysis of this model, see McKelvey and Golubtsov (2010). Although there is an extensive literature on transboundary fishery games (Munro, 1990; Kaitala and Munro, 1997; McKelvey, 1997; Pintassilgo and Duarte, 2000; McKelvey et al., 2003; Pintassilgo, 2003), models available from the prior literature do not incorporate the direct in-season tactical interplay among the managers of the individual fleets and regional EEZs, acting within the constraints set by the RFMO’s strategic goals. A major task of this project, therefore, has been to develop such a model. While this model is adaptable to representation of a variety of RFMO-managed fisheries, the issues explored here are specifically related to management policy for highly-migratory top-predator species, and in particular to issues facing the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission. Climate variability plays an important role in these fisheries, and the model is constructed to shed light on the implications of climatic shifts for different groups of harvesters and island nations, as well as for the long-term sustainability of cooperation.

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The goal of the project is to examine how the strategic interactions among multiple fleets and the sites will affect the performance of different policy options implemented by the RFMO. Furthermore, it is important to understand how climatic shifts might affect policy performance. Ultimately, the analysis seeks to identify any potential pitfalls in the design or implementation of management options, and to discover ways to avoid such pitfalls.

Background – Tuna exploitation and management in the Western and Central Pacific Commercial Tuna Fisheries in the Western and Central Pacific have long been dominated by fleets from industrialized countries. Japan was the first distant-water fishing nation (DWFN) to develop a commercial tuna fishery in the region. Japan’s longline fishery for bigeye and yellowfin tuna initially faced no significant competition from any other DWFN fleet. Japan’s dominant position began to erode in the early 1980s with the entry of the US purse seine fleet into the region and the establishment of 200-mile EEZs (Fig. 4.1) by the island nations. Within a very short time, other DWFNs sent commercial tuna fleets to the Western and Central Pacific. Purse seine harvests, consisting primarily of skipjack, but also including juvenile yellowfin and bigeye tuna, increased rapidly from less than 100,000 metric tons in Exclusive Economic Zones of the Western and Central Pacific 130E

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Fig 4.1 Exclusive Economic Zones in the Western and Central Pacific. Light grey shading denotes PNA member countries; high seas pockets highlighted in black.

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1979 to the current average of approximately 1.5 million metric tons per year (Lawson, 2007). Over the past quarter-century, there have been several periods of rapid change in the region’s fisheries, stemming from the entry of new fleets, the adoption of new fishing techniques – such as the use of fish aggregating devices (FADs), and more recently, from changing institutional relationships between the DWFNs and the Pacific island nations. Most tuna harvesting in the region is still carried out by DWFNs using modern purseseine and longline gear, although some coastal nations, such as Indonesia and the Philippines, are major harvesters in their own right, and other island nations are rapidly developing their own commercial fleets. DWFN harvesting takes place either within the EEZs of small island nations or in international waters. When fishing within another nation’s EEZ, the DWFN (or its nationals who own the fishing vessels) pay for access and that payment can take several forms, including fixed entry fees, payments based on reported harvest taken from the EEZ, and implicit payments made in the form of foreign aid assistance (Tarte, 1998; Petersen, 2002). The tropical tuna fisheries in the Western and Central Pacific, thus, involve two distinct types of players – the island nations that own part of the available fishing grounds, and the DWFNs that own much of the modern harvesting capital. The fish stock itself is an unowned resource migrating freely across various EEZs and international waters. In addition to two distinct types of players, there are also two distinct groups of island nations in the Western and Central Pacific. Tuna are not distributed uniformly throughout the region. In particular, the skipjack tuna that are harvested for canning by the purse seine fleets are heavily concentrated in a narrow band along the equator and (in most years) primarily on the western side of the region. Those island nations located close to the equator and west of the dateline have far better access to tuna resources than those located east of the dateline or farther north or south of the equator. Munro (1991) characterized these two groups of nations as the “haves” and the “have nots”. However, they are perhaps better characterized as the “haves” and the “sometimes haves”, because the latter group has “feast or famine” access to the region’s tuna resources. In most years, their waters are relatively unproductive for purse seining efforts. However, in El Niño years – and particularly in strong El Niño years – they are in a position to reap a bonanza because the skipjack move sharply to the east, following the retreating tip of the equatorial “cold tongue” and purse seine harvests track the shifting distribution of the stocks (Fig. 4.2) (Lehodey et al., 1997; Lehodey, 2001; Miller, 2007; Fiedler, 2002). This pattern of differential access to tuna resources has affected efforts to develop and maintain cooperative fishery management regimes. The first such effort was the establishment, in 1979, of the South Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA).1 One of the primary motivations for establishing the agency was to improve the bargaining position of the members in their fishery access negotiations with Japan and other DWFNs (Hanchard, 1998). When the FFA initially made little progress in establishing coordinated policies regarding DWFN harvests, the group of seven island nations in whose waters tuna are most abundant formed the Nauru Group, and collectively took the lead in coordinating policy for dealings with DWFN harvesters. This group entered into the Nauru Agreement in 1983, which established a regional fishing vessel register and specified minimum terms of access. Thereafter, this group has been referred to as the “Parties to the Nauru Agreement”, or PNA countries.2 (The PNA countries are highlighted in Fig. 4.1.)

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2002 (–)

2003 (–/o)

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Fig 4.2 Distribution of tuna purse seine effort in response to ENSO. Negative signs indicate El Niño conditions; positive signs, La Niña conditions and zeros, ENSO neutral conditions. Open boxes denote areas of major concentration; shaded box shows significant change from previous year. Source: Peter Williams, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) Oceanic Fisheries Programme.

The island nations with sporadic access to abundant tuna resources do not always support the policies advocated by the PNA group, and these “sometimes-haves” may face temptations to break ranks with the PNA when tuna harvesting opportunities temporarily improve within their own EEZs. As a result, regional policy negotiations often appear to

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involve a two-step process, whereby the PNA group first negotiates with the non-PNA island country members of the FFA to secure their agreement to a unified position before engaging in negotiation with distant water fishing nations. The process leading to establishment of the new Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission followed that pattern (Aqorau, 2003; Munro et al., 2004). The FFA played the leading role in the negotiations leading to establishment of the new RFMO, by convening a series of high level multilateral conferences beginning in 1994 that culminated in September 2000, with the adoption of the Convention for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. Japan, one of the most important DWFNs, did not initially sign the Convention or participate in the subsequent Preparatory Conferences until its fears about potentially losing control over its temperate Pacific tuna fisheries were laid to rest by an agreement establishing a separate Northern Committee with authority to recommend fishing policies for the area north of 20 degrees latitude. The compromise also established bi-cameral voting rules requiring approval of a three-quarters majority of both the FFA members and non-members of the FFA (primarily the DWFNs) for issues of substance. This arrangement gives considerable power to the DWFNs, who would have been far outnumbered by the Pacific island countries if a single-chamber voting rule had been adopted instead. The Convention entered into force, and the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) was formally established on 19 June 2004 (WCPFC, 2005a,b; Anon, 2005). Currently all of the small island nations in the region and all major harvesting nations are either members or cooperating non-members of the Commission.3 The policy discussions in the new Commission have focused on developing policies for monitoring, control, and surveillance of fishing activities; for implementing scientific advice on stock conservation; for protection of sea turtles and other by-catch species; and for limiting the growth of total harvesting capacity while also providing opportunities for the expansion of fleets controlled by the developing island nations in the region. While the region’s skipjack tuna stocks appear to be robust and able to withstand current levels of exploitation on a sustained basis, concerns have been raised about biological overfishing of bigeye and yellowfin tuna (SPC, 2005). In addition, there is substantial evidence that economic overfishing is deeply entrenched and that harvests are well in excess of economically optimal levels. For example, one assessment used a spatiallydisaggregated, multi-gear, multi-species tuna population dynamics model to demonstrate that reducing harvesting effort could allow economic rents to approximately double (Bertignac et al., 2000). In particular, the study found that it would be beneficial to reduce purse seine harvests of juvenile yellowfin and bigeye tuna, and allow those fish to be harvested by the longline fleet when mature. Excess harvesting capacity and overfishing of yellowfin and bigeye have been the focus of policy discussions, even prior to the establishment of the Commission. For example, the PNA countries had attempted to limit the number of DWFN purse seine vessels operating in the region by implementing the Palau Arrangement (1992) (Aqorau and Bergin, 1997; Gillett et al., 2003, MRAG, 2006), but those controls proved to be largely ineffective. Some progress has been made in recent years, as the WCPFC has worked to strengthen and extend the capacity controls by negotiating a sequence of conservation and management measures (CMMs). In December 2005, for example, the Commission

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adopted a conservation and management measure (CMM) for yellowfin and bigeye tuna that set caps on purse seine effort and delineated other measures for longline fisheries (WCPFC, 2005b). The 2005 agreement further instructed the PNA countries to implement a vessel-day scheme to more effectively control purse seine harvesting effort within their EEZs by December 2007. The vessel-day scheme has been implemented on schedule. Under this arrangement, each participating country will be allocated a share of the total stock of capacity-weighted vessel-days (the total allowable effort is set at the beginning of each year). DWFNs must negotiate with the island countries for permits to use these vesseldays. In addition, the vessel-days are transferable across EEZs and that provision is intended to facilitate some movement of harvesting effort in response to fluctuations in abundance and catchability, but the scheme, at present, does not extend to the waters of non-PNA island countries, nor does it extend to the high-seas enclaves in the region (FFA, 2007). The 2005 agreement had called on non-PNA Members to take similar measures to limit effort in their waters, while the Commission was to implement compatible measures on the high seas (CMM-2005-01). However, progress on those fronts has been limited, and growing frustration over the lack of progress within the Commission on limiting purse seining in the high seas enclaves (Fig. 4.1) between their countries has led the PNA countries to take desperate measures. Specifically, on 16 May 2008 they declared that they would refuse to issue permits to any DWFN vessels fishing in those high seas pockets (FFA, 2008). More recently, the push to limit high seas harvesting includes a proposal by the Chair of the WPFC to close purse seine fishing on the high seas for three months of the year. As of this writing, this proposal is under discussion at the December, 2008 annual meeting of the Commission, along with companion proposals to limit harvests of yellowfin and bigeye tuna (Ride, 2008). There is thus a need to rigorously assess the management options currently under consideration by the Commission and related policies that the PNA countries are attempting to implement. In addition, there is a need to evaluate the likely effectiveness, fairness, and stability of alternative policy designs in light of the shifts in harvesting opportunities that arise from natural climatic fluctuations. The model presented below is designed to shed light on the possible consequences of alternative policy choices regarding conservation targets and how to achieve them. In particular we will examine the effects of both capacity controls and limits on the utilization of harvesting capacity along the lines of the PNA’s newly implemented vessel-day scheme. We also will examine the potential consequences of policies aimed at limiting DWFN access to portions of the high seas.

The model This chapter utilizes a dynamic game-model of a single-species transboundary marine fishery, operating under multi-national management. The model is analysed in detail in McKelvey and Golubtsov, 2010. Simply put, a game-model describes the strategic interactions among self-interested parties (players). Each player chooses actions calculated to

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maximize his/her own well-being, given the expected actions of the other players. Such a model is dynamic if the actions occur in stages, over an extended period of time. In our model, the fish are harvested by a number of independently managed “distant water” fishing fleets, which operate both within the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of regional coastal states and also in international waters of the high seas. In season, the fishery management is decentralized, with each fleet harvesting independently and each coastal state retaining control of vessel access to its individual EEZ. The fleets profit directly by sale of harvested fish and the coastal countries profit indirectly by collecting royalties on vessel operations. Long-term management of the fishery is coordinated through a Regional Fishery Management Organization (RFMO), of which both the coastal states and distant water fishing countries are members. The RFMO is charged with developing a dynamic strategic policy of fishery management, intended to achieve a long run steady state, which is both economically and biologically sustainable. Thus the evolution of the fishery will be guided by the RFMO through a series of annual regulations intended to constrain overall seasonal harvests by limiting each fleet’s current harvesting capacity and/or the allowable seasonal harvest effort permitted within each coastal state’s EEZ or on the high seas. These annual RFMO decisions will be determined through negotiation among the Organization’s member states. As such, the decisions must be consistent with the common goal of approaching a sustainable fishery steady-state while also being perceived as fair, both by the distant water fishing countries and by the regional coastal countries. However, it is understood that, acting within the annual RFMO-mandated constraints, the member-states will operate independently, each endeavoring to maximize its net annual return from the fishery. The fleets and coastal states control distinct factors of production in the fishery. Each coastal state controls access to its EEZ, where a portion of the harvestable stock can be found. It chooses the terms under which the fleets will be allowed to harvest there, which may include discriminatory seasonal effort quotas and royalty rates. Each fleet, in turn, determines the distribution of its vessels among harvesting areas and the intensity and cumulative seasonal harvesting effort to undertake within each. Each coastal state or distant-water fleet will act to optimize its seasonal return consistent with its knowledge of the actions of the other actors. Specifically, some or all actors may choose to cooperate with others by coordinating their actions. Thus, in effect, the coastal states and distant water fleets participate in an annual (cooperative or non-cooperative) bio-economic game, which is induced by the policies set by the RFMO. This article will concentrate primarily on analysis of this managed in-season harvesting game among the coastal states, and the harvesting fleets. In addition, we shall display examples of possible long-run evolutionary goals that might be adopted by the RFMO. However, we shall not undertake here any analysis of the internal negotiations within the RFMO, over either long-term goals or distribution of seasonal fishing effort quotas among fleets and sites. The analytical details of the in-season harvesting game, and the analytical expression of its solution become more complex as the number of fleets and harvest sites increase. We have chosen to consider here only the simplest basic case, in which harvesting occurs within just two coastal states’ EEZs – plus also on the high seas, and is engaged in by just two distantwater fleets, each of which can divide its harvest effort among all three fishing grounds.

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This highly simplified model is adequate to demonstrate that the outcomes of such a game depend on the ground-rules set by the RFMO as well as the extent to which the fleets and coastal states choose to coordinate their seasonal actions. The results obtained are characteristic of the more general game involving multiple fleets and multiple EEZs. Furthermore, in the numerical version of our analysis, this more general context can easily be accommodated, and the numerical game may be solved efficiently (McKelvey and Golubtsov, 2010).

The single-season subgame: The split-stream extensive model We consider the competitive harvesting, within a single season, of a transboundary marine fish stock. As the season opens, the mature stock is dispersed across three oceanic regions n = a, b, and g, in each of which it is subject to harvest. The in-season stock dynamics may be displayed compactly in a simple flow diagram: Ha = qa R ® Sa = R a - Ha 

 S = Sa + S b + Sg = R − Ha - H b - Hg ® R + = G(S)

H b = q b R ® Sb = R b - H b

R 

 H g = q g R ® Sg = R g - H g

Here R denotes the initial mature-stock biomass, or “recruitment”, and Rn is the portion of that initial biomass within harvesting region n. Specifically, regions n = a and b are the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of two coastal countries, and region g denotes the high seas fishing grounds, in international waters. Seasonal harvested biomass within each n-region is denoted Hn. Let Tn be the season length in the n-region. As the stock is drawn down over the course of the season, it becomes more difficult to find and catch the fish, so the marginal return to harvesting effort declines with residual stock level. Residual end-season biomass, or “escapement” after harvest, is denoted S. The interseasonal processes of natality, mortality, and migration are captured in a stock-recruitment relationship: R+ = G(S). This formulation is mildly flawed for tropical tuna, since for these species spawning and migration go on continuously throughout the harvest periods. However, this detail has only a minor impact on the qualitative characteristics of the gametheoretic dynamic steady state, which we are examining here.

The two-fleet interior game Harvesting is conducted by two independently-managed national fleets, denoted m = 1 and 2. It will be assumed that the regional coastal countries do not undertake significant fishing effort, and so these are distant-water fleets, flying the flags of countries lying outside of the fish-stock’s habitat. Provisionally, both fleets may harvest in all three regions n = a, b, and g.

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Let us define the following variables: Emn = the active seasonal effort capacity (a measure of fleet size) of the m-fleet’s in the n-region Em = Ema + Emb + Emg = the total active m-fleet capacity, which is constrained by – Em = the currently available m-fleet capacity, provisionally set by the RFMO, i.e., – Em ≤ Em. There is an annual fixed unit cost bmn for m-fleet capacity to gear up and travel to the n-region’s waters, for n = a, b, or g. For the coastal regions n = a and b, this may also include a royalty rate imposed by the coastal country. Thus the total fixed m-fleet harvesting cost in the n-region is bmnEmn. Also define: Fmn = the m-fleet’s cumulative seasonal effort-time in the n-region – i.e., the total time actually spent fishing there. This might be measured, for example, as the total capacityweighted number of fishing days, so that: 0 £ Fmn £ E mn Tn . There is a unit cost cmn of m-fleet seasonally accumulated effort-time for harvesting within the n-region, and thus a variable m-fleet harvest cost of cmnFmn in the n-region, depending on how long and how intensively the fleet harvests. This unit cost may include a unit royalty rate when the n-region is a coastal state’s EEZ, i.e., when n = a or b. In addition, each coastal state may establish m-fleet-specific seasonal-effort-time quotas: Fmn £ F mn and the coastal state also may impose an overall seasonal effort-time constraint:

åF

mn

£ Fn .

m

Thus, assuming a net unit price of pn, the m-fleet’s net seasonal return for harvesting within the n-region is P mn = pn H mn - bmn E mn - cmn Fmn and overall m-fleet seasonal return is g

P m = å P mn . n =a

(see McKelvey and Golubtsov, 2010 for details). The fixed cost of capacity is sunk prior to fishing-ground entry, and the instantaneous within-season rate of harvest-return to a unit of effort-time continually decreases within season along with the n-region’s unharvested stock density, therefore optimally each m-fleet will utilize its full effort capacity Emn so long as it continues its harvest. However, m-fleet harvest in the n-region may cease before the season ends, either because of constraints imposed by the RFMO or because continued harvesting has ceased

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to be profitable. Let Tmn be the in-season time when the m-fleet ceases to harvest in the n-site. Thus 0 £ Tmn £ Tn and Fmn = E mn Tmn Seasonal harvesting throughout the three-region stock range may be carried out competitively (where each m-fleet chooses its actions to maximize Pm, given the actions of its competitor), or cooperatively (where the fleets coordinate their actions to maximize the sum of their profits: P = P1 + P 2 (and share the total through exogenously negotiated side-payments).

The RFMO-guided seasonal game between distant-water fleets and coastal countries We begin with the understanding that the RFMO, prior to the beginning of the season, knows the total seasonal stock recruitment R and its distribution among oceanic regions: R = Ra + R b + R g . It sets its end-of-season escapement goal S = S* so that expected subsequent-season recruitment: R+ = G(S). will be at or above the specified biomass level G(S*). Finally, it undertakes to achieve this desired escapement level indirectly. It can do this in two ways – first, by constraining overall seasonal fleet effort capacity, i.e., by specifying that E £ E. Alternatively, the RFMO could constrain the use of that capacity by limiting the total −. Such a restriction number of capacity-weighted fishing days allowed in the season F ≤ F could be imposed either alone or in conjunction with restrictions on the effort capacity of the fleet. Consider first, the policy option of limiting overall fleet effort capacity. The RFMO would allocate to each individual fleet its individual quota of this allowable capacity – i.e., requiring that Em £ Em

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for m = 1 and 2, where E1 + E2 = E. The allocation of such a capacity quota between fleets would be negotiated within the commission, perhaps partially on historic grounds. Next, the coastal states act simultaneously, taking into account the actions of the RFMO. Each coastal state n = a, and b sets discriminatory unit royalty rates bˆn on the limited m-fleet capacity that it will admit to its EEZ. Finally, the m-fleets act simultaneously, each choosing a permissible distribution: E ma + E mb + E mg £ E m of its total allowable capacity among sites n = a, b, and g, consistent with 0 £ Fmn £ E mn Tn , which constrains site-specific total seasonal efforts. These choices define a 3-stage game, in which the RFMO acts to minimize |S − S*|, while both the individual coastal countries and the individual fleets act to maximize net seasonal return – all taking account of the anticipated reactions of the others. Furthermore, all players may choose their actions independently and competitively – or the distant-water fleets and/or the coastal countries may decide to cooperate, i.e., to coordinate their actions and distribute the resulting gains through side-payments. The other variant of this game, which we consider mimics the recently-introduced effortday scheme in the PNA area of the Western and Central Pacific, is that now the RFMO restricts total seasonal effort-time: Fn = F1n + F2n £ Fn for each coastal region n = a, b, and possibly also in the high seas region g. Each fleet’s total effort-capacity Em might still be constrained, or it might not. Therefore, the fleet’s high-seas seasonal effort Fmg might be unrestricted, or may be limited indirectly through the limitation of the fleet’s overall capacity Em. In this variant the coastal state n = a, b will not impose a unit royalty on an admitted fleet’s effort capacity but instead will set seasonal effort quotas: Fmn £ F mn , where F1n + F2n = Fn , and will levy discriminatory unit royalties cˆmn on Fmn. Let us note that the effort-day scheme is more expensive to implement and enforce than the effort-capacity scheme, since it requires real-time monitoring of the use of the vessels’ allocations.

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In the present chapter we shall graphically display and compare a number of numerical examples of these variants of the seasonal game.

Simulations and implications The model is designed to simulate the dynamics of the fishery as the coastal states and fleets react to the seasonal regulations imposed by the RFMO in its effort to achieve longterm biological and economic objectives. Repeated simulations of the model allow us to examine the effects of changes in initial conditions, parameter values and policy choices on the harvesting activities, payoffs to the various players, and the biological status of the fish stock. The figures presented allow us to identify relationships between game outcomes and the biological, economic, and policy variables. In developing these simulations, the RFMO is assumed to set its policy based on agreed long-term goals. For example, it may seek to achieve and maintain a specific target level of recruitment. Thus, the RFMO annually issues rules to constrain current harvests in order to achieve the established long-term goal. While the RFMO’s perspective is long-term, the other players in these simulations are assumed to focus on their immediate interests in choosing their reactions to the policies. Thus, when the RFMO issues its regulations on fleet size (effort-capacity) or fishing activity (effort-time) and allocates those limits to the various parties, it sets up a short-term single-season competitive game among the fleets and the coastal-countries for shares in the industry-wide payoff from the seasonal fishery. For example, in the case of effort-capacity controls, the sites establish taxes on vessel access for harvesting within particular EEZs, and then fleets engage in competition for harvest shares among all of the vessels operating within that particular site.

Game structure of RFMO–sites–fleets interaction For a given current recruitment, R, the RFMO chooses its controls (constraints or quotas), which would make the next season recruitment R+ as close to a desired level as possible. Given current R and RFMO constraints, sites choose their policies (taxes). Each site reacts to the other site’s policy by optimizing its own payoff. Thus, their optimal policies constitute a Nash equilibrium in the sites’ game. Finally, given R, RFMO constraints, and sites’ taxes, the fleets choose their policies (distribute their efforts between the sites and allocate vessel-days, i.e., decide how long they will harvest on different sites). Again, each fleet reacts optimally to another fleet’s policy and their combined policy is a Nash equilibrium in the game of fleets. Note that to choose its policy, the RFMO has to predict (analyse) its consequences. To do so it has to find the optimal response of the sites to its decision, i.e., solve the sites’ game. The sites, in their turn, have to solve the fleets’ game when they adjust their policies, since their decisions should take into account the fleets’ reaction. These actions and analysis flows are illustrated in the scheme below for the case of an RFMO constraining efforts for fleets and sites taxing efforts for the corresponding sub-fleets.

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Single Season of the Dynamic Game: A Three-Stage subgame-perfect Nash Equilibrium (NE) Actions – Given R, choose E1 – and E2 for desired R+

Players RFMO



– – Given E1 and E2 sites choose ˆb1n and ˆb2n for site NE

Knows Sites, Fleets – – reaction to E1, E2

 Sites



– – Given E1, E2 plus ˆb1n, ˆb2n, fleets distribute E1n, E2n between sites

Analysis

Sites know Fleets’ – – reaction to E1, E2; ˆb1n, ˆb2n



Fleets

– – Knowing E1, E2; ˆb1n, ˆb2n fleets arrive at NE

To perform the calculations, we have adopted a highly simplified representation of the fishery and the biology of the targeted fish stock, and we employ artificial values for the biological and economic variables in the model. Although the model and parameter values are abstractions, they are nevertheless designed to imitate real-world bio-economic relationships, and to provide results that are qualitatively representative of the behavior of the real-world system. We argue that these results are, thus, capable of yielding useful insights on the likely effects of the various possible management strategies.

Policy choices for sustaining stocks Let us start first with the problem of stock restoration, and focus simply on the question: to what level should the stock be rebuilt? For this analysis, we will assume that there is a stable stock recruitment function, as shown in Fig. 4.3. There is a fixed carrying capacity (set here at 100), at which the size of the offspring generation reaches an upper limit that is just equal the size of the spawning parental generation (i.e., the escapement). For smaller escapements the offspring generation is larger than the parental generation, yielding a sustainable harvestable surplus – the population could be sustained at any of those levels, but the policy question is what should the target be? The maximum sustainable yield (MSY) population level is often put forward as a desirable biological target. In Fig. 4.3, MSY occurs at an escapement level (S) of about 46, giving recruitment (R) of about 64 and thus a sustainable harvest of 18. However, the MSY target will generally not be consistent with achieving maximum sustainable economic yield (MEY). Because harvesting becomes more difficult as the fish stock declines, the MEY objective typically requires maintaining a larger escapement and smaller harvests than would a policy targeted at MSY. We will assume that the RFMO is interested in maximizing the well-being of its member nations, and thus should aim at a policy that would maximize MEY – i.e., the sum of the payoffs to the sites (coastal country EEZs) and the fleets. In pursuing such an objective, the

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Stock−Recruitment Relation 100 90 80

Offspring Generation

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

0

10

20

30

40 50 60 Parental Generation

70

80

90

100

Fig. 4.3 Stock recruitment relation.

RFMO can choose different policies. As the figures below demonstrate, different policy choices are likely to have significant impacts on both the size and distribution of the total payoffs. Furthermore, the outcome of any policy will depend on the extent of cooperation or competition among the fleets and the sites. The simulations also suggest that potential impacts on the distribution of payoffs may lead the sites and the fleets to have distinctly different policy preferences. Consider first the use of effort-capacity constraints (limits on E) to achieve different possible targets for sustained recruitment. Figure 4.4 presents the steady-state outcome of this analysis, with alternative target levels of sustained recruitment measured along the x-axis. In panel (a) payoffs are measured along the y-axis – the top solid gray line represents total payoffs. Payoffs to the sites and the fleets are also shown and the latter is further subdivided according to the source of the payoffs (i.e., from harvests taken on the high seas, or from the EEZs). In the case shown, there is no cooperation among any of the players. It can immediately be seen that the maximum payoff to the sites occurs at a much lower level of stationary recruitment than the maximum payoff to the fleets. In fact, the policy most favorable to the fleets (which is biologically very conservative, R = 85) would be distinctly unfavorable to the sites – and vice versa (the policy most favorable to the sites corresponds to the steady state R = 65, which is close to the recruitment at MSY). This result might appear quite puzzling. Why would the coastal countries, who espouse a strong interest in sustaining their fish resources, stand to lose from the more biologically conservative policy? The answer lies in how the target is achieved and what that implies for

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(a)

75

7 Fleets − Coastal Fleets − High Fleets Sites Total

6

Payoffs

5 4 3 2 1 0 60

70

75 80 85 Stationary Recruitment

90

95

100

Coastal High Total

Harvest

(b) 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 60

65

65

70

75 80 85 Stationary Recruitment

90

95

100

(c) 0.4

Coastal High Total

0.35 0.3 Effort

0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 60

65

70

75 80 85 Stationary Recruitment

90

95

75 80 85 Stationary Recruitment

90

95

100

(d)

Payoff per Vessel

50 40 30 20 10 0 60

65

70

100

Fig. 4.4 a–d Regional Fisheries Management Organization Effort Capacity (E) controls. High seas open. No Cooperation.

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the relative value of the two scarce factors of production that are needed to produce harvested fish. Recall that in these simulations it is assumed that the DWFNs own the fleets, and thus control all of the harvesting capital, while the coastal states control a substantial part (but not all) of a second critical factor – access to the fishing grounds. In the case illustrated, by using capacity controls to achieve the recruitment objective, the RFMO is essentially making harvesting capital a scarcer resource relative to the size of the fishing grounds. Because both factors are needed to produce harvested fish, the non-cooperating sites will be induced to compete against one another, for example, by lowering access fees to attract the fleets. How would that picture change if the sites decided to band together and coordinate their policies to extract higher access fees from the fleets? Figure 4.5 shows this case. Comparing the two figures, we can see that, by cooperating, the sites can increase their potential payoffs (by the coordinated increase of access taxes) – at the expense of the fleets. Furthermore, their maximum payoff now occurs at a somewhat larger stationary recruitment level, corresponding to slightly smaller harvests and larger escapement. By comparing the harvest and effort panels (b and c) of each figure, we can see that the fleets would react to cooperation among the sites (increased access fees) by shifting more of their harvesting into the high seas areas, and that they would do so more aggressively as total effort-capacity is reduced to achieve higher recruitment targets. In fact, for any target above 70, they would spend more time fishing on the high seas (which cover only 20% of the productive fishing grounds in these simulations) than they would spend fishing within the EEZs. Once the sites decided to cooperate in that way, the fleets might also find it advantageous to organize and bargain collectively with the sites. This would set up a two-coalition game of fleets against sites. The resulting structure of payoffs and fishing activities is displayed in Fig. 4.6 – plotted again as functions of the sustained recruitment level targeted by the RFMO. Here, near-maximum total payoffs could be achieved over a rather broad range of stationary recruitment levels and the payoffs would be almost evenly divided between the fleets and the sites over that range. In addition, the maximum payoff point for the sites has moved even closer to the policy that would be preferred by the fleets. Suppose instead, that the RFMO had relied upon restrictions on effort-time by implementing an effort-day scheme along the lines of the newly-introduced policy in the PNA area of the Western and Central Pacific. Furthermore, suppose that, like the real-world example, it had allocated those limits to the sites. For purposes of simulation, we represent the sites as explicitly splitting their vessel-day allowances between the fleets, with the fleets then using as much of their allowances as they desire. Note that in the real world, allocation of the allowances to the sites means that the fleets must negotiate with the sites to use those limited blocks of allowed harvesting time – and this process may result in different terms of access for different fleets. In our simulations with the pure F controls, we assume that E is left unconstrained. As a result, each site can get as much capacity as it needs and there is no need to “attract vessels” from the other sites. So the sites become independent and it does not matter whether they cooperate or compete. Formally, the single “two fleets on three sites” game reduces to three “two fleets on one site” games: one for each EEZ and the third for the high seas. Figure 4.7 shows one variant of such an effort-day management scheme – in which the high seas areas remain open and unrestricted. Even with the induced shifting of effort into

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(a) 7

Fleets − Coastal Fleets − High Fleets Sites Total

6 5 Payoffs

77

4 3 2 1 0 60

70

75 80 85 Stationary Recruitment

90

95

100

Coastal High Total

Harvest

(b) 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 60

65

65

70

75 80 85 Stationary Recruitment

90

95

100

(c) 0.4

Coastal High Total

0.35 0.3 Effort

0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 60

65

70

65

70

75 80 85 Stationary Recruitment

90

95

100

(d)

Payoff per Vessel

50 40 30 20 10 0 60

75 80 85 Stationary Recruitment

90

95

100

Fig. 4.5 a–d Regional Fisheries Management Organization Effort Capacity (E) controls. High seas open. Sites Cooperate.

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(a) 7

Fleets − Coastal Fleets − High Fleets Sites Total

6

Payoffs

5 4 3 2 1 0 60 (b)

65

70

75 80 85 Stationary Recruitment

90

95

100

18

Coastal High Total

16 14 Harvest

12 10 8 6 4 2 0 60 (c)

65

70

75 80 85 Stationary Recruitment

90

95

100

0.4 Coastal High Total

0.35 0.3 Effort

0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 60

65

70

75 80 85 Stationary Recruitment

90

95

100

(d)

Payoff per Vessel

50 40 30 20 10 0 60

65

70

75 80 85 Stationary Recruitment

90

95

100

Fig. 4.6 a–d Regional Fisheries Management Organization Effort Capacity (E) controls. High seas open. Sites vs Fleets.

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(a) 7

Fleets − Coastal Fleets − High Fleets Sites Total

6 5 Payoffs

79

4 3 2 1 0 60

70

85 80 75 Stationary Recruitment

90

95

100

Coastal High Total

Harvest

(b) 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 60

65

65

70

75 80 85 Stationary Recruitment

90

95

100

(c) 0.4

Coastal High Total

0.35 0.3 Effort

0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 60 (d)

65

70

75 80 85 Stationary Recruitment

90

95

100

65

70

75 80 85 Stationary Recruitment

90

95

100

14

Payoff per Vessel

12 10 8 6 4 2 0 60

Fig. 4.7 a–d Regional Fisheries Management Organization keeps recruitment at stationary level R+ = R, using Vessel Days (capacity weighted) (F) controls. No Cooperation (= Sites Cooperate).

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the high seas areas, a comparison of Figs 4.4 and 4.7 demonstrates that such a policy would dramatically shift the balance of payoffs in favor of the sites. It would also reduce the maximum overall payoff attainable. The fleets would, again, shift effort into the high seas areas, but in the absence of effort-capacity caps, there would be many vessels chasing after the few fish in those areas. Furthermore, if the RFMO desired to achieve a high recruitment target using only effort-time restrictions, it would have to clamp down so tightly on the amount of fishing time allowed in the EEZs that harvesting activities there – and payoffs to the sites – would decline sharply.

Effects of coalition-formation Another way to evaluate the possible effects of alternative policies is to consider the interactions between the policy options that could be used to achieve a specific recruitment target and the extent of competition or coordination among the sites and fleets. From the previous figures, we have seen that both total payoffs and their distribution between these two types of players can be significantly affected by whether or not they coordinate their actions. Here we consider a case in which the RFMO has chosen the policy target of R+ = 84, which is potentially consistent with achieving MEY. The RFMO can achieve this target in four different ways: 1. 2. 3. 4.

control E – effort-capacity; control E and also close the high seas enclaves; control F – capacity-weighted vessel days of fishing effort; do that, and also close the high seas pockets.

This set-up mimics the type of options now implemented, or proposed for the PNA region of the Western and Central Pacific. The outcomes of these possible policies under different cooperation structures are displayed in Figs 4.8 and 4.9. In each case, the horizontal line represents the maximum total payoff from within-season cooperation among all four players (two fleets and two sites), given the RFMO policy. The bar charts show payoffs attainable in the absence of cooperation, as well as by coalitions of the two sites and/or the two fleets. These are cases that might occur when transaction costs for cooperation among like parties (e.g., sites with sites) are negligible, while transaction costs for negotiating side payments between the sites and the fleets are prohibitive. The discussion will focus first on these cases, and then we can relax the asymmetric transaction cost assumption to examine the types of side-payment arrangements that might arise. Consider Fig. 4.8 in which panel (a) corresponds to option 1 above. Starting from the purely competitive case on the left-hand side, it can be seen that the sites could gain by banding together to extract higher access fees from the fleets, and that the fleets would be worse off if that happened. The fleets might be tempted to react by also forming a cooperating coalition, but it would not be possible for them to gain by doing so. The only stable outcome is the case in which the sites cooperate with one another while the fleets compete – and this cooperation structure provides the lowest industry-wide payoff. Given our initial assumptions about transaction costs, once that outcome is achieved,

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neither set of parties would retreat from it. However, the fact that there is a gap between the total payoff in that situation and the maximum possible payoff suggests that a fourway agreement with side payments could yield a superior outcome – if transaction costs are not prohibitive.

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Next, in Fig. 4.8, compare panel (a) with panel (b) in which the high seas pockets have been closed. It can be seen that if nobody cooperates, the total payoff from E-controls is about the same regardless of open or closed high seas – but the distribution is very different. In the competitive case, the sites would be much better off if they could close off fleet access to the high seas. Essentially, it makes the resource that they control (access to the fishing grounds) scarcer. That outcome would not be stable, however, because the sites could do even better by forming a cooperating coalition, and the fleets would react by doing the same thing. The stable solution in this case is the two coalition game of sites against fleets– in effect, a bilateral cartel. Note that there isn’t any further gain to be achieved by four-way cooperation, and that the total payoffs are the same in all of the closed high-seas cases – only the distribution changes. Now turn to Fig. 4.9, where panel (a) shows the case in which the RFMO implements F-controls, but leaves the high seas pockets open and unconstrained. Here cooperation among the fleets allows them to increase their share of the returns from fishing within the EEZs, while also reducing counter-productive competitive fishing on the high seas. This would yield a stable solution, and because the F-controls are functionally equivalent to site cooperation in the model, further explicit site cooperation would not alter site payoffs. The maximum payoff in this case is much lower than in the other cases, because severe restrictions on total fishing days within the EEZ are the only way for the RFMO to achieve this high recruitment goal with open high seas and no control over the size of harvesting capacity. Finally, turning to panel (b) of Fig. 4.9, we can examine what would happen if the sites succeeded in convincing the RFMO to both implement F-controls and close the high seas pockets. If the fleets fail to cooperate, the sites would stand to gain significantly from closure of the high seas pockets – but again, that would not be a stable solution. The stable outcome with cooperating fleets would be functionally equivalent to the stable sites vs. fleets game when E-controls are coupled with closure of the high seas pockets – and thus, these two management options would yield the same total payoff and same distribution of payoffs. This result can be interpreted in the context of cartel-like control vs. competitive market supply (or partial open-access) for each of the factors of production. Closure of the high seas gives the sites the opportunity to exercise coordinated control over the harvesting grounds. In the case of F-controls with closed high seas, they have that cartel power locked in place at the outset because F-controls are functionally equivalent to site cooperation. In the E-control/closed high seas case they need to take the further step of cooperating in order to achieve cartel control over access to the fishing grounds (note that the payoff distribution with site cooperation in panel (b) of Fig. 4.8 is identical to the distribution in both the no cooperation and site cooperation cases in panel (b) of Fig. 4.9). In either case, the fleets will respond by organizing their own cartel – giving them coordinated control over the harvesting capital. The stable result is a bilateral cartel controlling the 2 factors of production. In contrast, whenever the high seas are open, it is not possible for the sites to fully control access to the fishing grounds, and our simulations assume that it would be prohibitively costly for the RFMO to fully monitor and control high seas harvesting. Therefore, with open high seas, total payoffs for any of the four major cooperation structures would be

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Fig. 4.9 (a): Vessel Days (F) control, open high seas/R = 84. (b): Vessel Days (F) control, closed high seas/R = 84.

lower than for full four-way cooperation, due to inefficient competitive harvesting on the high seas. This inefficiency is much worse when the RFMO attempts to achieve a high recruitment target using F-controls over fishing days within the EEZs rather than E-controls on the overall harvesting capacity of the fleets. Pure F-controls, as here constructed, leave high seas harvesting completely unconstrained. Thus, the RFMO’s only option is to limit fishing within the EEZs. As the fishing-day limits within the EEZs are progressively squeezed down to achieve the recruitment target, the fleets would increasingly concentrate their harvesting activities

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in the high seas areas. Closure of the high seas areas prevents that outcome, as would extension of F-controls over the high seas areas. The latter option is not explicitly displayed here, but it could be expected to yield a higher total payoff and a distribution of payoffs that is more favorable to the fleets. The exact outcome would depend on how the RFMO decided to balance the two types of constraints (coastal and high-seas). With tight enough constraints on high seas harvesting, the maximum payoff from F-controls would approach the maximum payoff in the E-control open high seas case.

Climate-related shifts in distribution of stocks Now, let us consider a very simple representation of the effects of shifts in the distribution of the fish stocks, as might be caused by a climatic regime shift. For these simulations, no cooperation among the fleets or sites is assumed and the high seas areas remain open. Here again, the high seas portion of recruitment is 20%, but the remaining stock is distributed unevenly between the sites. Specifically, some fraction of R (shown on the x-axis of the figures) goes to site b and the remaining part goes to site a – on the far right of each figure, 70% of the stock occurs on site b, 20% on the high seas, and 10% of it on site a, while on the far left, the a and b shares are reversed. Depending on the stock distribution, the RFMO adjusts E- or F-constraints to keep recruitment at a steady level R = 70. Figure 4.10 shows the case of E-controls, with payoffs displayed in panel (a) and harvests, by location, shown in panel (b). Here the RFMO is adjusting capacity to keep recruitment stable. Moving from left to right, the proportion of the stock increases on the b site and decreases on the a site, The payoffs generally move in the same direction – but the distribution also reflects the effects of the RFMO policy and the existence of the high seas as an alternate harvesting location. On the tails, the concentration on one site becomes very high, thus making harvesting there very cheap – while on the other site, the reduced concentration makes harvesting expensive. When the stock on a site drops too low (below 25%) the fleets cease harvesting on that site and concentrate all their efforts on the other site (with more than 55% of recruitment) and on the high seas. As a result, the sites stop competing (since only one active site remains) and the remaining site sharply increases taxes. This explains the sudden local drop of fleets’ payoffs at the corresponding stock distributions. However, even when only one active site remains, it still has to “compete” with the high seas to attract fleets. This allows the fleets to capture part of the benefit from cheap harvesting when the stocks are highly concentrated, and payoffs to the fleets regain their growth on the tails. Figure 4.11 shows the case of F-controls. With this type of policy, the sites slightly benefit and fleets severely suffer compared to E-control case. Total industry-wide payoff drops. Now, since there are no constraints on the fleets’ sizes, harvesting capital is more abundant. This puts the sites in a more favorable situation, and effectively makes them independent, so they do not compete. As a result they can set taxes more aggressively than in the case of E-controls. In addition, the sites can increase taxes even more aggressively when the stock distribution is very uneven – thus further reducing the share of the total payoffs going to the fleets – because the RFMO reduces the F-constraints on the tails.

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Fig. 4.10 Regional Fisheries Management Organization sets Effort Capacity (E) constraints for fleets.

By comparing the two sets of figures, we can see that strong environmental variability could lead the sites to prefer F-controls. The fleets, on the other hand, would fare poorly with F-controls if they are applied only to the EEZs, as this example assumes.

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Fig. 4.11 Regional Fisheries Management Organization sets Vessel Days (F) constraints for sites.

Summary, policy implications and future directions This analysis indicates that while an RFMO can achieve any given biological objective in a variety of ways, different types of policies will have very different implications for whoever benefits from the policy as well as for the overall level of the economic returns that can be

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obtained under the policy. Furthermore, policy outcomes will vary considerably, depending on whether or not coalitions form among the various fishing nations and coastal nations in whose waters harvesting occurs. In particular, the results presented above suggest that policies that focus on controlling overall harvesting capacity tend to be somewhat more favorable to fleets than to coastal nations that must attract the fleets to their EEZs in order to derive benefits from the fishery. On the other hand, policies focused on constraining harvesting opportunities, for example, by limiting the allowable number of harvesting days, may be more favorable to the coastal nations – especially if they are coupled with restrictions on the movement of harvesting activities into the surrounding high seas. We argue that these distributional consequences can be understood in light of the impacts of the policies – and the existence or non-existence of cooperating coalitions – on the effective relative scarcity of the various factors of production (harvesting capital or access to productive fishing grounds) controlled by each set of players in the harvesting game. An important caveat is that this discussion has not fully considered the transaction costs that each set of players would need to incur to form and maintain a cooperating coalition. In actual practice, such costs may be high enough to preclude some of the cooperative solutions. Furthermore, each set of players (sites and fleets) would certainly consider the likelihood of effective cooperation by the other set of players when deciding whether or not to incur the cost of forming its own coalition. In addition, some types of regulations are much more difficult to monitor and enforce than others, and there are many real-world examples of illegal fishing that authorities prove powerless to control. Thus, when applying this type of model to understand the potential effects of any real-world policy proposals, attention must be given to the likely costs of forming and maintaining coalitions, as well as to the costs of monitoring and enforcing regulations.

Acknowledgement This chapter is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant no. 0323134. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Endnotes 1. Current FFA members are Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu. 2. The Original 7 members of the PNA are: The Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Republic of Nauru, the Republic of Palau, Papua New Guinea, and Solomon Islands. Tuvalu joined the PNA in 1991. 3. As of October 2008, the membership in the WCPFC is as follows: Members: Australia, China, Canada, Cook Islands, European Community, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, France, Japan, Kiribati, Korea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Nauru,

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New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Chinese Taipei, Tonga, Tuvalu, United States of America, Vanuatu. Participating Territories: American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, French Polynesia, Guam, New Caledonia, Tokelau, Wallis, and Futuna. Cooperating Non-members: Belize, Indonesia.

References Anon (2005) US Senate Ratifies WCP Tuna Commission. Atuna. 2 December. http://www.atuned. biz/public/ViewArticle.asp?ID=3162 (last accessed 10 October 2008). Aqorau, T. (2003) Cooperative management of shared fish stocks in the South Pacific. In: FAO Fisheries Report No. 695 Supplement. Paper presented at the Norway-FAO Expert Consultation on the Management of Shared Fish Stocks, Bergen, Norway, 7–10 October 2002, FAO, Rome, pp. 105–122. Aqorau, T. and Bergin, A. (1997) Ocean governance in the Western Pacific purse seine fishery – the Palau Arrangement. Marine Policy 21(2), 173–186. Bertignac, M., Campbell, H. F., Hampton, J. and Hand, A. J. (2000) Maximizing resource rent from the Western and Central Pacific tuna fisheries. Marine Resource Economics 15, 151–177. FFA (2007) Information Sheet 07/01: Vessel Day Scheme (Vds) Implementation. http://www.ffa.int/ system/files/VDS+information+Sheet+07_01.pdf (last accessed 30 May 2008). FFA (2008) PNA Ministers Adopt Tough Conservation and Management Measures. Media release, http://www.ffa.int/node/1083 (last accessed 30 May 2008). Fiedler, P. C. (2002) Environmental change in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean: review of ENSO and decadal variability. Marine Ecology Progress Series 244, 265–283. Gillett, Preston and Associates (2003) A Survey of Purse Seine Fishing Capacity in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, 1988–2003. US Department of Commerce, Administrative Report AR-PIR-03-04. Hanchard, B. (1998) South Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) Technical Consultation of South Pacific Small Island Developing States on Sustainable Development in Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Apia, Samoa, 6–9 May 1996, Report and Background Documents. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome. http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_ file=/docrep/X0625E/X0625e15.htm (last accessed 9 June 2005). IGIFL (Internet Guide to International Fisheries Law) (2008a) Multilateral Treaties Compendium: Fisheries Agreements in Force or Awaiting Entry into Force. http://www.intfish.net/treaties/ index1.htm (last accessed 21 May 2008). Kaitala, V. and Munro, G. (1997) The management of high seas fisheries. Natural Resource Modeling 10, 87–108. Lawson, T. (ed.) (2007) Secretariat of the Pacific Community Tuna Fishery Yearbook 2006. Oceanic Fisheries Programme, Secretariat of the Pacific Community. Noumea, New Caledonia. Lehodey, P. (2001) The pelagic ecosystem of the tropical Pacific Ocean: dynamic spatial modelling and biological consequences of ENSO. Progress in Oceanography 49, 439–468. Lehodey, P., Bertignac, M., Hampton, J., Lewis, A. and Picaut, J. (1997) El Nino Southern Oscillation and tuna in the Western Pacific. Nature 389, 715–718. McKelvey, R. (1997) Game theoretic insights into the international management of fisheries. Natural Resource Modeling 10(2), 129–171. McKelvey, R., Sandal, L. K. and Steinshamn, S. I. (2003) Regional fisheries management on the high seas: the hit-and-run interloper model. International Game Theory Review 5(4), 328–345.

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McKelvey, R. and Golubtsov, P. (2010) A Regional Fisheries Strategic Management Game. Forthcoming. Miller, K. A. (2007) Climate Variability and Tropical Tuna: Management Challenges for Highly Migratory Fish Stocks, Marine Policy 31(1), 56–70. [doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2006.05.006]. MRAG (2006) Allocating WCPFC Resources: A Report for the WCPFC Secretariat (eds D. J. Agnew, D. Aldous, M. Lodge, P. Miyake and G. Parkes), Marine Resources Assessment Group Ltd, London, UK, October 2006. Munro, G. R. (1990) The optimal management of transboundary fisheries: game theoretic considerations. Natural Resource Modeling 4(4), 403–426. Munro, G. R. (1991) The management of migratory fishery resources in the Pacific: tropical tuna and Pacific salmon. In: Essays on Economics of Migratory Fish Stocks (eds R. Arnason and T. Bjorndal), Berlin, Springer-Verlag, pp. 85–106. Munro, G. R., Van Houtte, A. and R. Willman, R. (2004) The conservation and management of shared fish stocks: legal and economic aspects. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper 465. FAO, Rome. Petersen, E. (2002) The Catch in Trading Fishing Access for Foreign Aid. Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Program (RMAP), Working Paper No. 35, Australian National University, Canberra. Pintassilgo, P. and Duarte, C. C. (2000) The new-member problem in the cooperative management of high seas fisheries. Marine Resource Economics 15, 361–378. Pintassilgo, P. (2003) A coalition approach to the management of high seas fisheries in the presence of externalities. Natural Resource Modeling 16(2), 175–197. Ride, A. (2008) FFA Media Release: Pacific Islands push for action on Bigeye and Yellowfin Tuna at WCPFC this week – Posted on 8 December 2008. http://www.ffa.int/node/101 (last accessed 1 December 2008). SPC (2005) Fishery Policy Brief: Tuna Fisheries and their Impacts in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. Secretariat of the Pacific Community, Oceanic Fisheries Programme, Noumea, New Caledonia. Tarte, S. (1998) Japan’s Aid Diplomacy and the Pacific Islands. The Australian National University, Canberra. WCPFC (2005a) Status of the Convention on the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. WCPFC/TCC1/-07, 18 November 2005. WCPFC (2005b) Conservation and Management Measures for Bigeye and Yellowfin Tuna in the Western and Central Pacific. Resolution adopted at the Second session of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, 12–16 December 2005.

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Chapter 5

Fishing the Food Web Integrated Analysis of Changes and Drivers of Change in Fisheries of the Bay of Biscay Olivier Thébaud and Fabian Blanchard

Abstract A growing number of studies have shown that major changes are occurring in the composition of fisheries production worldwide. Selective fishing pressure on more highly valued components of fish communities leading to their overexploitation/depletion, and the effects of such pressure within the food web, are among the key factors proposed to explain these changes. Under de facto open access conditions, it is suggested that sequential over-harvesting of higher valued fish and/or fish species leads to modifications in the structure of both fish communities and fisheries landings at various scales. A central assumption here is that large, slow-growing, late reproducing, low fecundity, predator species are more highly valued, while at the same time, they are more sensitive to fishing mortality than small, fast-growing, early-reproducing, prey species, often lesser valued. Changes in the physical environment of fish stocks, in particular in the context of global warming, can also impact population distribution areas and population dynamics (recruitment, growth, reproduction, and mortality), hence the structure of fish assemblages and of landings derived from their exploitation. This has also recently been proposed as a driver of changes in fish communities, which can interact with the effects of fishing. This chapter presents key results obtained from an integrated analysis of the role of ecological and economic drivers on long-term modifications in the structure of fisheries production, and the potential economic impacts of these changes at the scale of large marine ecosystems. The analysis focused on trends observed in the landings of French fishing fleets over the last three decades. Landings series were considered at various scales, ranging from the entire fish production derived by French vessels from the Northeast Atlantic to the production of selected fish species harvested in the Bay of Biscay. Changes in the composition of landings were described, and compared to changes observed from scientific surveys carried out at sea in the same areas during the same period, and the potential drivers of these changes were analysed. The research showed that part of the changes observed in the composition of landings may be related to modifications of World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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the components of marine ecosystems exploited by fishing fleets. These modifications, due to both direct and ecosystems effects of fishing, are re-enforced by climate change. Modifications of species availability, along with changes in fishing patterns under de facto “regulated open access” conditions, led to significant changes in the structure of landings. This contributed to the reduction in the value of production by French fleets, as a larger proportion of low-priced fish was landed in the later years of the study period. Other factors explaining the reduced production value in recent years include the drop in volumes landed, and increased international competition in fish marketing conditions in Europe, leading to a decrease in first sale prices. Keywords: Food web, drivers, ecosystem effects, fishing, abundance

Introduction There has been a growing number of studies showing that major changes are occurring in fish communities and the associated landings by commercial fisheries worldwide (National Research Council, 2006). Most studies to date have focused mainly on the ecological dimensions of these changes. Selective fishing pressure on certain components of fish communities – leading to the collapse of higher trophic level fish species, and its ecosystem effects within the food web, small prey species being favored because of predation release and/or their better ability to bear fishing mortality due to their life-history traits characteristics (the so-called “fishing down the food web” process) – has been one of the key factors proposed to explain the changes in landings (Pauly et al., 1998). Other researchers have argued that changes in the composition of landings can also result from the sequential addition of new species to the portfolio of species targeted and landed by fishing fleets (Essington et al., 2006), thus referring to a “fishing through the food web” process. Yet other researchers have placed emphasis on the potential contribution of climate change to the modifications observed in fish communities and associated fisheries landings (Perry et al., 2005; Dulvy et al., 2008; Hiddink and Ter Hofstede, 2008), and have stressed the complex interactions between fishing and climate, which may drive changes in fish communities (Benoît and Swain, 2008; Planque et al., 2010). Overall, although at least some of these studies imply the existence of selective harvesting as a key driver of changes, only limited research has specifically involved analysing the human drivers underlying such spatial and/or temporal patterns. Some authors have examined the social dimensions of these modifications, such as in the case of the Newfoundland’s cod crisis (Hamilton and Butler, 2001; Hamilton et al., 2004) and the case of the West Greenland’s cod-to-shrimp transition (Hamilton et al., 2003). However, few studies have focused on the economic drivers of the sequential harvesting of different fish species in a community, and the economic consequences of changes in the composition of landings. Sumaïla (1998) presented an analysis based on FAO marine fisheries catch data collected from all fishing nations for 1950–1996 for over 1000 species of fish (Sumaila, 1998). Based on a classification of fish into either high or low trophic level species, the author observed a shift in the proportion of total world catches towards more catch of low trophic level species relative to high trophic level species, and suggested that this entails differences in the evolution

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of relative prices between the two groups of species. Pinnegar et al. (2002, 2006) used this assumption to develop a model of how the relative price of species located at different trophic levels in a fish community might evolve with increasing fishing pressure. According to these authors, the increase in fishing pressure on species with high trophic levels leads to a rarefaction of these species on markets, leading to an increase in their prices, relative to those of low trophic level. This entails substitution effects with consumers increasing their demand for lower trophic level species, thus leading to increased fishing pressure on the latter and an increase in their price due to their ensuing rarefaction. Based on their analysis of long-term changes in the Celtic Sea fish community and fisheries, the authors showed that there has been a decrease in the mean trophic level of catches, and an increase in the relative price index of high vs. low trophic level species between the late 1970s and 2000, thus confirming that the prices of the former have increased relative to the prices of the latter over the study period. The focus of these studies is on the responses of markets to modifications in the portfolio of species landed, and their implications for the relative prices of species. This raises the question of the role of over-harvesting and ecosystem effects of fisheries on the one hand, and changes in harvesting behaviors on the other, in any explanation of such modifications. To date, fairly little empirical work has been carried out to describe the modifications observed in fisheries landings in economic value terms, and to confront them with independent fishery data where this is available in order to assess the potential drivers of the changes observed, including environmental, institutional, and economic factors. A set of research projects was set up by the authors of this chapter, with such an objective1 in mind, focusing on the French Atlantic fisheries, particularly in the Bay of Biscay. This chapter provides a synthesis of the key results derived from this research regarding the joint ecological-economic analysis of changes and drivers of changes in the fish community and associated fisheries of the bay. The first section of this chapter recalls the results obtained regarding the descriptive account of trends in landings by the French fleets operating in the bay. The second section presents the institutional context of “regulated open access”, increased competition on fish markets, and the ecological effects of exploitation and climate change as some of the key drivers of change identified in the research. The third section discusses the current research perspectives, which derive from these results.

Patterns of change in fisheries landings by French fleets Patterns of change in the landings by French fleets operating in the Northeast Atlantic (NEA), between the 1970s and the 1990s, were analysed at various scales, from the entire region to the Bay of Biscay, and for the entire fisheries production to sub-sets of species. The analysis was based on data concerning: 1. annual production in volume and average ex-vessel prices per species landed by French fleets; and 2. descriptors of the bio-geographical and ecological characteristics of each species.2 Landings data was extracted from the ICES database3 regarding annual tonnage landed per species by French fleets in different areas of the Northeast Atlantic. Statistical records

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published by the French Central Committee for Marine Fisheries for years 1973–1990, and by the National Office for Sea and Aquaculture Products, the French Marine Fisheries and Aquaculture Directorate, and the Central Committee for Marine Fisheries for years 1990– 2002, were used to extract annual average first-sale prices per species. In order to assess changes in the composition of landings by species groups, information was also collected from Fishbase (http://www.fishbase.org/) and from the literature regarding the biogeographical characteristics of species landed. Indicators used included, for example, the trophic level of species, their maximum body length, or the limits in latitude and longitude of the distribution areas over which they are observed. Results of this analysis are presented in Steinmetz et al. (2006, 2008). Overall, changes in the characteristics of landings originating from the same region observed by other authors (Pauly et al., 1998; Pinnegar et al., 2002), in particular the decrease in the average trophic level of landings, were also observed for total NEA landings by French fleets (Steinmetz, 2004). A more detailed analysis of landings of 57 species of finfish, representing 50% in volume of the total French landings originating from the Bay of Biscay, showed similar trends (Steinmetz et al., 2008). In particular, the evolution of the index of average maximal length of finfish species caught and landed by French fleets displayed a decreasing trend from the late 1980s at the scale of the NEA; this index also decreased with some fluctuations from the early 1980s at the scale of the Bay of Biscay, implying that the share of smaller sized fish in landings had increased. Underlying changes in the composition of landings involved temporal variations of pelagic/demersal and benthic species ratio, with a strong reduction in the share of benthic fishes caught by French fleets in the Bay of Biscay, along with a moderate decline in the proportion of demersal fishes from the early 1990s, compensated by a strong increase in the share of pelagic fishes from the 1980s onwards. Trends in the quantity and value of landings by French fleets from the Bay of Biscay were also considered. These trends are illustrated in Plate 4 in the color plate section for the major commercial species landed by French vessels in the more recent years of the time series.4 The graphs illustrate the overall decrease in the total quantity of fish landed, as well as changes in its composition. While the quantities of demersal species such as hake and pollack have tended to decrease over the study period, those of pelagic species such as sardine, cuttlefish, and anchovy have tended to increase, although with some variability. In particular, the strong increase in anchovy landings of the 1990s did not last, as the Bay of Biscay stock collapsed in the mid-2000s. In value terms, there has been a sharp decline of the fleet’s landings during the first half of the 1990s, which can partly be explained by changes in marketing conditions for fish in Europe (see infra). However, the bottom quadrant of Plate 4 in the color plate section shows that this drop in value is at least partly due to a decrease in the proportion of the higher priced species in landings. Similar trends were observed at the scale of total fish landings by French fleets, a detailed analysis of which is given in Steinmetz et al. (2008).

Drivers of change Beyond descriptive accounts of long-term changes in the structure of landings, the research program also sought to identify some of the major drivers of these changes, involving both economists and ecologists in this endeavor. Three areas of investigation were developed to provide complementary lines of analysis. These concerned:

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1. the institutional context in which fisheries operate, and the associated economic incentives driving the development of fishing capacity; 2. the growing influence of markets in determining the evolution of first sale prices for fish landed by French fleets; and 3. the potential influence of underlying modifications in the fish community, which may result from ecosystem effects of fishing and climate change.

Institutional context: a case of “regulated open access” The institutional context in which French fleets operated over the study period can largely be considered as a case of “regulated open-access”, under which, despite the implementation of a limited-entry scheme in the late 1980s, and a succession of decommissioning schemes from the early 1990s, the conditions of a “race for fish” remained in place, leading to an increase in the overall catching capacity of the fleets. By law, access to the French fishing industry was considered as free before the decision, in 1988, to create an individual operation permit (“Permis de Mise en Exploitation”) for vessels in the commercial fishing fleet. Efforts to control the development of capacity in the French fleet were largely based on this permit system, associated with the definition of annual total capacity allowances measured in physical terms (initially defined based on nominal engine power in kilowatts and later based on the gross registered tonnage of vessels), and its allocation between vessel segments (based on vessel size) and regions. Decommissioning schemes were organized nearly every year since 1991, with the aim to fulfil the targets defined under the Common Fisheries Policy regarding capacity reduction in EU member states (Guyader et al., 2007). Figure 5.1 illustrates the evolution of an indicator of the apparent productivity of French vessels from the early 1970s to the early 2000s, taking into account the entire production that appears in the official records of landings. Apparent productivity is measured in terms of the total quantity of fish landed by the French commercial vessels operating in the Northeast Atlantic (in metric tons), per ton of Gross Registered Tonnage of the vessels composing the fleet. Three distinct periods can be distinguished: 1. a period of increase in apparent productivity until the early 1980s; 2. a period of relative stability until the early 1990s; and 3. a new period of steady increase in the average apparent productivity of vessels from the early 1990s onwards. This latter increase occurred while limited entry and decommissioning schemes were being implemented, and was in fact partly due to the decommissioning schemes which eliminated the least performing vessels (Thébaud et al., 2006). Overall, while the tonnage of the fleet was reduced by 44% in 30 years, the apparent productivity of vessels increased by more than 50% over the same period of time. Under de facto regulated open access conditions, the ensuing fishing pressure contributed to the development of excess harvesting of key commercial stocks, which have seen their share in total landings diminish regularly over the period. Fleets were incited to real-

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Tones of fish landed per ton of GRT

3.00

2.50

2.00

1.50

1.00 1973

1976

1979

1982

1985

1988 Year

1991

1994

1997

2000

Fig. 5.1 Trends in the apparent productivity (as tons of fish landed per ton of Gross Register Tonnage; GRT) of French vessels operating in the Northeast Atlantic, 1973–2002. (Source: Ifremer).

locate their effort towards alternative species, when the relative economic attractiveness of these species became high enough due to reduced fishing opportunities on the fish stocks that were initially targeted. Hence, part of the changes observed in the composition of landings can probably be related to the incentives created by the institutional framework under which fleets operated, which led to the development of excess capacity and a sequential reallocation of fishing effort across species as these were reduced in abundance due to excess harvesting.5

Increased competition in markets for fish Analysis of the French official statistics on landings and annual average prices of fish caught in the NEA, showed that the structural modification that affected the first-sale market in France in the early 1990s was another important driver of changes in the value of landings. Figure 5.2 illustrates this modification, by separating out changes in constant prices (in 2005 euro terms) and changes in quantities of fish landed (in tons), expressed as Fisher volume and price indices.6 In the late 1980s, stagnation and then decrease in the quantities of fish landed were associated with increasing prices, which reached their highest level (in constant value terms) during years 1989–1991. This was followed by a collapse of average prices in the early 1990s, which led to a major crisis in the French fishing industry. The drop in prices was due to a set of factors, including the progressive liberalization of trade in the markets for fish of European member states and an associated increase in market competition; the growing share of the market covered by supermarket chains that also increased this competition EU-wide; and modifications in the exchange rates of European currencies against the French Franc, which temporarily increased the relative

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1.40

Price index

1.20

Volume index

1.00

0.80

0.60 1990

1992

1994

1996

1998 Year

2000

2002

2004

Fig. 5.2 Price (dashed line) and quantity (solid line) changes in the total landings of nine major commercial species from the Bay of Biscay, 1990–2005 (Source: Ifremer, based on data from FranceAgriMer). y-axis represents the price and quantity (volume) index.

price of French products on both the internal and export markets. At the scale of the Bay of Biscay, the impact of the crisis was particularly strong: taking into account the nine main commercial species targeted by French fleets in the Bay, Le Floc’h et al. (2008) estimate that between 1991 and 1994, average prices dropped by 72% (Fig. 5.2). During this crisis, quantities of fish landed increased. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this was a response by some fishing companies, attempting to compensate the drop in prices by an increase in volumes landed. Following this market crisis, the decrease in tonnage landed resumed, and was associated to a strong increase in prices. However, both quantities landed and prices remained lower than in the early 1990s; indeed, despite the much lower quantities landed in the later part of the period, prices remained at levels comparable to those that occurred in the early 1970s, indicating that fishers now operate under new marketing conditions.7 This change in marketing conditions for fish landed by French fleets has contributed to the reduction, by more than 40%, of the total value of landings originating from the Bay of Biscay between the late 1980s and the early 2000s. Considering all the finfish species declared in the official landings data, Steinmetz et al. (2008) estimated that 42% of this decrease in the total value of landings resulted from a reduction of prices paid for fish. However, only part of this reduction (44%) was due to the drop in average prices at first sale across species resulting from the market crisis. Two-thirds of this reduction was explained by the growing proportion of low price species in total landings.8 Indeed, when the total value index reached its maximum in the late 1980s, landings of high-priced species were also at their maximum. At the lower level of the value index in 1998, high exploitation rates were observed for low-priced species such as anchovy or pilchard, while low exploitation rates prevailed for higher-priced species such as hake or monkfish. Hence, modifications in the composition of landings, as illustrated in the section on Institutional context: a case of “regulated open access”, contribute to explain the reduced value of fish production from the Bay of Biscay between the late 1980s and 2002.

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Effects of sea warming on the fish community structure As already stressed, changes in the composition of landings may have resulted from the sequential over-harvesting of species of higher commercial value, in a context of de facto open access. To some extent, these changes may also have been determined by modifications in the structure of the fish community due to sea warming. The potential role of such drivers was assessed via the analysis of independent fishery data regarding the status of the fish community on which French fishing fleets depend in the Bay of Biscay. Boreal, sub-tropical, and temperate species meet in the Bay of Biscay, constituting a bio-geographic ecotone (Plate 5 in the color plate section). Species have adapted during their evolutionary history to the mean temperature conditions (among other physical conditions) that they encountered. The distribution area of the species may thus be considered as a good proxy for the thermal affinity of species, at least on a macro-ecological scale. In the Eastern Atlantic Ocean, latitude and mean temperature are positively correlated, hence the latitudinal position of the distribution area of the species may be indicative of the thermal affinity of the species (Plate 5 in the color plate section and Fig. 5.3). Based on this description of species, it is possible to classify them into three groups: l. Those with affinity for waters colder than those observed in the Bay, corresponding to boreal species, with the mean latitude of the distribution area located above the northern limit of the Bay. 2. Those with affinity for waters warmer than those observed in the Bay, corresponding to sub-tropical species, with the mean latitude of the distribution area located below the southern limit of the Bay. 3. Those with affinity for temperate waters such as those observed in the Bay, corresponding to species with the mean latitude of the distribution area located within the Bay limits. The temporal variations of the total abundance within these groups were assessed from bottom-trawl survey data collected yearly by Ifremer since 1987 (except in 1991, 1993, and 1996) with an internationally standardized protocol. Results of this analysis showed that, while between 1987 and 1992 a relative equilibrium was observed for the three groups, the abundance of subtropical species staying within the range over which that of the two other groups varied, from 1994 onwards the sub-tropical species group became dominant (Fig. 5.4). In fact, after 1992, the abundance of the subtropical species was always greater than the upper bound of the range of variation in abundance of the two other groups. This change of the fish community with increasing dominance of the species with affinity for warm waters occurred simultaneously with an increase in the sea temperature, observed in the entire water column (Fig. 5.5). Based on data compiled from different sources, the observed increase was estimated at approximately 1.5°C since 1970 in the upper 50 m depth and approximately 0.8°C in the 50–200 m depth layer. The temperature increase was stronger in the 1990s. In addition, analysis showed that the dominant pelagic species with low trophic levels, such as anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus) and horse and common mackerels (Trachurus spp., Scomber spp.), were found within the warm-water affinity group of species, while the large demersal species with high trophic levels that were historically the target species of

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–60

–40

–20

0

20

40

60

Sub-tropical sp. Temperate sp. Boreal sp.

Fig. 5.3 Latitudinal distribution area of the boreal (right circle), temperate (middle circle), and subtropical species (left circle) encountered in the Bay of Biscay as sampled by the bottom-trawl surveys carried out yearly by Ifremer since 1987: maximal, mean, and minimal latitude values.

Latitude 80

Scomber japonicus Lithognathus mormyrus Galeorhinus galeus Sparus aurata Dicologoglossa cuneata Dasyatis pastiaca Syngnathus acus Zeus faber Squalus pagrus Myliobatis aquila Sparus pagrus Balistes carolinesis Umbrina canarjensis Macrorhamphos Maurolicus muelleri Mustelus mustelus Helicolenusda dactylopterus Solea lascaris Torpedo marmorata Lophius budegassa Buglossidium luteum Trachurus trachurus Arnoglossus imperialis Raja clavata Engraulis encrasicous Conger conger Trigla lyra Aspitrigla obssura Echiodon drummondi Spondyliosoma cantharus Arnoglossus laterna Boops boops Dicentrarchus punctatus Argyrosomus regius Symphodus bafiloni Trachurus mediterraneus Labrus bimaculatus Gymnammodyte Raja undulata Mullus surmuletus Capros aper Pagellus acarne Cepola rubescens Scorpaena loppei Aspitrigla cuculus Atherina presbyter Liza ramada Microchirus variegatus Pagellus erythrinus Raja naevus Scyliorhinus canicula Solea vulgaris Trigla lucerna Labrus bergylta Raja brachyura Galeus melastomus Dicentrarchus labrax Pomatoschistus minutus Raja montagui Chelon labrosus Alosa alosa Sardina pichardus Hippocampus hippocampus Enchelyopus cimbrius Liza aurata Molva dipterygia Pagellus bogaraveo Callionymus lyra Merluccius merluccius Lepidorhombus boscii Gobius niger Lesueuriogobius friesii Trisopterus luscus Eutrigla gurnardus Pleuronectes platessa Symphodus melops Aphia minuta Echiichthys vipera Callionymus maculatus Raja fullonica Trachinus draco Mustelus asterias Scophthalmus scombbrus Trisopterus minutuso Argentina sphhyraena Scomber scombrus Lepidorhombus whiffiagonis Raja circularis Alosa fallax Ctenolabrus rupestris Gaidropsarus vulgaris Gadiculus argenteus Phycis blennoides Sprattus sprattus Psetta maxima Molva molva Ammodytes tobianus Micromesistius poutassou Hyperoplus immaculatus Hyperoplus lanceolatus Phrynorhombus norvegicus Lophius piscatorius Merlangius merlangus Limanda limanda Microstomus kitt Platichthys flesus Pollachius virens Melanogrammus aeglefinus Gadus morhua Clupea harengus Pollachius pollachius Gaidropsarus Argentina silus

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Sub-tropical species Transition (typical Biscay) species

4.5

4 Abundance (Log)

99

Boreal species

3.5

3

2.5

2 1985

1987

1989

1991

1993

1995

1997

1999

2001

2003

Fig. 5.4 Temporal variations of the total abundance (log abundance per standardized trawl haul) of sub-tropical, temperate, and boreal species in the Bay of Biscay, sampled from the bottom-trawl survey “EVHOE” carried out by Ifremer with the Research Oceanographic Vessel Thalassa I. After 1992, the abundance of the subtropical species was always greater than the upper bound of the range of variation observed in abundance of the two other groups.

2 1.5 1 0.5 0 –0.5 –1

+1.5°C since 1970

–1.5 0–50 m –2 1950 1960 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 –0.2 –0.4 –0.6 –0.8 1950

T = 13.59 1970

1980

1990

2000

+0.8°C since 1970

T = 11.77 50–200 m 1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

Fig. 5.5 Temporal variations of the temperature anomalies of the water column between 0 and 50 m (upper figure) and between 50 and 200 m (bottom figure) in the Bay of Biscay (5 and 10 year smoothing); T is the mean value observed within the time series; http://www.ifremer.fr/gascogne.

European fisheries, such as haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus), cod (Gadus morhua), dab (Limanda limanda), pollack and saithe (Pollachius pollachius and P. virens), and megrim (Lepidorhombus), were found among the species of the cold-water affinity group. This probably contributes to explain the increase in the abundance ratio of pelagic species while the trophic level of the community decreased (Fig. 5.6).

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(a) 100% Pelagic

80%

Demersal Benthic

60% 40% 20%

1989

1991

1993

1995

1997

1999

2001

1989

1991

1993

1995

1997

1999

2001

1987

1985

1983

1981

1979

1977

1975

1973

0%

(b) 3.55 3.5

Trophic Level

3.45 3.4 3.35 3.3 3.25

1987

1985

1983

1981

1979

1977

1975

1973

3.2

Fig. 5.6 Patterns of change in the fish community of the Bay of Biscay as sampled by bottom-trawl surveys. (a): temporal variations of the relative abundance of groups of species benthic (BEN), demersal (DEM) and small and medium pelagic (PEL). (b): temporal variations of the mean trophic level of the fish community.

The observed changes in the composition of the fish community could thus be interpreted as resulting not from climate change only but rather from the combined effects of fishing and warming. Changes would result, on the one hand, from the depletion by overexploitation of large predator boreal species, which are both disadvantaged by warming, and less resilient to excess harvesting, and on the other hand, from the increase in smaller sub-tropical species, of lower trophic level, that are favored by warming, and present greater resilience than larger species to fishing mortality. Changes in the relative abundances of these species would then explain the modifications in their relative attractiveness for commercial fisheries, leading to the evolution of harvesting patterns observed over time, with a growing share of fast growing, small size, lower valued fish in the landings originating from the Bay. This would concur with the expected behavior of a multi-species fishery where fishing firms can freely re-allocate their effort across species, even under a limited

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entry scheme (see Thébaud and Soulié, 2008, for a modeling approach of such behavior). In this case, however, the dynamics could be reinforced by the role of global warming.

Perspectives Landings by French fleets from the Bay of Biscay have been strongly modified over the last three decades, with an important increase in the share of pelagic species. This has entailed a reduction in the total value of landings. The fact that the main demersal species of commercial interest in the Bay of Biscay, as well as in all the Northeast Atlantic waters, have been subject to excessively high levels of fishing mortality has been known for some time. These species are often boreal, hence they have probably also been disadvantaged by the warming of the waters. Effects of climate change on the fish community of the Bay of Biscay has also been observed (Blanchard and Vandermeirsch, 2005; Poulard and Blanchard, 2005), as well as for the fish community of the North Sea (Perry et al., 2005). It thus seems that changes in the components of the marine ecosystems exploited by fisheries, due to both direct and ecosystems effects of fishing, may be re-enforced by climate change. Part of the changes observed in the composition of landings may be related to these ecosystem changes. Modifications in the relative abundance of species must have led to modifications in their relative attractiveness in economic terms, leading to shifts in effort between species and to new patterns of harvesting. This would have played all the more strongly as a regulated open access situation prevailed, which most often allowed firms to shift freely between target species. The consequences of these changes in value terms have been important, as a large part of the drop in prices paid for the fish landed by French fleets can be attributed to the larger proportion of lower-priced fish in the landings. However, the evolution of gross turnover for these fleets has also been strongly affected by the changes in the marketing conditions in Europe over the past 15 years, leading to increased competition internationally, and to lower prices paid, even though quantities landed are now lower than 20 years ago. The fact that these observations were arrived at in a particular, temperate ecosystem, in the economic and regulatory context of Europe and France, begs the question of the generality of this case study. The research partly confirmed results from studies carried out in the whole North Atlantic Ocean, from Canada to Norway (Hamilton, 2007). However, the study of the combined effects of various drivers on the evolution of marine ecosystems and the associated fisheries has mostly taken place in temperate or boreal systems. In systems where the ecological characteristics of species, which define their resilience to fishing and their thermal tolerance, are different, it is not clear that similar observations would be made about the respective roles of fishing and warming on fish communities. Similarly, the consequences of ecosystem changes for the economic viability of fisheries are bound to differ across different economic and regulatory contexts. Multi-disciplinary research projects based on the comparative analysis of trends in fish communities and the associated fisheries, taking case studies from contrasted systems, would contribute to a better understanding of these issues.9

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Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of the colleagues who have participated in the development of this research, as part of the three projects on which it has been carried out, particularly F. Steinmetz, J.-C. Poulard, P. Le Floc’h, O. Guyader, and J. Bihel. We specially thank F. Vandermeirsch who developed an important SST data set and carried out the temporal analyses of the SST, and C. Mullon for assistance in putting together the graph of changes in the structure of landings by price levels. This research was supported by the French National Research Agency, the French Biodiversity Institute, and Ifremer.

Endnotes 1. Integrated approach of economic and ecological drivers on various ecosystem components of the Bay of Biscay continental shelf as part of Ifremer’s “Défi Golfe de Gascogne” (http://www.ifremer.fr/gascogne/); project funded under the French Biodiversity Institute’s program on “Global change and biodiversity” (compared analyses of temporal trends in fish community and landing structure in the Bay of Biscay); “Chaloupe” project (Ecological and economic drivers of changes in demersal communities and fisheries systems in three continental shelves: Bay of Biscay, Southern Morocco, and the French Guiana, see http://www.projet-chaloupe.fr). 2. See Steinmetz et al., 2008 for a detailed presentation of the data used. 3. http://www.ices.dk/fish/statlant.asp 4. Anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus); Cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis); Hake (Merluccius merluccius); Monkfish (Lophius piscatorius and budegassa); Nephrops (Nephrops norvegicus); Pollack (Pollachius pollachius); Sardine (Sardina pilchardus); Seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax); Sole (Solea solea). 5. See Thébaud and Soulié (2008) for a formal discussion of the economic process underlying such sequential harvesting patterns. 6. Fisher indices are calculated as the geometric mean of Paasche and Laspeyres indices, the former using the most recent year as a base, while the latter uses the first year of the series as a base to weight the contribution of each species to the average value of the variable under consideration. For example, a Fisher index of changes in the price of landings is calculated as follows:

Ft /0p =

å( p å( p

i ,t

.qi ,0 )

i ,0 .qi ,0 )

i

´å

( pi ,t .qi ,t )

å ( pi ,0 .qi ,t ) i

with pi,t the price of species i at time t, qi,t the volume landed of species i at time t, and 0 the initial time period. A similar equation is used to calculate the Fisher index of quantities. 7. Steinmetz (2004) analysed this structural change in detail for the different species landed by French fleets. 8. See Steinmetz et al. (2008) for more details. 9. This was the aim the “Chaloupe” project, funded by the French Research National Agency, which investigated these questions based on a comparative approach for three contrasted case studies: the continental shelf of the Bay of Biscay, the tropical shelf of French Guiana, and the sub-tropical shelf of south Morocco.

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References Benoît, H. P. and Swain, D. P. (2008) Impacts of environmental change and direct and indirect harvesting effects on the dynamics of a marine fish community. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 65, 2088–2104. Blanchard, F. and Vandermeirsch, F. (2005) Warming and exponential abundance increase of the subtropical fish Capros aper in the Bay of Biscay (1973–2002). Comptes-Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, Biologies 328, 505–509. Dulvy, N. K., Rogers, S. I., Jennings, S. et al. (2008) Climate change and deepening of the North Sea fish assemblage: a biotic indicator of warming seas. Journal of Applied Ecology 45, 1029–1039. Essington, T. E., Beaudreau A. H. and Wiedenmann, J. (2006) Fishing through marine food webs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 103(9), 3171–3175. Guyader O., Berthou P. and Daurès, F. (2007) Decommissioning schemes and capacity adjustment: a preliminary analysis of the french experience. In: Fisheries Buybacks (eds R. Curtis and D. Squires), Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Oxford UK, pp. 105–132. Hamilton, L. C. (2007) Climate, fishery and society interactions: Observations from the North Atlantic. Deep-Sea Research II 54, 2958–2969. Hamilton, L. C. and Butler, M. J. (2001) Outport adaptations: social indicators through Newfoundland’s cod crisis. Human Ecology Review 8(2), 1–11. Hamilton, L. C., Brown, B. C. and Rasmussen, R. O. (2003) West Greenland’s cod-to-shrimp transition: local dimensions of climatic change. Arctic 56(3), 271–282. Hamilton, L. C., Haedrich, R. L. and Duncan, C. M. (2004) Above and below the water: social/ecological transformation in northwest Newfoundland. Population and Environment 25(3), 195–215. Hiddink, J. G. and Ter Hofstede, R. (2008) Climate induced increases in species richness of marine fishes. Global Change Biology 14, 453–460. Le Floc’h, P., Poulard, J. C. and Thébaud, O. et al. (2008) Analyzing the potential economic impacts of long-term changes in marine fish communities: the case of French fisheries in the Bay of Biscay. Aquatic Living Resource 21, 307–316. National Research Council (2006) Dynamic Changes in Marine Ecosystems: Fishing, Food Webs, and Future Options. Committee on Ecosystem Effects of Fishing: Phase II- Assessments of the Extent of Change and the Implications for Policy. The National Academics Press, 154 p. Pauly, D., Christensen, V., Dalsgaard, J. et al. (1998) Fishing down marine food webs. Science 279, 860–863. Perry, A. L., Low, P. J., Ellis, J. R. et al. (2005) Climate change and distribution shifts in marine fishes. Science 308, 1912–1915. Pinnegar, J. K., Jennings, S., O’Brien, C. M. et al. (2002) Long-term changes in the trophic level of the Celtic Sea fish community and fish market price distribution. Journal of Applied Ecology 39, 377–390. Pinnegar, J. K., Hutton, T. P. and Lacenti, V. P. (2006) What relative seafood prices can tell us about the status of stocks. Fish and Fisheries 7, 219–226. Planque, B., Fromentin, J. -M., Cury, P. et al. (2010) How does fishing alter marine populations and ecosystems sensitivity to climate? Journal of Marine Systems 79(3–4), 403–417. Poulard, J. C. and Blanchard, F. (2005) The impact of climate change on the fish community structure of the eastern continental shelf of the Bay of Biscay. ICES Journal of Marine Science 62, 1436–1443. Steinmetz, F. (2004) Analyse rétrospective des données des débarquements de la pêche professionnelle française sur la façade Atlantique sur la période 1973–2002. Magistère Economiste Statisticien, Université de Toulouse 1, 162 p.

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Steinmetz, F., Thébaud, O., Guyader, O. et al. (2006) A preliminary analysis of long-term changes in the value of landings by French fishing fleets operating in the North-East Atlantic. In: Proceedings of the 13th biennial conference of the IIFET, Portsmouth, UK, July 2006. Steinmetz, F., Thébaud, O., Le Floc’h, P. et al. (2008) A bio-economic analysis of long-term changes in the production of French fishing fleets operating in the Bay of Biscay. Aquatic Living Resource 21, 317–327. Sumaila, U. R. (1998) Markets and the fishing down marine food webs phenomenon. EC Fisheries Cooperation Bulletin, 11(3–4), 25–26. Thébaud O. and Soulié, J. -C. (2008) Fishing through fish communities: a simple bio-economic model. In Proceedings of the International Congress on Modelling and Simulation, Christchurch, New Zealand, December 2007. International Society for Computer Simulation. Thébaud, O., Daurès, F., Guyader, O. et al. (2006) Modelling the adjustment of fishing fleets to regulatory controls: the case of South-Brittany trawlers (France), 1990–2003. AMURE Working Paper D13-2006 (http://www.univ-brest.fr/gdr-amure/documents/gdr-amure-D-13-2006.pdf).

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Chapter 6

Interdisciplinary Modeling for an Ecosystem Approach to Management in Marine Social-Ecological Systems Anthony M. Starfield and Astrid Jarre

Abstract Interdisciplinary research to address global change is essential but inherently difficult. Modeling is a necessary component of many interdisciplinary projects; the way in which modelers approach their work and think about modeling can have a profound effect on the success of the project as a whole. This contribution discusses crucial considerations for interdisciplinary modeling: 1. setting of clear system objectives generated from the interdisciplinary problem; 2. identification of an appropriate level of resolution and its maintenance through all aspects of model design; 3. selection of collaborators genuinely interested in interdisciplinarity while well-grounded in their disciplines; 4. maintained focus on communication; 5. rapid prototyping as an approach to develop the project as understanding increases; and 6. choice of a modeling paradigm that focuses on objectives and leads to a balanced contribution from each discipline. Frame-based modeling is introduced as an example of a modeling paradigm suitable to address long-term changes in social-ecological systems. Keywords: Interdisciplinary research, system modeling, model design, rapid prototyping, frame-based model, climate variability, long-term change, fisheries systems

Introduction Over the past two decades, there has been an increasing emphasis on the need for an ecosystem approach to fisheries management. This approach implies collaboration between World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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researchers and stakeholders (Neis and Felt, 2000; Degnbol, 2003) as well as between researchers of various disciplines. Multi-disciplinary approaches, which maintain disciplinary boundaries when researching a common problem, have made a first step in getting researchers from various disciplines to learn something about other disciplines (Wilson et al., 2006). Interdisciplinary studies, which draw from various disciplines to work towards a common goal, are increasingly essential, but they are inherently challenging. The disciplines involved in the study are often ill-matched: they may use language differently, have different standards of rigor and accuracy, and may be entrenched in their own paradigms. While all recognize the importance of interdisciplinary work, and funding agencies seem eager to promote such studies, it is often difficult for the individuals involved in them to get appropriate disciplinary recognition for their contribution. Consequently, it is all too easy for interdisciplinary projects to labor ambitiously, intensively, and expensively, but without making a concomitant contribution to the objective, namely (in this case) an increased understanding of the social-ecological system. In an interdisciplinary project, modelers often have the task of pulling together the various strands and making sense of the whole. However, all too often, modelers are considered to be servants to the project – they have to bow to the expertise of the disciplinarians and the directions of the project leader or leaders – yet the way in which they approach their work and think about modeling can have a profound effect on the success of an interdisciplinary project. For the purpose of this chapter, we define “the modeler” as the person or group of people charged with the development of the model, who can be outsiders to the project or people from inside the project group. The important point is that the modeler has to deliberately take on the role of an independent, outside viewer of the project as a whole. It is the modeler who has to promote a focus on the system as opposed to the focus on its components typically provided by the individual disciplines. It follows that this type of modeling is inherently different from the modeling conducted within the disciplines, such as stock assessment models and oceanographic models. It is our contention that system modeling is key to the success of many interdisciplinary projects because it forces the holistic viewpoint. This chapter therefore looks at interdisciplinary projects from a modeling perspective. It draws heavily on a paper by Nicolson et al. (2002) and on a modeling philosophy that can be traced through Starfield and Bleloch (1991), Starfield (1997), and Kettenring et al. (2006).

Focusing attention and setting objectives The following is a list of just some of the keywords we might look for in an interdisciplinary approach to fisheries management: “Ecosystem dynamics, trophic dynamics, global change, oceanography, fish stocks, harvest, by-catch, economics, decision-making under uncertainty, stakeholders, social systems, conflicting objectives.” Not only do the concepts represented by these words cross disciplines, they are also scattered across different temporal and spatial scales. How do we juggle so many ideas at the same time? The answer is to be found by looking at how the human brain deals with complexity. Think of all the information conveyed to the brain at any time by ears and eyes: it filters and ruthlessly ignores most of the incoming information, focusing its attention on what it deems to be important. It is therefore essential for all those involved in an interdisciplinary project, and modelers

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B A

C

SYSTEM

D

E Discipline-based approach Interdisciplinary approach B

C

A

SYSTEM

E

D

Fig. 6.1 Problem structuring and setting of objectives for an interdisciplinary modeling project. The upper panel illustrates the mode frequently applied: Researchers look at a joint theme, defining objectives from their disciplinary viewpoints. The correct way is illustrated in the lower panel: defining objectives from within the system and then looking to the various disciplines to see how they can contribute towards these objectives.

in particular, to focus attention and concentrate only on what is essential to the project. This chapter offers heuristics and modeling tools for achieving this. The first step, as always, is to set clear objectives and boundaries. The success of a project or model will rest on how carefully objectives have been set and on making sure that all members of an interdisciplinary team understand the scope of the project and hence, by definition, what is excluded from that scope. Think of an interpreter at a conference: it is much easier to understand and convey what is being said if the context, key points, and boundaries are specified upfront. The usual practice is to ask the disciplinary experts to look at the project from within their disciplines and suggest key objectives. This, as Nicolson et al. (2002) point out, is the wrong viewpoint. A good analogy is to think of an orchestra – the players need to follow a score instead of vying for their instruments to be heard individually. The constructive viewpoint is to look for objectives from within the project itself, and only then look out towards the disciplines (Fig. 6.1). This might sound like a trivial distinction, but it is in fact crucial (also see Ommer (2007: Appendix) on the necessity for a shared vision). The interdisciplinary project is a system to be studied or developed. Rooted in their disciplines, experts typically are amateurs with respect to the system itself. We can easily ask the wrong questions starting from within any one discipline. It is essential from the outset to focus attention on the system and develop systemrelated hypotheses or objectives. Only in this way can we begin to see what is needed for the interdisciplinary project from each discipline. In some cases what is needed will stretch

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the resources of the disciplinary experts; in other cases it will require the experts to grossly simplify what they know. These distinctions are lost if the system objectives are just the sum of disciplinary objectives. Clear objectives constrain and focus the always difficult communication between the disciplines. Clear objectives are also the starting point for a model. Unfortunately, clear objectives can be elusive.

A model of a model Figure 6.2 represents the modeling process. It starts in the top left-hand corner in the box labeled “Real World”. This is the complex world where everything is potentially important. The first step is to design a simplified model world that may distort, simplify, or ignore what can be found in the real world. The emphasis here is on the word “design”, because what goes into the model world is determined by the objectives of the modeling exercise. Designing the model world is the process of focusing attention. What is left out of the model world goes to a list of assumptions, suppositions, or preferences that are justified in terms of the objectives. The modeler then draws on and shapes the knowledge of the disciplinary experts to build and code the actual model. Again this is a selective and discriminatory process – what the modeler needs to know is defined by the design of the model world, not by everything the disciplinary experts have (and want) to offer. Once the model has been coded, it requires data from the “real world” side of the diagram. These data may or may not be available – remember, “uncertainty” was a keyword. Where data are missing, we can only use the best estimates (or guesses) we can find. It is essential to remember that the design of the model world (and hence of the model) is determined by the objectives, not by the availability of data.

Design REAL WORLD

MODEL WORLD

Building & coding

Analyse results

Interpret

MODEL DATA

Parameterize & calibrate Assumption analysis Sensitivity analysis

Fig. 6.2 The modeling process. See text for a detailed description.

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IV

I

III

Data

II

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Understanding Fig. 6.3 Classification of modeling problems. Interdisciplinary system projects concerned with long-term change typically fit in areas I and III. Area II is the realm of statistical analysis (many fish stock assessment models fit here). Area IV is the domain of the physical sciences. Adapted from Starfield and Bleloch (1991), with permission.

The model is then exercised and produces results. The key point here is that the results relate to the model world; they have to be interpreted back to the real world. Interpretation includes taking into consideration the assumptions of the model and the quality of the data. Notice that this description of the modeling process puts modeling in the same category as a laboratory or field experiment. An experiment is always focused, is always in some sense a simplification, and the results always need to be interpreted. A model is a virtual experiment. Notice too that an “all purpose” model is an oxymoron. The model is shaped by the objectives; broaden them and the model loses shape. Within the context of fisheries, there are disciplinary models such as (single- or multi-species) stock assessment models. Their objectives are almost certainly different from the objectives of an interdisciplinary model in the natural sciences, such as models exploring the effect of environmental variability on plankton communities and the population dynamics of planktivores (Hinckley et al., 2001; Ito et al., 2007; Megrey et al., 2007), or analysing the relative importance of climate variability and fishing effects on offshore fish communities (Travers et al., 2006; Shannon et al., 2008). During the past three decades, there has been an increase in the number of successful, coupled physical-biological models. However, system models going beyond the natural system, i.e., models linking social and natural systems continue to pose a considerable challenge. Remember that the art of modeling lies in the design of the model, and Holling’s classification of models still applies (Fig. 6.3). As we will attempt to show, it is possible to build useful system models from a general understanding of the structure and functioning of the system, even in the absence of comprehensive datasets. In this modeling process, it is important to realize that the model will be broken, if any one link in the process is weak or faulty. The chances of finding a weak link are magnified in an interdisciplinary modeling project – there may be confusion in the objectives (leading to an inappropriate model world), imbalance in the model itself, serious gaps in the data, and uncertainty about how to interpret the results.

Rapid prototyping Rapid prototyping provides a paradigm for dealing with these potential problems. Modelers tend to try to perfect each step in Fig. 6.2 as they follow the process, but this is a mistake. It is far better to build a series of prototypes, with the first prototype built as rapidly as

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possible. Starting with the objectives in the real world, design the leanest possible model world (if in doubt about a simplifying assumption, make it and note that you have made it), build the model and test it as quickly as you can (using whatever data are readily available and guessing at the rest). There are several important advantages to developing a quick first prototype: 1. It provides a common “language” and sense of purpose for those participating in the project. 2. It produces preliminary results quickly and gives all participants in an interdisciplinary project a better sense of what the model can do, how the disciplines interact, and where the project may be heading. Even when great care has been taken in setting objectives in the real world, the results of a first prototype model often lead to a reconsideration or refinement of the objectives. 3. The model is not held up by endless arguments about the details of the model world. Since this is only a first prototype, if in doubt, leave it out. 4. Similarly, the exercise is not stalled by poor or missing data. 5. We always learn something new and interesting from a thoughtful modeling exercise, even when the model is very simple. Many of the points above apply to modeling without prototyping. Van den Belt (2004), for example, shows how to use modeling to educate stakeholders and increase participation in a project. However, prototyping greatly reinforces the advantages of modeling while maintaining focus on the system dynamics. There are, however, two important steps to be taken with each prototype. The first is to do a thorough sensitivity analysis. Error bounds on the data (and guesses) should be expressed in terms of upper and lower bounds and the model should be tested to see how the results change qualitatively as we switch from one bound to another. A thoughtful sensitivity analysis will help to clarify which data are crucial (and in what way), how much latitude in the data can be tolerated, and what are the consequences of guessing at data that are impossible to obtain. The second step is to do a thorough “assumption analysis” – an assumption analysis is to the assumptions of a model what a sensitivity analysis is to the data. Key assumptions should be tested by modifying the model (in simple ways) to explore how each major assumption may affect the results. A first prototype with a sensitivity analysis and assumption analysis leads to a reconsideration of the objectives of the project, a clearer understanding of what data are needed, and a good idea of how to improve the model in the next prototype. This review might even lead to the conclusion that the first prototype was heading in the wrong direction and the whole model (perhaps even the whole project) needs to be rethought. Designing for successive prototypes within an interdisciplinary project is the way to keep the whole project focused and in step, and prevents it from careering out of control. At every stage of the project there is a working model (or models); compare this with what (unfortunately) usually happens – nobody sees any results from the modeling effort until right at the very end of a project. An example of a sensitivity analysis carried out on a simple model – in this case a knowledge-based (“expert”) system evaluating the implementation of an Ecosystem Approach to fisheries in the South African sardine fishery – is provided in Paterson et al. (2007) and Jarre

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et al. (2008). Smith (2009) shows how to conduct a thorough assumption and sensitivity analysis on a prototype model of climate and fisheries effects on alternating anchovy and sardine dominance regimes in the southern Benguela upwelling marine ecosystem.

The question of balance Think of your favorite 18th- or early 19th-century painting: it might be a portrait or a landscape or represent a historical event. It will also be balanced in the sense that all quadrants of the canvas are painted in similar and appropriate detail and in the same style. Now take the same painting and imagine that one quadrant is repainted by an impressionist, another by an expressionist, and a third by an abstract artist. The theme remains (if you can detect it) but balance has been lost. Within disciplinary models, there are usually well thought through heuristics on how to achieve balance in model design – a physicist will “know” when to model at the atomic level, and when not. These disciplinary heuristics often fail in an interdisciplinary modeling exercise, just when achieving balance is more crucial than ever. We have to carefully think through what to leave out and what to include in the model, and how to represent what we include; otherwise we lose the rigor of modeling, and hence its value. The objectives of the model guide this process. Balance is easily lost in interdisciplinary modeling because each of the disciplines “paints” in its own style. A sociologist “sees” a fish population differently from the way an expert in the intricacies of fish stock assessment will see it; biological oceanographers and climatologists would have third and fourth views, and in return, the same diversity of views would apply on the status and dynamics of coastal communities. Moreover, each discipline will “paint” in great detail what is well understood, and will avoid what is needed but not well understood – there are blank patches in your favorite painting! It is the modeler’s task to use the objectives of the model to constrain all disciplines to paint in an appropriately similar style. Rapid prototyping helps the modeler to do this. Where a disciplinary expert would prefer to leave the canvas blank, the modeler needs to coax him or her to paint something (i.e., make some assumptions), given the assurance that this is only a prototype and the assumptions will be probed in an assumption analysis. In this way, an initial flimsy attempt to fill a gap can evolve into something appropriate. Disciplinary experts sometimes push hard to insert their own, often complex, models as “black box” components within the project or system model. It is as though one artist were to say “Leave this corner of the canvas to me and go about the rest of your business.” This is unacceptable behavior – it destroys the understanding of the system as a whole and it can very easily knock the system model out of balance. Rapid prototyping discourages this behavior and helps the modeler maintain a balance within each successive prototype. It forces the disciplinary expert to justify what he/she is contributing to the model, and it helps the other disciplinary experts in the project to understand what is going on, to communicate the results among all participants of the project, and to interpret the results coherently in the real world. In the context of marine social-ecological systems, Paterson et al. (2010) emphasize the importance of the disciplines meeting on an equal footing; to accomplish this, disciplinary sub-group meetings were used to prepare the appropriate resolution for an integrative model.

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The focus in this discussion has been on “the system model”, but this definitely does not imply that an interdisciplinary project leads to only one model. In fact, as Nicolson et al. (2002) point out, it is important to consider a suite of models, each with its own objectives. The question of balance applies, in different ways, to each of the models.

Frame-based modeling But how to develop rapid prototype models of something as inherently complex as a marine ecosystem? We need a paradigm that allows us to start with the simplest possible representation of the key aspects of the system dynamics, and then to add detail as needed until we have a model that serves the purpose for which it was built. Frame-based modeling (Starfield and Chapin, 1996; Tester et al., 1997) provides this. Frame-based modeling starts with the State-and-Transition conceptual approach of Westoby et al. (1989). We choose an appropriate spatial scale (e.g., the southern Benguela upwelling ecosystem) and imagines how we might characterize, in the broadest possible terms, the state of the system over time. From the viewpoint of the pelagic sub-system, we might choose four states for the southern Benguela, as shown in Fig. 6.4. The next step is to ask how, over time, switches would occur from one state to another. For example, what would precipitate a switch from “Both Low” to “Sardine High, Anchovy Low” in the southern Benguela? All possible switches are identified and the mechanisms and/or events that would precipitate a switch are described. This is as far as the State-and-Transition model goes. It is a conceptual model and does not produce “results”, but it serves at least three purposes: 1. It forces the disciplinary experts to look at the system as a whole and boil it down to its essence. 2. It then provides a common “language” for talking about the system and clarifying objectives. 3. It offers, in very broad terms, suggestions for management actions that might help promote the objectives. For example, Fig. 6.4 might lead to agreement that the “Both High” state is most likely to satisfy both social and economic objectives. Fisheries management should then try to implement strategies that encourage a transition into “Both High” when the system is not in that state, and discourage strategies that lead to a transition out of “Both High” when it is in that state. This all sounds grossly over-simplified, and indeed it is, but that does not mean that it is not a potentially useful and effective tool for scoping out an ecosystem model. However, it begs to be transformed from a conceptual to a working dynamic model that enables us to quantify and compare various outcomes from alternative management strategies. Framebased modeling brings about this transformation. We use the word “frame” to replace “state” in talking about Fig. 6.4 and we build a separate dynamic model for each frame. Initially, the purpose of each frame model is to answer only one question: will the system still be in that frame at the end of the next time step, or will it have switched to another

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Sardine High / Anchovy Low

1 2

113

6 5

10 11 Both Low

Both High 12 9 4

3

Anchovy High Sardine Low

7 8

Fig. 6.4 States and transitions in the southern Benguela pelagic upwelling ecosystem as used by Smith (2009). Reproduced with permission. See Table 6.1 for description of arrows.

frame? In other words, the frame model focuses on the arrows leading out of the frame. Once all the independent frame models have been developed, the system model merely provides a mechanism for making sure that at any time the appropriate frame model is being used; it switches out of one frame model into another whenever a transition occurs (Table 6.1). A trivial example illustrates both the simplicity and power of frame-based modeling. Figure 6.5a represents a student in a class that meets immediately after lunch. There are two frames: the student is “Awake” or “Asleep”. The objective of the “Awake” frame model is to decide, at each time step, whether the student is still awake or has switched to the “Asleep” frame. The “Awake” frame model is therefore concerned with variables such as the time since lunch, what the student drank at lunch (strong coffee or a beer?), the temperature in the room, and the monotony of the lecturer’s voice. Once the student has switched to the “Asleep” frame, the question changes to “What will cause the student to awaken?” and the considerations will be completely different: does the student have a characteristic afternoon nap duration, or is there a change in activity in the classroom? The first point here is that each frame model deals only with those aspects of the system that are appropriate in that specific frame; when a frame switch occurs, the model changes completely. The second point is that the switches can be triggered by the relatively slow accumulation of quantities (such as time in the “Asleep” frame model) or by more sudden events (such as a loud noise in the room), or even by a combination of the two (the student is impervious to noise in the room at certain times in the sleep cycle). Frame modeling thus combines, very effectively, processes that might operate at different rates with sudden and dramatic events. Simple frame models can produce complex results. Figure 6.5b extends our example. Suppose our student starts to snore after napping for about 10 minutes. This irritates the football player in the next seat who kicks the student. A gentle kick cause a switch into the Awake frame, but a hard kick breaks a bone and sends the student to a new frame, “Hospital”. The student never switches out of the Hospital frame for the purposes of this model, which only describes what happens in the hour of the lecture. We can now see how

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Table 6.1 Description of transitions between the frames in Figure 6.4. Arrow No.

Frameswitch from

Frameswitch to

Conditions for switching

1

Both Low

Sardine High

2

Sardine High

Both Low

3

Both Low

Anchovy High

4

Anchovy High

Both Low

5

Sardine High

Both High

6

Both High

Sardine High

7

Anchovy High

Both High

8

Both High

Anchovy High

9

Sardine High

Anchovy High

10

Anchovy High

Sardine High

11

Both Low

Both High

12

Both High

Both Low

Weak upwelling (which favours small mesozooplankton and flagellates). Such conditions are not as favourable to anchovy due to reduced productivity of large diatoms. Continued weak upwelling (unfavourable to anchovy recovery) and excessive fishing pressure on sardine – direct sardine fishing or excessive bycatch of juvenile sardine. Continued high fishing pressure on sardine and strong upwelling (which favours diatom growth and is thus good for anchovy). Sardine may also be kept low by sufficient fishing pressure on anchovy due to the increased incidence of juvenile sardine schooling together with anchovy, resulting in increased bycatch of sardine and thus increased mortality of sardine. This behaviour is most noted when the sardine population is already low. Continued fishing pressure on sardine (which inhibits sardine recovery) and deteriorating environmental conditions for anchovy. Continued low fishing pressure on sardine coupled with improving environmental factors for anchovy recruitment. Continued low fishing pressure on sardine coupled with deteriorating environmental factors for anchovy recruitment. Continued favourable environmental factors for anchovy recruitment and reduced fishing pressure on sardine, allowing for sardine recovery while remaining conducive to anchovy. Excessive fishing pressure on sardine and continued favourable environmental factors for anchovy. May be possible if a high anchovy population is fished to such a degree that the juvenile sardine bycatch from the anchovy fishery has a severe impact on the sardine population, even though this level of fishing may not be intolerable for anchovy. Excessive fishing pressure on sardine and strong upwelling (which favours diatom growth and is thus good for anchovy). Fishing pressure on sardine may be either direct or bycatch-driven. Low fishing pressure on sardine (which allows stock recovery) and environmental conditions unfavourable for anchovy. Such environmental conditions will enhance sardine recovery. Thought not to be possible. Under a theoretically “favourable for all” situation, the anchovy population should recover faster due to their higher population growth rate and younger age at maturity. Excessive fishing pressure on sardine coupled with deteriorating environmental conditions for anchovy.

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(a) AWAKE

ASLEEP

(b) AWAKE

ASLEEP

HOSPITAL

Fig. 6.5 Frame-based model of a student in class. See text for details.

the combination and timing of events in a frame model can lead to complex dynamics. Figure 6.6 gives an example of such dynamics for the southern Benguela. Frame models can be quantitative or qualitative models. In quantitative models, structure is defined through variables, and dynamics are described using equations. In qualitative models, structure is defined through states, and dynamics through rules. Examples of qualitative system models are given in Starfield et al. (1989) and Starfield and Chapin (1996). Frame-based modeling lends itself to rapid prototyping. A very limited effort in research time spent and funding required, compared to major multi-year modeling projects involving large groups of experts (de Young et al., 2004), can explore whether or not a model might be useful for the purpose for which it was built. If it is not useful, the mere act of developing and exercising it is likely to lead to a productive conversation and a new approach. If it appears to be useful, sensitivity and assumption analyses will likely suggest what to change or add for the second prototype. Frame-based modeling also lends itself to exploring how global change might affect the system. (Starfield and Chapin, 1996). Brubaker et al. (2009) use the frame-based paradigm for linking paleo-data and model simulation data to develop and test hypotheses about climate-fire-vegetation dynamics over the past 7,000 years. A good example of the use of a frame-based paradigm in interdisciplinary research is Butler et al. (2007); they explore the interaction between fluvial dynamics and herbivory on the vegetation adjacent to a river. Perhaps the best example of the use of a frame-based model at the core of an interdisciplinary study involving social scientists as well as biologists is Chapin et al. (2008).

People and resources Nicolson et al. (2002) point out some of the problems we can encounter with people and resources in interdisciplinary work. It is worth repeating some of their advice here. The best disciplinary scientists are not necessarily the best interdisciplinary collaborators. Where

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(a)

4.0

Population

3.0

2.0

1.0

0.0 0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

30.0

35.0

40.0

45.0

50.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

30.0

35.0

40.0

45.0

50.0

(b)

Population

4.0

3.0

2.0

1.0

0.0 0.0

Both high

Sardine high, anchovy low

Both low

Anchovy high, sardine low

Fig. 6.6 Illustration of the nontrivial dynamics derived from a semi-qualitative frame-based model based on the states and transitions defined in Fig. 6.4 and Table 6.1, and the interplay between an environmental signal and fishing strategies. Sardine trajectory in black (and without points), anchovy in gray (and with points). (a) Sardine fished heavily for 6 years to initiate the steep decline, thereafter fished moderately for the rest of the run. Environmental conditions prevent a recovery for a decade. Under favorable environmental conditions, sardine recovers into a “high” frame and remain high under continued fishing. (b) Sardine fished heavily for 12 years to initiate the steep decline, thereafter fished moderately for the rest of the run. Note that the moderate fishing initiates a sardine recovery in favorable environmental conditions in the third decade, as in (a). From year 30, anchovy is fished heavily in response to high abundance. Bycatch of juvenile sardines in the anchovy fishery initiates sardine stock crash despite continued targeted fishery at moderate levels. Results created using the software developed by Smith (2009).

possible, we need to choose collaborators carefully, looking for people who are like-minded, confident in their discipline, willing to simplify what they know to fit what is needed, and willing to make educated guesses at what they do not know. Unfortunately the ability to simplify what we know, and to fit what we know to the purposes of the project, while leading to a valuable contribution from a disciplinary scientist, may not earn kudos within his

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or her discipline. It follows that careful thought needs to be given to make sure that interdisciplinary collaborators receive recognition for their work. This is especially important for junior scientists working on such a project. The modeler (or modeling team) needs to take an independent, outside view of the project in order to achieve the necessary integration. If this is difficult to achieve from within the project, it is necessary (mandatory) to pull in a consultant to provide the outsider’s view. With respect to the pelagic fishery in the Benguela, the experience documented in Paterson et al. (2010) provides a case in point. Previous experience had made some key disciplinary experts reluctant to join an interdisciplinary project. It took an outsider, in this case an energetic philosopher, to maintain the impetus and provide the ground on which bridges could be built. It is seldom obvious what will be needed from each participant at the beginning of a project. It follows that it is a mistake to distribute all funds at the start; some funding needs to be held back to use to the best effect as the project develops and the needs become clearer. The idea of distributing some funds and holding back the rest fits well with the paradigm of rapid prototyping. It is an idea that needs to be sold to funding agencies. And, finally, all collaborators need to work hard at communication. It is surprising how easy it is for a scientist in one discipline to say something and for somebody in another discipline to misunderstand what was said, but not know that a misunderstanding had occurred. It is necessary to check that communication really has been effective. These points are not specific to modeling projects, but pertain to interdisciplinary research as a whole. In the large interdisciplinary research program “Coasts under Stress” (CUS) in Canada, integrative modeling was not carried out, but Ommer (2007, Appendix) highlights the need for the PI, from within the project, to take this outside view and maintain a firm focus on integration across the various contributing disciplines. Likewise, the need to work with and overcome communication difficulties, as well as the restriction of project funding until progress towards the program objectives was documented, formed part of the CUS experience.

Concluding remarks In summary, the key points in this paper are: 1. Interdisciplinary work needs to be constrained by clear system objectives. The emphasis is on the word “system” because it is a mistake to define objectives from the viewpoint of the disciplines themselves. 2. It is essential to find the appropriate resolution (in the sense of how much detail to include) and to maintain this level of resolution across disciplines. This is what we mean by the word “balance”. 3. It is important to choose collaborators carefully, and ensure that collaborators are rewarded for what they contribute to the project. 4. Communication is hard work, and must receive constant attention throughout the project. 5. Rapid prototyping offers a way for collaborators to develop the project as they find out more about it.

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6. It is essential to use a modeling paradigm that focuses on objectives and leads to a balanced contribution from each discipline. 7. An effective strategy plans to prototype, interpret results, learn, and move on.

Acknowledgements We wish to thank the co-convenors of the Symposium on “Coping with global change in marine social-ecological systems” for inviting AMS to deliver a keynote and for funding his participation in the symposium. The research underlying the marine examples is funded through the South African Research Chair Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation.

References Brubaker, L. B., Higuera, P. E., Rupp, T. S. et al. (2009) Linking sediment charcoal records and ecological modeling to understand causes of past fire-regime change in Alaskan boreal forests. Ecology 90(7), 1788–1901. Butler, L. G., Kielland, K., Rupp, T. S. et al. (2007) Interactive controls by herbivory and fluvial dynamics over landscape vegetation patterns along the Tanana River, interior Alaska. Journal of Biogeography 34, 1622–1631. Chapin, III, F. S., Trainor, S. F., Huntington, O. et al. (2008) Increasing wildfire in Alaska’s boreal forest: causes, consequences, and pathways to potential solutions of a wicked problem. BioScience 58, 531–540. Degnbol, P. (2003) Science and the user perspective: the gap co-management must address. In: The Fisheries Co- Management Experience: Accomplishments, Challenges and Prospects (eds D. C. Wilson, J. Raakjaer Nielsen and P. Degnbol), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, pp. 31–49. de Young, B., Heath, M., Werner, F. et al. (2004) Challenges of modeling ocean basin ecosystems. Science 304, 1463–1466. Hinckley, S., Hermann, A. J., Mier, K. L. et al. (2001) Importance of spawning location and timing to successful transport to nursery areas: a simulation study of Gulf of Alaska walleye pollock. ICES Journal of Marine Science 58(5), 1042–1052. Ito, S. I., Megrey, B. A., Kishi, M. J. et al. (2007) On the interannual variability of the growth of Pacific saury (Cololabis saira): a simple 3-box model using NEMURO.FISH. Ecologial Modelling 202, 174–183. Jarre, A., Paterson, B., Moloney, C. L. et al. (2008) Knowledge-based systems as decision support tools in an ecosystem approach to fisheries: comparing a fuzzy-logic and a rule-based approach. Progress in Oceanography 79, 390–400. Kettenring, K. M., Martinez, B. T., Starfield, A. M. et al. (2006) Good practices for sharing ecological models. Bioscience 56(1), 59–64. Megrey, B. A., Rose, K. A., Klumb, R. A. et al. (2007) A bioenergetics-based population dynamics model of Pacific herring (Clupea harengus pallasi) coupled to a lower trophic level nutrientphytoplankton-zooplankton model: description, calibration, and sensitivity analysis. Ecological Modelling 202(1–2), 144–164. Neis, B. A. and Felt, L. (2000) Finding Our Sea Legs. ISER Books, Memorial University, St Johns NF.

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Nicolson, C. R., Starfield, A. M., Kofinas, G. P. et al. (2002) Ten heuristics for interdisciplinary modeling projects. Ecosystems 5, 376–384. Ommer, R. E. (2007) Coasts under Stress: Restructuring and Social-Ecological Health. McGillQueen’s University Press, Montreal QC. Paterson, B., Jarre, A., Moloney, C. L. et al. (2007) A fuzzy-logic tool for multicriteria decisionmaking in the Southern Benguela: the case of the South African sardine fishery. Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 58, 1056–1068. Paterson, B., Isaacs, M., Hara, M., Jarre. A. and Moloney, C. L. (2010) Achieving transdisciplinary co-operation for EAF: a South African case study. Proceedings of the GLOBEC/FAO/EUROCEANS Symposium on “Coping with global change in marine social-ecological systems”, Marine Policy 34(4), 782–794. Shannon, L. J., Neira, S. and Taylor, M. (2008) Comparing internal and external drivers in the southern Benguela and the southern and northern Humboldt upwelling ecosystems. African Journal of Marine Science 30(1), 63–84. Smith, M. D. (2009) Modelling regime shifts in the southern Benguela: a frame-based approach. M. Sc. thesis, Zoology Department, University of Cape Town, South Africa. 102 p. Starfield, A. M. (1997) A pragmatic approach to modeling for wildlife management. Journal of Wildlife Management 61, 166–174. Starfield, A. M. and Bleloch, A. L. (1991) Building Models for Conservation and Wildlife Management. Interaction Book Company, Edina MN. Starfield, A. M. and Chapin, III, F. S. (1996) A dynamic model of Arctic and boreal vegetation change in response to global changes in climate and land use. Ecological Applications 6(3), 842–864. Starfield, A. M., Farm B. P. and Taylor, R. H. (1989) A rule-based ecological model for the management of an estuarine lake. Ecological Modelling 46, 107–119. Tester, J. R., Starfield A. M. and Frelich, L. E. (1997) Modeling for ecosystem management in Minnesota pine forests. Biological Conservation 80, 313–324. Travers, M., Shin, Y. -J., Jennings, S. et al. (2006) Towards end-to-end models for investigating the effects of climate and fishing in marine ecosystems. Progress in Oceanography 75(4), 751–770. Van den Belt, M. (2004) Mediated Modeling: a System Dynamics Approach to Environmental Consensus Building. Island Press, Washington DC. Westoby, M., Walker, B. and Noy-Meir, I. (1989) Opportunistic management for rangelands not at equilibrium. Journal of Range Management 42(4), 266–274. Wilson, D. C., Raakjær, J. and Degnbol, P. (2006) Local ecological knowledge and practical fisheries management in the tropics: a policy brief. Marine Policy 30, 794–801.

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Chapter 7

People’s Seas “Ethno-oceanography” as an Interdisciplinary Means to Approach Marine Ecosystem Change Maria A. Gasalla and Antonio C. S. Diegues

Abstract Contemporary marine fisheries science faces the challenge of connecting major methodological advances – such as in modeling, global change, and participatory issues – for an ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF). To work towards integration of some of the recent advances, we demonstrate how the research field termed “ethno-oceanography” can strategically contribute to approaches to social and ecological change with respect to oceans, with a particular emphasis on examples from Brazil. An innovative framework for ethnooceanography is presented, including the factors potentially responsible for climate-related shifts that affect marine social-ecological fishery systems; this is part of the conceptual approach for an a priori science-based schema, which includes the investigation of fishers’ oceanological knowledge (FOK). The methodological approach of using an interdisciplinary feedback framework, which combines bottom-up (people) and top-down (science) systems of knowledge when investigating global climate change issues, is described. The application of ethno-oceanography seems promising as a way to understand the roots of stability and change in the international fishery, and it can provide insights into broader problems of global change governance. It has also proved to be room for fruitful collaboration between oceanographers, social scientists, fishers, and knowledge users, when applied to cross-validate regional models and explanations of a system’s behavior. Keywords: Ethno-oceanography, climate change, global change, fishers, fisheries, EAF, fisher’s oceanological knowledge, marine ecosystem change, human perception, socialecological systems

Introduction In times of climate change, global financial crisis, food demand, and unsustainable practices, fisheries are facing unique historic challenges worldwide, which concern stakeholders, scientists, and managers. Fisheries have often been viewed as a planetary-scale human World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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endeavor that requires regulation, control, and a continuous evaluation of performance and effects. Thus a demand for the so-called ecosystem-based fisheries management (or EAF) seems to be consistent with international scientific evidences of both: 1. changes and phenomena at the ecosystem level, which impact fishery stocks and viceversa (Cury, 2005; Cury et al., 2008); and 2. genuine deficiencies in incorporating users’ and stakeholders’ perspectives into fisheries science and management (McGoodwin et al., 2000; Berkes, 2003). Methodological advances that deal separately with the two complex issues above, have emerged, ranging from simple and complex statistical and ecosystem modeling (Plaganyi, 2007; Travers et al., 2007) to promising fisheries co-management schemes (Diegues, 2001; Kearney et al., 2007). However, on examining the available models, there is still a clear disconnect between the two areas of modern fisheries science, which can potentially polarize perspectives on priority settings for EAF in a changing environment. On the one hand, fisheries and ecosystem oceanographers face the challenge of integrating abiotic and biological responses in the ocean with the patterns of change, and on the other, social scientists often concentrate on the complexity of the human dimension itself. Boundaries between the natural and social sciences seem to be generally imposed by scales, concepts, and scope across fields and, when facing climate change challenges, also by epistemology. Given this, the ability to provide dialog between different fields and models will require new strategies and analytical approaches that link the available knowledge systems. In data-poor marine ecosystems, the difficulty of developing understanding of oceanic and ecological change, under current regime shifts, changes in fish communities shifts and over-exploitation of stocks is particularly emphasized (Gasalla, 2004a,b; Gasalla and Rossi-Wongtschowski, 2004). In such cases, traditional ocean science knowledge is often restricted to a very limited number of observations in time-series, and the patterns of change that are detected carry high levels of uncertainty. However, the perception of the sea as a field for inter- or trans-disciplinarity (sensu Diegues, 1997, 1999, 2003) calls for both organic cooperation between scientists and the incorporation of the relevant knowledge of people, such as fishers, who have a long tradition of relationship with the ocean. The social and cultural practices of fishers shape maritime communities, by virtue of the fact that the open sea is the place where they spend most of their life. That marine environment is marked by danger, risk, mobility, and physical change that together forge the production of specialized expertise (Diegues, 2001). Fishers’ environmental knowledge, at times considered as traditional (TEK), has been documented, detailed, and defended, especially by anthropologists1, while more interdisciplinary outlooks have exhorted that it be used together with scientific knowledge (see Neis, this volume). Nevertheless, comparatively little discussion has occurred about the ways that such goal can be reached, especially with respect to relevant global scientific questions. We suggest that the observations of change – particularly specific features related to global and climate change implications for fisheries – made by such users/stakeholders, can help scientists to track systemic ocean changes. This can be achieved through, for example, the posing of new hypotheses. We therefore review a research field termed here “ethno-oceanography”, and demonstrate how it can strategically contribute to approaches

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to ecosystem and societal changes with respect to oceans, emphasizing examples from the Brazilian literature. We also highlight the methodological approach that combines bottom-up (people) and top-down (science) systems of knowledge, using an interdisciplinary feedback framework.

Defining “ethno-oceanography” ETHNO-OCEANOGRAPHY: 1. A field of research that relates environmental phenomena and their interactions with marine living populations as perceived by the humans who closely interact with the ocean by working at sea. 2. A field of research that studies the way mariners (particularly fishers) perceive and conceptualize (mentally represent) the physical and biological aspects of the ocean, such as currents, winds, water characteristics, wave patterns, lunar cycles, as well as species, habitats, feeding, migration, and spawning patterns, etc. 3. A branch of ethnoecology or maritime anthropology. 4. A branch of oceanography.

Ethnoecology approach Sampling of people is included in surveys, using an appropriate methodology either quantitative or qualitative (see text below). Ethno-oceanography is the scientific study of the way different groups of people understand the ocean around them with respect to their relationship with the physical/biological environment in which they work and from which they make their living. Formerly, the terminology was based on the field of “ethnoecology” (Posey, 1984) and on “maritime anthropology” (Diegues, 1995), which traditionally refers to the second definition (ii) in the glossary above. The use of the term “ethnoecological approach” first appeared in the anthropological literature of the 1950s (Conklin, 1954; Nazarea, 2006). Today, the study of traditional fishing knowledge (TEK) is conducted within those disciplines. TEK seems to be mostly associated with societies or communities that: ●

● ●

●

maintain strong economic and symbolic ties with the sea through continuous observation of natural cycles; are attached to continual use and occupancy of a specific territory or zone; show production and transmission of knowledge, symbols, myths, and rituals through oral traditions associated with fishing; and, to a certain degree, show social/cultural identity based on fishing and other maritime activities (Diegues, 2001).

Fisher’ traditional knowledge may be understood as a distinct cognitive realm consisting of a replicable, orally transmitted set of specialized skills and culturally shared practices and beliefs that have stood the test of time. The long observation of recurrent natural

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phenomena that enable people to make a living from coastal and marine environments guide fishermen in making decisions about the timing of fishing activities, selection of favorable fishing spots, and the use of appropriate techniques for specific species (Cunha, 1997; Diegues, 2001; Marques, 1995). Risk and uncertainty are a part of the lives of marine fishers (Hilborn, 1997), who require such specific expertise to shape their different kinds of technical, social, economic, and cultural practices that allow them to coexist with their maritime environment (Diegues, 1997). The construction of a body of complex and detailed concepts and symbols based on long-term empirical observation guides their behavior and the fishing strategies that are essential to the prediction of situations where fishing can be successful. In this sense, traditional knowledge helps local fishermen to produce their own mental maps that indicate to them where and how to fish (Diegues, 2001). As Ruddle (2000) points out, resource use patterns are not only a product of the physical environment and its resources per se, but also of the perceptions and culturally-formed images of the environment and its resources that resource producers develop over time. Currently, there is a growing interest in the application of fishers’ knowledge in nonanthropological studies as well, given that humanity cannot afford to dismiss useful sources of knowledge about marine ecosystems in the face of present sustainability concerns (Kurien, 1998). It has been reported in several studies, including fish taxonomy and ethnoichthyology (Begossi and Figueiredo, 1995; Silva, 1997; Diegues, 2001), fish ecology and biology (Poizat and Baran, 1997; Berkes, 1999; Silvano and Begossi, 2005), spawning aggregations (Ruddle, 2001), marine mammals (Huntington, 2000a; Silvano et al., 2008), marine population trends (Neis et al., 1999; Johannes et al., 2000; Pitcher, 2001; Gasalla, 2003a,b, 2004a,b), and conservation issues such as endangered species and location of biodiversity spots (Gadgil et al., 1993; Huntington, 2000b; Berkes and Turner, 2006; Grant and Berkes, 2007; Haggan et al., 2007). Also, its potential use in management has been frequently emphasized by social scientists in recent decades (Dyer and McGoodwin, 1994; Diegues, 1997; Johannes, 1998; Berkes, 1999; Ruddle, 1994; 2000; Johannes et al., 2000; Haggan et al., 2003; Wilson et al., 2006; Haggan et al., 2007; Silvano and Valbo-Jørgensen, 2008). The discovery of folk-management methods (Johannes, 1981) such as sea-tenure regimes (Cordell, 1983), or the Brazilian experience with extractive reserve models (Diegues, 2001), are also important examples of local-level fishery management. In a recent book, Silvano et al. (2008) review the recent literature on the application of fishers’ local ecological knowledge in order to better understand tropical fisheries, and they also indicate promising ways of using it in natural resources management. If, then, harvesters or “appropriators” (after Schlager and Ostrom 1992) face practical, legal, and cultural obstacles to social inclusion, public trust, and empowerment (McCay, 2001; Diegues, 2001), conversely a new trend is emerging in some academic fields that emphasizes and recognizes as endangered the mythic wisdom of fishers’ traditions and experiences. While the anthropological view focuses primarily on the study of a particular suite of ancestral or long-term traditional knowledge (TEK), the ethno-ecological approach complementarily includes a search for scientific correspondence or correlation with “western” scientific knowledge. Attempts to integrate science and fishers, knowledge (FEK) have generally been applied on an a posteriori basis rather than defined to examine a priori scientific questions. However, TEK/FEK (traditional fishers’ knowledge/fishers’ ecological

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knowledge) documentation on specific oceanological issues still seems to be scarce, even when descriptions of fishers’ ocean-related knowledge about when to decide to begin to fish and where to find the fish are common. For example, fishers’ observations of the presence/absence of sea birds, seawater color, and current strength and direction, have been documented as important clues to line-fishing in the Caribbean Sea (Grant and Berkes, 2007). Their generally accurate observations of wind behaviors and their day-by-day direct sightings are to be found in most of the world’s marine fishery systems. In some cases – such as in the whitemouth croaker (Micropogonias furnieri) fisheries in Pajas Blancas, Uruguay– fishers taste water collected from the sea-bottom to assess the salinity of the water, which lets them know when to begin to fish (Norbis, 1995). In the context of ethno-oceanography, the suite of fishers’2 knowledge and observations of sea features, along with their related explanations, theories, skills, practices, beliefs, symbols, and cognitive maps or clues to fishing seems to be more properly designated as FOK (fishers’ oceanological knowledge). Despite the potential application of FOK in climate and global change science, it is practically absent in literature. Recently, Gasalla et al. (2010) outlined and tested an oceanographic hypothesis of change in the marine ecosystem off the South Brazil Bight, in the light of issues raised by an FOK-based analyses on the perception of different categories of fishers. We found an interesting sequence of methodological bottom-up (user-based) processes that we discuss in the section on The significance of key-communication: ethno-oceanography and changes in marine social-ecological systems of Brazil. We consider that, given its usefulness, a broadening of the application and definition of ethno-oceanography and FOK to make it usable in climate change analyses can be a clear practical contribution to ocean science. In this sense, the inclusion and computation of human perceptions of change and trends can be of particular value in establishing scientific hypotheses and also as a tracking mechanism for detecting and analysing signals of change in the context of global change science.

The significance of key communication: Ethno-oceanography and changes in marine social-ecological systems of Brazil Brazil has the longest coastline in South America, covering about 8,500 km at the western border of the South Atlantic Ocean, where fishing communities and industries of almost one million people make a living. Even though characterized mainly by the poor oligotrophic waters of the warm Brazil current (with high biodiversity, but medium or low levels of productivity and biomass/species on average), Brazilian fisheries are mostly multispecies, diverse and multigear, holding important social, cultural and economic importance for coastal communities. Productive spots also occur along Brazil’s long continental shelf and EEZ, with higher yields in the zones under the influence of river discharge (such as the Amazon), seamounts and oceanic upwelling off the shelf, seasonal wind-driven coastal upwelling in the South Brazil Bight, and the Brazil-Malvinas frontal system (on the southwestern corner of the subtropical gyre) where the passage of northward-flowing cold water interacts with the continental shelf’s water, resulting in mixing and meso-scale eddies (Castro, 1998; Campos et al., 2008) (Fig. 7.1). Fisheries in those areas, respectively, target mainly penaied shrimps and catfish, tuna, sardines, and demersal fish and invertebrates (IBAMA, 2007).

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Fig. 7.1 Brazil with its different regions in the context of a schematic representation of large-scale, upper level currents and fronts in the South Atlantic Ocean (adapted from Peterson and Stramma, 1991). Reproduced from Progress in Oceanography, Vol. 26, R. G. Peterson and L. Stramma, pp. 1–73, Copyright 1991, with permission from Elsevier.

For a long time, Brazilian maritime anthropological literature has been recording examples of the traditional knowledge about environmental issues that affect small-scale fishing strategies and navigation. One outstanding example is the work of John Cordell (1974; 1983) who described the complex details of traditional canoe fishing in Valença, Bahia (Fig. 7.1), demonstrating that the influence of estuarine/sea currents and lunar cycles on seining strategies appeared to be tied to the intricate tidal changes along Bahia’s estuaries and creeks that wind back into the mangrove swamps. Cordell recorded in detail the establishment of a fishing territorial and sea-tenure system in which skippers (mestres) consolidate control over premium water space, by establishing distinctive spatial ownership limitations in the lunar/ tidal cycle. They exercise “informal” exclusive rights over these tiny tidal traditional casting spots (called pesqueiros), giving names to those micro environmental areas for fishing that are subdivided for a particular fishing technique into lanços (casting sites) and bounded water space, as these are determined by fortnightly current and daily tide-level changes, light conditions during different phases of the moon, bottom conditions, etc. Another example is given by Maranhão (1975), who described the traditional fisher’s knowledge in Ceará (Fig. 7.1) with respect to the interaction between coastal currents and the sea bottom topography according to the formation and movements of the waves. He classified three types of “seas” that influence strategies for fishing navigation, according to local TEK, demonstrating that

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Canoe-fishers

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Fig. 7.2 South Brazil Shelf Large Marine ecosystem annual mean SST 1957–2006, from data in Belkin (2009). Compare the increasing trend with industrial fishers’ perceptions of a sea water warming trend. Reproduced from data in Belkin (2009). Rapid warming in large marine ecosystems, with permission from Elsevier.

fishers had detailed traditional knowledge (FOK) of the near-shore habitat. Recently, Moura (2008) described the TEK of the estuarine-lagoon artisanal fishers from Rio Grande do Sul in South Brazil, showing how very detailed and complex the hydrodynamics of their fishing territories were in relation to wind, river discharge, and lunar-tidal waves. Nishidai et al. (2006) focused on the lunar-tide cycle as perceived by crustacean and mollusk gatherers in Paraiba, around 3,500 km long northward in northeastern Brazil (Fig. 7.1). Somewhat differently, applying the ethno-oceanographic approach on a larger scale, Gasalla (2003a,b, 2004a) correlated the FEK/FOK of industrial fishers from the South Brazil Bight, focusing fundamentally on the shelf’s fishery stocks abundance and catch trends, food webs, and indicator species, with scientific ecosystem models of change (Gasalla, 2004b) that gained robustness after the input of FEK corroborations (Gasalla, 2007, 2010; Postuma and Gasalla, 2010). Very recently, with the intent of contextualizing global change, Gasalla et al. (2010) suggested that – based on a FOK-based analysis, which took into consideration different categories of fishers – there were changes occurring in the ocean off the southeast Brazil shelf (Fig. 7.1). They began with the joint analysis of responses to questionnaires from different interviews surveys (and projects) that had been carried out in recent last years. These dealt with fishers’ observations of change in the marine ecosystem they exploited. They created a “fisher’s observations report chart” of different fishers’ observations of ocean change characteristics. The chart had three different categories for fishers: small-scale, industrial, and canoe-fishers (Fig. 7.2). Small-scale fishers were those members of artisanal communities on the coast of the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, who follow the “caiçaras” (local population) fishing tradition of using gillnets, lines, trawling, and seining in coastal areas. The industrial category included surface long-liners for catching tuna-like fish, which operate in most oceanic areas off South Brazil. Canoe-fishers were fishers who specialize in the use of traditional wooden one-log canoes operated with paddles in bays, creeks, and near-shore. The analysis showed that, bearing in mind their last decade of fishing, fishers from all categories recalled their own observations of temporal “average” trends in ocean change on the following topics: sea-level rise, rain intensification, what they called “more sea agitation”,

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winds intensification, seawater cooling, and seawater warming. However, the pattern of fishers’ sense of what was important varied between topics, especially with respect to water temperature trends. Industrial fishers saw the water as warming, while almost 100% of the interviewed canoe-fishers thought there had been a marked decrease in the water temperature (Fig. 7.2). They then put physical oceanographers round the table to try to find a scientific explanation that corresponded to the FOK-based picture, but there were no scientific long-term observational temporal datasets available. However, based on an observational data search procedure, the authors were then able to find important in-situ evidence of change, as well as further explanations derived from available knowledge of South Atlantic oceanography. Looking at global-scale research, we found that evidence of a warming trend in the South Brazil Large Marine Ecosystem had actually been identified by Belkin (2008), and it coincided with the perception of most of the industrial fishers and some of the smallscale fishers. Figure 7.2 and Plate 6 in the color plate section show the data. The FOK analysis, then, provided us with a hypothesis for explaining trends in ocean shifts that was substantiated at the global level. The team have also come across an analysis using telemetry-based data (i.e., altimeterderived SSH trends and surface seawater temperature anomalies) that has corroborated some of the hypotheses raised by analysing FOK, such as the increase in wind intensity, “sea agitation”, and sea-level over time (Figs 7.2 and 7.3). With reference to the perceived differences in water temperature trends by near-shore (canoes) and offshore (industrial) fishers,

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satellite oceanography revealed a different trend of correlations between sea-surface temperature anomalies and indexes for the area of study, particularly between the South Brazil Bight and the offshore oceanic area (Plate 7 in the color plate section). By explaining why fishers based in different ocean zones have perceived opposite trends in relation to the temporal variation tendency in seawater temperature, they have been able to go further in the scientific examination of the ocean shifts, identifying new hypotheses in the process. This sequence illustrates the steps that can be followed in order to incorporate an ethnooceanographic approach into formal oceanography and global change science (Gasalla et al., 2010). User-based observations can contribute significantly as a collaborative complementary approach to establish interdisciplinary dialogue, especially in data-poor ecosystems such as are sometimes found in developing countries. The experiences illustrated above, rooted in ethno-oceanography procedures and users’ environmental observations and perceptions, served as the main basis for the formulation of a broader framework for this research field, detailed in the section on “Ethno-oceanography” as a framework to approach climate and marine ecosystem change. However, some considerations of future research on fishers’ perception of change in marine social-ecological systems in Brazil should first be discussed. As Diegues (1991), Diegues et al. (1992) pointed out, when considering the vulnerability of Brazilian coastal zones to climate change and human impacts, several factors affecting fisheries have been anthropogenically driven. Harbors and highways construction, oil and chemical industries, fertilizers, coal mining, iron production, paper pulp production, alcohol distilleries, urbanization, oil drilling, tourism, river-runoff, aquaculture, and overfishing, are activities that drive degradation and pollution in Brazilian coastal and marine ecosystems (Diegues, 2006). Whether or not FOK analysis will be able to contribute to the understanding of such anthropogenic factors remains unknown, but the approach certainly warrants further exploration. As a collaborative and diversified interdisciplinary methodology, it appears that ethno-oceanographic investigation can be adapted to the needs of a variety of ocean research contexts. For example, other global change issues impacting socio-economic and cultural characteristics of fishers, the increasing loss of traditional values, and “savoir-faire” as well as the migration patterns from and to the coast, are transformations that have occurred in Brazilian fisheries (Diegues, 1995). The role of new markets, sale points, fishers’ organizational responses, and middlemen interactions are usually associated with such changes. Globalized markets, as well as environmental alterations, will certainly influence the future of fishery social-ecological systems in Brazil. It is also to be expected that environmental concerns might pressure prioritization in both Brazilian fishery management and research contexts, and that the goals of resilience, new institutions, and governance strategies should be sought in order to anticipate and cope with adaptation needs. Ethno-oceanography should contribute in all these directions.

“Ethno-oceanography” as a framework to approach climate and marine ecosystem change An innovative framework for ethno-oceanography within the scope of climate and global change studies is presented in this section. First, we provide a diagram summarizing the potential factors responsible for shifts and trends originating from climate variation

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Fig. 7.4 Global climate change issues and their interactions and implications in marine social-ecological fishery systems. Each of the boxes can be examined through the ethno-oceanography framework.

affecting marine social-ecological fishery systems, in order to propose an a priori sciencebased schema for the investigation of FOK under the ethno-oceanographic approach. Subsequently, the conceptual approach will be detailed and discussed.

Looking beyond uncertainty: Implications of climate change to fisheries The unique character of maritime communities is linked to the oceanic physical environment, which suffers marked temporal changes and is affected by atmospheric phenomena and climate change leading to rapid transformations in marine conditions (thunderstorms, hurricanes, seaquakes), which in turn offer constant danger to those working there (Diegues, 2001). Human-induced changes as a result of increasing green-house gas concentration (Miles et al., 2006) and natural cyclic changes on seasonal to decadal scales (Klyashtorin and Lyubushin, 2007) are both elements of climate change. Thus, climate-related dynamics have had serious consequences for the evolution of species, society, and fisheries variability (Sharp, 2003). Focusing on fishery systems, Fig. 7.4 highlights factors that are affected by climate change and have effects on others, as well as their interactions, including direct and indirect causal relationships and systems relevant biological and societal responses. Complex airsea interactions may alter ocean characteristics, i.e., temperature, salinity, pH (i.e., acidification), ice cover, etc., which affect oceanographic processes such as turbulence and mixing, ocean currents, and circulation patterns. Several shifts in variability in those parameters produce shifts in winds speed and direction as, well as in essential habitats. Global changes such as warming (see also Fig. 7.4) may alter pressure, wind intensity, and thermohaline circulation, which may alter important habitats for fishery resources, fish recruitment factors (and success), such as the optimum environmental window (i.e., winds

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speed) for small pelagic (Cury et al., 2008), larval dispersal, and timing of spawning, etc., with important implications for fisheries. Also, new responses fluctuations in productivity due to environmental influences can arise, influencing the whole fishery system. Ocean warming can increase the frequency of extreme events such as storms or cyclones, which will have repercussions on maritime safety. Sea-level rise can cause a potential loss of coastal fish nursery or breeding areas and reduce the fisheries production. In terms of other implications for fisheries-relevant biological process, bottom-up trophic alterations can produce species dominance shifts, with repercussions for secondary production, fish yields, and pelagic fisheries distribution. Societal responses to those changes may take the form of fishery management adaptation strategies, the modification of exploitation and industrial strategies, shifts in markets and in consumption demands, new conservation concerns, and food security issues (Fig. 7.4). Figure 7.4 shows simplified pathways of changes, variables, impacts on, and outcomes for fisheries, including the natural, human, and management subsystems (sensu Charles, 2001). In order to address long-term trends or potential large-scale shifts in marine resources and ecosystems, the ethno-oceanographic approach can provide important input to interdisciplinary focused research.

Redefining the reach of ethno-oceanography: a conceptual approach Ethno-oceanography can be used as an innovative method for combining subjective human perceptions and formal analytical approaches to global change in fisheries. The development of a research structure aimed at providing data incorporating the use of FEK/FOK in climate change and marine ecosystem change studies, as well as in an interdisciplinary scientific context supportive of EAF concerns, is timely. The consideration and inclusion of human perceptions of change and trends in scientific analysis is of particular value when testing scientific hypotheses and when tracking signals or evidence of change from an interdisciplinary perspective. A conceptual approach for ethno-oceanography as a feedback framework within a circular knowledge integration process is illustrated by Plate 7 in the color plate section. It includes linkages between bottom-up (FOK-based) and top-down (science-based) knowledge. It summarizes important aspects of the dialogue that is needed between disciplines if they are to find common epistemology. However, it deviates considerably from the established methods of traditional model building and analysis in both oceanography and maritime anthropology. The process can start with the identification of issues, drivers, or scenarios of change – such as for ocean temperature. It is assumed that these issues can be related to their potential effects in a pattern-oriented framework of systems response. The next step is the detection of FOK or fishers’ perception of change, and subsequently, the analysis and identification of altered or changed trends. A new hypothesis can then be developed and ocean science observations examined to see if they fit with that hypothesis. This “validation step” identifies new scenarios or drivers that can be examined, and the sequence repeated. A distinct feature of the approach is the incorporation of FOK and the subjective perceptions of users into the model building. Figure 7.4 provides a starting point for the definition of drivers (see step A in Fig. 7.5). We propose that each one of the listed factors (or diagram boxes) related to indirect, direct,

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CONCEPTUAL APPROACH

Feedback and validation

Drivers Issues/ (A) Scenarios

Interaction’s patterns search

System responses -oceanographic -ecologiccal -populational -economic -social -cultural

Ocean science observations Information Comparison/ Hypothesis delineation Changes/alterations/ trends

Detection

Identification/ Analysis

Fishers/ Sea-workers perceptions

Fig. 7.5 Proposed “ethno-oceanography” framework within a circular knowledge integration process for the approach of marine ecosystem change. See Figure 7.4 on the issues to be included as the step A in the diagram above.

biological, and societal responses in Fig. 7.4 can be investigated in the context of ethnooceanography. Fishers’ perception of trends related to those factors can be approached by using the picture as a guide for FOK/FEK survey delineations. The methodology appears to have to begin with scientific a priori considerations, such as in Fig. 7.4, but it actually can start, or be modified, with cognitive relations perceived in the FOK analysis step. Identifying additional driving forces that are associated with the practical observation of the sea by its people should be a valuable input. However, we suggest that the knowledge in global and climate change science may be used to outline the investigation of trends. Hence, one concrete mode of knowledge integration would be the identification of general patterns of science and their incorporation into the ethno-oceanographic model. The methodological framework shown in Fig. 7.5 has as its the goal the provision of a learning process about climate and global change and the importance of people’s perception and assumptions in coming up with new hypotheses. The process can also correct models that are factually wrong. Cross-step information flows and time-series could shed light on linear relationships or provide counterfactuals to prove that non-linearities exist. Of course, change in large-scale complex systems can be often difficult to perceive or plan for, particularly in the realm of global change and governance, but it appears that this methodological approach provides a foundation for multi-disciplinary research in areas that have proven to be particularly difficult and not very well focused up to this time. The complexity of a common dialog between traditional and scientific knowledge and the experience we have with it thus far show that when both experienced people and skilled scientists take part in the debate, the outcomes can be very fruitful. In addition, focused and well-defined issues seem to be essential to the approach’s process of detecting change in global patterns.

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Concluding remarks Overall, then, it is clear that marine fishers are skilled observers of ocean behavior. The application of FEK/FOK to examine a priori scientific questions, and practical ways to use it as a complementary source of observations of ocean and climate change are useful. The approach can also give added value to scientific findings: ethno-oceanography broadens the knowledge base crucial for raising and testing comprehensive hypotheses of change, particularly when applied to objective, focused, and well defined issues. We conclude FOK may be considered to be a relevant piece of the scientific puzzle, providing observations as well as explanations of patterns seen in global trends. The viewpoint and knowledge of fishers themselves are usually not taken into consideration when sea level rise, climate change issues, and extreme events are assessed. In spite of that, fishers and coastal communities are the ones who suffer the most when such events occur. However, if we agree that interdisciplinary analysis enriches the research on global change issues, then we must conclude that so far non-effective discussion and deficient input have been the result of the lack of a broader perspective. Moreover, considering that major conceptual gaps exist regarding how to include the human dimension of users’ perceptions into marine global change and EAF models, the ethno-oceanographic approach can be a strategic contribution that supports collaborative and well-focused interdisciplinarity. A better combination of “top-down” and “bottom-up” understanding of the sources of stability and change in the international fisheries sector will provide insights into broader problems of global change governance. Hence, as a framework to deal with climate and marine ecosystem change, our conceptual approach appears to be in consonance with earlier recommended heuristics (Nicholson et al., 2002). It: ● ●

● ● ●

embraces stakeholders; helps codify knowledge from different disciplines into a unified and coherent framework; encourages integrated and clear thinking about causal relationships; allows researchers managers and stakeholders to explore plausible scenarios; and identifies crucial information gaps in climate change detection.

EAF can benefit from the ethno-oceanography approach as an integrated field to assess new problems that fisheries are going to face. Our approach seems also to indicate room for a fruitful collaboration between oceanographers, social scientists, fishers, and knowledge users and has been applied to cross-validate regional models and explanations of a system’s behavior.

Acknowledgements To the fishermen that kindly collaborate in all past surveys. To physical oceanographers Paulo Polito, Olga Sato, and Edmo Campos, from the University of São Paulo’ Instituto Oceanografico, for providing fruitful discussion and exchange, and to Olga Sato (IOUSP)

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and Igor M. Belkin (University of Rhode Island) for the kind courtesy of their own graphs. To several colleagues that contributed with supportive tips during the studies. We thank graduate students Amanda Rodrigues, Ruth Pincinato, and Marta Collier Leite Ferreira (from LabPesq-IOUSP) and Gustavo Moura (PROCAM-USP), for their help and input from their own research. To students and colleagues involved in several studies with fishers. M. A. Gasalla thanks the support from the European Union LAC-ACCESS Program (“Connecting high-quality research between Latin American and Europe”) and the University of São Paulo Research Board (PRP-USP) that funded her participation in the Rome conference.

Endnotes 1. See section “ ‘Defining ‘Ethno-oceanography.’ ” 2. Both subsistence, native/indigenous/aboriginal, recreational or commercial, after Charles (2001) typology, including traditional practices or not.

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Part III

Knowledge

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Chapter 8

The Utility of Economic Indicators to Promote Policy-Relevant Science for Climate Change Decisions Judith Kildow

Abstract This chapter examines the usefulness of economic indicators as a policy tool for guiding societal adjustment to climate change. Environmental risk perception, when allied to scientific and economic data, influences policy in a variety of ways that this chapter explores. Recently created performance indicators are still being assessed and are not discussed here. Use of appropriate economic indicators can help guide societal policy choices under changing climatic conditions. Keywords: Climate change, risk perception, economic and social indicators, policy societal change, environmental change

Introduction Society is at a crossroads. Important decisions are already being made that reflect philosophical, political, and economic directions that will shape our future. The prospects for greenhouse gas-induced changes on our planet pose unprecedented challenges for leaders and governments. We currently face a crisis – not yet a catastrophe – but a crisis, meaning “a crucial or decisive moment, a turning point, a state of affairs in which a decisive change for better or worse is imminent. … The entire world now really does have a critical choice to make” (Revkin, 2008). Scientists reliably tell us the threat is real. Humans have set in motion a series of unprecedented changes to our planetary systems that challenge scientific capabilities of prediction and policy-makers’ abilities to make decisions under uncertainty. Timely and accurate information is crucial for decisions. Perceptions of risk, derived from carefully linked scientific and economic indicators of change, are at the core of motivating human behavior to muster political will. Scientific indicators are common currency for scientists to use to track and understand trends in changes underway in the natural environment, for example, pH for ocean acidification and World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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oxygen for “dead zones”. Economic indicators are the common currency for economists to estimate value, and assess risk and loss, to track changes in human activities and the impacts of natural changes on them, for example, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for size of economy, and employment for job creation. Because economic indicators are a composite of human economic behaviors (driven by attitudes and social and cultural mores), revealing how much people value or need something and how much they are willing to pay for goods and services, they are powerful, albeit partial, reflections of societal trends. Compiled and used properly, economic indicators can reveal important changes that have potentially catastrophic consequences, and thus attract the attention of government leaders and their constituents and motivate them to actions that meet the coming challenges. Which indicators provide that information, and the process for ensuring that evidence from data properly informs decisions are the foci of this chapter. The following pages include a simple, useful framework that reflects the roles and interdependence of three factors that re-enforce each other in informed policy decisions: scientific evidence, economic estimates, and political will. This chapter addresses the latter two, and uses the oceans as a means of demonstrating the linkages. This is not to diminish the importance of scientific evidence and the degree of certainty that can be reported, because the relevance of economic estimates and catalysing of political will are dependent on the quality and precision of the science. Rather, this emphasis is to illuminate the importance of economic information, driven by behavioral and societal context, in determining the political will to confront the challenges of climate change and the policy outcomes that arise therefrom. For brevity and clarity, examples of changes to the ocean from greenhouse gases (GHGs) are used, such as ocean acidification, nutrient overload, oxygen depleted layers, dead zones, and harmful algal blooms. Scientists are providing increasingly accurate predictions of the impacts of GHGs (Barry et al., 1995; Feely et al., 2004; IPCC, 2007). As this evidence becomes clearer, scientists are better able to assess the risk of certain significant and potentially catastrophic events. As environmental risk assessments become more accurate, economists have better evidence with which to make approximations of economic risks of the impacts of these changes on society. For example, the relationship between the stock of GHGs in the atmosphere and the resulting temperature increase is at the heart of any risk analysis (Stern, 2007) based on predictions of climate changes in particular geographic regions. The relationship between the stock of atmospheric and oceanic GHGs is at the heart of any risk analysis based on predicting the rate of change for ocean pH decline and the accompanying impacts on marine life (Guinotte and Fabry, 2009). The magnitude of predicted environmental changes has raised public attention and concern over how these changes might affect life for individuals as well as societies. As the environment shifts, native cultures risk loss of key sources of livelihood as well as the rituals that are integral to much of their lifestyle. In polar areas, where the effects are most severely felt, shifts in fisheries, and depleted stocks that weaken food supplies for marine mammals, are but a few of the changes that put indigenous populations at risk. Assessments of risk, estimates of potential losses, and predictions of how these changes could affect society economically, have become key pieces of information for decisionmakers, who need the best, most accurate, and timely information in order to decide how to spend limited funds to manage the challenges from climate changes. Other information

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about social vulnerabilities (social inequities such as poverty, illiteracy, age, health, or the problems of those who live in low-lying areas, or are furthest from the tropics) is also important for the management of those at highest risk of greatest losses from climate change impacts, but these issues are beyond the scope of this chapter, which focuses mainly on the economic dimension. Nevertheless, underlying social forces that are partially reflected in economic indicators, along with the indicators themselves, are critical to information exchanges that need to occur among policy-makers, economists, and scientists as they seek to manage the climate change crisis.

Indicators Scientific indicators are the building blocks from which environmental risks are estimated. The greater the certainty embodied in environmental indicators that provide the basis for risk assessments, the more helpful the information becomes for policy-making, because economists can take that information and transform it into economic risk assessments that can ultimately inform policy changes. For more than a century scientists have used environmental indicators to measure and track changes in natural systems over time. These indicators help them to understand the rate and nature of changes, and provide the means for developing model systems and predicting changes under certain assumptions. These same indicators provide scientists with evidence with which to assess the risk of likely occurrences of natural events, and the probability of reaching dangerous thresholds, or “tipping points”, that set in motion cascading changes that are beyond human control. For example, we know the oceans are acidifying from their increased absorption of atmospheric CO2 (Brewer, 1997, 2008; Caldeira and Wickett, 2003). People want to know the “tipping point” of a lower pH: at what point does that trigger events that change systems in unprecedented ways and at unprecedented rates? Indicators of ocean changes – such as temperature, salinity, pH, nutrients, winds, and currents – are what scientists study to understand trends and ultimately gather the evidence to establish these “tipping points”. Without biological, physical, chemical, and geological indicators measured over time, scientists would have only a static snapshot, not benchmarks that can be used dynamically to see how much these changes are increasing or decreasing. Obviously, we want to avoid reaching tipping points, but we also need to monitor changes in general, because each change can have important effects along the way. A drop of .6 pH might represent a “tipping point” to scientists in some fields, but to a marine chemist a drop of even .2 will disturb chemical balances in seawater, particularly the processes that produce the calcium carbonates essential for shell creation for many marine creatures, weakening their ability to survive, and threatening a large part of the food web that provides protein for human populations (Brewer, 2008). Economic indicators can work in several different ways. They could reveal a positive tipping point, demonstrating that society has shifted direction from a carbon-based economy to a non-carbon-based economy: a shift to a new direction. Of course, there is also a negative tipping point where indicators reflect society has not changed quickly enough to stave off the cascading effects of climate change and the consequent impacts, resulting in economic costs of damage repair and adaptation that will far outstrip pre-emptive and

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mitigative costs. Indicators of economic expenditures on rebuilding and the diversion of investments into new industrial sectors to replace oil and gas, for example, along with related shifts in employment and wage estimates, might tell us that society is moving towards alternative fuels. However, the path to political change is neither clear nor easy. The public does not normally want change unless there is credible information and belief in the reasons given for accepting change. Even then, entrenched attitudes and cultural propensities are difficult to modify. What is really needed is a paradigm shift, something that rarely happens in societies without significant events to trigger it; this usually takes time. The process, at least in democratic societies, that must occur in order to bring about the necessary political change involves thoughtful and continued public outreach on the part of those with the knowledge and the capacity to generate information flows that catalyse public pressure on elected representatives (Miles and Bradbury, 2009). The economist’s task is to interpret the analysis of environmental risks, and determine the economic risks of policies that often influence industrial and political behavior (Stern, 2008). That information has then to be translated into public knowledge and belief, with enough urgency to influence people to want to act quickly. We already know that GHGs will raise sea temperature, melting ice sheets and glaciers, which will in turn cause sea levels to rise, and ultimately result in coastal flooding and inundation, salt water intrusion into coastal aquifers, the destruction of coastal properties, the loss of natural assets (i.e., beaches and estuaries), and the social infrastructure essential to sustaining life and the economy. Scientists agree that GHGs will cause changes in precipitation that in turn will cause floods as well as droughts, and hence affect agriculture and food supply, destroy property, and cost lives (Easterling et al., 2000). Other impacts from rising atmospheric temperatures and precipitation changes will be wild fires, landslides, and the spread of pests and diseases. At sea, it is known that oceans are acidifying, oxygen depletion layers are increasing, and excess nutrients are changing ocean chemistry to the detriment of marine ecosystems (Orr et al., 2005). In summary, all of the above will probably create food shortages, water shortages, public infrastructure damage or destruction, widespread diseases that tax the health care system, and geopolitical conflicts among peoples and nations over shortages of natural resources that are essential to basic needs. In short, the effects of what scientists are predicting will cause massive economic dislocations. Much of this is predicted to occur over the next 50–100 years. These economic dislocations will in turn create social turmoil in many places and the human response to that is still unclear. Whether the predictions of these dislocations will indeed alter public attitudes enough to alter government policies is the question asked here. What will it take, and has it already begun to happen? Considering these impacts, it is apparent that estimates of potential economic losses will play an increasingly important role in aiding policy-makers who are burdened with important and complex climate change decisions. Economic indicators such as measures of employment, wages, productivity, investments, and number of business establishments have been common currency for government and business economists as they measure the health of the economy since 1933, which is when the US government began compiling economic indicator data and monitoring changes in the US economy in order to foresee and thus prevent another economic depression (Securities Act of 1933). Government officials use these data to manage the economy. However, until recently, economic indicators were not commonly used to

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measure geographic slices of the economy such as oceans, forests, or fields. Estimating the value of an “ocean economy” was unheard of until the 1970s (Pontecorvo et al., 1980) and even then research only reported a snapshot in time, not the time series necessary to understand trends. Currently numerous nations including the USA, the UK, France, and Canada keep ocean accounts that help them to better understand the status, nature, and value of that ocean economy, and to identify the trends that underlie projections and forecasts.

Economic indicators: a framework Economic indicators function in multiple ways First, they can reveal the value of assets and services that may be at risk in both market economies (those with prices that are traded in the market place, such as commercial fish stocks) and non-market economies (those that lie outside of normal market transactions and therefore have no easily identifiable price or cost in traditional market terms, such as beaches and estuaries). Whether subject to sea level rise, storm surges, wild fires, floods or, droughts, public infrastructure, commercial and residential buildings, and natural assets and services will be damaged or changed in particular locations at some point, with differing degrees of risk to people (Herberger et al., 2009). Providing information about what economic values are at risk over what period, economic indicators can be used for cost-benefit analyses to determine the cost of stabilization through measures of prevention, amelioration, and adaptation. Once a baseline of economic information is established that reflects economic trade-offs, the social and cultural elements involved should be considered to produce a social vulnerability index (SOVI). (Cutter, 2009).Together with the economic data, a “social cost/benefit analysis” can be performed with the broader spectrum of considerations, which must go into determinations of risk. After all, human behavior is a composite of many influences that impact economies and politics. Integral to an economic analysis, however, are indicators that provide estimates of costs of potential losses, costs of innovation, and diffusion of useful technologies. These can reveal probable abatement costs for: i) reducing greenhouse gases; and ii) reducing infrastructure, social, and environmental losses. Indicators of timing, investment, and implementation costs provide crucial information for making important decisions. Economic indicators can identify the approximate point at which the cost of environmental damage outpaces or exceeds the cost of prevention, indicating the necessity to invest in preventative, or at least adaptive measures. Important to this type of analysis are the concepts of vulnerability and resiliency. Vulnerability represents what is at risk and the factors that put it at risk (Cutter, 2009). The most vulnerable people are those who live in the most densely populated areas, are least educated, and live closest to the poles. Resiliency defines those attributes of geography, society, and economy that generate the strengths that assist nature and humans to rebound from catastrophic events or to withstand the onslaught of change without irreparable damage. While this chapter cannot deal with issues of civil society, culture, health, education, and social cohesion, it recognizes that they play a vital role in society, and also need to be included in scientific analysis of impending change. Communities with wealthy and

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well-educated populations that have done their homework, adopted contingency, and adaptive plans for climate change-induced impacts, and can afford to make those changes, are probably the most resilient, and possibly subject to less or at least “more affordable” losses. Such communities are not a majority on the planet. Some of the potential economic losses that indicators reveal can be estimated by taking impact scenarios generated by scientists and overlaying them with such data as numbers of jobs, earned wages, and productivity in the areas of most concern. For example, in 2005, US coastal counties, which represent only 33% of US land, accounted for more than 50% of all jobs, wages, and productivity (National Ocean Economics Program (NOEP) ). Much of this economic activity resides in coastal areas where sea levels are rising and negative impacts are predicted. In California, more than 83% of its trillion-dollar economy is generated along the coast on less than 26% of the state’s total area (NOEP). In Florida the story is similar. These areas are at high risk for large losses, according to studies, and need strategies and management to avoid catastrophe (Herberger et al., 2009). In the Gulf, the case of Hurricane Katrina is instructive, and will be discussed below. Second, economic indicators can reveal the extent to which society has turned the corner and is actually addressing the causes and effects of climate change, through shifts in the economy and government policies. Access is required to information on: 1. investment priorities, especially in innovations to curb greenhouse gasses; 2. time horizons and “discount rates” for setting priorities to conserve natural resources, avoid human losses, and preserve physical structures for now and for future generations; 3. scope of horizon from local to global decisions. These problems are too large for local or regional governments to handle alone, but they are founded in local behaviors that must be changed to serve planetary system needs; and 4. social justice and equity considerations. This access to information and understanding is often determined by level of education, available economic resources, and cultural propensities that influence priorities. Economic indicators can best reveal when society has undergone a paradigm shift, by revealing identifiable changes in spending and investments. However, sociology and anthropology are necessary to detect a shift that is underway. Attitudinal and behavioral change is understood better from a psychologist’s or sociologist’s evidence about shifts that get reflected in economic behavior and trends, indicating a change from the current carbonbased society towards a carbon-limited, or carbon-free society. They are also better positioned to tell us whether or not a Third Industrial Revolution may be underway that is seeking to address the new era. These often subtle indicators are not easily discernable, and even less so through economics. They rely on human behavioral responses to information in various sectors, the private profit and non-profit sectors, and government at various levels. Cap and trade or carbon tax programs and economic investments in new technologies to ameliorate the effects of climate change are examples of changes already underway in varying degrees in different parts of the world. Private capital markets have begun to adjust to the probabilities of large economic dislocations (Stern, 2008). These indicators reflect outcomes more than emerging trends. Other social scientists, along with economists, need to work together to detect additional shifts before they become institutionalized.

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Third, economic indicators can help to reveal market failures that need to be addressed and thereby guide the use of economic tools integral to the policies that are required if we are to slow the potentially catastrophic events that are unfolding on our planet. By far the largest market failure is the proliferation of externalities resulting from GHG emissions. For more than a century many people have enjoyed a high standard of living obtained in large part through the burning of fossil fuels. While GHG conditions have been understood for more than a century, it has been only during the past decade that we have come to understand the scale of negative effects from their use and how the low price and abundance of the fossil fuels that emit these gasses exacerbated the problem, while obscuring the losses society was sustaining. Taxation, trade, and regulation are some of the corrective economic tools that policy-makers can use to address some environmental problems associated with climate change. Economic indicators, such as those listed above, can track whether these tools are having a positive effect. Investments in innovative technologies and strategies are just as important. There are many other social and economic tools and market failures to be addressed that are outside the scope of this chapter (Stern, 2007).1 Fourth, economic indicators, based on solid evidence of human behavior, can drive political will, to mobilize governments. Economic indicators are integral parts of most political systems, often providing the crucial link between scientific evidence and policy-making, particularly in the case of greenhouse gas-induced impacts. Scientific evidence on its own, without a link to societal implications, is useful mostly to scientists trying to understand the world. However, scientific evidence that reveals a connection to economic and/or social impacts by linking changes in the natural environment to changes in the economy, can provide the “so what” that engages the attention of people and thus ultimately catalyse the political will needed to force government and other sectors to move towards policy decisions that will engender a global paradigm shift that will lift society out of the deep hole it has dug, as climate change continues to accelerate in many parts of the world. The examples in previous paragraphs, demonstrating the societal impacts from predicted changes, indicate some likely connections that should raise public concern. There have been several clear cases of evidence in the past several years that demonstrate the importance of political will to enact the magnitude of changes required. The following case is a classic example of the absence of political will until the damage is done, and then a resurgence of it once the “so what” became apparent. Longstanding warnings of potential disasters exacerbated by climate change have been echoed since 1979 (Carter, 2005). Several years ago, in Louisiana, scientists predicted that a large hurricane would strike as nearby ocean waters warmed and climate patterns changed (Fishchetti, 2001). This was coupled with published economic reports that almost 50% of Louisiana’s economy was located in vulnerable, low-lying, coastal areas (NOEP). Further, the natural systems that protected these coastal areas and the local economy had already been badly damaged by unenlightened natural resource practices. That should have been enough to catalyse government policies to attempt to meet the threat. Yet, post-Katrina, it is clear that scientific and economic forecasts were not sufficient to make a difference. What is clear is that the after-effects of impacts on government budgets and losses to citizens were too large to ignore. Given the state of the science and the credible estimates of

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the actual costs of such an event in terms of lost lives, damage to social, natural, and physical structures, and a severe economic decline, why did not politicians heed the advice of scientists, sociologists, and economists? Surely, something stood in the way between knowledge and practice. Clearly the missing ingredient was not information, but rather political will. Its sources stem either from the desire of those in power to stay in power, or are a result of pressure from the aggregate demands of their constituencies. Somehow neither emerged, despite the fact that more than 46% of Louisiana’s economy was located in the low-lying counties that were worst hit by the storm (Colgan and Adkins, 2006). The disproportionate number of the affected population that was poor, uneducated, and unprepared for the occurrence, re-enforces the need to build resilience, and the need to educate all elements of society with the best information that science and economics can provide along with the training to understand how to use that information effectively: Several statistics document the ethnically and economically disproportionate destruction of property and lives in and around post-Katrina New Orleans. Before the hurricane, the median household income in Orleans Parish was $27,133, compared to the US national average of $41,944 (US Census Bureau, 2004). Twenty-seven percent of households did not own an automobile, and 67.9% of the population was African-American (US Census Bureau, 2000, from Perrin et al., 2008). It is of interest to note that in the United States in the aftermath of Katrina, proactive policies emerged in numerous coastal states, not at the federal level, but at the state level. Locally, citizens, even those outside the Katrina impacted zone, could relate personally to the predictions of climate change impacts from ocean storms and sea-level rise. The raw evidence stared at them from the TV screens. It is at the local and state levels that policy activities have flourished over the past few years. Ultimately these pressures filter up to the national level through representation, but grass root responses move slowly. If society is to meet the looming challenges from climate change, certainly slow change is not the answer.

The evidence from society The second function of economic indicators discussed in the above framework lends itself best to monitoring societal changes – whether there has been a paradigm shift in vision for a sustainable future. Monitoring priorities and capital investments might reflect a positive societal “tipping point”, if the goals that are sought are in the direction to avoid greenhouse gases, for example. Yet, we have little evidence to detect whether society is moving in the right directions. While economic indicators to monitor targeted changes should be essential in marking progress towards addressing greenhouse gases and climate change impacts, there is very little in the literature that provides evidence to report. Usually economists turn to GDP, Employment, or other traditional economic indicators from National Income Accounts to determine the status and health of the economy. However, these indicators are not satisfactory in determining whether in fact, society has turned a corner and is addressing climate change in any significant way. Growth in the economy is not a way

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to find out if investments in alternative energy and conservation measures are increasing or even having an effect. As Kuznets pointed out: … income accounts should never be used, as they are today, to assess a nation’s welfare. They do nothing more than add up the total quantity of goods and services produced in a year, and they were actually introduced during the second world war to measure Britain’s wartime production (Colman and Walker, 2000). More creative strategies are necessary to identify economic indicators that can tell us about “tipping points” and whether economies are changing direction to address pressing societal problems such as greenhouse gas impacts. Davis and Martinot, of the Tellus Institute, in 2000 created a set of performance indicators for the Global Environmental Facility of the World Bank, in order to monitor and evaluate economic progress towards climate change goals in projects the Bank funded. Their “logical framework” included seven indicators, which were derived from energy objectives that were carefully “developed through research and consultation” with GEF stakeholders in 1999. The indicators reflect key GEF climate change strategies and objectives, particularly the sustainable adoption and market development of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other GEF-supported clean technologies in three climate change operational programs. These seven core indicators were: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Energy production or savings and installed capacities. Technology cost trajectories. Business and supporting services development. Financing availability and mechanisms. Policy development. Awareness and understanding of technologies. Energy consumption, fuel-use patterns, and impacts on end users.” (Nichols and Martinot, 2000).

While these were developed in 2000, no published reports on the status of these indicators have appeared in the literature, and so neither the effectiveness of these indicators nor progress in achieving goals measured by them is available to present as evidence here. However, there is one example, with some evidence, that economic indicators can make a difference and inform us of change. China has devised indicators to measure its progress towards meeting GHGs goals. That country has pioneered the use of energy intensity measurement as a proxy for GHG emissions. And the Chinese government is using improvements in energy intensity as a measure of domestic progress in advancing the goals of energy independence, climate change mitigation, and pollution reduction. Compared to the early part of this decade, China’s 20% energy intensity reduction target is especially noteworthy. In fact, the country’s energy intensity actually worsened in the early 2000s, as it invested heavily in infrastructure and raw materials (i.e., steel and cement) to support its expanding economy. China has made significant progress in the last three years, suggesting the power of setting targets and being mindful of the advantages of the underlying goals – including saving money by saving energy (Seligsohn and McMahon, 2009).

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Conclusion Do the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina provide reliable lessons for our response to global warming? It is just one example of the challenges that lie ahead. Scientists predict evolving climate patterns will raise sea temperatures and sea levels, will change ocean chemistry threatening ocean biodiversity, and raise the bar for those whose governance must provide major societal responses to avoid catastrophic impacts. Clearly, an issue of this magnitude with such high uncertainties poses enormous challenges to the institutional foundations of a policy-making world demonstrably risk-averse and uncomfortable when making decisions that combine uncertainty with intergenerational reach. Part of the timidity lies with the rate of global change: the more slowly environmental changes occur, the more likely life can adjust. But slow societal changes will surely trigger rapid environmental changes that require even higher future costs from impacts. To slow the rate of environmental change, therefore, requires rapid societal changes with accompanying higher up-front costs. Perceptions of economic risk will help create the necessary societal “tipping points”. Economic indicators provide evidence of the pace and direction of changes. Policy responses to these threats require a major paradigm shift – a global mobilization unprecedented in history, a Third Industrial Revolution, and changing attitudes towards risk. Such a shift will require collaboration at national and international scales, money in unprecedented amounts, innovative thinking, and new partnerships. Economics quantifies the expected impacts, and provides a bridge between the science and the needed changes in laws and policies, a bridge we can only hope the policy-makers will learn to cross. What economics cannot get at are issues of culture, education, social cohesion, and education, which underlie the shifts that economics measures. In this chapter I have made several assumptions. The first is that the major problem is a lack of recognition by governments and acknowledgment by the public that unrestrained economic and population growth exacerbates climate change impacts. The more people, the larger the demand, the more the economy has to grow to produce the goods and services to meet that demand, and so on. Yet, there are few controls on either population or economies in the United States or abroad that would indicate an understanding of this cause and effect. There are demographic indicators that demonstrate changes in population direction. There are few indicators to demonstrate economic behavioral changes, other than monitoring investments. Until societies realize that the magnitude of the problem of dispensing with GHGs will only grow without consideration of this dilemma, all other decisions will be undermined by this failure in understanding. Technology is not the solution. That said, the other problem involves the factors in government and societies that inhibit rapid movement towards solutions to curb these dangerous emissions in an expeditious way: time appears to be of essence. On the one hand, political systems are risk averse, have short time horizons, struggle with complexity, and tend to be reactive rather than proactive, all qualities that are incompatible with the needs of society and what governments face today. Societies, on the other hand, are often ill-informed about complex problems, resistant to change, and often not adequately engaged in the political system to force the decisions to make required changes to address climate change induced impacts until the

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problems have already manifested themselves (Steele et al., 2005).2 In the case of the oceans, recent surveys indicate how few Americans, for example, know that the oceans are in trouble – that acidification is a threat. In this case, it will be too late. Economic information appears to be one of the best catalysts for policy action. It may help to overcome some of the inertia mentioned above. The solutions to these problems are daunting, but there are certainly things society can do to address them. Scientists must be clear in transmitting important evidence from their research along with the degree of risk attached to certain catastrophic events. Economists and other social scientists must clearly translate scientific evidence into socially relevant terms that provides the public with the “so what” it needs to provoke engagement in the political system. Included, are estimates of what is at risk, costs of doing nothing, cost of innovation and adaptation, and myriad other considerations mentioned above. And, government needs to more effectively use available information and knowledge to make crucial decisions that are supported by the public. The question that remains is whether society will decide to passively withstand the costs of damage in the wake of climate change impacts, or invest in innovative technologies and strategies to curb greenhouse gas emissions and shift to the new paradigm. Appropriate economic indicators could guide us and inform us how we are doing.

Endnotes 1. See the Stern Report for a comprehensive analysis of tools and market failures. 2. The Ocean Project (TOP, 1999), SeaWeb, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, 2004), and the FrameWorks Institute (FrameWorks, 2004) demonstrate that the primary impediment to ocean conservation is a lack of public awareness in the United States about the importance of healthy ocean ecosystems to human health and survival.

References Barry, J. P., Baxter, C. H., Sagarin, R. D. and Gilman, S. E. (1995) Climate-related, long-term faunal changes in a rocky intertidal community. Science 267(5198), 672–675. Brewer, P. G. (1997) Ocean chemistry of the fossil fuel CO2 signal: the haline signature of “Business as usual”. Geophysical Research Letters 24, 1367–1369. Brewer, P. G. (2008) AAAS presentation, Boston MA. Caldeira, K. and Wickett, M. E. (2003) Anthropogenic carbon and ocean pH. Nature 425, 365. (doi:10.1038/425365a). . Carter, Jimmy (2005) Longstanding disaster threats can’t be ignored. USA Today, 7 September. http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-09-07-forum_x.htm Colgan, C. S. and Adkins, J. (2006) Hurricane damage to the ocean economy in the US Gulf region in 2005. Monthly Labor Review, August. Colman, R. and Walker, S. (2000) Costing Canadian Climate Change: Impacts and Adaptations, Collaborative Workshop, University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC, 27–29 September, pp. 1–2. Cutter, S. (2009) Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute. University of South Carolina, http://webra.cas.sc.edu/hvri/products/sovi.aspx

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Easterling, D. R. et al. (2000) Climate extremes: observations, modeling, and impacts. Science 289(5487), 2068–2074. . Feely, R. A. et al. (2004) Ocean acidification of the North Pacific Ocean. Oceans 110, C09S04, doiL 10. Fishchetti, M. (2001) Drowning New Orleans, Scientific American, October. http://www.sciam.com/ article.cfm?id=drowning-new-orleans Guinotte, J. and Fabry, V. J. (2009) The threat of acidification to ocean ecosystems. Current, the Journal of Marine Education 25(10). Heberger, M., Cooley, H., Herrera, P., Gleich, P. H. and Moore, E. (2009) The Impacts of Sea Level Rise on the California Coast. Climate Change Center, Pacific Institute, March. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2007) Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Working Group II Contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Summary for Policymakers, April. http://www.ipcc.ch/ Miles, E. L. and Bradbury, J. (2009) What can be done to address ocean acidification through US policy and governance? Current, the Journal of Marine Education 25(1), 30–32. National Ocean Economics Program (NOEP). www.oceaneconomics.org Nichols, D. and Martinot, E. (2000) Measuring Results from Climate Change Programs: Performance Indicators for GEF, Monitoring and Evaluation Working Paper 4. Tellus Institute, September. Orr, J. C. et al. (2005) Anthropogenic ocean acidification over the twenty-first century and its impacts on calcifying organisms. Nature 437, 681–686. Perrin, P. B., Brozyna, A., Berlick, A. B., Desmond, F. F., Ye, H. J. and Boycheva, E. (2008) Voices from the post Katrina ninth ward: an examination of social justice, privilege and personal growth. Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology 1(2), Spring 2008. Pontecorvo, G., Wilkinsen, M., Anderson, R. and Holdowsky, M. (1980) Contribution of the ocean sector to the United States economy. Science 208(4447), 1000–1006. http://www.sciencemag.org/ cgi/content/abstract/208/4447/1000 Revkin, A. C. (2008) The Road from Climate Science to Climate Advocacy. The New York Times Dot Earth. http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/the-road-from-climate-science-to-climateadvocacy/ Securities Act of 1933. http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/15C2A.txt Seligsohn, D. and McMahon, H. (2009) Measuring Climate Change Progress in China. World Resources Institute, 17 February. Steele, B. S., Smith, C., Opsommer, L., Curiel, S. and Warner-Steel, R. (2005) Public ocean literacy in the United States. Ocean and Coastal Management 48(2), 97–114. Stern, N. (2007) The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/stern_review_final_report.htm Stern, N. (2008) The economics of climate change. American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 98(2), 1–37. http://www.seaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.98.2.1

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Chapter 9

Scientific Advice for Fisheries Management in West Africa in the Context of Global Change Bora Masumbuko, Moctar Bâ, P. Morand, P. Chavance, and Pierre Failler

Abstract The chapter presents the process of scientific advice on fisheries in West African countries. Based on a survey among researchers, experts, and managers, it reveals that there are weaknesses within the research institutes regarding institutional and human resources, which may lead to negative impacts on their functioning and the quality of their products. Concerning the administration of users of the advice, there are problems relating to the weakness of human resources and also the lack of clear frameworks for fisheries sector policies and for decision-making processes. The work also highlights the absence of a mechanism enabling the promotion of scientific information to the professionals. It finally appears that there is a need for improvement of the transmission and clarity of the scientific advice. In the context of global change affecting fisheries, the improvement of scientific advice is essential. Keywords: Fisheries management, scientific advice, West Africa, Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission, Institutional frameworks, fisheries adaptation

Introduction Despite biologically very rich waters, West African countries today are facing the challenge of resource scarcity. The intensification of fishing effort and chronic illegal fishing practices has progressively eroded marine ecosystems. The current situation shows that public policies implemented to regulate fisheries have failed. That raises questions, on one side, of the applicability of the measures taken to regulate fishery access, and on the other, of the intellectual and scientific basis of the decisions taken. The first question refers to the implementation and follow-up of management measures as well as fishermen’s compliance with them. The second, which is the subject of this chapter, deals with the quality and the format of the scientific information necessary to the formulation of fishery management measures. World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Following the logic that the better the information is, the better the subsequent decisions are, improvement in knowledge of fish stocks should be synonymous with increased reliability of the diagnoses of marine resources exploitation, and hence of the ability to ensure that policy responses, in the form of management measures, are appropriate for the given natural, economic, social, and political contexts. The West African report (Bâ, 2007) demonstrates such a logic and shows that an increase in information, while necessary, is not sufficient to constitute a secure basis for fishery management. It is the formulation of knowledge, in the form of scientific advice, which is crucial, despite its value being underestimated until now. More especially it is the quality of information and its manner of transmission that is the key to success in fishery management. In 2004, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) joint working group considered another factor often missing in scientific advice: risk analysis. The group defined “scientific advice” as the “conclusion of a skilled evaluation taking account of the scientific evidence including uncertainties” with the purpose being to “help risk managers, policy-makers and others in decision-making” (WHO/FAO, 2004). In West Africa, the concomitant increase in the volume of information produced by research centers and the administrative structures for making decisions has not materialized in a harmonious meeting of research and administration. Researchers still do not understand why their work is not taken into account by managers, while managers do not see why research institutes cannot develop clear and pertinent scientific advice. Due to the importance of this problem, the research programmes ECOST and ISTAM,1 for which the management of fisheries is central, undertook a joint evaluation of the relevance of scientific advice in West Africa. The main expected outcome of the study was the identification of major stakes that surround fishery advice from the scientific and management perspectives; the identification of the most suitable actions for the reinforcement of the research centers in charge of the formulation of the scientific advice was also anticipated. The first part of this chapter presents the context for the West African fisheries in terms of the main organizations involved in fishery management and fishery policy. The second part explains the methodology used to tackle the problems in scientific advice. The third part lays out the main results, and the fourth part discusses these findings. The conclusion highlights the main points that need immediate attention and indicates which need further investigation.

West African context With a coastline extending more than 3,000 km, and a continental shelf of almost 170,000 km2, Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, and Senegal are located in one of the best fishing zones of the world. Coastal upwelling involves the winddriven movement of dense, cooler, nutrient-rich water towards the ocean surface, replacing the warmer nutrient-depleted surface water, and creates a marine environment of great ecological richness. Fish are abundant and for 20 years their capture has constituted an essential element in the growth and economic development of several of these States, which are classified among the least advanced countries (LDC). Fishing could help some of them mitigate the constant fall of the incomes resulting from agricultural cash crops (Morand

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Mauritanie Cap-Vert Sénégal Gambie Guinée Bissau Guinée Sierra Leone

Fig. 9.1 States that are members of the Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission.

et al., 2005) and thus alleviate weak and unstable domestic growth. With a total sales turnover of almost 1 billion US dollars (in 2006), the fishing sector already provides public receipts as well as helping to restore the balance of payments in these countries. Moreover, more than 200,000 jobs are provided by the harvest sub-sector, along with a further over one million in the post-harvest sub-sector (downloading, processing, fish trade, marketing). The fishing products of the West African coastal countries are exported to large exterior markets: increasing amounts of small pelagic fish feed the populations of the West African interior, while demersal fishes and mollusks are exported to the Asian markets. In addition, some shrimp and demersal fishes are exported to Europe from the coastal nations (i.e., Mauritania and Senegal), which have agreements between processing plants and European importers (Fig. 9.1). During the last 20 years, major changes in commercial trade flows reflect the demographic, economic, and institutional changes that have affected markets worldwide and put pressure on West African fisheries. In the late 1970s, Mauritania, Cape Verde, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, and Guinea combined their efforts to better manage fisheries, and created a regional body that could handle fishery policy at the regional level. The Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission (SRFC), born in 1985, has also had, since 2004, Sierra Leone as a member. The main objective of the SRFC is to strengthen cooperation between Member States. The SRFC therefore seeks to harmonize national fishing policies and improve fishery management. It also fights illegal fishing by giving, for example, member States the right to pursue illegal fishing vessels in adjacent waters. Fishing agreements are also at the heart of the SRFC. Bilateral agreements exist between SRFC countries and the EU but, until now, these agreements have been signed on a country-by-country basis, but among its future goals the SRFC seeks to establish a concerted regional system of fishing agreement negotiations, and to define, in the short term, minimal conditions of access to EEZs for all types of fishing.

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Effects of management measures

Dynamic of the resources and fisheries Data collection through landing and scientific surveys

Perception of the trends

Underexploited way of information

National Fisheries Research Centres (IMROP, CRODT, CNSHB, CIPA, INDP)

Rough/ Fine Data

Fishermen / other professionals knowledge and opinion

Social and political pressure

Scientific advice, Statistical Bulletins, Scientific Reports

Questions and requests for specific advice

- Fishery management measures and fishing plans - Fisheries agreement - Regional policies Decisions

National Institutions (Fishery Ministry or Dpt), Regional organizations (CSRP, CECAF, ATLAFCO), Fishermen organizations (nowadays in some cases) « Managers »

Scientific advices

Regional Scientific Commitee (CECAF scientific sub-committee and « Experts » working groups) International National experts Working Groups, ad hoc or periodic

Fig. 9.2 An overview of the scientific information and advice network in the Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission region.

At both the national and the regional level, then, scientific advice for fishery management is sought as a support for management and policy decisions. The structure of the scientific information and advice network in the SRFC region has traditionally functioned through interrelationships between three main institutional bodies: research institutes, national fisheries ministries, and regional institutions (Fig. 9.2). In Gambia and Sierra Leone, only two distinct institutions exist since the research department is part of the Ministry of Fishery, while in Senegal, Mauritania, Cape Verde, Guinea, and Guinea Bissau, research institutes2 are independent bodies. The institutes aim to produce data for fishery management purposes, so one of their main tasks is the collection of basic data through surveys (landings and sea exercises), which they then process and analyse, and subsequently write reports for the attention of the management authorities. Some research centers produce periodical statistical bulletins. Fishery management bodies are mainly formed, at the national level, by the ministry or the department of fisheries, depending on whether or not that fishery stands alone.3 In some cases, such as Mauritania and Senegal, they are formed by fishers’ organizations, which are nowadays involved in the fishery management process. At the regional level, the principal organization is the SRFC and to a lesser extent the Fishery Committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic4 (CECAF) and the Ministerial Conference on Fisheries Cooperation among African States Bordering the Atlantic Ocean (ATLAFCO). The CECAF, as an advisory body, promotes the sustainable utilization of the living marine resources within the West Africa area of competence, through the proper management and development of fisheries and fishing operations. Since its creation in 1967, the CECAF has also encouraged the development of a rational utilization of fishery resources, assisted in establishing basis

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for regulatory measures, and encouraged training. More recently, it has also looked at the strength of regional fishery governance in West Africa. The ATLAFCO5 plays a political role in West Africa but at a lower level than the SRFC, since it is more political than practical. Another regional layer can be added with the Economic Community of West African States6 (ECOWAS) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). ECOWAS is the organization responsible for the implementation of the new Economic partnership agreement7 with the EU, where fish exports rules and tariffs are very sensitive issues. The NEPAD seeks to develop an integrated socioeconomic development framework for Africa, in which the fishery plays a significant role. For these two organizations, the fishery is a cornerstone of development, due to its importance in the economy of West African countries. It therefore needs both ecological and economic advice for initiating appropriate development and trade policies. Specific working groups or committees of experts, both at national and regional levels, carry out more detailed data analysis than is done in national research centers, and these experts also produce more sophisticated diagnoses of problems. Such groups or committees are composed of both national and international experts (national researchers, international experts, members of international organizations such as FAO, OECD, World Bank, etc.). For instance, working groups of the scientific sub-committee of CECAF (small pelagics, demersal species, and artisanal fisheries) meet on a regular basis: they are irreplaceable, given the information they provide on fish stocks at regional level. Generally, committees of experts provide scientific advice through their reports on the status of fish stocks, fishing effort, and degree of effort control that has to be implemented when necessary. These reports constitute, in most cases, the main information support of scientific advice.

Method The best way to study fishery advice is to undertake a survey that involves scientists (national and international), public managers, and also fishermen’s representatives when the latter are involved in management bodies. The ECOST/ISTAM survey, carried out in 2006 and 2007, did this. It assessed the efficiency of scientific advice in the West African fishery context, examining (at both national and regional levels) the contribution of scientific advice to fishery management. Stakeholders involved in the process of providing information and influencing public decisions were asked to give their opinion on the quality and implementation of scientific advice, so what was really assessed was the degree of satisfaction and non-satisfaction of the persons surveyed regarding scientific advice. Questions about the relationship between research and administration asked: ●

●

●

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To what extent is scientific advice actually used to support decisions in fisheries management? What are your perceptions regarding main causes of an observed low level of use of scientific advice? According to stakeholders, what can be done to improve the quality of scientific advice and its use in the decision-making process?

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The survey was supported by a questionnaire subdivided into four different parts (specific questions asked depended on the category in which various actors8 belonged). The first part contained general questions asked of everyone in the survey, such as: What solutions do you suggest that will improve scientific advice? The three other parts include more specific sets of questions targeted at different categories of informants: ●

●

●

Directors or heads of fisheries research teams (in national research centers) were asked questions orientated around the scientific production of the research team such as: What is the number of researchers, engineers, and technicians involved? What are the main difficulties encountered in maintaining your research teams? International and regional experts with experience of scientific advice were asked questions focused on the efficiency of scientific advice and its use in the West African context, such as: How do you appraise the use of the results of scientific and technical research for fisheries management in general, and for the CECAF region in particular? Public Managers were asked questions targeted at an assessment of scientific advice and ways to improve its use, such as: How do you assess the role of scientific advice in the decisions that you have to take concerning the management of fishing activities?

Of the 65 questionnaires distributed by email, 51 were completed by 28 experts, 15 managers, and 8 research directors. Since most of the questions were open, allowing free-flowing answers, a re-codification was done after receipt of the completed questionnaires in order to undertake a quantitative analysis of the results. Before conducting that analysis, an inventory of the information collected was made. The responses to each question were classified by theme, thus enabling a classification of the qualitative information that had been captured, and then the information was codified, using themes or key words. For example, for the question relating to the process of the communication of scientific advice, a response such as “Contact between researchers and professionals” was classified in the category “Direct responses” for this question. Then the proportion of the different categories of responses was calculated, and the results graphed. The sum of that proportion could be more than 100% of the number of categories, because it was possible to show several responses; conversely it could be less than 100%, because no arbitrary value was assigned when information on a question was lacking.

ECOST/ISTAM survey results Scientific advice: content and processes Most of the themes covered by scientific advice related to the biology and exploitation level of the resource (60% of answers). The main aspects mentioned were: the structure and functioning of the marine ecosystems; the composition of the catches; the exploitation of demersal resources; the overexploitation of fish stocks; and the mean length and weight of catches. The socio-economic theme had many fewer responses than did those in the natural sciences, being only about 25% of the responses received. The advice dealt mainly with conflicts between the small-scale and industrial fisheries, the characteristics of small-scale fishery communities, and return on investments. Only a few recommendations directly addressed management issues by mentioning technical measures such as the types of licenses, fishing gears, fishing areas, and biological assessment (15%). As a result, scientific advice in the SRFC region is strongly focused on resource assessment.

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12

Number of responses

10

10 Scientific/technical reports

8 6

6

Meetings/workshops

6 5

Recommendations to ministries

4 Direct responses 2 0 Type of communication process

Fig. 9.3 The process of elaborating on, and diffusing, scientific advice within the Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission member States.

Regarding the way the scientific advice is processed, the survey revealed that, despite the fact that country frameworks and channels of communication exist, about 40% of the respondents were not aware of such a formal dissemination framework. Scientists mainly use scientific or technical reports to give advice (Fig. 9.3), but there are also other processes in place such as meetings and workshops, recommendations to Ministries, and direct responses to requests from manager. This last is interesting: it implies that researchers and managers do interact with each other, with actors in the sector directly making a specific request to the scientist, prompting a “direct response”. In Mauritania for example, scientific advice is often transmitted in response to a request made by the government. If the advice is not clear, a specialist is invited to the Ministry to clarify the scientific information provided. In the same country new means of transmission of scientific advice through the participation of scientists in TV and radio programs is under development. Beside regular processes, initiatives are also taken by research institutions themselves. Such initiatives are strongly supported by managers, because they give them a capacity to anticipate problems. For instance, one of the informants stated that: Scientific advice can correspond to a demand explicitly formulated by an actor in the sector. But it can also (ideally) be the result of an internal action of the research institute that demonstrates its capacity to anticipate problems. It therefore gains credibility. However, the problem is that management initiatives are all too often taken without prior dialog with all possible involved actors.

Use and non-use of scientific advice and its implications Is scientific advice taken into account in decision-making? The survey looked at the perceptions of experts regarding the use of their advice by managers in the fisheries sector. More than half of the experts surveyed thought that scientific advice was not (or not very much) taken into account by managers. This is shown in Fig. 9.4. The reasons why scientific advice does not receive proper attention do not lie in the fact that managers think such advice unimportant: 40% of them said that scientific advice plays

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Not taken into account 16% Taken into account 44%

Little taken into account 40% Fig. 9.4 Perception of experts on the use of scientific advice by managers.

29.4

17.6 9.8

Inaccuracy of the questions/Absence of dialogue

Lack of competency/human means

Not clear or understandable

5.9

Socio-economic or political considerations are priority

0

9.8

3.9

2.0 Too long to provide advice

9.8

10

Deficiency in the management system

20

Financial means are insufficient

30

Does not integrate all the dimensions

% of citations

40

Reasons cited Fig. 9.5 Responses on the reasons why scientific advice is not taken into account within the Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission. Note: The sum of the proportion can be greater than 100% because it was possible to provide several responses. It can also be less than 100% because we have not assigned an arbitrary value when information on a question was lacking.

an important role in their decision-making process, while 65% considered its role to be very important. One manager wrote that “Scientific advice is important for the correct exercise of our job, and we are aware of that.” The recent management plan for octopus and shrimp fisheries in Mauritania, for instance, explicitly refers to the results of a European research cooperation project (INCO-Cephalopods) on resource use and management (Failler, 2002) and to two international scientific working group meetings held in Mauritania in 1998 and 2002. Thus, scientific advice can be taken on board by managers when making fishery management plans. The survey showed that the main reasons why scientific advice is sometimes not taken into account are as shown in Fig. 9.5. The great majority of respondents mentioned political issues as the main reason for any lack of consideration of scientific advice. For instance, one manager stated that: “The

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results of the research are generally not applied by the managers because of the existence of other dimensions that are not strictly scientific but political, social, economic and institutional”. Another manager asserted: “The use of the research results is, and will remain, for a long time, secondary as regards socio-economic and political obligations”. It was also said that there is a “too big influence of the politics compared to the technical aspects” and that scientific advice is not clearly expressed, resulting in managers being unable to interpret and understand it. This means that there is both an issue with the format and contents of scientific advice and that there is also a crucial lack of communication between research institutions and government services. One respondent said that “Sometimes, the scientific advice is not very clear or very explicit”, while others complained about the “inappropriate translation/presentation of the results in words/forms understandable by the managers” and the “lack of legibility of the results”. A third reason (10% of the answers) is that scientific advice does not integrate all necessary dimensions/aspects of the fisheries (social, economic), if the advice is to be considered in the decision-making process. This is a direct consequence of experts focusing primarily on resource assessment. According to one expert surveyed, the research results do not respond to the managers’ expectations as “they are too ‘biologists’, not accompanied with economic impact analysis”. The fourth and the fifth reasons relate to financial resources and the competence of the managers. Indeed, according to their responses, managers sometimes do not use scientific advice because there are insufficient financial resources to concretely integrate them into the management process. Moreover, according to some experts, managers are not sufficiently competent to be able to utilize the results of the research and translate them into management measures. On the other hand, 50% of the experts surveyed (some of them researchers) said that the information and results provided by research are not satisfactory and cannot support or produce good scientific advice. Here, the weakness or insufficiency of available scientific data and subsequent usable results with which to achieve good management regimes are indicated. Hence, the degree of efficiency of the national research centers has to be addressed as a possible upstream cause of the fact that scientific advice is not reliable/relevant enough to be taken into account. Survey results revealed that the research institutions have weaknesses with respect to human, technical, and financial resources. They showed that the lack of competence involved economic, social, and legal aspects of the work, as well as marine ecology. Furthermore, research team leaders maintained that they had difficulties in supporting their research teams. When asked why they encountered such difficulties, they answered that it was mainly due to weakness of salaries and other benefits (65% of the responses), the functioning of the institute (50%), and insecurity of employment (40%). Indeed there is no attempt to provide motivation of the personnel and salaries are low. This means that some researchers are compelled to hold several jobs at the same time, or to leave the institute when they are presented with a good alternative employment opportunity. According to the survey, when scientists leave, they mainly turn to private consultancy (37.5%), national development programs (37.5%), international programs (25%), and international organizations (25%). Such a situation is clearly a major cause of the lack of complete and reliable data, of the insufficiency of scientific results, and of their non-availability in a timely manner (Bâ, 2007).

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Improvement of the quality of scientific advice and its use in the decision process What are the criteria (Fig. 9.6) by which scientific advice may be considered to be really useful? Experts in the sector were asked this and most of them answered that relevance and applicability were the first criteria to meet (43% of the responses). Indeed, managers will not be able to use the advice if it is not relevant to the management measures in place. However, it may be relevant, but not applicable, and this will lead to disregarding the advice. One respondent, for example, said, “When they are of interest, the results of the research are often confused, little operational…” But expert respondents also mentioned that managers need to express their priorities clearly, and formulate their questions appropriately, if they are to get advice that is both relevant and applicable. Respondents offered some solutions (Fig. 9.7) for improvement of scientific advice. Sixty-three percent of them suggested that, as a priority, sensitization programs, training of researchers, and strengthening of institutional capacities should be developed and implemented. When research leaders were asked which area should be focused on to strengthen the capacity of institutions and personnel in order to produce reliable scientific advice, they responded that the biology/ecology/fishery research team has to be excellent and management needs have to be correctly understood by the researchers (75% of the responses). Thus, the skill of scientists offering such advice should be recognized in order to improve the whole process. The research leaders surveyed also observed that it is very important for researchers to really understand the socio-economic and legal aspects of fisheries (38%); they added that research personnel need to be motivated and should benefit from their work (38%). This would help to improve the availability of timely advice. Another major solution cited (33%) was to increase the collaboration between research and fisheries professionals. According to the responses, such collaboration can be achieved

50 42.9

% of citations

40

30

Applicability/Relevance The results or objectives sought are clear

25.0

Availablity in due course 20

10

They include scenarios

7.1 3.6

0 Criteria cited Fig. 9.6 Criteria for the usefulness of scientific advice.

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80

25.5

23.5

20

9.8

3.9

3.9 Vulgarization/communication of the results of the research

33.3

40

Multiplication of advices (using competition and models)

%citations

62.7 60

Redefine fisheries research priorities

Strengthen subregional/regional/international co-operation

Improve work conditions/Financial support

Strengthen collaboration between research and professionals

Sensitization/Training/Strengthen human and institutional capacities

0

Solutions suggested Fig. 9.7 Suggestions to improve scientific advice.

through the development of programs aimed at bringing together the providers and the users of scientific advice. For example, workshops and meetings, dialog, and communication between managers and scientists can increase the likelihood of managers’ expectations being taken into account, while translation of scientific research results into understandable and applicable advice is also essential. Finally, an important suggestion was the strengthening of regional and international cooperation; this was also seen as a priority. Experts suggested that the Sub Regional Fisheries Commission (the sub-regional entity dealing with fishery resources) has to be strengthened, leading to better cooperation between the member countries.

Discussion According to the survey, West African countries are aware that scientific advice is important, since they commit themselves, through their national fisheries structures, to be part of and to implement programs aiming at improving the dissemination of scientific information. However, the results of the survey show that, in the SRFC region, scientific advice is not sufficiently taken into account for two main reasons. The first is that other “political” considerations are placed in the foreground, leaving aspects related to the state of the fishery resource as a second priority. The second reason is that advice suffers from some intrinsic weaknesses due to: 1. difficulties encountered by research centers in producing the basic data on which the advice would rely; and 2. inadequacies in communication of the needs formulated by the managers and the results of the research.

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The first reason confirms the statement of Daw and Gray (2004) that: the translation of scientific discovery into practical policies is often slow and incomplete, as many other political, social, and economic factors come into play. We can see such a pattern in fisheries science and policy, where the lack of effective management has contributed to a crisis in world fisheries. Indeed, in most of these countries, socio-economic and political considerations are treated as priorities. Lobbying and political behavior are privileged over other considerations. Therefore, neither experts nor researchers are to blame in this case. In Europe, such situations are also found, as fishing lobbies force a process of fisheries management more focused on politics than on the sustainability of stocks; scientific advice is used for political objectives, not in relation to good fisheries management (Daw and Gray, 2004). Science should play an important role in fisheries management. This is the case in Mexico for example, where in order to solve the problem of how to manage over-exploited fisheries (particularly reduce fishing mortality), scientific-based decisions were integrated into fisheries management and a new fishery policy was designed. Thus, the maximum allowable effort was defined and calculated, giving fishing managers appropriate criteria with which to decide on the issuing of permits, licenses, and concessions, all of which have an impact on fishing effort (Hernandez and Kempton, 2003). Marriott (1997) examines the institutional reform in fisheries that developing countries need to undertake if they are to better manage fisheries resources and to take better decisions. One of these proposed reforms suggests that the Minister of fisheries acts as the “resource manager” when taking decisions based upon advice from the professionals and managers. The minister is thus considered as directly or formally responsible for decisions of the ministry. He or she would also have to enhance the understanding of the role of policy-maker (minister who takes decisions) and the basis for making policy (specialists that suggest policy and actions), which is crucial to resource management policy. The survey revealed that national research centers do not have all the capacities required for the production of basic reliable data. The most relevant contemporary data and methods should be used to produce quality scientific advice (National Research Council, 2004), but the national research centers of the West African countries lack the institutional, human, and financial capacities for this. At the human level, the problems concern the number and competence of the researchers, especially given that the turnover of personnel may be high. In Mauritania, for example, according to the survey, for 8 researchers leaving the institute, only 3 will enter it. Some national research centers (i.e., the CNSHB in Guinea) have established criteria for assessing the results of the research; however, scientists still must be well trained, and competent. The lack of financial and institutional capacities within the research centers is linked to the fact that in general there is no real national policy and/or planning basis for the research, and there are also inequalities between the capacities of research institutions. Low level of competence may result in a delay in the study of alternative fishery regulatory systems, or of appropriate development policies, and may also harm the development of studies on the long-term effects of the fishery on renewable marine resources. Chavance et al. (2007) have reported on difficulties in producing timelines and reliable data and said that these were related, among other things, to the diversity of the information

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systems in place in terms of scales used and goals. This leads to problems of compatibility between the data they produce. If data are not reliable, this will in turn lead to the production of non-reliable scientific advice. It is also necessary that advice arrives in a timely manner in the current management process, in addition to being the best information available. Adequate research/scientific advice and fisheries management plans should be created in terms of usefulness and timeliness: scientific advice is useful in improving fisheries monitoring systems, but would be more useful if rapidly applied, resulting in a better and effective exploitation and management of fisheries resources, and risk assessment. Scientific advice should therefore be provided with little delay and in the appropriate format to help policy decisions. It is also now clear that managers and scientists do not communicate with each other sufficiently, leading to a mismatch between the needs formulated by the managers and the results of the research. Thus, it should be noted that the relationship between the managers’ expectations, priorities, and research results is not very clear, a point that has been the subject of discussions at the sub-regional level, although it does not seem to have been improved (Failler et al., 2002). Finally, advice that is not comprehensible to managers will simply be ignored or disregarded, resulting in, as Cardinale and Svedang (2008) state, the fact that even though there might be uncertainties in the assessment, the real problems of fisheries management are that advice is ignored. What should be done? Although in countries of the South, especially West African countries, scientific information and advice is not explicitly called into question (like it can be in countries of the North), improvements in their production and use have been suggested. The main solution remains the strengthening of the capacity of scientists in the area of the state of the resource’s related subjects, i.e., biology, fisheries science, hydrology, etc. Indeed the competence and knowledge of persons providing advice should be clear. At the subregional level, the SRFC can contribute to the improvement of the production of scientific advice, by playing an instrumental role in forging a better understanding of management issues through the promotion, within government and research institutions, of a global vision, a better appraisal of the opportunities of the fisheries sector, regulatory terms and conditions, and exchange of information and experience on issues related to the provision of scientific advice, management plans, monitoring, etc. At the national level, the improvement of scientific advice assumes that states invest mainly in the four following pillars (closely linked and complementary): 1. The information system, which must be integrated, consolidated, and composed of networks. 2. The stock evaluation and forecasting, and the economic modeling systems. 3. The system of fishery allocation. 4. The monitoring and control system. This means that scientists, managers, and government’s officials should sit together, strengthen collaboration and dialogue, as well as undertake a joint in depth analysis of the fisheries sector, identifying the elements to improve, and the real needs of the managers in terms of fisheries management. They should formulate adequate questions according to the objectives that have been established. One objective of “scientific advice/fisheries

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management” is, among others, the identification of a suitable way to improve decisionmaking in terms of fisheries management and planning, while also meeting the priorities of governments in the development of the fisheries sector. This should lead to the best decisions regarding the sector. Such interaction is also necessary for the accurate identification of lessons to be learned from research results, for the identification of research priorities for improving scientific advice in fisheries management, and of problems to solve. Interaction with fishers is also important, as their knowledge is an important source of information. Local knowledge should be integrated and expanded in fisheries management as an input to scientists’ and managers’ knowledge, because fishers know the local areas. This local knowledge should be transmitted in a way that permits it to contribute appropriately to science and management (Maurstad, 2001). Applying co-management as a type of governance in fisheries may well enhance the effective and equitable participation of all stakeholders, including local communities of fishermen. However, for this to succeed, some processes should be taken into account, such as communication and the development of trust between partners as a prerequisite to the development of contractual agreements (Pomeroy and Berkes, 1997; Pomeroy et al., 2001). Risk should not be neglected, especially in the context of global change in fishery systems and given the complexity and unpredictability of fisheries systems. Even if the use of scientific advice is improved, it still may not be taken into account if unpredictable external situations occur, such as strong seasonal climate variability (Failler and Samb, 2005). Scientific advice can often contribute to risk assessment, but the achievement of risk management (in response to scientific advice) depends on the relevance of the assessment and the uncertainties in that assessment, which can prevent the production of scientific advice in time or at all. Uncertainties can arise from difficulties in making predictions about complex systems (POST, 2004) and rapid and unpredictable changes in the sector (e.g., the proliferation of a species or rapid changes occurring in trade-circuits) can lead to uncontrolled situations. One useful way to improve the capacity of scientists to detect rapid changes is to keep an eye on the behavior of fishermen and other professional observations (Fig. 9.2), which should be continuously monitored by specific surveys. Nevertheless, it will remain difficult for scientists and experts to issue reliable advice in uncertain conditions, and so the precautionary principle (adopted by the EU) should also be invoked in some cases. In the UK, for example, the Interdepartmental Liaison Group on Risk Assessment (ILGRA) recommends the invocation of the precautionary principle when “the level of scientific uncertainty about the consequences or likelihood of the risk is such that the best available scientific advice cannot assess the risk with sufficient confidence to inform decision-making” (POST, 2004).

Conclusion Inadequacies in the production of reliable scientific advice stem from weaknesses within the research structures that lack appropriate human, financial, and technical resources, as well as proper institutional frameworks for supporting policy decisions. However, even if clear and relevant, scientific advice is often not taken into account, because political factors play a major role that prevents advice from being applied to a specific fishery or resource.

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There is a crucial need to equip national research centers with a strong institutional framework and the financial resources to support their activities. The training of personnel is very important, and dialog between the research community and public managers is a prerequisite for improvement of the production and use of scientific advice, especially when facing global changes in fishery systems. This collaboration should be strengthened through regular meetings as they appear to be the best available way to produce clear advice that meets the managers’ expectations and approximates realities in the field. Collaboration at an upper level (sub-regional, international) through the SRFC and its members should be encouraged and enhanced. These findings highlight the difficulty of achieving fishery management entirely based on upper/governmental institutions: in such a framework, the information-decision cycle is very long and its maintenance is cost heavy. The low reactivity of such information-decision networks may prevent them from efficiently supporting fisheries’ adaptation to future environmental and market changes and thus mitigating negative impacts that may follow from this. Nevertheless and fortunately, fisheries management plans now starting to be put in place in Mauritania (for cephalopods and shrimps fisheries) and in Senegal (for deep shrimps trawlers) appear to be an interesting way of moving forward, because they operate at the level of specific fisheries rather than at the national level. This may increase timeliness and the relevance of the scientific information. Furthermore, new players in scientific information production, such as universities, NGOs like WWF or the World Conservation Union (IUCN), or the Fondation du Banc d’Arguin, may also help to change things as they have strong connections with professionals and local actors, and are not driven by political considerations.

Acknowledgements This chapter has been written with financial support from the Commission of the European Communities, specific RTD program “International Research in Co-operation” (INCODEV), “Ecosystems, Societies, Consilience, Precautionary principle: development of an assessment method of the societal cost for best fishing practices and efficient public policies” (ECOST) and the policy-oriented research, Scientific Support to Policies (SSP) Project “Improve Scientific and Technical Advices for Fisheries Management” (ISTAM). It does not necessarily reflect its views and in no way anticipates the Commission’s future policy in this area. The authors wish also to thank all surveyed persons.

Endnotes 1. ECOST: Ecosystems, Societies, Consilience, Precautionary principle: Development of an assessment method of the societal cost for best fishing practices and efficient public policies (http:// www.ecostproject.org); ISTAM: Improve Scientific and Technical Advices for Fisheries Management (http://www.istam-project.org). 2. • Institut Mauritanien de Recherches Océanographiques et des Pêches (IMROP), Mauritania; • Institut National de Développement des Pêches (INDP), Cape Verde; • Centre de Recherches Océanographiques de Dakar Thiaroye (CRODT), Senegal;

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• Centre de Recherche Appliquée sur les Pêches (CIPA), Guinea Bissau; • Centre National des Sciences Halieutiques de Boussoura (CNSHB), Guinea. Like in Gambia where fishery is associated with natural resources and environment or in Guinea with aquaculture, or in Senegal with Maritime transports. The Fishery Committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic (CECAF) was established in 1967 by a FAO Resolution under Article VI of FAO Constitution. It is an advisory body integrated in the FAO organization and has no specific administration or budget. Its transformation into a Fisheries Commission under Article XIV of FAO Constitution, with an autonomous budget is currently under examination. The Area of competence is the Eastern Central Atlantic between Cape Spartel and the Congo River. The main functions of CECAF are to: • promote programs of development for the rational utilization of fishery resources • assist in establishing basis for regulatory measures • encourage training. Established in 1989, ATLAFCO, the Ministerial Conference on Fisheries Cooperation among African States Bordering the Atlantic Ocean comprises more than 20 countries; Morocco ensures Permanent Secretary. The objectives are to: • promote active and structured co-operation in the management and the development of fisheries in the region; • stimulate all the national economic sectors on the basis of direct and induced effects which can result from the exploitation of fisheries resources; • develop, coordinate and harmonize their efforts and their capacities in order to preserve, exploit, valorize fisheries resources; • strengthen solidarity with regard to the African States without littoral and of the States of the region that are geographically handicapped. See www. http://www.atlafco.org/ For more information: http://www.ecowas.int/ It replaces bilateral agreements of one ACP country with EU under the Cotonou agreement. Available at www.ecostproject.org (under WP10 section).

References Bâ, M. (2007) L’amélioration des avis scientifiques et techniques dans les pays de la sous-region COPACE. 38 p. (available at: www.ecostproject.org/) Cardinale, M. and Svedäng H. (2008) Mismanagement of fisheries: policy or science? Fisheries Research 93, 244–247. Chavance, P., Morand, P., Thibaut L. et al. (2007) Challenges and difficulties of cooperation between fisheries information systems. Experiences in six West African developing countries. Ocean & Coastal Management 50, 71–731. Daw, T. and Gray, T. (2004) Fisheries science and sustainability in international policy: a study of failure in the European Union’s Common Fisheries Policy. Marine Policy 29, 189–197 Failler, P. (2002) Synthèse du programme de recherche européen en coopération (INCO) relatif à l’aménagement des pêcheries de céphalopodes en Afrique de l’Ouest. In: Le poulpe Octopus Vulgaris; Sénégal et côtes nord-ouest africaines (eds A. Caverière, F. Domain and D. Jouffre), IRD Éditions, pp.189–212. Failler, P., Bâ, M., Doumbouya, A. et al. (2002) La recherche halieutique et le développement durable des ressources naturelles marines en Afrique de l’Ouest, quels enjeux? Initiative de recherche halieutique ACP/UE, Rapport Recherche Halieutique ACP/UE, no. 11, EUR20188, 145 p.

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Failler, P. and Samb, B. (2005) Climate Variability and Change, Global Trade, and Regional Food Security: the Case of Small Pelagic Fish in West Africa. FAO/SFLP, FAO Fishery Policy positioning paper, Rome, 41 p. Hernandez, A. and Kempton, W. (2003) Changes in fisheries management in Mexico: Effects of increasing scientific input and public participation. Ocean & Coastal Management 46, 507–526. Marriott, S. P. (1997) Fisheries institutional reform in developing countries. Marine Policy 21(5), 435–444. Maurstad, A. (2001) Fishing in murky waters: ethics and politics of research on fisher knowledge. Marine Policy 26(3), 159–166. Morand, P., Sy, O. I. and Breuil, C. (2005) Fishing livelihoods: successful diversification, or sinking into poverty? In: Towards a New Map of Africa (eds B. Wisner, C. Toulmin and R. Chitiga), Earthscan Publications, London, pp. 71–96. National Research Council (2004) Improving the used of “Best scientific information available” standard in fisheries management. Committee on Defining Best Scientific Information Available for Fisheries Management. Ocean Studies Board. Division on Earth and Life Studies, The National Academies Press, Washington DC, available at available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog. php?record_id=11045 Pomeroy, R. S. and Berkes, F. (1997) Two to tango: the role of government in fisheries co-management. Marine Policy 21(5), 465–480. Pomeroy, R. S., Katon, B. M. and Harkes, I. (2001) Conditions affecting the fisheroes cp-management lesson form Asia. Marine Policy 25, 197–208. POST (2004) Handling Uncertainty in Scientific Advice. Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, June. No. 220. Available at: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/POST pn220.pdf WHO/FAO (2004) Food Safety Consultations. Provision of Scientific Advice to Codex and Member Countries. Report of a Joint FAO/WHO Workshop WHO Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland. 27–29 January.

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Chapter 10

Knowledge and Research on Chilean Fisheries Resources Diagnosis and Recommendations for Sustainable Development Eleuterio Yáñez, Exequiel González, Luis Cubillos, Samuel Hormazábal, Héctor Trujillo, Lorena Álvarez, Alejandra Órdenes, Milton Pedraza, and Gustavo Aedo

Abstract As part of their efforts to improve the national fisheries management system, Chilean fisheries authorities have identified the need to develop a fisheries research program based on state-of-the-art fisheries knowledge and information systems. To meet this challenge, a structural matrix analysis of the existing cognitive system and a literature review was conducted. Knowledge gaps were identified through a comparison of the literature review and a conceptual model. The analysis suggests that research has largely been focused on fisheries biology studies, with little emphasis given to oceanographic factors, while almost no research on economic, social, or governability factors has been conducted. The analysis points to those elements that are needed to establish a research program that addresses priority elements towards the goal of sustainable fisheries in Chile. In spite of the analysis conducted on governance aspects of the existing fisheries management system, the analysis presented here is mainly focused on oceanographic, biological, technological, and economic aspects of the Chilean fisheries system. Thus, there is a need for further analysis of both social and governance aspects of fisheries. Keywords: Fisheries management, sustainable development, knowledge base, governance, Chilean fisheries

World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Introduction Chilean fisheries are in urgent need of a way to systematize both information and knowledge in order to design and implement a fisheries research program in support of fisheries management. The objectives of the project reported in this chapter are: 1. to develop a knowledge matrix of the main fishing resources of Chile; 2. to conduct a comprehensive literature review upon which to build an analysis of the current state of knowledge of its main fishing resources; and 3. to propose a research program in support of fisheries management, based on past experiences and a prospective vision of the fisheries (Yáñez et al., 2007). This research was conducted under two conditions: first, fisheries management and related research must contribute to the sustainable development of Chilean fisheries; and second, effective fisheries management and research must develop a common language and framework in order to facilitate cooperation between the government, the private sector, and the public in general, with the goal of building sustainable fisheries. In this context the design, implementation, and assessment of fisheries management policy, strategies, and measures, require an integrated set of information and knowledge about the environmental, biological-ecological, technical, economic, social, legal, institutional, political, and cultural factors determining the performance of fishing activities and fisheries. In addition, the sustainable development approach requires that the fisheries system and its management be understood in the context of a specific geographic space in which it takes place and interacts with other human activities. Accordingly, a systems and holistic interpretation of the fisheries sector was adopted to gain the understanding needed in order to answer four questions related to the objectives of the study: 1. What system elements, structure and interactions need to be considered under the paradigm of sustainable development? 2. What set of knowledge and indicators is required to determine the system’s current status with respect to sustainable development goals? 3. What is the system’s current state of knowledge with respect to sustainable development goals? 4. What are the necessary future research paths for fisheries management?

Framework This approach led to the development of a framework representing fisheries activities; the consideration of five Clusters of Minimum Knowledge (CMK) (oceanography, biology, technology, socio-economy, and governance) was used to understand the structure and function of the fisheries system. The fifth cluster refers to the system´s governance: it influences all other clusters and includes the knowledge required to understand the approaches, methods, and instruments to be used in fisheries management (Fig. 10.1).

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Block 3: Market and Bio-economic Aspects

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Governance

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Fig. 10.1 Cluster of minimum knowledge used to understand the fisheries system.

The study was conducted following a seven step process. First, based on the first four clusters, and visualizing this interpretation of the fisheries system as a cognitive system, a team of specialists from different disciplines1 identified and defined a set of knowledge elements as the minimum knowledge required for fisheries management under sustainable development (Table 10.1). The fifth cluster was defined by a group of decisionmakers as a system of problems. The cognitive system may be represented as a network of relationships among different knowledge elements, the point of the analysis being the identification of those elements that are key for the system function. Second, using the knowledge elements shown in Table 10.1, a structural matrix analysis, based on Godet (1994), of these knowledge elements as related to fisheries was conducted to estimate their influence and dependency on the system and to identify the key driving forces in the Chilean fisheries system. A direct causality analysis of the symmetric, structural, and binary matrix built with the elements shown in Table 10.1, allowed the calculation of the level of influence and dependence of each element (Fig. 10.2). Third, based on this matrix analysis an influence-2 dependency diagram (Fig. 10.3) was constructed to facilitate the analysis of the knowledge elements in terms of their role and relative importance or specific weight in the system’s functioning. The diagram in Fig. 10.4 is a Cartesian plane, with axes indicating the level of influence or dependence of elements or variables considered. They are the basis for determining the shape and strength of the relations existing between the elements constituting the cognitive system. Notice that Fig. 10.4 is divided into four zones or sectors.2 that are defined, moving in a clockwise direction and starting from the northwest quadrant as: forcing elements (F) (quadrant I); forcing-but-forced elements (F-F) (quadrant II); exit or consequence elements (E-NF) (quadrant III); and autonomous or non-forcing elements (A-NF) (quadrant IV). The forcing elements (F) refer to those that have great influence on the rest of the elements of the system, but are little influenced by them, or not at all (e.g., the influence of the energy from the sun on the marine ecosystems). Forcing-but-forced (F-F) elements have a significant

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Table 10.1 The 61 knowledge elements identified as necessary for the fisheries system of Chile.

Code 1 2 3 4 5 6 9 11 14

Environmental-Oceanographic Description Code Tide 15 Swell 20 Sediments 21 Coast currents 22 Circulation of great scale 23 Coastal circulation A Turbulence B Vertical and horizontal gradients E Mesoscale structure

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Market and Bioeconomic Description Code Average cost of the unit of production 122 Marginal cost of the unit of production 123 Social marginal cost from externalities 124 Final product price 125 Final product demand AH Use level AI Used capacity

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Description Natural mortality Interspecific relations Migrations Life cycle

Description Yield, processing Product life span Type of product Innoquity Emissions Effluent

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Description Discount rate Depreciation system Subsidies

level of influence in the system and receive a similar amount of influence from the system (e.g., the predator-prey relationship) – these are also labeled as conflict elements. Exit elements (E-NF) are those receiving great influence from the system while being unable to influence it (e.g., when considering the negative impact on the intertidal zone from effluents originated by a fish processing plant, which is an essential part of a coastal fishing community living on highly migratory species). Autonomous elements (A-NF) are those that, even though they are able to show some level of forcing or dependency with the system, they

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seem to be relatively independent of the system (e.g., the interrelationship between the members of the local “ladies literature and gin-rummy club” and those of their husbands in the fishing fleet and processing plant for the same coastal fishing community). Fourth, keeping in mind the knowledge elements that were identified, a bibliographical analysis was conducted to characterize the present status of knowledge of Chilean fisheries, focusing on 31 main species, representing approximately 80% of total national landings and grouped as fish, crustaceans, mollusks, echinoderms, and algae (Table 10.2). The bibliographical

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Fig. 10.4 Influence – dependency diagram presenting the knowledge elements according to their relative importance in the fisheries system of Chile.

Table 10.2 Main species of Chilean fisheries used in this analysis. Fishes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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Trachurus murphyi Merluccius gayi gayi Engraulis ringens Sardinops sagax Clupea bentincki Xiphias gladius Macruronus magellanicus Merluccius australis Genypterus blacodes Dissostichus eleginoides Micromesistius australis Epigonus crassicaudus Hoplosthetus atlanticus Beryx splendens Raja chilensis Isurus oxyrinchus Prionace glauca Molluscs (others) Concholepas Loxechinus albus Mesodesma donacium Gari solida Fissurella latimarginata Fissurella cumingi Thais chocolata

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Cervimunda johni Pleucorondes monodon Hetrocarpus reedi Jasus frontalis Lithodes santolla

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analysis had a database of more than one thousand references, including books, scientific papers, technical reports, theses, conference proceedings, and others (www.fip.cl). Fifth, keeping in mind the knowledge elements identified, the characteristics of the 31 species considered for the bibliographical analysis, and the context in which their fishing activity takes place, a comparative analysis – aimed at identifying the presence of information about elements presented in Table 10.1 and the outputs from the bibliographical analysis – was conducted to identify those key knowledge elements deemed to be necessary for management of each of the species. Sixth, based on results obtained from steps four and five, a simple gap analysis was conducted. This analysis was based on whether or not there was research information about the key knowledge elements deemed necessary for the 31 species considered in this study. Finally, a scientific research priority program for the main fisheries resources of Chile, showing which aspects are in need of continuous research and where gaps exist that need to be filled, was designed, based on the results and complemented by expert judgment.

System structure, elements, interactions, and knowledge to be considered Sixty-one knowledge elements were identified as relevant for the Chilean fisheries system through analysis of the four Clusters of Minimum Knowledge identified by the research. Table 10.1 presents these elements grouped according to the cluster to which they pertain: 28% of the 61 elements pertain to the Oceanography cluster; 13% to the Biology cluster; 25% to the Technology cluster; and 33% to the Socio-economic cluster (comprising market, bio-economic, and macro-economic information). Results from the matrix analysis synthesized by means of the influence-dependency diagram (Fig. 10.5) show that there are a total of 26 key knowledge elements to be considered for fisheries management purposes, which are part of both the forcing zone (quadrant I) and the forcedforcing zone (quadrant II). Those elements, which are part of the forcing zone, are said to be driving the system: that is, they have a strong influence on the system’s performance and behavior. Those elements, which are part of the conflict zone, are also important to the system: they influence it but also are influenced by it, and are said to be the linkage variables in the system. Figure 10.4 also shows that 13 key knowledge elements (forcing elements) (Table 10.3) are fundamental if Chile is to move towards sustainable development of its fisheries. As Fig. 10.4 shows, several of the driving elements pertain to the Oceanographic-Environmental (in blue), the Market & Bioeconomic (in red), and the Macroeconomic (in orange) clusters, respectively, and some to the technological cluster (in purple). There are an additional 13 key knowledge elements that were considered to be Forcing-but-Forced elements, through the matrix analysis. Again, several among them pertain to the Oceanographic-Environmental cluster, some to the Market & Bioeconomic and Technological clusters and, only one to the Biological-Ecological cluster (in green). A total of 35 additional elements were considered to be Non-Forcing (15 of them are E-NF and 20 A-NF), through the matrix analysis. Figure 10.5 shows the results of the comparative analysis that was conducted in order to know which of these 26 key knowledge elements were deemed necessary as research topics

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Table 10.3 The 13 key knowledge elements. Environmental-Oceanographic Tide Swell Coast current Large-scale circulation Rossby waves ENSO Regime shift Storm Wind Technological Type of product Market and Bioeconomic Final product demand Macroeconomic Subsidies Discount rates

for the 31 main fishery species under consideration. As shown in Fig. 10.5, all key knowledge elements from the Biological-Ecological, Technological, Market & Bioeconomic, and Macroeconomic clusters were considered to be necessary for research on all the main fishery species of Chile. However, differences arise with respect to the key knowledge elements pertaining to the Oceanographic-Environmental cluster. Figure 10.5 shows that only 3 out of 14 (21%) of the key knowledge elements in this cluster were deemed necessary research topics for 70–100% of the 31 species considered: these elements were Coastal Circulation, Rossby waves, and Regime shift. Out of 14 (43%) elements, 6 were deemed necessary research topics for a range of 40–70% of the 31 species studied, 4 out of 14 (29%) for a range of 10–40% of the 31 species, and the element Storms was deemed necessary for only 1 of the 31 species.

Current status of knowledge The analysis of the system’s current status of knowledge with respect to sustainable development goals was based upon the results of three analyses: the matrix analysis; the bibliographical analysis; and the comparative analysis of the results from the first two analyses. The bibliographical analysis showed that the most relevant set of existing fisheries research documents were Technical Reports (40%) and Theses (34%). It also showed a small number of articles published in scientific journals (Fig. 10.6). The comparative analysis between results from the matrix analysis (i.e., key knowledge elements identified) and from the bibliographical analysis, showed current status (relative importance) of these key knowledge elements within the cognitive system for each of the 31 most important fishery species in Chile (Fig. 10.7). Figure 10.7 shows a set of Arabic numbers indicating the frequency with which information for this key element (rows) was found in the Chilean fisheries literature in relation to the corresponding species (columns). Biological factors (distribution, abundance, and population structure) and technological factors (catchability coefficient, effort, catch, and type of product) have been the most

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200 180 160 140 120 Number of References 100

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Fig. 10.6 Distribution of reference material on fisheries research, with respect to the main fishery species in Chile.

studied elements for all species during the last 15 years, whereas oceanographic and economic factors were less studied, with mostly zero frequency of occurrence (shown by empty cells in the figure). Based on information presented in Fig. 10.5, it is possible to say that the key knowledge elements are deemed necessary for management purposes in 73% of the cases across the 31 fish species considered. Considering the numbers in Fig. 10.7 in a binary manner (i.e., a number indicates presence of information and no number indicates absence of information), a gap analysis was conducted to gain understanding of the level of information available for management purposes. Results show that on average 65% of the key knowledge elements requiring research for management purposes are missing. An analysis by knowledge clusters indicates that on average 88% of the elements pertaining to the Market & Bioeconomic cluster are missing, and that information on 87% of the key knowledge elements pertaining to the Macroeconomic clusters was also missing. In addition, information on the Oceanographic-Environmental cluster is missing in 73% of the cases on average. The Technological cluster had only 10% of the required information missing and the Biological- Ecological cluster showed information missing in only 6% of the cases. Finally, Figs 10.5 and 10.7 also shows that some key knowledge elements in the Oceanographic-Environmental cluster have been studied for species for which information is considered to be unnecessary (i.e., cells with Arabic number but no colored background).

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Fig. 10.7 Current status of the relative importance of the key knowledge elements in research, for the most important fishery species in Chile.

Number: number of references including this element

Discount rates

Subsidies

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Final product demand 1

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Table 10.4 Set of problems identified by the Group of Decision-Makers. Number

Problem

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Reactive fisheries authorities Great number of fishermen and low resource availability Inappropriate legal framework Inadequate management process Insufficient technical rules Need for improved procedures for strategy, tactics, and public policy-making Need to improve specific knowledge on cultural and social aspects of fisheries sector stakeholders Discarded by experts Lack of diagnosis relating to different types of institutions and actors Need for better inclusion of precautionary principle Need for improved coordination between national and international regulations Need for better definition of management procedures Need to improve joint efforts among fisheries institutions Discarded by experts Excessive pressure upon authorities Need to increase personnel in Fisheries State Institutions Incomplete Institutional Structure Need for impact evaluation of management regulations Management methods and measure of highly complex and uncertain nature Negative synergic effects between industrial and artisanal fisheries Need for improved specific fisheries policies (national and international) Need to improve trust among different actors Regulations tailored to private interest and unflexible tools Need for improved relationship among fisheries authorities and artisanal fishery basis Discarded by experts Need to improve the use of regulatory instruments Need for improvement of the sanction system Need to improve the decision processes Need for stronger differentiation of artisanal sector Need to improve the political will and/or management capacity to enforce existing artisanal policies Need to improve efficient programs on artisanal fisheries Excess of paternalism with respect to artisanal fisheries Need for long-term stability of the legal framework regarding industrial sector

Governance of the fisheries system (a system of problems) The Group of Decision Makers identified a total of 30 problems (Table 10.4) and 12 of them were considered to be important for the structural analysis of the system (quadrants I and II) (Fig. 10.8). An affinity analysis of these 12 problems showed that they may be grouped as specific problems of governance and as problems of government capacity.

Discussion Future research path for fisheries management These results show that research for key knowledge elements pertaining to the BiologicalEcological and Technological clusters have been extensively researched for the main fishery species of Chile. This is positive, as these elements are considered to be necessary

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11 10

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research topics for all these species: the trend should be maintained. Results for the Oceanographic-Environmental cluster showed that, even though an important number of key knowledge elements are considered necessary research topics, they have not been researched during the period of analysis. The results also show that a significant number of additional elements have been researched over time. Thus, efforts should be maintained with respect to those deemed necessary and which are currently being studied, but should be significantly increased for those that have not yet been studied. With respect to the Market & Bioeconomic cluster, the results show a critical situation with a high percentage of missing information on key knowledge elements. A similar situation is observed for the Macroeconomic cluster. Research efforts should be increased with respect to these knowledge elements that were deemed necessary to all the main fishery species of Chile. The problems analysis of the governance system showed that a number of aspects related to governance and government capacity need to be researched in the future. These have been described in part of a second research program. If sustainable development of fisheries is to be attained, in addition to the previous knowledge clusters, relevant consideration should be given to research related to the improvement of the governance system, particularly those related to organizational and institutional structure, inter-institutional coordination, and human resources capacities and availability. In summary, even though research efforts need to be maintained for those key knowledge elements for which evidence of past and current information was found (i.e., BiologicalEcological, Technological, and Oceanographic-Environmental clusters), research should be increased significantly for those knowledge elements for which key information is

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missing, specifically the Market & Bioeconomic, Macroeconomic, and OceanographicEnvironmental clusters. The study also showed the relevance of governance aspects and the need for research in support of the strengthening of the Chilean fisheries governance system. Finally, it is important to highlight several research aspects for the key knowledge elements identified, such as timing, periodicity, geographical scope, and the level of inclusion with respect to the value chain, from the fishing ground to the consumer plate. It is also important to consider future research on social aspects of fisheries and their influence in the overall performance of the system and of its management structure: these were only marginally analysed in this study.

Endnotes 1. The team of specialists was comprised of two groups. First, by a permanent core group of nine professionals and scientists representing disciplines such as: oceanography, ecology, fisheries biology and oceanography, fisheries technology, fisheries and environmental economics, and business management. Second, by an extended group of 42 specialists from these disciplines plus others such as sociology, anthropology, and law, which represented the small- and large-scale private sector, the public sector, the academic sector, and ONGs. This second group participated in three validation workshops. 2. The level at which each axis is divided is determined by averaging the specific weight of all the elements considered, both in the dependency and influence axis.

References Godet, M. (1994) From Anticipation to Action: a Handbook of Strategic Prospective. United Nations Educational, Paris. 283 p. Yáñez, E., González, E., Trujillo, H. et al. (2007) Diagnóstico del Estado del Conocimiento de los Principales Recursos Pesqueros de Chile. Informe Proyecto FIP No. 2005–25, 163 p. www.fip.cl. The 1038 references used in the diagnostic analysis can be found on the Project FIP No. 2005–25 bibliographic database.

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Chapter 11

Moving Forward Social-Ecological Interactivity, Global Marine Change and Knowledge for the Future1 Barbara Neis

Abstract Taking global marine change as its point of departure, this chapter argues that we now need to devise knowledge that will not only help us monitor that change in the future, but also provide the basis for appropriate and wise action. Knowledge comes in many different forms and different types of knowledge are social-ecological products. Because there is no such thing as the view from nowhere and because all knowledge is patchy and partial, future knowledge producers need to be more reflexive about their own social-ecology and that of the knowledge they produce. Stronger institutional support for the collaborative production of knowledge is needed to help us cut across not only disciplinary divides but, also the gaps between expert, or local and critical knowledge, that have hampered understanding and the use of knowledge for wise action. But the power dynamics of those institutions cannot be ignored and some boundaries are essential if we are to avoid the collapse of interrogation and investigation into politics. Keywords: Knowledge, social-ecology, embeddedness, reflexivity, local knowledge, science, expert, interactive and critical knowledge, health

Introduction This edited collection showcases the considerable progress made in the past couple of decades towards understanding the importance and the underlying dynamics of social-ecological interactivity and its relevance for global marine change in the past, present, and for the future. We now have ample evidence that we are transforming marine ecosystems at multiple scales, with major – and to some degree inevitable and longstanding, if not permanent – consequences (Perry and Ommer, 2003; Ommer and Team, 2007). However, our work is by no means finished. We must now not only find the resources and tools necessary to continue to monitor global change but relatedly, and perhaps more importantly, we need to devise the World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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knowledge, networks, and institutions essential to guide and generate the political will required for appropriate and wise future action in response to global marine change. As we prepare to build on the positive legacy of two decades of research, it makes sense to pause and reflect on not only the conceptual tools and resources required to move knowledge forward, but also on the relationships, technologies, values, and institutions essential to the achievement of appropriate social change. This chapter therefore focuses on questions related to the knowledge requirements for dealing with global marine change. It seeks to work in the “ellipse” or space between what is feared (the effects of global marine change) and what is possible (Aylett, 2009). It does this by drawing on insights from a range of literatures, including literature on: local ecological knowledge (LEK) and fisheries science and management; the sociology of science; occupational health research; research on knowledge transfer (KT) and collaborative knowledge production; and interdisciplinary research (Murray et al., 2006; Ommer and Team, 2007; Ommer, 2000). An underlying assumption in the chapter is that dealing with global marine change, as with climate change and other global challenges, will require “transformative change” (Robinson, 2009), including transformative knowledge-making, rather than more of the same kinds of science and scientists, management and managers, fisheries and harvesters, and policy-making and policy-makers. What happens to the truth claims of science when we acknowledge the social-ecology not only of the world as we know it but also of the scientific and other knowledge we hold about that world? What does this imply about the challenges associated with applying that knowledge in a productive and effective way for environmental and social good? We turn now to these questions.

Social-ecological knowledge Knowledge is “sticky” or embedded (Szulanski, 2000). Related to this, it is also patchy, bounded, comes in different forms, and is mediated by, among other things, the spatial and temporal points of contact between knowledge producers and natural and built environments, underlying assumptions, training, divisions of labor, institutions, practices, culture, and power. Thus, the local knowledge (LK) of fish harvesters will differ somewhat, depending on whether they live and fish from a headland or from the “bottom” of a bay; use cod traps, line trawls, or are crew members on a dragger; are exceptionally observant or distracted and bored; organizational leaders or followers; old, middle-aged, or young; male or female. Scientific knowledge production is also embedded in, and mediated by, larger social-ecological systems, but these are somewhat different from those associated with LK. Scientists are shaped by formal codified training and publication, recruitment into particular paradigms or schools that often privilege experimental science and modeling over descriptive or observational science and, relatedly, they seek to operate within and generate knowledge relevant to global networks and across time and space. Whether primarily local or hyper-mobile and international in its manifestation and application, knowledge is shaped by its place and process of origin and channeled and transformed, often unevenly and indeed often not as much as it should be, as it moves through divergent social-ecological networks (Berkes, 2008, Berkes et al., 2003). We can

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see elements of these aspects of knowledge and their potential consequences by studying periods of rapid social-ecological change, such as occurred with the shift from cod to crab and shrimp in Newfoundland and Labrador marine ecosystems and marine fisheries in the wake of the collapse of the groundfish stocks in the early 1990s. Small boat harvesters deprived of their cod livelihoods, living in coastal communities where the value of their homes and assets had collapsed, coping (with their wives and children) with an intergenerational crisis and a short-term adjustment package, and eager to keep doing what they knew how to do, fought for access to and were offered (by fisheries managers who operated in a bureaucratic world where fishing safety and fisheries management decisions were largely disconnected), permits to fish for expanding stocks of crab and shrimp. Eager to keep fishing and afraid of losing this “privilege” if they did not use it, these harvesters outfitted boats and technologies (embedded knowledge) and – guided by experience (embodied knowledge) rooted in fishing for cod in coastal waters – they ventured out across shipping lanes and into deep water to catch snow crab and shrimp. One of the unintended consequences of this rapid social-ecological shift and the interactions between these patchy and diverse types of knowledge was short-term increases in Search and Rescue incidents and in the risk of injury and death among these harvesters (Dolan et al., 2005; Power, 2008).The social-ecology of marine safety, like that of larger social-ecological systems, is highly complex, multi-scaled, and interactive; many processes, direct and indirect, can interact to promote or reduce risk (Windle et al., 2008). Those of us trying to think social-ecologically are a bit like the fishers in those boats. Our existing intellectual boats with their networks, methodologies, and institutions appeared to work well in the world as we knew it, but they also (as we now know) transformed that world in critical and problematic ways, suggesting the need for “transformative change” (Robinson, 2009), if we are to avoid further catastrophe. There is no such thing as “the perspective from nowhere”: it is not possible to know independently of, minimally, the social, biological, and physico-chemical prerequisites for knowing. These prerequisites include not only food, water, and oxygen, but also genetics, gender, socialization, language, culture, curiosity, imagination, warmth, compassion, security, communication, and community. Contextual influences on knowledge include the history and agency of knowers, as well as social relationships, structures, and institutions that mediate not only what is experienced and studied but what is neglected, missed, or marginalized: how something comes to be known, how it is formulated, who hears it and how it is heard, and the degree and the ways in which that knowledge is picked up, adapted, and used, or ignored. Because social-ecological contexts matter, individual and societal reflexivity (Wright, 1991), or systematic and ongoing attention and responsiveness to information – about who we are, what we know, how we come to know it relative to others, what happens to our knowledge (if anything), with what consequences for whom and what in the wider world – are essential if we are to develop coherent and wise action in a world grappling with global change. The processes of knowledge production, application, and exchange take place within and are shaped by networks of social and natural actors. These networks and the knowledge they generate are patchy, heterogeneous, and dynamic. They do not just happen, but rather require substantial investment and a supportive environment, the absence of which leads to societal dead-ends for many insights and findings (Callon, 1993), and the design of which

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reflects the impacts of history, culture, gender, and more broadly, relations of power (Sinclair and Ommer, 2006). The knowledge associated with these different networks may be complimentary; it may also be incommensurable, or may fall somewhere in between these two extremes. Three examples of social-ecological knowledge relevant to global marine change include that of fish harvesters, fisheries scientists, and fisheries managers. All three of these groups are increasingly embedded within a single over-arching marine fisheries network, while remaining enmeshed in somewhat distinct, internally diverse, and dynamic sub-networks. To illustrate, the behavior of many fish species is mediated by lunar cycles, sometimes captured in the traditional ecological knowledge of aboriginal fishermen and in science. Awareness of these lunar cycles has influenced the form of some fisheries, including the development of related customs and practices (Johannes, 1981), whereas in others they are ignored or understudied. Lunar cycles differ from cycles in the Gregorian calendar and it is the latter that stock assessment scientists generally use to decide when they will carry out their research vessel surveys. For species whose behavior is affected by lunar cycles, the temporal disconnect between lunar cycles and the Gregorian calendar could help account for the inter-annual variability in results from research vessel surveys. Similarly, the ecology of coastal bays and estuaries differs somewhat from that found in offshore and deeper areas. Until recently, most research survey vessels did their sampling in offshore areas, outside of bays and headlands, during the fall, winter, or spring and often in water 100 fathoms or deeper. Small boat fishers in Newfoundland and Labrador, however, generally harvest their catches in the spring, summer, and early fall and fish in coastal bays and close to headlands. These spatial and temporal differences influence the disagreements about the underlying dynamics of fish behavior between the research vessel surveys and coastal fisheries, and might help to explain divergent understandings about fish behavior and abundance. Ecological processes are not the only potential source of divergence between local ecological knowledge (LEK) and marine science and management. Both types of knowledge are complex in that they contain elements that are, to varying degrees, codified or tacit and embodied (Pálsson, 2000; Callon, 1993). Although science and management rules are written or codified, LEK and traditional management are generally orally-informed institutions. As a result, the former, or particular versions of the former, are more tightly networked into larger society as we know it, and also into sources of institutional power and legitimacy. This can amplify their effects. To varying degrees, however, fisheries science and management also have experiential, tacit, and embodied elements. This is reflected in the (often unconscious) influence of such processes as gender, class, and ethnic origins, training, mentorship, and the dynamics of the institutions within which scientists and managers work, on the questions they ask, where they look, what they see, how they interpret it, and its relevance for wider society. One indication of the tacit and embodied aspect of science is the organizational and knowledge transfer challenges linked to early retirement programs and associated loss of “corporate memory”. Early retirement programs among fish harvesters might have similar consequences for harvesters’ LEK at an individual and collective level. Older harvesters’, scientists’, and managers’ abilities to do their job often draw on insights transferred inter-generationally and refined and adapted through experience over their lifetimes. Such information as that about local landmarks can be codified but often is

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not, and is only a part of the knowledge it has taken, in the past at least, to fish effectively. The latter also includes a “feel” for where and how to position their boat in order to find the place, depth, and angle on their line that they are seeking and this is hard to codify. Because of the somewhat different social-ecological frameworks that fishers and managers utilize and the different networks within which they are embedded, it is not easy to combine insights from LEK and stock assessment science – indeed they can be, to varying degrees depending on context, incommensurable. The knowledge associated with their sub-networks will be grounded in deeper, often taken-for-granted principles or assumptions about people, rationality, the sea, and the life within it. Fish might be considered to be smart and challenging opponents in the chase or, perhaps at the opposite extreme, thought of as biomass lacking agency and individuality. Harvesters might be constructed as greedy, short-sighted individualists or predators in a predator-prey network, or as potential stewards, socialized and social beings engaged in a “way of life”. The knowledge of both fishers and scientists is partial and both groups have struggled to explain variability in landings – are there fewer fish, have the fish moved, or are they, for some reason, not taking the hook or avoiding the gear? Going further, for some aboriginal fishers, behavior in the natural world, including the world of fish, is perceived to be governed by a spiritual dimension that permits communication between humans and animals and mediates the behavior and options of both groups (Berkes, 2008). Perhaps not surprisingly, projects to integrate harvesters and LEK into fisheries science and management are often viewed as perilous endeavors by scientists and harvesters with scientists and managers concerned about letting the “foxes into the henhouse” and harvesters or their spokespersons concerned about cooptation of themselves and their knowledge (Holm, 2003; Nadasdy, 1999). Efforts to codify tacit, embodied knowledge, while potentially valuable, also risk freezing it in time (Pálsson, 2000) or selecting from it those portions deemed the best or most suitable by researchers (Holm, 2003), thereby altering the knowledge and its dynamics in critical ways. Bringing fishers (along with their knowledge) into fisheries science and management through co-management structures, and creating space within those structures for meaningful discussion of underlying beliefs or value systems, can potentially reduce these risks and improve the potential for collaborative science. But failure to gather and codify the knowledge of harvesters in a systematic way (e.g., through, LEK research) assumes naively that the knowledge (tacit or otherwise) of a few “representatives” is somehow reflective of that of the larger group. It also assumes that the politics of “gathering” their knowledge in the context of management meetings will not mediate the LEK that is placed on the table, even if the harvesters in the process are told they are not there to “represent” their group in a political sense, as is the case in Canadian fisheries today (Rice, 2005). This is particularly problematic when the focus of the meeting is to discuss the “best available science” on fisheries, because of the different knowledge forms and, more importantly, the heavy investment in science vs. LEK. It seems likely this structure will create a situation where any influence of LEK on meeting outcomes will be perceived by scientists as the politicization of science – LEK (seen as opinion and interest group politics) will be perceived, perhaps correctly, to have “trumped” science or, minimally, it will raise concerns that management decisions are being made on an ad hoc basis with little relationship to the results of stock assessment science and negative consequences for the recovery of fish stocks. Disinvestment in stock assessment science with the shift to

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co-management structures is likely to reinforce this, perhaps to some degree legitimate, perception among scientists (Shelton, 2007). The need for reflexivity and the potential for disagreement and miscommunication are not confined to interactions between LEK and stock assessment science. The sub-networks that underlie fisheries science, management, and LEK operate at differing spatial, temporal, and organizational scales. They also vary over time and across space, both internally and in terms of the extent to which and how they are integrated within institutions central to fisheries, broader resource management, and knowledge production and preservation (Perry and Ommer, 2003). Among harvesters, differences in the species composition and behavior of fish at the headlands and in the bottom of large bays (ecological heterogeneity), and differences in community of origin, local custom, fishing technologies, and years of engagement in the fishery (social heterogeneity) can be expected to result in heterogeneous or patchy and sometimes conflicting observations and knowledge among harvesters about what is happening in marine ecosystems (Murray et al., 2008a,b; Neis and Morris, 2002; Neis, 1992). The heterogeneous social-ecological networks that mediate LEK and science include elements that can be difficult to access but that are also dynamic and changing. The following description of career changes in the life of the Norwegian herring fish master Jahn Petter Johnsen, referred to as “John”, illustrates this: John, a fish master, started his career in the herring fishery with only his hands, a line and a lead for sounding depth. He fished from an open skiff and had to rely upon his practical experience and senses to catch fish. Interviewed when he was sixty years old and still active in 1997, he stated that during his last year he simply touched a few buttons on the sonar system in the comfortable bridge of his modern purse seining vessel. He described his current fish practice as being dominated by abstract technology rather than the personal feelings associated with his experienced sense of the touch, sound, taste and smells of fishing (Johnsen et al., 2009b: 24). There is also heterogeneity in fisheries science networks that is manifested in different assumptions and findings: as between different schools of thought within genetics and behavioral ecology, or between government, industry, and university-based scientists. Furthermore, stock assessment scientists and managers have somewhat different mandates and different knowledge requirements and these can result in conflicts and distrust. A recent analysis of science and management within European fisheries management found that scientists and managers seek to fulfil three key needs in the assessment process: salience, credibility, and legitimacy (Delaney and Hastie, 2007). Salience refers to the extent to which the assessment is relevant, addresses key problems, and provides recommendations that can be effectively implemented within the current policy environment. Credibility refers to the scientific credentials of the assessment, particularly based on the perception of whether producers of knowledge have expertise, trust that producers’ interests or biases do not drive knowledge creation, and the idea that the scientific assessment represents a consensual agreement among scientists. Legitimacy refers to the extent to which the procedures of the assessment for creating knowledge and agreement are perceived as fair, and whether the concerns of all parties are represented and considered. (Delaney and Hastie, 2007: 665).

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This analysis found that the different role identities and institutional constraints experienced by stock assessment scientists and managers mean they tend to prioritize different aspects of the advice the system requires (salience vs. credibility). They also tend to have different understandings of what each means (Delaney and Hastie, 2007). It suggests the potential for conflict and for concerns about legitimacy are perhaps particularly great where scientists feel the scientific basis for providing advice is too weak and managers need advice, but also feel the political context makes it impossible to accept certain kinds of advice such as the advice to close fisheries, as with some fisheries today (e.g., North Sea UK/EU fisheries). Spatial and temporal heterogeneity, differences in role identities and in institutional constraints mediate not only knowledge and action based on that knowledge. They also often constrain governance options and effectiveness. Degnbol (2003) argues: In the public debate on fisheries management, the issue of sharing knowledge is often translated into the need to disseminate research results to fishermen, with the underlying understanding that everyone in the management process shares the same basic paradigm, and some actors just know better than others within this paradigm. However, the issue is much more complex than this, as the public debate often indicates: fundamentally different understandings of the fish stocks are frequently presented and these differences cannot be reduced entirely to differences in interest (p. 2). Degnbol documents how the main discourse in fisheries biology has developed since the early 20th century, arguing that it has: developed in close association with a management system characterized by both centralized decision making based on numerical control of input or output parameters through top-down control structures and by an explicit emphasis on resource conservation (ibid.) placing it in the role of “regulatory science (Jasonoff, 1990).” The “normative and regulatory” context, he argues, “has meant that the production of biological knowledge about stock dynamics, and predictions of the response of stocks to fishing, has been the dominating form of regulatory science within this model.” Early in its history, North Atlantic fisheries regulatory science (the main focus of Degnbol’s paper) became enmeshed in a set of international fisheries management institutions, one consequence of which was a focus on large-scale fish stocks rather than local processes and patterns, which is the focus and concern of fish harvesters. This scale mismatch, Degnbol argues, poses a major challenge for co-management initiatives in fisheries in this region but is hard to change because it is “tied to the different practices and roles of fisheries science and fishers”. In the case of science, these include the persistence over time (despite adaptations and the introduction of new principles) of “the basic same paradigm of rational predictability” of the outcomes of management on a “fish stock” basis, alienating science from “the observations and understandings that are associated with commercial fishing activities, where predictability with a high resolution in space is required.” He concludes that this paradigm has not only produced legitimacy problems for stock assessment science with users but is also reaching its limits in terms of the costs associated with assimilating complexity (Degnbol, 2007: 14).

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Who might gain and how by comparing and, where possible, combining insights from these different kinds of knowledge, and what might be the best way to achieve this goal? Knowledge of population structure is a fundamental input into effective management – particularly when we are dealing with scarcity, global environmental change, and declining biodiversity. Management in the absence of such knowledge risks serial depletion of local populations (Wroblewski et al., 2005). In our research we have documented and compared scientific and LEK information relevant to cod and capelin migration patterns and population structure in Newfoundland and Labrador (Murray et al., 2008a,b; Neis and Morris, 2002; Neis et al., 1999). In the case of cod, our research suggests that the population structure of Atlantic cod off Newfoundland’s northeast coast and in the Northern Gulf of St Lawrence may be, or may have been, substantially more complex than current science suggests. We have also pointed to some potential gaps in both LEK and science that, if filled, might improve knowledge and support improved management. Similarly, estimates of fishing mortality and catch rates are vital components of most stock assessments. Often, the only data on trends in catch rates and in fishing mortality data come from commercial fisheries. These data frequently have limited information on changes in efficiency, catchability, as well as changes in by-catch, high grading, and discards, all of which have potentially serious consequences for the accuracy of stock assessments. Harvesters are much more knowledgeable than scientists and managers about what happens on board their vessels, including things that mediate trends in both commercial catch per unit effort (CPUE) and the differences between actual and reported fishing mortality (Metuzals et al., 2008). The information they have, however, may not be generalizable across the fleet, because of different practices among different groups, pointing to the need for research documenting onboard observations and practices across relevant fleets and fleet sectors. This information can be collected in the form of observer data where observer programs exist, but the latter tend to be limited to larger vessel fisheries, or in the form of logbook data with the completion of logbooks being either a voluntary or a regulatory requirement of fishing licenses. It can also be collected through independent surveys and interviews. The appropriate type, relative accuracy, and completeness of the information collected and the extent to which these data reflect what is happening onboard vessels will be mediated, however, by a range of social and cultural processes. Where harvesters are willing to share accurate and full information with scientists and managers, as well as their related knowledge about the underlying processes that mediate fishing efficiency and discarding, and where this information is systematically collected and used with caution, it can considerably enhance insights into constraints and trends within stock assessments. It might also help harvesters adjust their thinking and ideally their practices by helping them see more clearly the relationship between their practices and not only stock assessments but also stock health. If their practices are not representative of actions in the larger fleet, this information could be used to promote discussion among fishers and between fishers and managers about conservation needs and practices. Where harvesters perceive knowledge sharing to be uneven and to result or potentially result in risks to their livelihoods and a substantial loss of control or increase in vulnerability, open and effective knowledge sharing can be expected to be a short-term enterprise pointing to serious problems with legitimacy and potentially closing off options and alternatives for dialog and co-management.

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Knowing where we want to go and finding our way there If we accept the arguments suggesting that knowledge is patchy, heterogeneous, and a social-ecological product, and if we accept Wright’s (1991) argument that “reflexivity” is an essential element of a more coherent and effective knowledge network for dealing with global change and its consequences, what path(s) are most likely to lead us to this kind of knowledge and what might be some barriers and opportunities along the way? Claims that science as we know it occupies a privileged and unproblematic relationship to truth not available to other types of knowledge have been extensively critiqued. Furthermore, ironically, those who make such claims often cast scientists in the role of societal leaders tasked with the job, in the case of natural scientists, of “speaking for the fish” or for the environment. But leadership is inherently political just as science as we know it is inherently institutional and bureaucratic (whether in or outside of government) and thus mediated by wider social and ecological processes, including social power. Wright (1991) suggests coherent knowledge, including knowledge about the environment, should be similar to medical knowledge, in that built into it is an accepted capacity to reject certain claims on the grounds that they may endanger the health of people and the environment. But how effectively has medical knowledge actually protected people’s health – that is, not only prevented illness but actually promoted well-being? Ironically, and perhaps surprisingly, given that, unlike the fish, people can “speak for themselves”, we have had limited and patchy (spatially, temporally, and organizationally) success in protecting human populations from disease, and in many cases, have done a poor job of promoting health (Raphael, 2000). Related to this, we also have limited knowledge about how human changes to our environments (natural and built) actually mediate health. Why? The social-ecology of our bodies is highly complex and includes not only the mind and the body but also a whole range of factors outside ourselves and the networks we occupy. Much medical research has focused on individuals and tended to emphasize individual risk and responsibility for health, marginalizing larger organizational and societal factors that either promote or erode the health of populations. For instance, if we look at the science of cancer, what we find is that there are a number of social and institutional factors, mediated by social power, that have channeled, and continue to channel, the questions asked, the research funded, access to those research results, and organizational and societal responses to the findings, in ways that exacerbate our ignorance and enhance risk. In her critical review of the history of the relationship between science, industry, and government in cancer research, Devra Davis recently pointed out that: of the 100,000 chemicals that are commonly used in commerce, most have not been studied as to their ability to affect our health … It can take three weeks to approve a new chemical for use and thirty years to remove an old one” (2007, p. 430). In the interim, as her history of the tragic consequences of unnecessarily and deliberately prolonged exposures to tobacco, asbestos, benzene, and vinyl chloride shows, many, many people can sicken and die, suspect the cause of their illnesses and those of their co-workers

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are the result of these exposures, have those concerns dismissed, and end up bearing the burden of the costs of the illness themselves. As argued by Davis: [e]pistemology is the study of how we come to know what we believe we know. Plato pointed out that what we know is in a basic sense socially constructed at the intersection of our shared beliefs and presumed truths. Cancer research is no different from any other form of knowing. It relies on customs and practices. What can be considered known about cancer is profoundly economic and political and reflects the views and values of those who pay for the work, decide whether or not it should be carried out, and when and if it should ever become public (2007: 430). In comparison to research on occupational and environmental exposures such as those studied by Davis, research on global environmental change is relatively young. It is only really in the past decade or two that climate change has become a public issue and, as we can see from the altered agendas of many western powers in the face of the recent recession, its status as a public issue, and our ability to achieve meaningful reforms that might reduce the risk of climate change, are subject to being demoted in the face of seemingly more “urgent” economic agendas. Similarly, good science showing the oceans are emptying of fish or filling up with toxic chemicals that are accumulating within marine food chains, when that knowledge challenges business-as-usual, is inevitably subject to counter claims and challenges. If we have failed to establish the social institutions we need to systematically study threats to our own health, to protect our health and that of our children, at work, in our communities, and in the communities of others, how likely is it that we have the institutions in place and the political will and capacity to deal with global environmental change? Is the training we are designing for our students to help them understand social-ecological systems and global change adequately preparing them for prolonged struggles that will inevitably be mediated by vested interests, institutional inertias, and social power, where there will be substantial rewards for finding reasons for yet more verification that a problem indeed exists and for technological rather than structural “fixes”, but substantially less for prevention research, advocacy, and for building the institutional requirements for change? Disciplinary boundaries (between social, natural, humanist, and health researchers and their funding institutions) and institutional boundaries (between academic and government researchers, between these institutions and communities, within and between communities) have tended to mask interactions, contributing to partial knowledge, impoverished policy frameworks, related unanticipated, and frequently negative outcomes for the health of people, communities, and their environments, and missed opportunities for interdisciplinary research and for recovery. Working on the boundaries between disciplines and between social groups is challenging but fruitful, and can fuel creative thinking about different kinds of boundaries and their role in knowledge production and its outcomes. How do we learn from knowledge generated in other cultures and contexts (i.e., other disciplines, from vernacular knowledge, and other forms) when their ways of knowing seem so foreign, so incommensurable, with our own ways of knowing? For working across disciplines, Visser advocates “a concerted interaction between the social sciences and the natural sciences, in which epistemological differences and conceptual incongruence are made transparent in order to be overcom” (2004: 27).

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Transdisciplinarity, she argues, invites us to examine our own disciplinary assumptions critically, and to reveal (vs. conceal) discontinuities; it aims at “boundary areas” and at discovering “cutting edge issues” and new research questions that go beyond partner disciplines. While this might deal with disciplinary gaps, it does not deal with the larger issues of reflexivity and the relationship between academic and non-academic knowledge networks, including those of government and industry. One of the reasons why claims about fishers’ knowledge are resisted by scientists has to do with concerns about vested interest – situations where harvesters have real or perceived incentives to lie, such as where they are behaving illegally or where they would lose economically if they were honest about their practices and observations. Concerns about vested interest are integral to our understanding of the prerequisites for truth, and intimately connected to our belief in liberal democracy and the separation of church, state and industry, public support for universities and academic freedom, universal franchise, free speech, freedom of the press, and an educated public. They suggest that a different set of boundaries (other than those between disciplines) may be a prerequisite for effective social-ecological thinking. Some would argue that close connectivity between science, management, and the politics of larger societal concerns is the enemy of conservation and thus poses the greatest threat to the health of the environment. Within Canada, three university-based biologists wrote a paper in which they used events surrounding the collapse of Atlantic cod stocks and the destruction of habitat for Pacific salmon to argue that conservation was not facilitated by “science integrated within a political body.” (Hutchings et al., 1997). There have been multiple situations where “government-administered” science has played a role in producing tragic consequences for people and the environment. In Seeing Like a State, James C. Scott examines several of the “great human tragedies of the twentieth century” (1998: 3). According to Scott, the introduction through modern statecraft of social and natural simplifications that were designed to make the social and natural world “more legible – and hence manipulable from above and from the centre” (1998: 2) through large-scale social engineering – were major contributors to these tragedies. His analysis shows that where such social engineering was associated with hyper-confidence in scientific and technical progress, an authoritarian state and “an incapacitated civil society,” the social and environmental outcomes were frequently tragic (1998: 5). In retrospect, the technoutopian faith in fisheries science and management (Finlayson, 1994), which was associated with the period after the introduction of the 200-mile EEZs that preceded the collapse of many fish stocks (ongoing in some areas today), shared some elements of the “highmodernist” approaches described by Scott. It could be argued that the scale of the intervention and the faith in the potential to achieve both conservation and industrial growth through government-administered science and management, guided by highly simplified models of poorly understood social-ecological realities, amounted to what Homer-Dixon calls “technohubris” (2001) at the organizational level, if not at that of individual scientists. While fisheries science and management in Canada would benefit from greater institutional autonomy from government, the direct and indirect costs of failed conservation are huge, uncertainty very high, and the social-ecological complexity associated with finding conservation tools that are not only effective but also ethical and informed by social justice, is significantly difficult to achieve. In effect, this means that there is considerable need, not

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only to protect scientific integrity, but also to make scientists, managers, harvesters, and others more accountable to the broader community. There is really no way around this: imagine that these and other scientists and managers or fishers were surgeons operating on a human being, or engineers building a bridge. Would we not find it problematic if, in doing their work, they ignored potential risks to the short- and longer-term health of not only fish but also of people and society? Normal government and industry science are not devoid of values, but both the science and the resources required to do the work can be appropriated, thus making the resultant knowledge something other than a “public good” in the traditional economic sense of the term (Callon, 1993). Similarly, academic science is also constrained by researcher and institutional values, particularly where the research needed by those outside the academy requires sustained and long-term dedication to monitoring and to particular problems – neither activity being well supported by the emphasis on “discovery” and cutting-edge research in academic contexts. Neither academic scientists nor government scientists are immune to political or corporate influence as they frequently rely on these sources for funding and access to data, and they may also work occasionally in these sectors as consultants, either while employed with government and universities or after they leave. Other factors can influence their science as well, including occupational constraints on when and where they can do fieldwork (e.g., there is limited fieldwork done in winter) or the use of short time series – contributing to the risk of a shifting baseline syndrome (Pauly, 1995). Just as most chemicals are released before their potential health effects are studied or known, fisheries scientists (social and natural) frequently “follow fisheries around”, trying to understand what has been happening after the event – a practice that dramatically limits their capacity to promote prevention of overfishing and environmental damage (Neis and Kean, 2003). The progressive privatization of academic and government science is a common feature of Western societies today. This makes it difficult to provide the institutional and conceptual basis for the coherent, reflexive knowledge required to imagine alternative futures, and the ways to achieve those futures. In 1993, Michel Callon wrote about the privatization of scientific institutions and the related confrontation between two logics: “that of disclosure and thus the free circulation of information, and that of private property and thus retention of information” (p. 396). Drawing on insights from the sociology of science and economics, he concluded that the main thrust of scientific activity was not to produce information but rather “to reconfigure heterogeneous networks” (p. 411). With that as his point of departure, he argued that: [t]he scientific enterprise should be organized so as to permit the development of the greatest possible number of reconfigurations and so as to assure that each one of them has the same chance to grow. … Science is a public good when it can make a new set of entities proliferate and reconfigure the existing states of the world (p. 416) when [i]t causes new states of the world to proliferate. And this diversity depends on the diversity of interests and projects that are included in those collectives that reconfigure nature and society (p. 418).

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Privatization, he concluded works against this because the market, with its “natural propensity to transform science into a commodity – would be ever more doomed to convergence and irreversibility” (ibid.). Within social-ecological networks, social power is a crucial driver of the knowledge production and transfer process. Social power includes not only “power over” (the capacity to dominate), but also the “power to” act or achieve ends within structured and shifting “fields of opportunity” (MacDonald et al., 2006). Social power mediates knowledge through limiting and channeling resources and opportunities for knowing by setting agendas that limit what gets discussed and by whom, and by shaping our consciousness or awareness of what is happening (Gaventa and Cornwall, 2001). A central thesis of this chapter is that effective and coherent knowledge about social-ecological systems requires reflexivity – attention to the knowledge producer’s own social ecology. If social power is a dynamic and a central driver within this social ecology, coherent knowledge that is also reflexive requires careful attention to the relationship between social power and knowledge production and outcomes within the world as we know it and the world we seek to create. Thus all knowledge needs to be built and evaluated in terms of its social-ecological origins and its social-ecological effects. But coherent social-ecological knowledge networks must also have built into them sensitivity to ecological constraints and dynamics in addition to attention to social power. Of course, these also interact. Ecological scarcity and the volatility associated with global change can work to promote awareness, a focus on recovery, collaboration and experimentation, but they are equally, or even more likely to encourage competition for scarce resources as well as social conflict, with existing groups strengthening their control of institutional structures, knowledge production, and policy change. Paradoxically, social-ecological thinking adds to the complexity and uncertainty surrounding knowledge and knowledge networks, while simultaneously increasing our awareness of not only the urgent need for social and political change, but also the nature and scale of existing barriers to such change. From this perspective, in the absence of social mobilization, social-ecological thinking has the potential to contribute to an inherent institutional and ideological inertia and to the politicization and ultimate discrediting of science, thus threatening the environment. Scott (1998) argues that one way to counteract the inherent weaknesses in bureaucratic and capitalist planning, as well as high-modernist ideology, is through access to local knowledge, informal institutions, and improvization. These are, perhaps by definition, small-scale and vulnerable. While necessary, they are insufficient for dealing with global social-ecological change. They return us to the problem of vested interests outside of science, and the best way to generate and maintain access to multiple forms of knowledge without losing those key boundary mechanisms that are essential for effective and critical thought, including the potential strengths of normal science and other elements of democratic societies. McCulloch and Tweedale conclude their book on the global asbestos industry by pointing out that national asbestos bans have generally come about through the work of networks of trade unionists, scientists, lawyers, asbestos victims, politicians, physicians, and others. From this they conclude that: Science is never sufficient to resolve occupational health problems. The most striking feature of the asbestos tragedy – and the most poignant – is that there has never been any shortage of information. What has been lacking are the social and political safeguards to

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enable that knowledge to be used for public benefit. Without those safeguards, data can be disputed or even invented, and risk assessment manipulated for commercial and political advantage. The US and British industries systematically used science against the poor and vulnerable to slow down regulation. They never used science to speed it up. Effective regulation requires a particular kind of political will or what Selikoff called the “recruitment of constituencies”. Selikoff rightly believed that knowledge can only be effective if it is in the hands of the people who work with dangerous materials (2008: 275). Who are the “constituencies” we need to recruit to deal with global marine change and how would we recruit them? What useful knowledge might they bring to the table? And what kinds of knowledge would it take to build such constituencies and sustain coalitions? “Expert” knowledge is only one kind of knowledge. Social-ecological change requires other kinds of knowledge, including “interactive” or lay knowledge derived from lived experience, and “critical” or reflective knowledge that “considers the role of social structures and power relations in reinforcing inequalities and disempowering people” (Bryant, 2002: 93). One way to promote access to all three kinds of knowledge is by creating institutions that support the co-creation of knowledge by all parties concerned about an issue (Broner et al., 2001). Social-ecological thinking highlights the need for social, natural, and health researchers to work together – the need for transboundary research – and to work with other groups who hold a stake in promoting the health of our world and the people, networks, and creatures and things within it. Harvesters, processing workers, their communities, environmental groups, trade unions, politicians, and others working at local, regional, national, and global scales are potential constituencies for a movement to not only monitor global marine and terrestrial change, but look for ways to minimize and mitigate its effects. Collaborative coproduction of knowledge (by social and natural scientists, NGOs, harvesters, their families, and others) works well at local scales and has the advantage of building knowledge-sharing into the process, as well as a broader range of social checks and balances and the potential to link knowledge production to stewardship initiatives. Local knowledge can be aggregated up to meso or regional scales, but not without paying attention to potential regional processes not evident at local scales. Large-scale data-sets and modeling can help us see larger spatial, temporal, and organizational scale changes and dynamics, but are largely the work of specialists, are resource intensive, can mask local dynamics, and provide only limited guidance for ways to act appropriately in contexts of scarcity and vulnerability. All of these types of knowledge production can help us separate correlation from causality. All are at risk of becoming captive of particular groups and interests, resulting in blockages, diversions, and distortions (Gibson et al., 2008; Gunderson and Holling, 2002). Boundaries are thus probably an essential and inevitable part of effective knowledge production. The question is what boundaries in which locations are the most likely to promote the production, sharing, and implementation of the highest quality knowledge about global change?

Conclusion As scientists, managers, harvesters, environmentalists, policy-makers, and others, we need some humility in our role as knowledge production specialists and protectors of fish, fisheries, and the social-ecological systems that sustain them. In a world with huge harvesting

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capacity and depleted, vulnerable and frequently stressed fish stocks, one trawler is quite capable of catching the remnants of a local stock while we are on our lunch break. There is no easy or obvious way to achieve the societal changes required to constrain global warming. Despite the scale of the problem and its urgency, there is no obvious or powerful social movement to respond appropriately. One reason for this is that we are all, as scientists, to some degree held captive by something much bigger than ourselves: much of our time is spent pursuing funding, building careers, raising families, “doing our jobs”, and – even if we were not constrained in these ways, individually and collectively – we scientists have limited capacity to bring about change. Frequently, despite what we think ought to happen, science “follows fisheries around”, studying their historical rise and fall rather than laying the groundwork for conservation. Too often co-governance goals appear to provide a rationale for disinvestment in science instead of reinvestment. Similarly, funding for science is often removed from fisheries and regions after commercial collapse, instead of being enhanced, adapted, and broadened to meet the demanding requirements of scarcity and uncertainty associated with such situations. The degree of incommensurability between the knowledge and knowledge networks of harvesters and those typical of stock assessment science, management, or environmental groups, may be quite extreme – but this incommensurability may have more to do with the starting point for our deliberations than with the knowledge itself. At the end of the day, the policy response might be the same, whether we believe the stocks have collapsed because we offended the fish spirit, or abused a fish population by taking the older fish, or by waste and discarding. Whatever the cause, we collectively need to pay for this “disrespect”/”overharvesting”… by waiting for the stock to recover/for the fish to give themselves to us again, if our goal is to achieve ecological recovery and to meet the needs of fishing communities. Drawing on insights from John Robinson (2009), we might argue that the opportunity to focus our attention on the maritime and coastal future we would like to share (as harvesters, scientists, environmentalists, and members of coastal and other communities), and therefore to pay attention to the largely social changes needed to get there, is too frequently lost due to our societal investment in expert science with its underlying focus on improving our predictions of what will happen, without reference to spiritual and ethical concerns and irrespective of whether those predictions will give us the future we want. Robinson (2009) suggests supplementing the compulsion to predict with a “backcasting” process that starts with a vision of the collective future we would like to see and then focuses on alternative ways to get there and the trade-offs they entail. One idealized model for science suggests it should be deductive, hypothesis-driven, experimental research carried out by a tightly-knit research team with shared concepts, goals, and methods. Paying attention to the social-ecology of knowledge means working from the assumption that knowledge production can and should involve multiple social, cultural, and ecological processes, and engage multiple audiences and diversity in practice and point of view. Social-ecological knowledge reminds us that there is no way to fully remove the social, or for that matter the ecological, from knowledge. Indeed, there are good reasons to think and plan strategically, taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of alternative approaches, where they are likely to take us, and who will be there with us, as we seek to use our new knowledge to influence policy and practice. In our conclusion to a recent book called Making and Moving Knowledge, John Lutz and I wrote that as a society

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we can choose to make laws, develop methods, and create institutions that can turn knowledge into wisdom and degradation into recovery. Paraphrasing Robert Frost, we also concluded that we (collectively, including scientists, politicians, fishers, and others) have “miles to go before we sleep.”

Endnote 1. This chapter is loosely based on a presentation co-authored with John Lutz to the Globec Global Change Conference, Rome, July 2008. It also draws somewhat on the Introduction and Conclusion to Making and Moving Knowledge: Lessons from Collaborative Research in a World on the Edge, written by John Lutz and myself. This research was funded by SSHRC and NSERC through the Major Collaborative Research Initiative, Coasts Under Stress.

References Aylett, A. (2009) Personal Communication. Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Summer Institute. Gananoque, Ontario, 19 May. Berkes, F. (2008) Sacred Knowledge, 2nd edn. Routledge, New York. Berkes, F., Colding, J. and Folke, C. (eds) (2003) Navigating Social-Ecological Systems: Building Resilience for Complexity and Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK. Broner, N., Franszak, M., Dye, D. and McAllister, W. (2001) Knowledge transfer, policymaking and community empowerment: a consensus model approach for providing public mental health and substance abuse services. Psychiatric Quarterly 72(1), 79–102. Bryant, T. (2002) Role of knowledge in public health and health promotion policy change. Health Promotion International 17(1), 89–98. Callon, M. (1993) Is science a public good? Fifth Mullins Lecture. Science, Technology and Human Values 19(4), 395–424. Davis, D. (2007) The Secret History of the War on Cancer. Basic Books, New York. Degnbol, P. (2003) Science and the user perspective: the gap co-management must address. In: The Fisheries Comanagement Experience: Accomplishments, Challenges and Prospects (eds D. C. Wilson, P. Degnbol and Jesper-Raakaer Nielsen), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, pp. 31–50. Delaney, A. E. and Hastie, J. E. (2007) Lost in translation: differences in role identities between fisheries scientists and managers. Ocean and Coastal Management 50, 661–682. Dolan, A. H., Taylor, M., Neis, B. et al. (2005) Restructuring and health in Canadian coastal communities: A social-ecological framework of restructuring and health. Eco-Health 2, 1–14. Finlayson, A. C. (1994) Fishing for Truth: A Sociological Analysis of Northern Cod Stock Assessments from 1977 to 1990, ISER Books, St John’s NF. Gaventa, J. and Cornwall (2001) Power and Knowledge. In: Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice (eds P. Reason and H. Bradbury), Sage Publications, London, pp. 70–79. Gibson, R. J., Haedrich R. L., Kennedy, J. C., Vodden, K. M. and Wernerheim, C. M. (2008) Promoting, blocking, and diverting the flow of knowledge: four case studies from Newfoundland and Labrador. In: Making and Moving Knowledge: Interdisciplinary and Community-based Research in a World on the Edge (eds J. S. Lutz and B. Neis), McGill-Queen’s University Press, Kingston and Montreal, pp. 155–177. Gunderson, L. H. and Holling, C. S. (2002) Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems. Island Press, Washington DC.

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Holm, P. (2003) Crossing the border: on the relationship between science and fishermen’s knowledge in a resource management context. MAST 2(1), 5–33. Homer-Dixon, T. (2001) The Ingenuity Gap: can we solve the problems of the future? Vintage Canada, Toronto. Hutchings, J. A., Walters, C. and Haedrich, R. L. (1997) Is scientific inquiry incompatible with government information control? Canadian Journal of Fisheries Aquatic Science 54, 1198–1210. Jasanoff, S. (1990) The Fifth Branch: Science Advisers as Policymakers. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA. Johannes, R. E. (1981) Words of the Lagoon: Fishing and Marine Lore in the Palau District of Micronesia. Berkeley: University of California Press. Johnsen, J. P., Hold, P., Sinclair, P. and Bavington. D. (2009a) The cyborgization of the fisheries: on attempts to make fisheries management possible. MAST 7(2), 9–34. Johnsen, J. P., Murray, G. D. and Neis, B. (2009b) Fisheries in change – from organic associations to cybernetic organizations. MAST 7(2), 54–81. MacDonald, M., Neis, B. and Grzetic, B. (2006) Case 5: Making a Living: The Struggle to Stay. In: Power and Restructuring: Canada’s Coastal Society and Environment (eds P. Sinclair and R. E. Ommer), ISER Books, St John’s NF, pp. 187–208. McCulloch, J. and Tweedale, G. (2008) Defending the Indefensible: the Global Asbestos Industry and its Fight for Survival. Oxford University Press, New York. Metuzals, K. I., Wernerheim, C. M., Haedrich, R. L., Copes, P. and Murrin. A. (2008) Data fouling in Newfoundland’s marine fisheries. In: Making and Moving Knowledge: Interdisciplinary and Community-based Research in a World on the Edge (eds J. S. Lutz and B. Neis), McGill-Queen’s University Press, Kingston and Montreal, pp. 121–137. Murray, G., Neis, B. and Petter Johnsen. J. (2006) Lessons learned from reconstructing interactions between Local Ecological Knowledge, Fisheries Science and Fisheries Management in the commercial fisheries of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Human Ecology 34, 549–571. Murray, G., Neis, B. and Palmer, C. (2008a) Mapping cod: fisheries science, fish harvesters’ ecological knowledge and cod migrations in the Northern Gulf of St. Lawrence. Human Ecology 36, 581–598. Murray, G., Neis, B. and Schneider. D. C. (2008b) Lessons from a multi-scale historical reconstruction of Newfoundland and Labrador fisheries. Coastal Management 36, 81–108. Nadasdy, P. (1999) The politics of TEK: Power and the “integration” of knowledge. Arctic Anthropology 36(1–2), 1–18. Neis, B. (1992) Fishers’ ecological knowledge and stock assessment in Newfoundland and Labrador. Newfoundland Studies 8(2), 155–178. Neis, B. and Kean, R. (2003) Why fish stocks collapse. In: Retrenchment and Regeneration in Rural Newfoundland (ed. R. Byron), University of Toronto Press, Toronto, pp. 65–102. Neis, B. and Morris, M. (2002) Fishers’ ecological knowledge and stock assessment: understanding the capelin (Maillotus villosus) and capelin fisheries in the Bonavista region of Newfoundland. In: The Resilient Outport: Ecology, Economy and Society in Rural Newfoundland (ed. R. E. Ommer), ISER Books, St John’s NF, pp. 205–240. Neis, B., Schneider, D. C., Felt, L. F., Haedrich, R. L., Hutchings, J. A. and Fischer, J. (1999) Northern cod stock assessment: what can be learned from interviewing resource users? Canadian Journal of Fisheries Aquatic Science 56, 1949–1963. Ommer, R. E. (2000) The Resilient Outport, ISER Books, St. John’s NF. Ommer, R. E. and Team (2007) Coasts Under Stress: Restructuring and Docial-ecological Health. McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal and Kingston. Pálsson, G. (2000) “Finding One’s Sea Legs”: Learning, the process of enskillment, and integrating fishers and their knowledge into fisheries science and management. In: Finding Our Sea Legs:

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Linking Fishery People and Their Knowledge with Science and Management (eds B. Neis and L. Felt), ISER Books, St. John’s NF. Pauly, D. (1995) Anecdotes and the shifting baseline syndrome. Trends in Ecology & Environment 10, 430. Perry, I. R. and Ommer. R. E. (2003) Scale issues in marine ecosystems and human interactions. Fisheries Oceanography 12(4/5), 513–522. Power, N. (2008) Occupational risks, safety and masculinity: Newfoundland fish harvesters’ experiences and understandings of fishery risks. Health, Risk & Society 10(6), 565–583. Raphael, D. (2000) The question of evidence in health promotion. Health Promotion International 15(4), 355–367. Rice, J. (2005) Bringing experiential knowledge into fisheries science advisory processes: lessons learned from the Canadian experience of participatory governance. In: Participation in Fisheries Governance (ed. S. Grey), Springer, The Netherlands, pp. 249–268. Robinson, J. B. (2009) The partial wisdom of smallish crowds: towards an extended concept of rationality in public policy decisions. Presentation to the 2009 Summer Institute, Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, Ganonoque, Ontario, 21 May. Scott, J. C. (1998) Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed. Yale University Press, New Haven and London. Shelton, P. A. (2007) The weakening role of science in the management of groundfish off the east coast of Canada. ICES Journal of Marine Science 64, 1–7. Sinclair, P. R. and Ommer, R. E. (2006) Power and Restructuring. ISER Books, St John’s NF. Szulanski, G. (2000) The process of knowledge transfer: a diachronic analysis of stickiness. Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes 82(1), 9–27. Visser, L. E. (ed.) (2004) Challenging Coasts: Transdisciplinary Excursions into Integrated Coastal Zone Development. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam. Windle, M. J. S., Neis, B., Bornstein, S., Binkley, M. and Navarro, P. (2008) Fishing occupational health and safety: a comparison of regulatory regimes and safety outcomes in six countries. Marine Policy 32, 701–710. Wright,W. (1991) Wild Knowledge: Science, Language and Social Life in a Fragile Environment. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. Wroblewski, J., Neis, B. and Gosse, K. (2005) Inshore stocks of Atlantic Cod are important for rebuilding the east coast fishery. Coastal Management 33(4), 411–432.

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Part IV

Values

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Chapter 12

Unaccounted Values Under-reporting Sardine Catches as a Strategy Against Poverty in the Bali Strait, Indonesia Eny Anggraini Buchary, Tony J. Pitcher, and Ussif Rashid Sumaila

Abstract We estimated “true” catches of sardine in the Bali Strait, Indonesia from five months of fieldwork (2002–2006). Using Monte Carlo simulations, we found that only 28–56% of sardine catches were reported and that unreported fishing within domestic fishing fleets is considerable. Although inadequate government landing facilities, landing taxes, uncertainty in fish catch, and lack of social benefits play an important role, we found financial insecurity to be the main reason why fishers under-report. We suggest that a reduction in unreported fishing might result from restructuring the prevailing financial schemes, a temporary landing tax exemption, and improving fishers’ financial management skills. Keywords: Indonesian fisheries, sardine, IUU, statistics, poverty index, financial insecurity

Introduction Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing by domestic fishing fleets in Indonesia receives little public attention and consequently its magnitude and scope is unknown. Although IUU is typically discussed only for large-scale and/or foreign fishing fleets, IUU fishing happens in many fisheries (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2002); such catches occur in domestic fishing fleets, in artisanal, small-scale and medium-scale fisheries. In Indonesia, concerns about IUU fishing have emerged since the 1970s (Kompas, 1974a,b), although the “IUU fishing” term was not known or used then. Nevertheless, it is only since early 2000 that Indonesia began to seriously focus on tackling IUU fishing problems (S. Nurhakim,1 personal communication). Each year, foreign, large-scale fleets World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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cost Indonesia USD 3–6 billion, roughly 3.5–7% of the 2007 State Budget (V. Nikijuluw2 cited in Kompas Online, 2008). Public discourse on IUU fishing in Indonesia focuses on the “illegal” component of the IUU terminology, particularly by foreign fishing fleets (Damanik et al., 2008; Sularso, 2008). Therefore, public opinion is shaped in such a way that emotion often runs high.3 Solutions proposed are high-tech (e.g., surveillance system using satellite), sometimes punitive (i.e., fisheries tribunal), and biased towards use of legal, institutional, and fisheries instruments (Sularso, 2008). These approaches may be useful to curb IUU fishing by foreign fleets, but do not address IUU fishing by domestic fishing fleets that often are small- and medium-scale, traditional, strong in kinship, and based on a patron-client system. Therefore, there is a need to evaluate domestic IUU fishing in Indonesia. This chapter quantitatively evaluates IUU fishing for a domestic fishing fleet in Indonesia and proposes recommendations to help with this issue. We use a case study of a medium-scale,4 domestic pair-boat system purse seine fishing fleets in the Bali Strait, locally known as slerek, that mainly targets sardine (Sardinella lemuru). We also trace the consistency of official data reporting of the catch throughout different levels of administrative jurisdictions, and explore incentives to under-report. We estimate true catch of the sardine using Monte Carlo simulations. Incentives to under-report are explored not only by examining technical rationales, but also by teasing out the financial state of the fishers in light of the increasing fuel price, prevalent lending financing schemes, and their debt-toassets ratio. Measurement of their relative poverty using a poverty index (Sumaila, 2003) was carried out to elucidate our hypothesis that IUU fishing within domestic fishing fleets such as the slerek, will not be solved unless poverty within the fishing communities is properly tackled.

Area description The Bali Strait is a 3,126 km2 funnel-shaped marine environment located between the islands of Java and Bali (Fig. 12.1), in central Indonesia. It is adjacent to the Indian Ocean in the south and the Bali Sea in the north (Merta et al., 2000). The oceanographic conditions of the Strait are influenced by bi-annual monsoons (Wyrtki, 1961; Ritterbush, 1974) and El Niño events that occur every 2–10 years (Ghofar et al., 2000). As a result, fisheries, in particular the sardine fishery, have a boom and bust nature as expected for small pelagic planktivorous fish driven by the bi-annual monsoons and by El Niño events. There are 16 types of fishing gear operating in the Bali Strait and 2 types of fishing gear for vessels mooring in the Strait but operating elsewhere (Buchary, 2010). Despite this array of distinct fishing gears targeting different species, in terms of bulk catch landed, Sardinella lemuru (locally called “Lemuru”) is the dominant species, with more than 90% of total catch (Hendiarti et al., 2005, based on official records). These are mainly exploited by the pair-boat system purse seine (slerek) (Hendiarti et al., 2005). Other species caught by slerek include round scads (Decapterus spp., layang), eastern little tuna (Euthynnus affinis, tongkol), and mackerel (Scomberomorus spp., tenggiri) and are caught either as by-catch or targeted in off-lemuru season in much lower numbers than lemuru (Buchary, 2010).

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Fig. 12.1 The Bali Strait. Muncar district on the east coast of East Java is the most important fishing port (with Kedungrejo village as its hub) for the Balinese sardine (lemuru) purse seine (slerek) fishery, while Negara district on the west coast of Bali is the second most important (with Pengambengan village as its hub). Both Banyuwangi and Jembrana regencies are delineated with dashed lines. Inset shows the archipelago of Indonesia with the location of the study area shown by an arrow.

The Lemuru fishery The Lemuru fishery had started in the Strait even prior to 1942, when Japanese occupation started (Respondent SB23, personal communication, 10 August 2004). At the time, scoop or dip nets (serok) made of cotton thread and small dug-out boats (sampan or jukung) with sail were normally used. During the 1950s–1960s, the lemuru fishery in the Strait grew slowly (Soemarto, 1960). Various gear that were used then were: 1. jala oras or payang oras (seine nets made of cotton and palm leaves operated by wooden sailing boats ranging in size from 5.5–7.5m in length; 2. jaring lemuru or jaring eder (cotton gill nets, also operated using the same wooden sailing boats); 3. jala buang (cast nets made of cotton, operated using bigger dug-out boats, about 4 m in length); and 4. serok (operated using dug-out boats) (Soemarto, 1960). The pair-boat system purse seine (Plate 8 in the color plate section), known as slerek, was introduced in the Strait in 1974; its introduction was not without violence and was initially rejected by local fishers, notably the payang fishers (Buchary, 2010; Emmerson, 1987). As the violence subsided, by the late 1970s the fleet numbers increased exponentially, from 10 units in 1974 to 272 units in 1979 (Merta et al., 2000). However, by the late 1990s the slerek fleet was starting to decline, and numbers were down to 113 units by 2004 (Buchary, 2010). The size of the slerek boat also evolved. During the 1930s through the 1940s, the dug-out boats had a tonnage of 0.2–0.3 GT (Soemarto, 1960). In the 1950s through the 1960s, boat size increased to 0.4–1.7 GT, then to 3.5–4 GT (1970s), to 15 GT (1980s), and jumped to 28.7–36.8 GT in the 1990s (Buchary, 2010). During the fieldwork

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in 2004, on average slerek boats were in the order of 25–30 GT (Respondent SB56, personal communication, 20 September 2004). In some cases, larger slerek boats were also found, such as 40 GT (Respondent SB2, personal communication, 3 August 2004) and 52 GT (re-estimated using data provided by Respondent SB44, personal interview, 24 August 2004).5 Interestingly, a few fishers who realized that lemuru stocks were in decline reduced their boat size from 30 GT to 15 GT (Respondent SB35, personal communication, 19 August 2004). Propelled by the significant fuel price increase beginning in 2005 (PT. Pertamina (Persero), 2008), many fishers reduce their fishing frequency and even sold their boats (Respondent SB56, personal communication, 20 June 2008). Seasonality governs lemuru fishery. The northwest monsoon lasts from November–March and the southeast monsoon from June–October, reaching its maximum around July (Saliyo, 1973; Burhanuddin and Praseno, 1982, cited in Merta et al., 2000) when it generates an upwelling in the Strait. The months of April and May represent an inter-monsoonal period. The southeast monsoon is considered as “the fish season” by the fishers in the Strait, with the glut peaks around September–October, and occasionally the glut will continue to the early part of November. Off season occurs during the northwest monsoon and the inter-monsoonal period. During the off season, it is quite common that many slerek would get as low as 0.4–0.5 tonnes of sardines/fleet/fishing trip (Buchary, 2010). By contrast, a maximum landing of 15–20 tonnes/fleet/fishing trip during the regular glut period and 30–40 tonnes/fleet/fishing trip during El Niño years (like that in 1998) are quite normal. Discarding and highgrading are common during glut and El Niño phases (Buchary, 2010). Slerek fishing trips are conducted for 11–20 days each month during new moon phases only, with an average of 15 fishing-days/month (Buchary, 2010). A fishing-day is normally comprised of one trip, although two to three trips/fishing-day is not uncommon during the glut and El Niño (Buchary, 2010). During full moons, the crew members work on the land to mend nets and do necessary repairs (Buchary, 2010). Commercial lemuru fishing in the Bali Strait is restricted to fishers based in the Muncar district, specifically in Kedungrejo village (Banyuwangi regency, East Java province) and in Negara district, specifically in Pengambengan village (Jembrana regency, Bali province) (Fig. 12.1). Therefore, processing facilities such as fish meal plants and canneries are also concentrated in these two districts. Since its introduction in 1974, except for the use of engines, the slerek fishery has always been a fishery operated entirely in manual mode – the purse nets are set and pulled by hand. In 2004, the average slerek fleet unit had between 25 and 50+ crew members and was the only fleet in the Strait that resembled a commercial enterprise in terms of the sheer abundance of fish caught and of how the government licensing system operated. Slerek fleets are nonetheless managed like a small-scale fishery where patron-client relationships and kinship are very strong.

Materials and methods Data collection A total of five months of fieldwork in the study area were carried out over 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2006. Ninety-two respondents (18 female and 74 male) were recruited and

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canvassed using snowball sampling method (sensu Babbie, 1989, cited in Neis et al., 1999) for individual in-depth semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions (FGDs), and taxonomy/toponymy/etymology interviews (Buchary, 2010). Interview questionnaires were developed using previously published interview structures (Neis et al., 1999; Cheung and Sadovy, 2004; Ainsworth, 2004) and revised iteratively during the pilot tests to reflect the Indonesian context. Fifty-one respondents were interviewed for an average of 2–3 hours, but some lasted for 4–5 hours, split into 2 days. The FGD comprised 1–2 hour discussions with several (3–6) people of similar experience, age groups, and gender (sensu Morgan and Krueger, 1998). Pre-selected topics guided the discussions and techniques were revised iteratively during the pilot tests. A total of 41 discussants were reported from 9 discrete FGDs, with 4 respondents participating in both interview and FGD. To effectively access fishers’ knowledge, researchers had to build a shared understanding of local terms for fish, local fishing grounds and fishing gear, oceanographic patterns, ecological and other fishery-related phenomena. Thus, interviews on the taxonomy/toponymy/etymology were conducted where participants freely explored a set of colorful posters of fish, marine mammals, seabirds, invertebrates, and fishing gear along with local nautical maps. Additional methods of data collection (see Buchary, 2010, for detail) include direct observation by living within the fishing community, participatory fishing, landing site censuses,6 opportunistic surveys of the fishing ports, fishing villages and fish markets, photography and video footage on relevant objects of observation, desk-top studies on records, archives, databases and satellite imageries of the study area, and post-fieldwork personal communication. Data triangulation between results obtained through different sets of data collection and data analytical methods was used to cross-validate, corroborate findings, and to find convergence. Thus, data uncertainty in data collection and analysis, and biases in respondents’ response and memory recollection was reduced. Data triangulation was also helpful in seeing pattern and propensity.

Analytical methods Fate of landed Lemuru and reported catch To cross-check whether the fish catch reporting system throughout jurisdictions and responsible agencies is consistent, we collated, compared, and traced catch data of S. lemuru from the Bali Strait from 1950 to 2001, across all administrative jurisdictions (i.e., village, district, regency, province, national, and international). The dataset mainly comprises official government records, but it also includes material from individual scientists, researchers in government agencies, and multi-agency projects. Time series of the median of official records and its 5 and 95 percentile were also estimated.

Estimating true catch Previous authors working on IUU estimation focused on estimating the missing catch (Forrest et al., 2001; Pitcher et al., 2002; Ainsworth and Pitcher, 2005). In this study, we sought to estimate the true catch, based on how much is under-reported and unreported

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vis-à-vis reported catch. The methods to estimate true catch were broken down into the following steps: 1. We created a time series of official reported catch based on official reports from various jurisdictions and calculated the median values. 2. Using written records and personal accounts from interviews and FGDs, we established the historical timeline of the fishery, taking note the regulatory, technological, fish meal and cannery industry development, socio-political and climatic changes that are likely to have affected the fate of the lemuru caught, landed, and distributed. 3. We estimated the amount of “take-home” using accounts from interviews, FGDs, and fishers’ personal log-books, and cross-validated by accounts from participatory fishing, landing site censuses, opportunistic surveys of the fishing ports, fishing villages and fish markets, and post-fieldwork personal communication. Take-home is the amount of fish given away as incentives for crew members, as in-kind payment for services rendered (i.e., by boat scrubbers, fish unloaders, fish porters, etc.), and as “give-away” to various people that ask along the way from the time the fish is landed at the beach, weighed at the scale, loaded into and unloaded from a truck (see Figure 1.8 in Buchary, 2010). 4. Using interview accounts and insights from step 2, we estimated the proportion of total catch that are recorded at the government landing site: upper, lower, and “best guess” (mode) values. 5. Using estimations from steps 3 and 4, we estimated the amount landed at non-government landing sites: upper, lower, and “best guess” (mode) values. 6. Using results from steps 1, 3, 4, and 5, we estimated true catch values: upper, lower, and “best guess” (mode) values. 7. We used Monte Carlo resampling (5,000 runs) to determine the mean of estimated true catch, including its 5 and 95 percentiles. Monte Carlo simulations assume an asymmetric triangular distribution around a specified mode (i.e., the “best guess”), as have been assumed by previous authors (Forrest et al., 2001; Pitcher et al., 2002; Ainsworth and Pitcher, 2005). 8. We added the discards and high-grading adjustments to the 5,000 Monte Carlo outputs, using estimations proxied at El Niño events and recalculated the mean of estimated true catch, including its 5 and 95 percentiles.

Discards and high-grading Respondents’ personal accounts indicated that during glut periods, especially during the El Niño years, discarding and high-grading were common (Respondent SB56, personal communication, 18 January 2007; Respondent SB67, personal communication, 30 September 2004; Respondent SB70, personal communication, 5 October 2004; Respondent SB76, personal communication, 16 December 2006). The magnitude of the discards varied considerably. One fisher admitted having to discard three full-boat loads of lemuru (e.g., ~90 tonnes in total) in 1 month only during the 1998 El Niño (Respondent SB70, personal communication, 5 October 2004). Another fisher acknowledged that he was used to discarding lemuru in puluhan ton (tens of tonnes) in a fishing trip during the 1991 El Niño (Respondent SB67, personal communication, 30 September 2004). In a recent El Niño event, discards and

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high-grading were also observed. For example, approximately 1,200 tonnes of lemuru were discarded in a single day in late December 2006 (Respondent SB56, personal communication, 18 January 2007), while another respondent observed that a rather large slerek fleet caught 3-boat loads of lemuru (~90 – 120 tonnes in total) and discarded/high-graded 1-boat load (~30–40 tonnes) back into the ocean on 15 December 2006 (Respondent SB76, personal communication, 16 December 2006). Accounts of discarding and high-grading in the Bali Strait are closely related to El Niño events (Buchary, 2010). Therefore, in the absence of estimations on discards and highgrading of the lemuru fishery in the Bali Strait, we use El Niño’s strength as a proxy. A global assessment of fisheries by-catch and discards estimated that, on a global scale, the ratio of discarded weight to total weight of herrings, sardines, and anchovies group (ISSCAAP7 Group 35) is 10% (Alverson et al., 1994). Using this estimation as a reference point, we assumed that when the strength of El Niño is: 1. 2. 3. 4.

moderate, discard/high-grading rate is 5%; moderate-strong, 10%; strong, 15%; and very strong, 20%.

The rate of discards and high-grading are calculated against estimated true catch. The strength of El Niño used was drawn from the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) calculated by the Bureau of Meteorology of the Australian Government (Bureau of Meteorology of Australia, 2008).

Financial state of the fishers In this study, we only examined the financial state of slerek owners. Crew members earn their personal income through the share of the total net revenue, between 1/28th–1/60th, depending on the number of the crew per fleet (i.e., 25–50+ in 2004). However, since the patron-client relationship is very strong, they also often receive various discretionary funds, bonuses, and favors from the owners (Buchary, 2010). The financial state of fishers is examined through how much their average monthly revenue is, how much cost they incur, and how much average debt they have. Revenue estimation is calculated using one of these two ways: 1. estimation using information on average monthly gross income and average monthly variable costs, whenever possible; or 2. extrapolation from the monthly average estimates of their catch/fishing-day, average fishing-days per month, and average ex-vessel price of lemuru, and adjusted with the average monthly variable costs of slerek. In the Bali Strait, it is common for fishers to have debt (Respondent SB67, personal communication, 30 September 2004; Respondent SB21, personal communication, 9 August 2004; Respondent SB24, personal communication, 10 August 2004; Respondent SB36, personal communication, 20 August 2004; Respondent SB56, personal communication, 20 September 2004). Most debt incurred is to cover the fixed costs (i.e., the cost of boats, net,

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and engines). However, when revenue is low, fishers also incur debt for variable costs (i.e., diesel fuel, kerosene for lanterns, regular net repair, labor costs, and other associated costs). Although it is common for fishers-at-large to borrow money from private financiers, viz., either from prominent individuals who are rich or from the fishing plants where they sell the fish to (Buchary, 2010), these private financiers, fish plants, and some established slerek owners also borrow from banks. It is difficult to get a firm amount for the debt that fishers incur: most respondents were unwilling (or perhaps embarrassed) to disclose the amount of their debt, although they specifically said that they usually borrow money to buy the fleet (Respondent SB67, personal communication, 30 September 2004; Respondent SB21, personal communication, 9 August 2004; Respondent SB24, personal communication, 10 August 2004; Respondent SB36, personal communication, 20 August 2004; Respondent SB56, personal communication, 20 September 2004). Thus, in this study we use the fixed cost as the debt amount: this is a conservative measure, based on the total number of units of fleet that they own. Their debt load is calculated as follows: Debt -to-assets ratio ( D / A ) =

Total Liabilities Debts = Total Assets ( Debts + Equity )

The D/A ratio reveals the extent to which a business entity is financed with debt. A healthy business has a good balance between assets provided through debt and assets provided by the owner (i.e., owner’s equity or capital). The lower the D/A ratio, the greater the chance that the business will be able to ride out rough times.

Poverty Index An index measuring relative poverty of fishers and relative debt of commercial fishing enterprise was created (Sumaila, 2003). The index provides managers with a way to measure the likely pressure on the sustainable management of fisheries that may result from poverty or debt. The index has two components: (i) for subsistence or small-scale fisheries; and (ii) for commercial or large-scale fisheries. In this study, we used the first index, which is mathematically expressed as: P – Index fishing community =

Income fishing community Income poverty line

(Sumaila, 2003)

However, since we focused on a particular fleet (i.e., slerek fleet), we re-expressed the equation to: P – Index fishing fleet =

Income fishing fleet household Income poverty line

Incomefishing fleet household denotes the average net income of slerek fleet households in the Bali Strait. We also divided this net income by the number of dependents that each household supports to get the per capita income. The fleet households used in our analyses only cover the household of fleet owners. Crew members’ households are not included in our analyses. Income poverty line is the income below which a person or family is considered to be below the poverty line in a given country. In this study we use the national poverty line for Indonesia’s rural communities (Badan Pusat Statistik, 2008).

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Results and discussion Fate of landed lemuru and distribution of reported catch In Indonesia’s fisheries statistical system, information on production means (fishing units, establishments, and fishers) is collected through frame surveys or licensing systems (especially for industrial fisheries), while catches and values are sampled in fishing ports and landing places (FAO-SEAFDEC, 2005). There are two main government bodies officially responsible for collecting, enumerating, and reporting fisheries statistics: (i) the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (or DKP); and (ii) the Central Statistical Bureau (or BPS). Both agencies have their own field enumerators (at the village level) that are responsible for collecting, enumerating, and reporting related data and information. Both agencies also have regional offices at every level of administrative jurisdiction (i.e., village, district, regency, and province, see Fig. 12.2). The fisheries field enumerators cover fisheries statistics only, while the statistical bureau field enumerators cover data and information from various sectors, including the fisheries sector. Fish landings at the government sites (i.e., fishing ports) are recorded every day by the fisheries field enumerators. These records are assembled every quarter (Respondent SB53, personal communication, 12 September 2004) for reporting to the DKP’s District Fisheries Office, and they are then submitted to their respective subsequent superiors through the official channels all the way up to the national level in Jakarta (headquarters of DKP), and eventually to the international level at FAO-UN in Rome, Italy (Fig. 12.2). Fisheries field enumerators only cover catch data at the government landing sites. The District Fisheries Office also has a collaborative link with the District Government (Kecamatan) Office that may include, among others, sharing of the fisheries landing reports. The statistical bureau field enumerators have a larger responsibility for data enumeration and collection from various sectors; in many cases they work alone in a district. Thus, they do not necessarily record the fish data themselves at government landing sites. Often, the statistical bureau field enumerator himself requests data directly from the fish plants, cold storage plants, and from the DKP’s District Fisheries Office (Respondent SB80, personal communication, 15 September 2004; Respondent SB78, personal communication, 18 October 2004) (Fig. 12.2). Once summarized and synthesized, they then periodically report their statistics data (including fisheries data) to their superiors at the BPS Regency Statistics Office, which submits them to their respective superiors through the official channels all the way up to the national level in Jakarta (headquarters of BPS), which is the national repository for cross-sectoral statistical data and indicators (Fig. 12.2). It is these data that are usually available on request by international agencies such as UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) or national agencies, such as BAPPENAS (National Development Planning Coordinating Board) who use them to implement their various mandates, such as those that fall within the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). It is important to note here that neither the statistical bureau field enumerators nor fisheries field enumerators record any landings at the unofficial scales (Respondent SB53, personal communication, 12 September 2004; Respondent SB80, personal communication, 15 September 2004).

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Fisheries Field Enumerators

District Fisheries Office

Regency Fisheries Office

Provincial Fisheries Office

DKP in Jakarta

Ministry of Marine Affairs & Fisheries Ministry of Home Affairs Central Statistical Bureau National Development Planning Coordinating Board Regional Development Planning Coordinating Board Food and Agricultural Organization of UN United Nations Development Programme of UN Millennium Development Goals

Village (Desa)

District (Kecamatan)

Regency (Kabupaten)

Provincial (Propinsi)

National (Pusat)

International (Internasional)

Governmentowned scales

Fish plants

Beach

Collaborative link

Flow of officially observed & enumerated data to enumerators Official data reporting channel (towards direction of arrow) Data request channel (towards direction of arrow)

Other entrepreneurs

Statistical Bureau Field Enumerators

Regency Statistics Office

Provincial Statistics Office

BPS in Jakarta

Beach-based traditional fishing enterprises

BAPPENAS in Jakarta

UNDP-UN (e.g.,MDG programs)

Cold storage plants

Scattered unoffcial scales

District Government Office

Regency Government Office (incl. Regency BAPPEDA)

Provincial Government Office (incl. Provincial BAPPEDA)

DEPDAGRI in Jakarta

FAO-UN (e.g.,various fisheries development programs)

Fig. 12.2 Schematic diagram of how landed lemuru in the Bali Strait are officially enumerated and how the statistics are reported and used throughout the official channels. Licensing procedures are excluded in this diagram. Unofficial scales and beach-based fishing enterprises and entrepreneurs are excluded in the official enumeration. In brackets and italics are jurisdiction names in Indonesian.

DKP: DEPDAGRI: : BPS BAPPENAS: BAPPEDA: FAO-UN: UNDP-UN: MDG:

JURISDICTION

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213

Fig. 12.3 Distribution of reported landings (tonnes) of the Sardinella lemuru from the Bali Strait, 1950 – 2001. The solid dots (•) represent reported landings from the combined government landing sites (i.e., at government fishing ports) located at the lowest level of jurisdiction, the village. Each open dot (°) represents a reported landing for a particular year by higher jurisdiction levels (i.e., district, regency, province and national). The line represents the median, while error bars denote 5 and 95 percentiles. Grey shading depicts possible range of landing distribution. Complete list of original data sources is listed in Buchary (2010).

Following the 1998 democratic reform, local governments in Indonesia gained new authority concerning marine fisheries management (Satria and Matsuda, 2004). As such, the District Government Offices also request data from the statistical bureau field enumerators (Respondent SB80, personal communication, 15 September 2004), who then submit them to their respective superiors through the official channels all the way up to the national level in Jakarta (headquarters of the Ministry of Home Affairs or DEPDAGRI), to be shared with the Regional Development Planning Coordinating Board (BAPPEDA) along the way, and ultimately to be used by the National Development Planning Coordinating Board (BAPPENAS) as well (Fig. 12.2). Looking at Fig. 12.2, in theory, results obtained through the BPS channel (enumerated by statistical bureau enumerators) should be more or less the same as the results obtained from the DKP channel (enumerated by the fisheries field enumerators), as they pertain to the same thing. In reality, they are not. A compilation of the Bali Strait lemuru catch data from 1950–2001 (comprising information from these two agencies, plus additional material from personal archives and journals, individual scientists, researchers in government agencies, and multi-agency projects, and collected from every administrative jurisdictions in the area) shows a very inconsistent picture (Fig. 12.3). In this figure, the catch data plotted for each year pertains to the same lemuru catch landed from the Strait. However, each jurisdiction and its agencies (either DKP or BPS) have dissimilar reported values, with a tendency that values reported from village level are the lowest of all. Detail analysis on the rationale of inconsistencies in data reporting throughout different levels of administrative jurisdictions is discussed elsewhere (Buchary, 2010).

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Estimated true catch On an average fishing-day, about 30% by weight is diverted from the total catch prior to landing as take-home (Respondent SB53, personal communication, 3 July 2002; Respondent SB35, personal communication, 19 August 2004; Respondent SB56, personal communication, 30 June 2007). This may seem a large amount. However, considering the number of people involved, the amount is a reasonable figure for incentives, in-kind payment, and as “give-away” to 85–112 persons each time: 25–50+ crew members in each fleet, a group of 12 fish porters per fleet, a group of 6 boat scrubbers/cleaners per fleet, 2–4 fish unloaders per fleet, and about 40+ women and children who swarm around the fleet once they drop anchor (Buchary, 2010). Therefore, on average, we estimate that only 70% of the total fish catch gets as far as the weighing scales (viz., landed). Nevertheless, significant amounts of these landed catches are landed in unofficial sites, and those that are landed in official sites are either under-reported or misreported. The level of actual reporting that fishers do varies according to whether or not they made any money the previous month (Respondent SB35, personal communication, 19 August 2004). On average, after a 30% take-home amount, fishing fleet owners would only report about 70% of what they actually landed: the minimum amount that they report is 50% and the maximum amount that they report is 75% (Respondent SB35, personal communication, 19 August 2004). Thus, using narrative accounts about unreported amount of catches (Respondent SB35, personal communication, 19 August 2004; Respondent SB75, personal communication, 13 October 2004), we estimated that only 28–56% (“best guess” at 45%) of what is actually caught is landed at official landing sites during average fishing-day, while 14–42% (“best guess” at 26%) likely arrive at unofficial landing sites/scales (Fig. 12.4, for details see Buchary, 2010).

Cold storage plants

(2) Fish plants

(4) l

Loca

Governmentowned scales

(3) Other entrepreneurs

Scattered unofficial scales (1) Ta ho ke m e

al

ion

g Re

Beach-based traditional fishing enterprises

~ 28–56% ~ 14–42%

~ 30%

Fate of landed fish (length & width of arrows are not significant) Beach

Fig. 12.4 Schematic diagram of the fate of caught lemuru once landed: (1) take-home fish refers to unaccounted fish given to crew members, boat cleaners, fish unloaders and fish porters as in-kind payment and bonus, and also to fish that were asked by women and children (Buchary, 2010); (2) including canneries, fish meal and pellet producers; (3) including brokers/dealers, buyers/processors, retailers and private financiers; and (4) fish are traded either back into the system (local) or go out of the system (regional).

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Fig. 12.5 Estimated true catch of the lemuru from the Bali Strait, 1950–2001. Black line denotes mean of 5,000 Monte Carlo runs, and error bars denote 5 and 95 percentiles. The grey line denotes official records (median, from Figure 12.3). Grey shading depicts possible range of estimated true catch distribution.

After taking into account discards and high-grading during El Niño years8 (1972, 1973, 1977, 1978, 1982, 1983, 1987, 1988, 1991–1995, 1997, and 1998), our Monte Carlo simulation outputs suggest an estimated true catch (Fig. 12.5) that is much higher, 2 to 3 times than what was reported in the official records (i.e., median values, from Fig. 12.3). Various factors affect why fishers under-report their catch and land their catches in non-government landing sites. Lack of government landing facilities is the most often cited reason. For example, in the Muncar district, there are only eight governmentowned scales available for the sheer amount of lemuru landed everyday. Thus, unofficial scales have sprouted up everywhere; we noted that there were about 47–65 scales in any given fishing-day during 5 censuses in 2004 and 2006 (Buchary, 2010). However, the main reason why fishers under-report their catches is financial insecurity (Respondent SB35, personal communication, 19 August 2004; Respondent SB75, personal communication, 13 October 2004). In the day-to-day life of the fishing communities, given the uncertainty in fish catch, unavailability of government social safety net, an almost nonexistent financial access for the fishers-at-large, and the obligation to pay landing tax, catch reporting is being used by the fishers as a way to protect themselves against uncertainty and poverty.

Financial insecurity: lending schemes and debt-to-assets ratio Most of Indonesia’s banks do not easily lend money to fishers, unless they have solid equity that can be used as collateral. Even then, the interest rate applied is high. Bank Indonesia, the country’s central bank, has developed 70 lending models for small-scale and

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Rattan & wood crafts Enbroidery Batik Cow (meat) Chicken (eggs) Coffee beans (Arabica) Cacao beans Corn Soya Grouper ranching/mariculture Pearl farm Seaweed Marine capture fisheries (7 - 30GT boats) 0

5

10

15 20 25 30 Rate (% per annum)

35

4

Fig. 12.6 Some examples of lending model schemes for small-scale and medium-scale enterprises developed by Bank Indonesia (Bank Indonesia, 2008a). The black circles (•) represent average loan interest rates (%, per annum) suggested by the Bank. The grey line represents a range of suggested loan interest rates for the small- and medium-scale marine capture fisheries sector. Each bar represents suggested discount factor in the NPV analysis for different lending model schemes.

medium-scale enterprises (Bank Indonesia, 2008a). The aim of these lending models is to provide loan templates for potential borrowers and the banks in preparing for a loan application. One of the models described (Fig. 12.6) is for small- and medium-scale fishing enterprise (i.e., 7–30 GT boats). In their financial analyses (Bank Indonesia, 2008b), a discount factor of 24% is used for the net present value (NPV) analysis of this model, both for investment credit (i.e., fixed costs) and working capital credit (i.e., variable costs). The range of interest rate proposed is from 16–38% p.a., with an average of 24% p.a. (Fig. 12.6, also see Bank Indonesia, 2008b). These rates are higher than most rates of other lending models (Fig. 12.6). The rates proposed for the fishing enterprises model are second only to those for the grouper ranching/mariculture model. Loan payment schedules for small- and medium-scale enterprises in the Indonesian banking system are also constrained by the fact that there is a maximum limit as to how much borrowers can pay for their loan repayment instalments; the limit is 33% of their gross revenue (Salam, personal communication, 20 June 2008).9 From fieldwork interviews, it seems that fishers and the fishing community at large lack the basic knowledge of banking system and financial management. For example, when asked about the rate of interest that they have to pay to the bank, most of them stated the monthly nominal amount that they have to pay. Most fishers cannot decipher the meaning of compounding interest rate. They understand what it means to periodically pay some nominal amount for loan interest, but they cannot discern the grave consequences of having a line of credit with a compounding interest rate of 16–38% pa. Under these rates and loan payment schedule system, borrowers are vulnerable. At times when revenue is low (e.g., when weather is bad for fishing), interest rates continue to compound. The costs of procuring a complete set of one unit of the slerek fleet is about 200–300

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Debt-to-Asset Ratio (%)

90 80 70 60 50 40 Corporate sector (median)

30 20

Slerek (min)

10

Slerek (max)

0 2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

Year Fig. 12.7 Comparison of estimated range of debt-to-asset ratios of slerek fishing households (this study) after the increase of fuel price with the median of debt-to-asset ratios of all publicly listed companies in Indonesia, 2001–2004 (The World Bank, 2009).

million IDR, or USD 23,000–34,000 (in 2004 values). Most slerek owners have 1–2 units, but a few have up to 4–5 units. Based on these, our preliminary estimation suggests that post-fuel price increase, the average debt-to-assets (D/A) ratio of slerek fleet owners, is about 71–84%. This is much higher than the median D/A ratios for all publicly listed companies in Indonesia (Fig. 12.7), which have a range of D/A ratios of 41–33.5% during 2001–2004 (The World Bank, 2009). Financial insecurity became the main issue in the daily life of fishing communities (Respondent SB56, personal communication, 20 June 2008) when the Indonesian government reduced the fuel price subsidy and increased average fuel price by 125% in March 2005 (The Jakarta Post Online, 2005). The subsidy reduction was incremental; by 2007–2008 diesel fuel price was three times as much as it was in 2004 (PT. Pertamina (Persero), 2008), up from USD 0.18/liter to USD 0.60/liter. The average monthly operating cost for a fleet was about 30–40 million IDR, or USD 3,400–4,500 in 2004. Assuming the same fishing frequency and distance of fishing, by 2006 it had risen to 90–120 million IDR, or USD 9,300–12,000.

Measuring relative poverty in fisheries Using information we have on average net income of slerek owners’ households and average poverty line for rural Indonesia (Fig. 12.8), we found that the poverty index for slerek owners plunged from 25.7 (range 19.8–31.5) in 2004, to −8.6 (range 0.9 to −16.3) in 2008 (Fig. 12.9). In other words, slerek owners were about 26 times richer than the average rural person in 2004, but became about 9 times poorer than the average rural person in 2008. By mid-2008, many slerek fleet owners had reduced their fishing-days. Even if they go fishing when they feel the weather is right, their net revenue is diminished considerably due to the sky-rocketing costs (Respondent SB56, personal communication, 20 June 2008).

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'000 Rupiah / capita / month

180 ± USD18/capita/month in 2008

160 140 120

± USD12/capita/month in 2004

100 80 60 40 20 0 1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1990

2000

2005

2010

Year Fig 12.8 National poverty line of rural Indonesia, 1976–2008. The poverty line data were available from 1976 –2008 (Badan Pusat Statistik, 2008), with observations conducted every three years from 1976 to 1997, and annually from 1998–2008. Data gaps from 1976–1997 were computed using simple interpolation based on the rate of change of poverty line levels between neighboring years, assuming that the inter-annual changes in poverty level are relatively linear. 40 30

P-index

20 10 0 2002

2004

2006

2008

–10 –20 Year Fig 12.9 Relative changes of poverty index (P-Index) among slerek fishing fleet owners in the Bali Strait, 2004–2008, as compared to Indonesia’s rural population. The grey horizontal line slightly abve the x-axis indicates P-Index = 1. Area inside the trapezium shows possible range of estimated poverty indices.

Conclusions In this study we show that the domestic fishing fleet contribution to IUU fishing is considerable. Our estimates suggest that the true catch of lemuru from the Bali Strait is likely to be about 2–3 times the official reported catch. This is possible not only because of the lack of government landing facility and other technical issues, but also because fishers use their catch reporting as a strategy to guard against uncertainty and poverty. In his 2003 paper, Sumaila (2003: 1) argues that “high poverty levels among subsistence fishers make them have high discount rates, rates that may be larger than the official rates of the countries where

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these fishers reside.” The NPV discount factor suggested by the Indonesia’s Central Bank for loan application for small- and medium-scale fishing enterprises was 24% p.a., while the range of loan interest rate proposed by the Central Bank is from 16–38% p.a. Therefore, it is safe to assume that the personal discount rates for the fishers are higher than these. This in turn will continue drive the rate of catch under-reporting, misreporting, and non-reporting. To help with these issues, we make some recommendations. In light of the poverty situation among the slerek fishing communities, we suggest that restructuring the prevailing financial schemes may provide some level of financial security and thus may help in improving the accuracy of catch reporting. In addition, temporary exemption of landing tax for boats less than and up to 30 GT (i.e., medium-scale boats) during current economic rough times might also help – with the caveat that should economic conditions improve, the landing tax should be reinstated. Improvement of economic condition can be measured, among others, by the poverty index. The total monies collected from the landing tax are not, in any case, significant. The average contribution from Indonesia’s fisheries sector to the national gross domestic product is around 2% (Fauzi, 2003). This suggests that either the economic performance of the fisheries sector is still low, or that under-reporting and unreporting of catches is so rampant that the landing tax collected does not reflect the actual amount of fish catches. Effective implementation of alternative and supplemental livelihood options, specifically tied to micro-credit schemes, may also help. When implemented effectively (i.e., those implemented by the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, http://www.grameen-info.org/), micro-credit schemes not only increase the financial resilience of fishers, but also provide new opportunities for them to give value-added to their catches. Lastly, as most fishers lack basic knowledge of the banking system and financial management, increasing their skills in these would help them in the long run. Finally, we note that the values calculated in this study are intended to provide a starting point for further discussion and amendment on the impact of IUU fishing within domestic fishing fleets in Indonesia.

Acknowledgements We are deeply grateful for the warm hospitality and generosity of the fishing communities in Banyuwangi and Jembrana regencies for sharing their life experience, their valuable time, and their perspectives. EAB thanks Mr. Ir. Abdul Muis, S. P., M. Si. and Ms. Uma Khumairoh, S.P., the two dedicated field research assistants, without which this research would not have been possible. Acknowledgements are also due to Respondent SB75, a former chief of a government landing site in the study area, who kindly donated his own copies of the 1975 to 1996 archived sets of recorded catches at government landing sites used in Fig. 12.3, Respondents SB56, SB70, and SB73, all slerek owners, for donating their personal logbooks for our catch analyses, Mr. Yusmansyah, S. Pi., M. Sc., and Mr. Ir. Dewa Gede Raka Wiadnya, M. Sc., of the Faculty of Fisheries, at the University of Brawijaya, Malang, East Java, Indonesia, for providing access to provincial fisheries catch database used in Fig. 12.3, and Dr. Jackie Alder of the Fisheries Centre of the University of British Columbia, Canada for providing access to the national fisheries catch statistics used in Fig. 12.3. More

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acknowledgements are also due to Dr. Jon Wittwer of Vertex, 42 LLC for his technical help in Monte Carlo simulations, Mr. Jeff Ferrara of GeoEye, Inc. for his technical help on the satellite imagery archives of the study area, Dr. Subhat Nurhakim of Indonesia’s Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries for his insights on Indonesian fisheries system, Mr. Rahman Salam, S. H., M. Eng., of the Organization for Small and Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, Japan, for the insightful discussions on Indonesian banking and financial system, and Mr. Deddy Riyadi, partner of Cyenno Consultant and management consultant and entrepreneur based in Jakarta, Indonesia, for his insights on Indonesia’s corporate management system and entrepreneurship. Thanks are also due to Mrs. Margaret North, Dr. Robert North, Mr. John Nixon, and Ms. Kerrie O’Donnell for reading and commenting the earlier versions of the manuscript. EAB received the Doctoral Research Award Grant (No. 101924-99906075-019) from the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada (www.idrc.ca) for the fieldwork. Additional funding for EAB supporting the fieldwork and the research-at-large are also acknowledged from Fisheries Centre Trust Fund, University Graduate Fellowship of the University of British Columbia, Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Research Fellowship awarded through TJP, and Canada Study Grant for Female Doctoral Students. EAB also acknowledge Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for the travel award to present this paper at the “Coping with global change in marine social-ecological systems” at the FAO-UN, Rome, Italy in July 2008. The fieldwork protocols had been approved and certified by the Behavioural Research Ethics Board of the University of British Columbia (BREB-UBC), Vancouver, Canada. Research permits from various administrative jurisdictions of the study area had also been acquired prior to starting the pilot and actual fieldwork. This study is part of a Ph.D. dissertation of EAB at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

Endnotes 1. Senior Scientist at the Research Centre for Capture Fisheries of Indonesia’s Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries. 2. Former Chief of Research Centre for Capture Fisheries of Indonesia’s Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries. 3. Based on observations of discussions in the Illegal Fishing Indonesia Yahoo Group (http://asia. groups.yahoo.com/group/Illegal_Fishing_Indonesia/), of which the first author is a member. The internet-based group comprises Indonesians of various professional backgrounds (i.e., academics, NGOs, fisheries managers, fishing industry, students, government officers, etc.) who have concerns on IUU fishing in Indonesia and other current issues in marine fisheries and marine ecosystem/environment. 4. In Indonesia’s fisheries system, medium-scale fishing fleets include privately-owned (as opposed to company-owned) boats, of generally less than 5 gross tonnes (GT) and up to 30 GT, that mostly use inboard engines. Medium-scale fishing boats tend to have access to few or none of the shorebased amenities such as ice plants, cold storage facilities, or workshops. A fisher usually owns one or, at the most, a few fishing units. 5. Unfortunately, progression of fishing boat size is not monitored in Indonesia. Often the case, a fishing boat with a size greater than 30GT would still carry a medium-scale boat license,

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6. 7. 8.

9.

221

which is the original license of the boat when it was first issued many years ago when the boat was still under 30GT. This is a practice that can be considered a form of IUU fishing among domestic fishing fleet and is discussed elsewhere (Buchary et al., 2008). The scope of unreported catch due to boat size discrepancy in this study has been accounted for in the true catch estimation. Notably tallying the total numbers of government scales vis-à-vis private scales in landing sites and fishing ports. International Standard Statistical Classification of Aquatic Animals and Plants of FAO-UN. Used in the FAO Year Books and in FAO Aquaculture Production Statistics. The year of 1965 and 1966 were also El Niño years. However, respondents’ accounts indicate that fishing was very low, as there were pogroms in East Java and Bali during 1965–1966. Thus, these two years are excluded in discards and high-grading adjustments. Rahman Salam, S.H., M.Eng., Indonesia-based International Business Advisor for the Organization for Small and Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, Japan (SMRJ).

References Ainsworth, C. H. (2004) How we carried out “Back-to-the-Future” Community Interviews. In: Back to the Future: Advances in Methodology for Modelling and Evaluating Past Ecosystems as Future Policy Goals (ed. T. J. Pitcher), Vol. 12(1), Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC, pp. 117–125. Ainsworth, C. H. and Pitcher, T. J. (2005) Estimating illegal, unreported and unregulated catch in British Columbia’s marine fisheries. Fisheries Research 75(1–3), 40–55. Alverson, D. L., Freeberg, M. H., Pope, J. G. and Murawski, S. A. (1994) A global assessment of fisheries bycatch and discards, FAO Fisheries Technical Paper (Rome, Italy: Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), p. 233. Babbie, E. (1989) The Practice of Social Research, 5th edn. Wadsworth, Belmonth CA. Badan Pusat Statistik (2008) Perkembangan beberapa indikator utama sosial-ekonomi Indonesia [Trends of the selected socio-economics indicators of Indonesia]. Jakarta, Indonesia: Badan Pusat Statistik (Statistics Indonesia). Bank Indonesia (2008a) Lending Model Information System for Small-Scale Enterprises. Retrieved 20 June 2008, from http://www.bi.go.id/sipuk/en/index.asp?id=4andno=94 Bank Indonesia (2008b) Lending Model Information System for Small-Scale Enterprises: Sea-Fish Catching. Retrieved 20 June 2008, from http://www.bi.go.id/sipuk/en/?id=4andno=40118and idrb=43501 Buchary, E. A. (2010) In search of viable policy options for responsible use of sardine resources in the Bali Strait, Indonesia. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Resource Management and Environmental Studies, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC, 400 pp. URL: http:// hdl.handle.net/2429/21645 Buchary, E. A., Pitcher, T. J. and Willoughby, N. (2008) Indonesia’s non-recorded fish problem revisited. In: Assessing Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishery Catches (IUU): Some case studies (eds D. Kalikoski and T. J. Pitcher), Vol. 16(5), Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC (in press). Bureau of Meteorology of Australia. (2008) El Niño – Detailed Australian Analysis. Retrieved 1 November 2008, from http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/australia_detail.shtml Burhanuddin and Praseno, D. P. (1982) Lingkungan perairan Selat Bali (The marine environment of the Bali Strait), Proceedings of Lemuru Fisheries. Banyuwangi, Indonesia: Puslitbangkan, Badan Balitbangtan, Deptan (Jakarta), Seminar, pp. 27–36.

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Cheung, W. L. and Sadovy, Y. (2004) Retrospective evaluation of data-limited fisheries: a case from Hong Kong. Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries 14, 181–206. Damanik, R., Suhana and Prasetiamartati, B. (2008) Menjala ikan terakhir: sebuah fakta krisis di laut Indonesia [Netting the last fish: a crises fact in Indonesian seas]. Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia (WALHI), Jakarta, Indonesia. Emmerson, D. K. (1987) Orders of meaning: understanding political change in a fishing community in Indonesia. In: Interpreting Indonesian Politics: Thirteen Contributions to the Debate. Interim Report Series (Publication No. 62) (eds B. Anderson and A. Kahin), Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, pp. 149–164. FAO-SEAFDEC (2005) Improvement of Fishery Data and Information Collection Systems in Southeast Asia: Proceedings of the FAO/SEAFDEC Regional Workshop on the Improvement of Fishery Data and Information Collection Systems, Bali, Indonesia, 15–18 February 2005. Vol. 2: Regional Synthesis and Country Papers. FAO/SEAFDEC Regional Workshop on the Improvement of Fishery Data and Information Collection Systems. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Bali, Indonesia, 174 pp. Fauzi, A. (2003). “Turning the Tide” Kebijakan Ekonomi Perikanan (“Turning the tide” for fisheries economic policy). Kompas Daily News, 30 July. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2002) Stopping illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. Rome, Italy: Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). Forrest, R., Pitcher, T. J., Watson, R., Valtýsson, H. and Guénette, S. (2001) Estimating illegal and unreported catches from marine ecosystems: two case studies. In: Fisheries Impacts on North Atlantic Ecosystems: Evaluations and Policy Explorations (eds T. J. Pitcher, U. R. Sumaila and D. Pauly), Vol. 9(5), Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC, pp. 81–93. Ghofar, A., Mathews, C. P., Merta, I. G. S. and Salim, S. (2000) Incorporating the Southern Oscillation Indices to the management model of the Bali Strait Sardinella Fishery. In: FISHCODE Management: Papers Presented at the Workshop on the Fishery and Management of Bali Sardinella (Sardinella lemuru) in Bali Strait. GCP/INT/648/NOR Field Report F-3-Suppl. (En), (ed. FAO/NGCP), Rome, Italy: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), pp. 43–52. Hendiarti, N., Suwarso, Aldrian, E. et al. (2005) Seasonal variation of pelagic fish catch around Java. Oceanography 18(4), 113–123. Kompas (1974a) Kalau perlu: kapal-kapal asing pencuri ikan akan dibakar dan ditenggelamkan (If needed: foreign fishing fleets that illegally catch our fish would be burned and sunk). Kompas Daily News, 29 July. Kompas (1974b) Kemampuan patroli laut kita yang harus ditingkatkan: kalau mau mencegah pencurian ikan di laut kita (We have to increase the capacity of our patrol boats: if we want to curb illegal fishing in our seas). Kompas Daily News, 24 July. Kompas Online (2008) 3.000 Kapal Thailand tangkap ikan secara ilegal (3,000 Thai boats illegally caught fish). Retrieved 21 November, from http://www.kompas.com/read/xml/2008/05/ 17/16274497/3.000.kapal.thailand.tangkap.ikan.secara.ilegal, 7 May. Merta, I. G. S., Widana, K., Yunizal and Basuki, R. (2000) Status of the lemuru fishery in Bali Strait: its development and prospects. In: FISHCODE Management: Papers Presented at the Workshop on the Fishery and Management of Bali Sardinella (Sardinella lemuru) in Bali Strait. GCP/ INT/648/NOR Field Report F-3-Suppl. (En) (ed. FAO/NGCP), Rome, Italy: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), pp. 1–42. Morgan, D. L. and Krueger, R. A. (1998) The Focus Group Kit. Sage Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks CA. Neis, B., Schneider, D. C., Felt, L., Haedrich, R. L., Fischer, J. and Hutchings, J. A. (1999) Fisheries assessment: what can be learned from interviewing resource users? Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 56, 1949–1963.

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Pitcher, T. J., Watson, R., Forrest, R., Valtýsson, H. and Guénette, S. (2002) Estimating illegal and unreported catches from marine ecosystems: a basis for change. Fish and Fisheries 3, 317–339. PT. Pertamina (Persero) (2008) Perkembangan Harga Bahan Bakar Minyak (Trend of Fuel Price). Retrieved 29 November from http://www.pertamina.com/index.php?option=com_contentandtask =categoryandsectionid=24andid=125andItemid=846 Ritterbush, S. W. (1974) Certain aspects of the population biology of the Bali Strait Lemuru fishery. Unpublished M.Sc. Thesis, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, USA. Saliyo, B. (1973) Keadaan oseanografi daerah-daerah penangkapan ikan lemuru di Selat Bali [Oceanographic condition of lemuru fishing grounds in the Bali Strait] Lembaga Penelitian Perikanan Laut (Marine Fisheries Research Council), Jakarta, Indonesia, pp. 1–16. Satria, A. and Matsuda, Y. (2004). Decentralization of fisheries management in Indonesia. Marine Policy 28(5), 450. Soemarto (1960) Craft and gear utilized in the sardine fishery at Muntjar, Indonesia. In: Proceedings of the World Scientific Meeting on the Biology of Sardines and Related Species, Vol. II: Species Synopses and Subject Synopses (eds H. Rosa, Jr. and G. Murphy), Rome, Italy: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), pp. 1247–1264. Sularso, A. (2008) Artisanal fisheries in Indonesia. Retrieved 22 November from http://www.imcsnet.org/imcs/docs/small_scale_artisanal_fisheries_indonesia_sulaeso.pdf Sumaila, U. R. (2003) An economic indicator for monitoring fishing pressure on marine ecosystems. Retrieved 22 November 2008 from http://filaman.uni-kiel.de/ecofish/reports/rashid.pdf The Jakarta Post Online (2005) Slashing the fuel subsidy. Retrieved 29 November 2008 from http:// www.thejakartapost.com/news/2005/10/03/slashing-fuel-subsidy.html, 10 March. The World Bank (2009) Corporate data sector report, 2001–2004. Retrieved 26 April from http://ddp-ext.worldbank.org/ext/ddpreports/ViewSharedReport?andCF=andREPORT_ID= 5964andREQUEST_TYPE=VIEWADVANCEDandHF=N Wudianto (2001) Analisis sebaran dan kelimpahan ikan lemuru (Sardinella lemuru, Bleeker 1853) di perairan Selat Bali: kaitannya dengan optimasi penangkapan. [The analysis of distribution and abundance of lemuru (Sardinella lemuru, Bleeker 1853) in the Bali Strait: its relation with catch optimization]. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Bogor Agricultural University, Bogor, Indonesia. Wyrtki, K. (1961) Physical oceanography of Southeast Asian waters, Naga Report, Vol. 2, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, San Diego CA, 195 p.

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Chapter 13

“You Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til it’s Gone” The Case for Spiritual Values in Marine Ecosystem Management Nigel Haggan Abstract Belief in the spiritual value of nature is most often associated with Aboriginal people, but is common to major religions and many people with no religious affiliation. This chapter traces the origin of whole ecosystem evaluation from the 1950s to the development of the “total economic value” and “ecosystem services” frameworks. I argue that debates over which categories are valid, summation methods, and concerns about “double counting” miss the larger question of whether the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I review the case for and against inclusion of spiritual value and conclude that it has significant potential to express the intrinsic value of species and landscape and the totality to which they belong. Keywords: Ecosystem, intrinsic value, instrumental value, spiritual value, Pacific Northwest, Aboriginal, eco-theology

Introduction …you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone They paved paradise and put up a parking lot… (Mitchell, 1970). When Aboriginal leaders speak of spiritual values, politicians listen, but the memory fades fast in face of competing claims of constituents. When conservation organizations speak of intrinsic value, many eyes glaze over. Joni Mitchell’s lament for lost spaces and threatened species (Mitchell, 1970) speaks to a growing public unease that can be stated neutrally as concern about the rate of human encroachment on nature, but equally as grief at the loss of sacred spaces. I argue that spiritual value resides in those species, places, and qualities that shape our identity, community and, in a wider sense, our place and purpose in the universe. How it is expressed varies dramatically with social, religious, and ecological context. Apparent World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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inconsistency and association with minorities or fundamentalists makes it easy to reject spiritual values as inappropriate to the decision-making process in a pluralistic society (Brunk, 2004), but this can lead to over-reliance on methods designed to convert such values to monetary equivalents (Sagoff, 1998, 2007; Ludwig, 2000). Some reject the entire economic valuation project when it comes to nature (McCauley, 2006), as in Michael Toman’s famous dismissal of a US $33 trillion estimate of the Earth’s ecosystem services (Costanza et al., 1997) as “a serious underestimate of infinity” (Toman, 1998). The danger of ascribing infinite value is that economists may well reject such values as “irrational” (Sagoff, 1998; Ludwig, 2000), or exclude them because no mechanism exists to take infinite values into account. Belief in the spiritual value of nature is not inconsistent with use, but does encourage ethics of respect, gratitude, and reciprocity that constrain excessive or destructive use. I ask: Do concepts such as “total economic value” (NRC, 2005: 44–47) and “ecosystem services” (Costanza et al., 1997; Daily, 1997) provide adequate recognition of the spiritual value of nature? If not, can a cogent case be made to overcome the problems that intolerance, persecution, and the forced imposition of outdated models of “reality” (e.g., “creationism” and the crusade to equate the “market economy” with the “free world”) pose for the incorporation of spiritual values into public policy? Aboriginal people, species, and landscape in the Pacific Northwest reshaped each other in the thousands of years before European contact (Anderson, 2005; Mann, 2005; Turner, 2005), creating multiple ways of understanding the world that can be collectively described as the “Ethnosphere” (Davis, 2001). I would go further: over long periods of time, people, species, and landscape transform each other, so that after hundreds to thousands of years, none of them are what they were at the beginning (Fig. 13.1). The extent to which marine

CLIMATE & CATASTROPHE (Ice Age/Earthquake/Tsunamis/Volcanoes)

LAND & SEASCAPES Climate Natural variability Interact Modify Adapt KNOWLEDGE PEOPLE Exploration Migration Trade, War Intermarriage

Keystone spp. Range shift Culture Succession Spirituality Language Economy

Manage Enhance Modify

BIOTA Cultural keystone species

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Fig. 13.1 Interaction between people, territory, biota and ‘surprise’ (sensu Holling 1986).

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species were modified is only beginning to be understood (Harper et al., 1995; Haggan et al., 2006; Williams, 2006; Erlandson and Rick, 2008). The spiritual value of nature might be described as a relationship that we perceive between ourselves, other living creatures, and the physical environment. “Nature” as a realm governed by immutable laws and understood only by natural scientists whose business is to discover facts, which they believe must forever change the way politics and business is done, is a dysfunctional modern concept. This is attested by the equal frustration of scientists, politicians, and business (Latour, 2004). In contrast, the pre-modern world was made up of different relationships between people, environment, and biota. Humans like to see themselves as in charge but, as Michael Pollan (2001) mischievously suggests, corn and wheat have hoodwinked us into transforming much of a planet for their benefit. It might amuse the Aztec corn god that North Americans eat more corn than his ancient adherents (Pollan, 2006); he would be less amused that transforming corn into biofuel was raising the price of tacos for their descendants. Corn or potatoes in Latin America, yams for the people of the South Pacific, and salmon in the Pacific Northwest, are not facts reducible to genus and species. They were and are spiritual beings who could be persuaded to cooperate, and which changed in abundance, form, time of appearance, taste, and texture from year to year.

Golden Rule #1: Love your neighbor as yourself The Pacific Northwest coast had three periods of “transformation”, which we may characterize by different “Golden Rules”. A close relationship manifests in Aboriginal themes of transformation (Plate 9 in the color plate section) between humans, environment, and other species as spiritual beings (Jones and Williams-Davidson, 2000; Trosper, 2003), respect for the “personhood” of non-human life forms, and in sentient landscapes (Povinelli, 1995; Basso, 1996; Cruikshank, 2005). In Aboriginal cultures, salmon and other species were regarded as spiritual beings with power to punish greed, waste, or disrespect (Jones and Williams-Davidson, 2000; Trosper, 2003). Appropriate expressions of respect and thanks accompanied all uses of the natural world (Boas, 1921). Salmon were also a major contributor to food and social security, wealth, and status (Trosper, 2003; Haggan et al., 2006; Trosper, 2009). This reciprocal relationship corresponds to the Golden Rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself ” common to Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and almost if not all major religions (Beversluis, 2000; Swidler, 2006), often with the direction that “neighbor” is to extend beyond family and friends to encompass even enemies and particularly the poor. Major differences between pre- and post European contact societies reside in the locus, use, and flow of wealth and the options available. Traditional coastal societies were organized along the lines of house territories (Marsden and Galois, 1995; Sterritt et al., 1998; McMillan, 1999). While leadership was hereditary, leaders who failed to maintain or increase and distribute wealth could be replaced, a critical distinction from the western concept of ownership (Trosper, 2009). Extended kinship and intermarriage contributed to food and territorial security (Trosper, 2003). This system of distribution is characteristic of many tribal societies (Ommer and Turner, 2004).

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Golden Rule #2: The one with the gold makes the rules The near annihilation of Aboriginal populations by old world diseases (Boyd, 1999) and European settlement ushered in a “biotic-commodification” period based on high rates of exploitation of seals, sea otters, whales, fish, and forests. The commercial fishery “transformed” salmon and other species from spiritual beings to commodities. Wealth flowed off tribal lands into a global economy. Golden rule #2: “The one with the gold makes the rules” drove the politics that alienated Aboriginal people from the wealth of their lands and waters. By 1992, Aboriginal people had been reduced to a 5% share of the salmon fishery (Pearse and Larkin, 1992). Loss of management control to settler government and inability to distribute wealth were profoundly destructive of traditional management and government systems (Harris, 2001). Aboriginal people have been marginalized in most fisheries by limited entry licensing schemes and being bought out by corporations in hard times. They are effectively excluded from quota fisheries by extremely high prices (Haggan and Neis, 2007).

Golden Rule #3: The gold goes where the gold grows The late 20th and early 21st century economy of coastal BC is one of “multiple uses of ocean space”, where other economic sectors dwarf fisheries (Haggan et al., 2009) and geopolitical considerations such as climate change and the opening of the Northwest Passage take centre stage (Ommer et al., 2007: 438). Figure 13.2 shows that commercial fisheries now constitute less than 0.1% of GDP, less than the contribution of farmed salmon. The growth of other economic sectors presented investment options that did not exist prior to European contact. Fisheries economist Colin Clark (1973a,b) describes the “economics of overexploitation” and extinction that drive industrial fishing: … the principal shortcoming of the existing theories is their disregard of the time variable, both biologically and economically… It denies the fundamental principles of economics itself to overlook the latter effect, and that is just what the rule of maximizing rent does (Clark, 1973b). Clark’s theorem states that extinction is likely whenever people are only prepared to wait half as long for their money as it takes the whales or fish to grow. Almost 20 years later, Munro (1992) remarked with asperity that although Clark’s work was widely cited: “The static economic model of the fishery appeared to go on seemingly unscathed.” Thirty-four years later Grafton et al. (2007) claimed that Clark’s theorem was of only academic interest, and that property rights would protect even slow-growing species from extinction. In response, Clark and colleagues (2010) modeled the growth rate of over 1,000 species. They concluded that private ownership might be justified for just one extremely rapidly growing species, but would be “supreme folly” for slow-growing fish such as orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus) and sablefish (Anopoploma fimbria): Aesthetic or moral questions aside, the decision to exterminate a species is an irreversible decision that can only be justified in economic terms if we are certain that present conditions will persist into the distant future (Clark, 1990: 41).

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0.25%

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Fig. 13.2 Percentage of British Columbia’s GDP contributed by wild fisheries compared with farmed salmon, 1996–2005. Data source BC Statistics and Stats Canada.

Clark’s theorem is a modification of the “golden rule equation” (Munro, 1992; Clark et al. 2010), which tells an investor when it is time to liquidate one asset and diversify into others. I restate the “modified golden rule” as: “The gold goes where the gold grows”. Maintaining fish populations into the far future makes sense for indigenous people who depend on fish for their “cultural and physical survival” (Canada, 1990) or for permanent communities that depend on fishing. Extinction may well be “economically rational” for the owners of corporate fleets that are the marine face of “footloose capital” (Ommer, 2000). Not all depletion is caused by corporate fleets, but the depletion of fish populations by large vessels is a major cause of the poverty that drives indigenous, artisanal, and subsistence fishers to overexploit populations which they have used sustainably over long periods of time (Kaczynski and Fluharty, 2002; Alder and Sumaila, 2004), with a “knock-on effect” on terrestrial species or “bushmeat” (Robinson and Bennett, 2000; Brashares et al., 2004).

Concepts of value Intrinsic value is the value of something in and of itself, without reference to any real or perceived use to humans (NRC, 2005: 35). Intrinsic value includes non-anthropocentric values (NRC, 2005), i.e., more than just the values ecosystems provide to humans (Pimentel, 1998). Instrumental value lies in the usefulness of things as a means to an end. Intrinsic and instrumental values are thus in tension. Intrinsic value is often associated with Immanuel Kant, who restricted it to “rational” humans (NRC, 2005: 36). Wood (1998) argues persuasively that Kant’s reasoning would extend intrinsic value to all humans, species, and ecosystems. Marilyn Cash (2002) makes the specific argument for women. What has intrinsic value is not mere existence or mere life, or therefore continued existence or continued life, but quality of life, not only of present, but also of future flourishing lives of individual members of the species and ecosystems (Attfield, 1998). “Flourishing” as opposed to “mere existence” is a criterion of spiritual value (McFague, 1993; Callicott, 1994: 121–122; Lucas, 2008). Existence value as used in whole ecosystem evaluation is defined as the amount that people are willing to pay to ensure that a species or landscape continues to exist.

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While spiritual value is found in individual species, the idea that spirit flows through and enlivens all things finds expression in and outside of indigenous spirituality and formal religion. The concept of an enlivening spirit is common to many cultures – “Chi” or “Qi” in Taoism, “Prana” or “Shakti” in India, the Great Spirit in certain North American Aboriginal cultures (Callicott, 1994: 121), “Mana” in Hawai’i (O’Connell, 2008), and “Mauri” in New Zealand (Durie and Hermansson, 1990). Belief in the spiritual value of nature is widespread among people who deny any religious affiliation (Shibley, 2004). Reverence for life and the universe, outside of the “supernatural” defined as events that defy the laws of science, is expressed by scientists from Einstein’s “cosmic religious feeling” (Einstein, 1954) to Dawkins “reverence for life” (Gledhill, 2007) and in poets (Oliver, 1992), writers (Butala, 1994: 21–22), and other forms of art. Those who find belief in spirit permeating the cosmos hard to swallow may consider how their credit cards are manifestations of a global financial system based on faith in the economy.

The roots of whole ecosystem evaluation The development of whole ecosystem evaluation is rooted in the 1950s debate about population growth and how best to use and protect the natural environment. By the 1960s and early 1970s, attention focused on the impact of population growth on the coastal zone (Spinner, 1969; Sweet, 1971; Gosselink et al., 1974). It was driven by the general unawareness of politicians and developers of environmental impacts and the need to integrate and identify sensitive and critical habitat as part of an integral planning process (Spinner, 1969). A “Marine Resources Committee”, set up in the 1960s to develop “A Plan for the Marine Resources of the Atlantic Coastal Zone”, identified a need for: … a method that accounts for all habitats and all uses, present and proposed and which evaluates a proposal for change by its effect on the entire [US Atlantic] coastal system as well as on the state or local situation … (Spinner, 1969). The spatial, temporal, and human scope is significant. It recognizes that ecosystem effects transcend the immediate interest of coastal state governments and particular development projects. The Committee’s work extended beyond the general prescriptions so easy for a government panel to make and so hard to implement. Collecting “…biological and sociological information as well as economic data…” is a huge task, but a good start can be made using existing “studies on the salt marshes, estuarine zones and shoal waters” (Spinner, 1969). Salt marshes, generally regarded as “unproductive” habitats suitable to conversion to harbors or farmland, figure largely in early calculations of total economic value. Gosselink et al. (1974) calculate net present salt marsh values ranging from $US1974 50–80,000 per acre ($US 550–880,000/hectare in 2008 dollars) for contributions to commercial and recreational fisheries and tertiary waste treatment. The concept of ecosystem services is anticipated in the term “free work of nature that is grossly undervalued simply because it has always been taken for granted, or assumed to be unlimited in capacity.” (Gosselink et al., 1974).

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Formal frameworks, 1987–1991 Bishop et al. (1987) set out to extend valuation of Great Lakes fishery resources beyond commercial and sport exploitation by including “intrinsic” and “indirect use” values. They define intrinsic values as a “catch-all category for all non-use values”, which is different from the Kantian concept, but the study is notable as it explicitly considers option, bequest and existence values. However, indirect use has the narrow sense of experiencing species and landscape through books and media. Randall (1991) identified “option”, “bequest”, “existence”, and “quasi-option” as values not included in standard cost benefit analysis. The most fundamental division is between use values comprising consumptive, nonconsumptive and indirect use, and non-use values (MEA, 2003; NRC, 2005). Consumptive use covers the extraction of fish, forest, and other products at all scales from local use and sale to the world market. Non-consumptive use refers to everything that depends on the quality of the coastal environment from contemplation of nature to jet-skis. Indirect use in the total economic value framework equates to the ecosystem functions that make human life and the economy possible, excluding consumptive and non-consumptive uses, which are already in the market. The corresponding neoclassical economics concept is “externalities”, which are positive when business benefits and negative when business impacts environment and biota. Neither appears in profit and loss statements. Ecosystem services have grown from one component of total economic value to a framework that now includes all categories of use and non-use value. Figure 13.3 shows the increasing use of “ecosystem services” vs. “total economic value” between 1990 and 2007. This is likely due to a combination of factors, starting from Costanza and colleagues’ (1997) estimate of $US 33 trillion for global ecosystem services and natural capital vs. global GDP of $US 16 trillion, growing business community interest in the contribution of nature to the economy (Heal, 2000; Daily and Ellison, 2002; MEA, 2005), and a sharp rise in awareness of the impact of climate change on ecosystem services. The popularity and attention is attested by the TV series Nature Inc. scheduled to run from 2008–2010 (BBC World Service, 2008). Non-use values in both frameworks include option value defined as maintaining the opportunity to use something in the future which we do not use now, or of which we may not

3,500 EcS

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Fig. 13.3 Instances of “ecosystem services” (EcS) compared with “total economic value” (TEV) in Google Scholar from 1990–2007.

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be aware; quasi-option value being the value of information gained under policies, which defer developments that risk irreversible harm; bequest value is the amount we are prepared to leave to future generations; while existence value is measured by the amount people are willing to pay for the continued existence of species and or places those people may never personally experience. These categories are discussed more fully in Appendix 1. Approaches differ on how non-use values are treated. The US National Research Council (2005: 100) specifically excludes option value as, “…the difference between valuation under conditions of certainty and uncertainty … a numerical calculation, not a value held by people”. Others differ; Chapin et al. (2000) identify significant financial costs of biodiversity loss and corresponding benefits of conservation. This would appear to be more in tune with growing public awareness of new pharmaceuticals and the desire to insure against calamity. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment considers bequest as a subset of option value.

Measuring ecosystem value Significant attention has been devoted to methods of summing across categories. Randall (1991) noted that the literature has been “contentious from the beginning… Economists debate the validity of important categories… [and the] relevance of others.” There is also an “eclectic variation” in summing strategies, i.e., that the value of a “bundle” of non-use values is not the same as the sum total of all possible use values. Contingent valuation measured by surveys of willingness to pay to conserve species and ecosystems is the economist’s method of choice for non-use values. Properly done, contingent valuation is consistent with total economic value as it permits valuation of wide range of plausibly-constructed scenarios (Randall, 1991). Bishop et al. (1987) showed that residents in the US state of Wisconsin were willing to pay $US 28 million to protect bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) from possible extinction. This is no surprise as the eagle is the national emblem and has use value from birdwatching to T-shirts and coinage. It is surprising that the same residents were prepared to pay $US 12 million to protect the striped shiner (Notropis chrysocephalus), a small endangered fish of no use value whatever. The $12 million indicates that people will pay for “existence value”, but provides little information as to how much (Bishop et al., 1987), but as the authors note, the striped shiner is likely a surrogate for all endangered species. Surveys are bedeviled by significant “ordering” effects (Clark and Friesen, 2008). The amount people were willing to pay to preserve visibility in the Grand Canyon was five times higher when the “visibility” question was asked first than when it came third (Tolley and Randall, 1986). Ordering effects are not necessarily tractable to randomization. A marine mammal study valued seals more highly when the seal question came before the “whale question” – the value of whales did not vary (Samples and Hollyer, 1990). Other effects include “embedding” where respondents will put the same value on losing one lake out of five as on losing them all (Kahneman and Knetsch, 1992) and a “warm glow” of support for a good cause (Diamond and Hausman, 1994; Nunes and Schokkaert, 2003). Sagoff (1998) suggests that the embedding effect and zero values reflect a belief that government or polluter should pay and high to infinite values are based on principle rather than individual satisfaction. Aesthetic, moral, and spiritual values are better characterized

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(b) 1,200

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0 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

Fig. 13.4 (a) Total Canadian catch of Atlantic cod, Gadus morhua, 1950–2004. Data source: Sea Around Us Project, www.seaaroundus.org. (b) Total sport and commercial catch of lingcod, Ophiodon elongatus, from the Strait of Georgia, British Columbia, 1880–2000. Data Source, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada.

by unwillingness to pay (Sagoff, 2007). This is consistent with Amartya Sen’s (1977) point that commitment is at least as potent a motivation as individual preference satisfaction. The likelihood that respondents are considering the general good of society rather than individual satisfaction; and the very large amount of information required to make informed judgments, suggests that “mock referenda” (Kopp and Portney, 1999) or jury-style deliberative approaches would be more reliable (Sagoff, 1998, 2007). The wide differential in ability to pay both within the industrialized world and between the “north” and “south” makes willingness to pay measurements morally problematic (Attfield, 1998). It is important to distinguish the interest of future generations from “bequest value” determined by willingness to pay. The “bequest motive” (Krutilla, 1967) suggests that future generations should enjoy no less than the present, but fish populations continue to decline (Pitcher et al., 2005; McClenachan et al., 2006; Saenz-Arroyo et al., 2006; Worm et al., 2006). We would prefer to have more BC lingcod (Ophiodon elongatus) or Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), but the population levels that past generations of fishers were willing or able to “bequeath” to us preclude that option (Fig. 13.4). Application of total economic value significantly increased the net present value of US marine ecosystems (Sumaila et al. submitted). “Net present value” or the present and future monetary value of catch is calculated by dividing present value by a “discount rate”. A discount rate of zero makes future catch infinitely valuable; 100% makes it worth nothing at all. The question of appropriate discount rates for the deep future is hotly debated (Portney and Weyant, 1999) and the furor stirred up by the 0.1% used in the Stern Report on Climate Change (2007). High discount rates impact future generations by accelerating depletion; low rates are deemed to impose unfair hardship on those alive today. Numeric approaches to balance present and future interests include the “Chichilniski Criterion” (1996) of no tyranny of the present or future, “intergenerational discounting” (Sumaila and Walters, 2005) and Gamma Discounting (Weitzman, 2001). I have also interpreted the “7th Generation” principle of the Haudenosaunee Aboriginal people of Canada (Clarkson et al., 1992) as a zero discount rate over 140 years. This is for illustration only, as the directive to consider the 7th generation includes the full range of social, cultural, spiritual, and economic interests. I have no reason to suppose that the Haudenosaunee would revert to some form of conventional discounting at the end of that time. Table 13.1 summarizes increase in net

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Table 13.1 Net present value (NPV) of US marine ecosystems under total economic valuation (Sumaila et al., submitted); with increases by intergenerational discounting (Sumaila and Walters, 2005) gamma discounting (Weitzman, 2001) and the aboriginal “7th generation” principle (Clarkson et al., 1992). Source of Value

Management

Discount Rate (%)

Commercial and sport fisheries Add non-use valuesa Restoration Future generations Future generations Future generations Future generations Future generations

Current (Poor)

7

Current (Poor) Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent

7 7 7 3 Variable 3 0 (140 years)

NPV ($US billion) 32 106 224 411 522 958 1,437 2,198

Source [Approach] (Sumaila et al., submitted)b (Sumaila et al., submitted)b (Sumaila et al., submitted)b (Sumaila and Walters, 2005)b (Sumaila et al., submitted)b (Weitzman, 2001)c (Sumaila and Walters, 2005)c (Clarkson et al., 1992)d

a

Option, ecosystem services, existence and bequest. Conventional discounting at 3%, summed to infinity. c Summed over 1,000 years. d Summed over 140 years based on 7 × 20-year generations. b

present value of US marine ecosystems from Sumaila’s total economic value analysis (Sumaila et al. submitted) and under the Chichilniski criterion, gamma, and 7th generational discounting. Total economic value and inter-generational discounting increase the value of US marine ecosystems by many orders of magnitude (Table 13.1), but require a dramatic improvement in fisheries management and compliance. These theoretical gains must be set against the reality that despite the bequest motivation; past generations of fishers have depleted fish populations (Fig. 13.4, Pitcher et al., 2005; McClenachan et al., 2006; Saenz-Arroyo et al., 2006; Worm et al., 2006). A discount rate below Canada’s official rate of 7% might well have averted the collapse of Atlantic cod (Ainsworth and Sumaila, 2005), but fishers often operate with significantly higher discount rates – between 20% for fishers in the Irish Sea (Curtis, 2002) and ~130% for Ghanaian fishers living in “abject poverty” (Akpalu, 2008). To put the Table 13.1 figures in perspective, the annual, as distinct from “net present” value of fisheries, is $7.4 billion under poor management and $15.7 billion assuming that restoration can be achieved (Sumaila et al. submitted). Contrast the annual US defense budget of close to one trillion dollars (Higgs, 2007) and total US GDP of 13.8 trillion (CIA, 2009). Fifty-one percent of the US population lives close to the coast or Great Lakes, but accounts for 57% of the total US economy, eight times more than the interior (Rappaport and Sachs, 2003). The difference in productivity is increasingly attributable to amenity values (Rappaport and Sachs, 2003), confirming the “temporal asymmetry” that Krutilla (1967) noted between current consumptive use and future demand for unspoiled environments. Berman and Sumaila (2006) suggest that higher future amenity values from restored ecosystems make a case for lower discount rates on consumptive activities such as fishing, so contributing to ecological restoration. They also note that restoration will be more economically-beneficial to growing economies whose citizens have the money and leisure to appreciate amenities, an instance of Attfield’s (1998) moral objection to willingness to pay.

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A bridge between intrinsic and instrumental value The goal of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2003: 128) was to help decision-makers “evaluate trade-offs between [policies and actions] that alter the use of ecosystems and the services they provide.” Obsession with measurement of marginal change in existing ecosystems leaves little room for ecosystem restoration based on past abundance benchmarks from “baseline shift” studies (Pitcher et al., 2005; McClenachan et al., 2006; Saenz-Arroyo et al., 2006; Worm et al., 2006). While the utilitarian paradigm has “no notion of intrinsic value”, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment authors note that “Many other factors including notions of intrinsic value … will also feed into the decision framework” (MEA, 2003: 128). They also argue that intrinsic value that would be “partially reflected” in the existence value that many people place on ecosystems [intrinsic value] is the hardest, and the most controversial, to estimate.” (MEA, 2003: 133). There is considerable confusion or “entanglement” between intrinsic and existence value (Bishop et al., 1987). Definitions of existence value based on altruism (Randall, 1991) or “happiness that the ecosystem exists quite apart from any future option to consume it, visit it or otherwise use it.…[which] may arise from aesthetic, ethical, moral or religious considerations…” (Sumaila et al. submitted) indicate the presence of values beyond existence value in the strict utilitarian sense. The “partial reflection” of intrinsic value is roundly rejected by Attfield (1998), Toman (1998), and McCauley (2006). Sagoff (2007) attributes the blurring to inability to separate preference satisfaction as determined by the market from ideas of what constitutes the good of society, which must be determined by public deliberation. Sagoff (2007) sees willingness to pay as an attempt to supplant democratic process with economic calculus in much the same way as scientists seek to short-circuit the public process with incontrovertible facts (Latour, 2004). In their major study of aquatic ecosystem services, the US National Research Council (2005: 33) observe that existence value is an “anthropocentric and utilitarian concept of value” measured in willingness to pay, “for the continued existence of a species or landscape”. The paradox of “willingness to pay” for intrinsic or spiritual value and “unwillingness to pay” for the same reasons (Sagoff, 2007), indicates the need for a bridge between intrinsic and instrumental value. Spiritual value is not inconsistent with use, but is inconsistent with depletion, extinction, waste, and disrespect. Examples include the “dual nature” of salmon as resource and spiritual being and the widespread practice of recognizing food as a gift from God/Allah/The Creator… (Kelly and Kelly, 1997), as well as thanking the host/cook and as a way of connecting with family and the wider community (Tirone et al., 2007). Total economic value and ecosystem services are significant advances on the commercial and recreational values, which first come to mind when decision-makers weigh ecosystem health against the cost of treating industrial, domestic and agricultural waste, and the revenue from offshore oil and gas, gas hydrates, gravel mining, etc. Both frameworks are helpful in avoiding “double counting” and exclusion when multiple methods are used (Bishop et al., 1987; Randall, 1991). Yet, neither framework has any concept of intrinsic value. Implicit in both is the idea that the entire creation exists for the benefit of humans.

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I suggest that the non-use values used in total economic value and ecosystem services studies are simply deferred use values, i.e., all are utilitarian. Major studies identify intrinsic values as “inputs to decision-making”, but there is no guidance on how this might be achieved. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment makes sporadic references to “sacred groves”. The only mention of spiritual value in the extensive US National Research Council study of aquatic ecosystems is the caution that, “estimating the existence value and spiritual value of salmon with currently available economic valuation methods is controversial.” (NRC, 2005: 176). Daily (1997), one of the foremost exponents of ecosystem services, notes that spiritual values are “eloquently described elsewhere”, but provides no references. I suggest that an exploration in and beyond indigenous spiritual and religious traditions might provide some crude sailing directions to “elsewhere”. Mindful that “religion is a room clearer in the academy” (Caputo, 2008), I will briefly address some of the problems. Belief in spiritual value does not necessarily guarantee conservation. The cleansing power of the Ganges is “spiritual”; it has nothing to do with the state of the actual river (Ruether, 2005). Devils’ Tower is sacred to Native Americans, but rock climbers also claim that it connects them to the spiritual power of nature, creating ongoing problems for the Parks Board (Harmon and Putney, 2003). The notion of “redemptive violence” as the US civil religion (Wink, 2007), the threat which it poses to world peace (Jewett and Lawrence, 2004), and the way in which North American Christianity, government, and industry unite to bless consumption (McFague, 2008) is indeed problematic. The case against religion in politics and education has been eloquently made by Dawkins (2006). While intolerance, persecution, and forced impositions of outdated models of reality have no place in public life or education, Dawkins demonstrates a weak grasp of theology: the core message of religion is not crusades or jihad, but compassion (Armstrong, 2007) and failure to recognize the potential of the world’s spiritual tradition to contribute to ecological restoration (Wolfensen, 2003). Religious organizations have significant wealth, but even more potential to encourage their adherents to divert their personal and business holdings into ethical investments and ecological restoration that will also alleviate poverty (Boff, 1997; Palmer and Finlay, 2003). Dawkins says: under the banner of religion you can write about what I call Einsteinian religion, which I subscribe to and so do many scientists as a sort of reverence for the Universe and life, which has nothing to do with anything supernatural (Dawkins, cited in Gledhill, 2007). Belief in a spiritual dimension of nature is strongly associated with Aboriginal people (Callicott, 1994; Basso, 1996; Cruikshank, 2005; Berkes, 2008), but is common to human cultures from pre-industrial peoples to the present. It is found in many if not all religions, as evidenced by the substantial output of the Harvard Forum on Religion and Ecology on Islam (Foltz et al., 2003); Buddhism (Tucker and Williams, 1997); Confucianism (Tucker and Berthrong, 1998); Hinduism (Chapple and Tucker, 2000); Daoism (Girardot et al., 2001); Judaism (Tirosh-Samuelson, 2002); Jainism (Chapple, 2002); and Christianity (Hessel and Ruether, 2000). Christianity has been famously implicated in the destruction of nature (White, 1967). The eco-theology of Sallie McFague (McFague, 1993, 2001, 2008) extends the critique.

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Human encroachment has turned nature into the “new poor” (McFague, 1993: 165–168, 188), at the sharp end of fishery depletion (Kaczynski and Fluharty, 2002; Alder and Sumaila, 2004; Brashares et al., 2004) and climate change (Stern, 2007). All religions teach a standard of care for the poor and oppressed, not out of condescension or sterile duty, but out of love. Latin American liberation theology interprets this as the Opción preferencial por los pobres, or preferential option for the poor. Liberation theology has proliferated into feminist, gay, lesbian, and multi-ethnic networks (Jones and Lakeland, 2005) whose delight in the inclusive message of scripture is a growing challenge to the patriarchal fundamentalisms that draw the ire of Dawkins (2006). If fish are the “literature of the sea” (McLoughlin, 2003), we are burning the library. Scientists of all flavors, natural, social, and humanist, are primarily motivated by love for what they do. Even the most vehemently anti-“religious” fisheries scientist might be seen as a human manifestation of the love of (whatever God or principle you believe in) for the plants, creatures, and coasts of the sea. McFague cautions that all we can ever have is “models of God” and that fundamentalisms arise when religions seek to impose yesterday’s model (McFague, 1993). New liberation theologies are dismantling old models. Constructive theology is extending the “traditional” duty of care for the poor to depleted fish populations, mangroves, and other habitats.

Conclusion … the dignity of rational nature is often hard to interpret, inherently controversial, in part culturally variable and in no wise subject to the elegant decision procedures which some other ethical theories (such as utilitarianism) think they can provide (Wood and O’Neil, 1998). No matter how sophisticated, calculations of whole ecosystem value do not represent the spiritual value of nature, whether as Dawkins’ “reverence for life and the universe” (Gledhill, 2007), Einstein’s “cosmic religious consciousness” (Einstein, 1954), or Wilson’s “Biophilia” (Wilson, 1984). While the discussion of values is evidently a human project, much depends on whether values are “assigned” or “recognized”. All classifications require some form of ranking, and so are “invidious and dangerous and we are better off deconstructing them” (Caputo, 2003). Debates about “higher” values are unproductive. It has been suggested that economics should speak to means, not to ends (Ludwig, 2000), but senior economists have concluded that cost benefit analysis is “neither necessary nor sufficient” to guide public policy in environmental health and safety (Arrow et al., 1996). Similarly, I conclude that whole ecosystem evaluation frameworks are “necessary, but not sufficient” for full ecosystem evaluation. They do not address Michael Toman’s “serious underestimate of infinity” (1998) or the zero or infinite values provided in contingent valuation surveys. Nor do they address the fact that most people are unwilling to set a price on cultural and spiritual values, indeed that such values are best characterized by “unwillingness to pay” (Sagoff, 2007). Creation theology sees the “Commands” of Genesis as invitations to an “infinite matrix of possibility” (primal chaos or “The Deep”) to collaborate (Keller, 2003). This is consistent with chaos and complexity theory. If “In the beginning” refers to all beginning, creation

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is ongoing. In the context of marine ecosystem degradation and climate change, our choice is to be partners in creation or destruction (McFague, 1993: 197). This choice has been stated in various ways, “A different world is possible”, the “proposed” vs. the “presumed” world (Brueggemann, 1997). When all claims to absolute truth, whether of religion, science, or philosophy are deconstructed, what remains is obligation to justice and the possibility of “something completely different”, whether the “tout autre” of Jacques Derrida, or John Caputo’s “passion for the impossible” (Dooley, 2003). According to Einstein this is what it takes to sustain great scientists through the long years of isolation, if not scorn and contempt (Einstein, 1954). On our dark days, many of us feel that it is too late for many of the things we love, but real hope is the hope that endures when there is no hope. Ecological justice/Liberation theology for fish and all who depend on them must engage not only the worlds of science and economics but also indigenous spiritual traditions, mainstream religions, the new liberation and creation theologies, artists, poets, and painters.

Acknowledgements I am grateful to Rosemary Ommer, Rashid Sumaila, Pam Brown, and Pauline Nashashibi for comments. I gratefully acknowledge Heiltsuk Nation artist Bradley Hunt for permission to use an image of his carved doors at the UBC Longhouse. I acknowledge Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council for funds to attend the 2008 Rome Conference Coping with Change in Marine Social-ecological Systems.

Appendix 1: Categories used in total economic value and ecosystem services frameworks Consumptive use can be roughly divided between small-scale fisheries meeting mostly local needs, a corporate sector supplying food fish to the industrialized world, and “forage” fish to the livestock and aquaculture industry. The extent of consumptive use is seen in the depletion and extinction of fish populations (Carlton et al., 1999; Musick et al., 2000; Punt, 2000; Dulvy et al., 2003; Sadovy and Cheung, 2003; Hutchings and Reynolds, 2004), but is best understood from “baseline shift” studies that compare past and present abundance (Pitcher et al., 2005; McClenachan et al., 2006; Saenz-Arroyo et al., 2006; Worm et al., 2006; Roberts, 2007). As striking as these are, they do not convey the “collateral damage” of serial depletion (Pauly et al., 1998). Threats to ecosystem integrity range from replacement of finfish by jellyfish (Boero et al., 2008), trophic cascades caused by removal of large sharks (Myers et al., 2007), the combination of invasive species and climate change (Carlton, 2000), and the impact of toxic algal blooms on fish (Burkholder et al., 1992) and humans (Morris, 1999). Significant marine impacts of consumptive use in other sectors of the economy include growing “dead zones” in the ocean (Diaz and Rosenberg, 2008) and the threat posed by ocean acidification to tropical coral reefs (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007), deepwater coral and sponge reefs (Roberts et al., 2006; Rogers et al., 2007), and creatures that depend on calcium for all or part of their life history – almost all animal life in the sea (Orr et al., 2005; Kleypas et al., 2006; Stokstad, 2008; Barange and Perry, 2009).

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Non-consumptive uses include eco-tourism, diving, birding, boating, and waterside vacations. All these are enjoyed (and priced) on the beauty and quality of the environment, presence of charismatic species and abundance. Overfishing of prey species such as Pacific herring (Clupea pallasi pallasi) has a profound effect on marine mammals, “recreational” fish species, and birds (Jones and Williams-Davidson, 2000). Decline in environmental quality, whether through beaches and shorelines polluted with plastic (Ballance et al., 2000; Derraik, 2002) or sewage, littered and stinking with dead sea life (Anderson, 1997) as caused by anoxic water in Oregon (Chan et al., 2008), or increase in stinging jellyfish (Purcell et al., 2007) impact non-consumptive use benefits to present and future generations. Option value was first articulated by Weisbrod (1964) using the examples of the giant redwood trees (Sequoia sempervirens) in California’s Sequoia National Park. People might well be prepared to pay to maintain the option to visit at some future date, though many will never do so. Government can factor this option value to all citizens into their rationale for maintaining the park at a cost greater than user fees. The economically-rational choice for a private owner would be “cash out” by selling the timber. Option value extends to the opportunity to use things in future, which we might not even be aware of today. It can be seen as a form of insurance, increasing the likelihood of future discoveries (Gowdy and McDaniel, 1995) and maintaining linkages vital to ecosystem function of which we may never become aware (Attfield, 1998). Quasi-option value relates to the benefit of delaying a development decision when there is uncertainty about the benefit of alternate choices, at least one of which entails irreversible harm (Arrow and Fisher, 1974) and/or an irreversible commitment of resources (Freeman, 2003: 250–252; Sharp and Kerr, 2005). Quasi-option value thus translates into the value of information that becomes available only with the passage of time. As used by decision-makers, quasi-option value relates to the value of information gained through policies of risk aversion (Coggins and Ramezani, 1998), adaptive management, safe minimum standards, and the precautionary principle (NRC, 2005: 50). Freeman (1993) contends that quasi-option value is “not a component of the value individuals attach to resource changes”. Fromm (2000) allows that it “quasi equals the value of efficient environmental policy”, but is “no value component of natural assets”. Increasing incorporation of the Precautionary Principle in policy and legislation and growing public desire for good management driven by the temporal asymmetry between consumptive use and amenity values (Krutilla, 1967; Rappaport and Sachs, 2003; Berman and Sumaila, 2006), suggest that there is a public “demand” and that quasi-option value might indeed be measurable in terms of the very substantial cost of monitoring and compliance programs. Bequest value was described by Krutilla (1967), who observed that Weisbrod’s (1964) case for public investment in preserving option values would apply equally to the private motivation to leave a balance of public and private assets to one’s descendants. The rate of conversion of irreplaceable environment to manufactured goods at any point in time is always higher than it would have been had more advanced future technology been available. Concern expressed by the present generation can be attributed as much to the bequest motivation in private economic behavior as much as to a sense of public responsibility.

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Existence value is defined as “a willingness to pay for retaining an option to use an area or facility that would be difficult or impossible to replace…” (Krutilla, 1967). Many people value the knowledge that wilderness continues to exist “even thought they would be appalled by the prospect of being exposed to it” and/or subscribe to conservation organizations to preserve species they may never see. It is the value that people attach to “knowing that a resource exists, even if they never use that resource directly” (MEA, 2003).

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Chapter 14

Social-Ecological Restructuring and Implications for Social Values Grant Murray

Abstract Designing appropriate coping strategies for North American traditional fishing communities in the face of global climate change demands, among other things, that we: 1. identify, characterize, and document the full range of values and services flowing from and shaped by these ecosystems; and 2. understand how these values are shaped by interactive processes of global change. This chapter addresses these demands through a focus on fishing communities dependent on the marine social-ecological systems of the Canadian Provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and British Columbia, and the American State of New Jersey. In recent decades these systems have undergone dramatic processes of restructuring, and have moved in directions defined by new ecological realities, harvesting technologies, and management paradigms focused on conservation and economic rationality. While in a direct sense these systems continue to provide socio-cultural and economic benefits, this chapter highlights how new types of social-ecological interactions have re-shaped associated social structures and processes within and between these communities, including size and connection with fishing industry, age structures, dislocation to urban areas, internal stratification, and corporatization of the fishery. It next explores how these changes appear to have affected some of the social values associated with these systems. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how these findings might inform the development of appropriate coping strategies. Keywords: Restructuring, social values, corporatization, ITQs, fishery, social-ecological systems, climate change, coping strategies

World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Introduction It has become clear that ongoing processes of global change will increasingly impact North American marine ecosystems and the human communities that interact with and depend on them. As the title of conference from which this volume is derived suggests, one of the key challenges the global community now faces is how to design appropriate coping strategies. The idea of a “coping strategy”, of course, suggests an attention to human decision-making processes, but also an attention to values; “appropriate” strategies, in the most basic sense, should maximize the positive, and minimize the negative. In order to design appropriate coping strategies it is therefore necessary, among other things, to: 1. identify, characterize, and document the full range of values and services stemming from and shaped by marine ecosystems; and 2. understand how these values are shaped by interactive processes of global change, including climate change. This chapter addresses these needs through multi-method case study analyses of the “social” values that derive from, and are shaped by, the fisheries embedded in the marine social-ecological systems of the west coast of the island of Newfoundland (in the Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador), British Columbia (BC), and the State of New Jersey in the USA. Broadly speaking, the full range of values that stem from ecosystem goods and services includes social, cultural, and economic values. However, in practice, economic values seem to receive the most attention and, quite often, the notion of value is directly measured as, or converted to, economic or monetary value. This often means measuring the value of ecosystem goods such as the landed (or “market”) value of fisheries. Additional “non-market” values (including social, cultural, and spiritual values) are also sometimes measured in monetary terms as a part of total economic valuation approaches (de Groot et al., 2002; Philcox, 2007) that attempt to quantify, through a range of techniques, the economic value of the goods and services produced by ecosystems. However, these approaches are limited in the sense that they measure values produced by ecosystems for human communities and may not account well for some values that arise because of human interactions with the surrounding environment. Yet such interactions continually shape and re-shape social structures and processes and, by extension, the values associated with those structures and processes. Indeed, without the set of social-ecological interactions that occur under the rubric of fishing, there could be no such thing as a “fishing community” and the particular constellation of values held within it. And, if we accept that social structures, processes, and associated values are fundamentally shaped by our interactions with the environment (as in fishing), then this values list becomes quite long and diverse and might include equality, family, security, equity, opportunity, individualism, generosity, charity … and so on. Many of these types of “social” values1 appear to be difficult to conceptualize in terms of “economic value” and may not be easily captured using the tools in the total economic valuation toolkit. This does not, however, mean that the impact of global change on these types of values cannot be made visible with respect to particular sets of interactions with the

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environment such as fishing. This chapter seeks to make some of these values visible by drawing attention to how social-ecological interactions related to fishing shape and restructure particular social structures and processes in several case study communities and, by extension, some of the values associated with them. It begins with a discussion of some key processes that continue to shape realities in the case-study communities and then moves on to focus on several key changes within them. These key changes include size and connection with fishing industry, age structures, dislocation to urban areas, internal stratification, and corporatization of the fishery. Next, it discusses how these changes may be related to shifts in the value sets associated with fishing as a way of life. It concludes with a brief discussion on the implications for developing effective coping strategies in the face of global change.

Approach and methods This chapter draws on several projects and initiatives that have addressed distinct (though related) research questions, employed multiple methodologies, and involved different types of data. Therefore the data presented here by no means represent a comprehensive examination of the trends identified below, nor was it always possible to use the same types of data in each of the case study examples. However, the data do point to several trends that are visible in each of these different case-study areas and, as such, are worthy of consideration in seeking to design “appropriate” coping strategies for global change. In Newfoundland and Labrador, this chapter draws on data collected as part of the Coasts Under Stress research project (CUS).2 Specifically, it draws on the analysis of relevant documents and oral career history interviews with 56 experienced fish harvesters from the west coast of Newfoundland and southern Labrador (see Murray et al., 2008a for more details on the methodologies and findings of these studies). In New Jersey, it draws on document analysis and a total of 40 oral history interviews conducted with fish harvesters from 4 New Jersey communities as part of a project examining the “cumulative effects” of regulatory change on the people, businesses, and communities most directly dependent on New Jersey’s fisheries (see Murray et al., 2008b for more details).3 In BC, it draws primarily on analysis of published and gray literature and a number of informal discussions with knowledgeable members of the wider fishing community.

Social-ecological restructuring: Putting climate change in context In order to understand the nature of the impacts of global climate change on particular social-ecological systems, it is first important to consider the nature of those impacted social-ecological systems and the dynamic processes of restructuring that already continually shape and, in some cases, will mitigate or exacerbate the effects of climate change. In the broadest sense, social-ecological systems include political, economic, social, and cultural institutions and processes as well as the biological and physical environments within which these institutions and processes are embedded. Social-ecological systems are nested, historical products that operate at varying spatial, temporal, and organizational scales ranging from the level of individual people and organisms up to global systems. Such systems are interactive and these interactive processes are associated with complex, non-linear

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processes and outcomes (Dolan et al., 2005). A description of the full suite of critical structures and processes within any one social-ecological system – much less three – is well beyond the scope of any paper. I seek here to highlight ongoing changes in several key areas that must be taken into account when considering future adaptive capacity: governance, changes in the bio-physical environment; and harvesting technologies. One of the most profound processes that has shaped lived realities in coastal fishing communities for several decades has been the ongoing enclosure (privatization) of the marine commons driven by increasing economic and ecological concerns (Mansfield, 2004; Gough, 2006). The most extreme version of this enclosure is seen with Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs).4 These programs have shown some successes in terms of economic efficiency and as a method for preventing fisheries collapse (Costello et al., 2008; Beddington et al., 2007; Grafton et al., 2006, 1997; Casey et al., 1995; Squires et al., 1998). On the other hand, some authors have pointed to a range of socio-cultural and economic consequences resulting from the implementation of ITQ programs, including: a loss of flexibility for fishers who depended on moving among fisheries; rising differences between “haves” and “have-nots”; rising entry costs associated with increasing license costs, loss of capital and/or the entrance of “external” capital; changes in the relationships between crew and capital/rights owners; and the increased corporatization of enterprises that had been primarily family- and community-based (Murray et al., 2008b; Praxis, 2005; McCay, 1995, 2004; McCay et al., 1998; National Research Council, 1999). While ITQs are perhaps the most-often cited examples, Murray et al. (2008b) demonstrate the concept of “creeping” enclosure in relation to New Jersey’s marine commons and suggest that enclosure can be a function of multiple events and processes; it need not be the result of a single regulatory moment (i.e., the creation of an ITQ program). This is relevant in Newfoundland and Labrador where there are no formal ITQ systems, but where most fisheries have seen significant acts of enclosure. For example, limited entry was instituted for the under 65’ otter trawl ground fish fleet as early as 1977 and Enterprise Allocations were established in the offshore groundfish sector in 1982. Most of the newer fisheries such as shrimp and crab were also organized around limited entry licensing. Indeed, as early as 1982, a Task Force Report triggered by the threat of bankruptcy of many of the large, vertically integrated firms in Atlantic Canada recommended that most of the fleet go to an IQ system (Kirby, 1982). Likewise, the salmon fishery in BC does not feature an ITQ system per se, but the dramatic effects of the rationalization programs under the Mifflin plan have had similar effects (Ecotrust Canada, 2004).5 Marine ecosystems have also been impacted dramatically in the last several decades from a range of anthropogenic factors (Halpern et al., 2008), including fishing (Pauly et al., 1998; Myers and Worm, 2003). The collapse of the cod stocks in Newfoundland and Labrador provides perhaps the most extreme and well-documented example of overfishing (Murray et al., 2008a; Hutchings, 1996), but this is clearly a worldwide phenomenon: half of global fisheries are considered fully exploited. The post-World War II period has also seen rapid changes in harvesting technologies. For example, Murray et al. 2008a found dramatic changes in the harvesting power of the inshore sector of the Newfoundland and Labrador fisheries. They noted that these processes involved substantial local-level variation but, in general, involved vessels becoming larger, increases in the amount and efficacy of gear, the development of far more powerful

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engines, increased use of mechanical harvesting aids (e.g., hauling equipment), and the now nearly ubiquitous use of sophisticated electronics (particularly communications, fishfinding equipment, and navigation aids). In addition to vastly increasing harvesting power, these changes have increased the costs of these vessels. This was expressed by a New Jersey fisherman when asked about his concerns about new entrants as well as his own ability to compete in the fishing industry of the future: Well I mean the high priced boats, you know. A million dollar boat or a 1.5 million dollar boat, I mean you’ve got to generate a lot of revenue before you see your first dollar. Similarly, a fisher from Newfoundland and Labrador noted the vastly increased catching power of modern fishing vessels (as well as the role of the government in facilitating this increase): But the fellow with the dragger he had a fifty-five foot boat. They turned around they give him a seventy or eighty foot boat and a bigger engine and a better net and the better navigational equipment. If he goes out, he’s capable of catching twenty times as much as they could ten years ago. That’s not cutting down on capacity. In addition, there are a number of important phenomena that have impacted fishing communities. These include the globalization of both input (e.g., fuel, vessels, gear) and output (fisheries products) markets. These processes have fundamentally affected both harvesting and processing operations, both of which are critically important to many coastal communities.

Changes in social structures and processes These processes of restructuring have changed many critical social structures and processes within traditional fishing communities. The following section breaks this out into several distinct trends, though there is obvious conceptual overlap between them.

Size and connection with fishing industry Coastal fishing communities in each of the three areas have shown similar trends in terms of declining overall size and/or a declining relative importance of fishing to the community. The former is visible in terms of simple population statistics, while the latter can be seen through things such as the number of individuals engaged in fishing, or the relative proportion of incomes or community-level economic activity dependent on fishing. While in a direct sense, population declines are due to higher out-migration rates (particularly by youth) and declining birth rates, the causes for this decline are, at least in part, tied to declines in economic opportunities in these communities (Ommer and Team, 2007). The west coast of Newfoundland had historically been one of most fisheries-dependent areas of the province, and population declines in this area were most dramatic in the wake of the cod collapse. The overall population of two economic zones declined by nearly 23% from

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1986–2001 (25,700–19,895, reflecting the collapse and closure of the cod fishery). The population is projected to continue declining from 2001 levels by as much as an additional 16% by 2019 (GNP, 2006). Perhaps more tellingly, the percentage of the labor force involved in fishing declined from 20.5–14.4% from 1991–1996 (Hamilton et al., 2003) and more than 50% of the region’s small boat harvesters opted out of the fishery in the wake of the groundfish collapse via license retirement programs (GNP, 2006). Trends are similar for many rural coastal communities in BC (Ommer and Team, 2007; Praxis, 2005; Marchand, 2002). As elsewhere, demographic trends in these communities cannot be explained by one or two factors alone, but changes in the traditional fishing and forestry sectors were principal among them. Census data suggests that areas of the north and central parts of BC (which are more rural) were disproportionately affected by demographic change during the late 1990s. Five of the seven districts that experienced the largest population declines between 1996 and 2001 were coastal, and four of the five districts with greatest increases in unemployment were coastal. The rates of unemployment in these four districts were between 13.8 and 20% vs. an overall average for BC of 8.5% (Marchand, 2002). In the salmon fishery alone the number of commercial licenses dropped from 4,112 in 1996 to 2,557 in 1999 (Ommer and Team, 2007: 248). A report prepared for the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters (Praxis, 2005) noted that “fleet rationalization programs and concentration of the control of licenses and quotas have resulted in a 40% per cent decline in harvester employment [in BC] between 1991 and 2001.”6 Demographic data for New Jersey are more difficult to interpret, because of the more blurred distinction between rural and urban areas, and the close proximity between communities of all types. However, many of the interviewees we spoke to noted that many fish harvesters have moved away from their homes in traditional fishing waterfront communities to other communities that are often inland and more affordable. In New Jersey this trend is largely due to a trend of outsiders coming in and buying up expensive property for second or summer homes.

Age structure Declines in the numbers of active fish harvesters in traditional fishing communities (and declining coastal communities overall) is closely related to another observable phenomenon – the aging of the fishing workforce due to a lack of younger entrants into the fishery. The reasons that youth are not entering the fishery (and are often out-migrating) are complex, but many of the fish harvesters I have spoken with have commented on the increasing costs associated with entering fisheries, given the high costs of “buying into” a limited access fishery (see also Ecotrust Canada, 2004), the high costs of modern vessels, and a high level of overall uncertainty about future security given economic, regulatory, and ecological uncertainties. In some cases these trends are rather dramatic – close to 40% of current Canadian enterprise heads will retire from the fishery over the next decade and the average age of captains was 48 in the Atlantic and 56 in the Pacific (vs. an average of 38 in the Canadian labor force as a whole) (Praxis, 2005). Likewise, Ommer and Team (2007: 212) note that in rural coastal BC by 2001, 14% of the population was over 65, and 30.6% was over 50.

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Internal stratification Among those left in fishing communities, not all harvesters adapted in the same way to changing ecological realities, licensing structures, and a range of other factors. Among other things, the result has been a differentiation within many communities, and a stratification of community structure, with elites emerging based on access to certain fisheries. In western Newfoundland and Labrador, the beginnings of these trends were well described by Sinclair (1987) and Palmer and Sinclair (1997), who described the rise of local elites comprised of dragger captains that were early adopters of highly efficient otter trawl technologies for the cod fishery. More recently, Murray et al. (2008a) have described how lucrative crab, lobster, and shrimp stocks have replaced the cod fishery in many areas with similar effects of differentiation based on access. Figure 14.1 is derived from NAFO landing statistics7 and shows a dramatic shift in the species composition being harvested by small- and mid-size fleets in management area 4R (the west coast of Newfoundland) in 1990 dollars. Note that the overall value has partially recovered in the late 1990s, but that the value derives from a different set of species. Coupled with declining numbers of fish harvesters and increasingly tight controls on access to these fisheries, this has meant that these benefits are flowing to fewer and fewer individuals. Similarly, a Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters report (Praxis, 2005) noted that there has been significant differentiation in the value of gross catch both between and among fleets. Figures 14.2 and 14.3 summarize these findings: Both Figs 14.2 and 14.3 show a dramatic skewing in terms of where ecosystem services are flowing, based on the type of fishery individuals are engaged in (defined by vessel size in the case of Newfoundland and Labrador, and by gear type/target species in the Value (1990 Dollars) NAFO Subdivision 4R (<150 tons) 1970–2001 60000000

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Fig. 14.1 Value in 1990 dollars of landings of major commercial species in the small boat (under 150 tons) sector in NAFO sub-division 4R (1970–2001).

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90 80

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Fig. 14.2 Gross value of catch in Newfoundland and Labrador by fleet category (data from Praxis, 2005). 80

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Gross value of Catch (in 000s) Fig. 14.3 Gross value of catch by Pacific fleet category (data from Praxis, 2005).

Pacific). For example, in Newfoundland and Labrador, the large majority (~80%) of large vessel (over >’45) operators have a gross value catch $200,000 per year, while the majority (~60%) of small vessel (under >’35) operators have a gross value catch of under $50,000 per year. These differences are, in large part, explained by the fact that larger vessels are equipped and licensed to participate in the lucrative snow crab and shrimp fisheries (Murray et al., 2008a).

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In New Jersey trends are similar, though more difficult to depict graphically, given the fact that many fish harvesters participate in multiple fisheries. One fish harvester noted that the increasing costs of participation (due to high vessel and, particularly, license costs) have created a situation where fewer and fewer individuals are able to participate:

INTERVIEWEE: Yeah, but what it’s done too, is driven up the price of the boats so high, that where if I wanted to buy a boat, I could never do it. You could just… RESEARCHER: Cause of the permit? INT: The [ ] are worth so much money and you’re making money now, so when there’s no fish and there’s no money, the price of the boats are low, and now they’re just so high, the’re only gonna go to a handful of people on the coast.

De-localization These differences in the distribution of benefits have occurred not only within particular communities, but also among them. Put simply, the control of fishing operations and/or the benefits that accrue to that control have in some cases started to move away from traditional, geographic fishing communities. The Pacific region in Canada has seen a movement of license control away from traditional, rural coastal communities and towards the urban centers at the southwestern end of the Province: The policy approach in the Pacific Region of DFO has contributed to the concentration of ownership and licenses in the Vancouver-Richmond-Victoria area leaving many coastal-rural communities without control of, or access to, adjacent resources (Praxis, 2005: 4). Likewise, Ecotrust Canada (2004: iii) noted that the most resource dependent rural regions are losing their connection to the sea because of the urbanization of the fishery. Local residents of the west Coast of Vancouver Island, for example, only own 2% of all fishing quotas in BC. The number is 3% in the North Island and 9% in the north Coast. By contrast, residents of Vancouver and Victoria own 44% of quotas. Recent decades have also seen the rise of a number of arrangements where license holders lease the right to fish to others. On the west coast of Canada this is happening in, among others, the halibut, sablefish, and groundfish trawl fisheries at sometimes quite exorbitant rates (Ommer et al., 2007; Ecotrust Canada, 2004). At the time of writing, hard figures were not available in Newfoundland and Labrador, though a number of our interviewees suggested that control of licenses has also been “de-localized” in the region through at least two mechanisms. The first is through “slipper skipper” arrangements, where license/quota holders lease all or a portion of their licenses/ quotas for other individuals to harvest. The second occurs through mechanisms such as a trust agreements, where wealthier harvesters and/or processors seek to consolidate control of fishing enterprises through arrangements that sometimes contravene the intent of the fleet separation policy (see also Praxis, 2005).

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The situation in New Jersey is more difficult to characterize quantitatively, though again, many of those that we spoke to mentioned that many harvesters and crew are moving away from traditional seaside fishing communities (and taking their licenses with them). In some cases, this has meant an additional form of “de-localization” in the form of non-local crew on vessels from traditional fishing ports. For example, one fish harvester stated the following when asked about how many crew he and others are employing as crew: RESEARCHER: And is that now more or less than there was? You probably never were adding them up back then, but first impression? INTERVIEWEE: It’s probably about the same. Now, I think it’s more…before, the people that worked on the local Cape May boats were local people. My guys now come from Virginia; a couple of them are from Texas. It’s not… RESEARCHER: And you said you had some…but they’re Texas people – the Mexican people you said you have working. INT: Mexican, yeah. Yeah, they’re resident aliens and stuff like that, but now it seems like there’s more people coming from, you know, there’s more, you know, there have been…there was Russian guys, there was people from South America. There’s more, I don’t know, say immigrant people. RES: Is it more like a professional deckhand, or is it just that most of the people don’t [want] the job or what? I mean why are you getting this replacement of… INT: I don’t know; I don’t know. Why don’t young people like to do certain things anymore that their fathers did?

In Canada, there is less direct evidence of the use of non-Canadians, though there has been an increased difficulty in finding crew members, and particularly in finding crew members from within traditional fishing communities (Praxis, 2005; Ommer et al., 2007).

Corporatization In each of the study areas, there has been increasing trends towards the “corporatization” of the fishery, defined here as a movement away from individual owner/operators independently operating individual vessels and towards a situation where multiple vessels and/ or access rights are owned and controlled (directly or indirectly) by more “corporate” entities. These entities are sometimes individuals, and sometimes vertically integrated operations that combine some aspect of processing with harvesting operations. These entities may or may not participate in the actual act of fishing. Directly measuring the degree of “corporatization” is challenging, as available license records do not always contain precise information about the nature of (e.g., corporate or otherwise) listed owners, nor do indirect forms of control (trust agreements, loans, etc.) show up in license records. However, some measures are available. For example, Table 14.1 is based on data from an extensive set of interviews conducted with fish harvesters, and shows the percentage of enterprise heads that had, at any time, entered “…into agreements with fish processor or buyer companies to borrow money in return for certain obligations” (Praxis, 2005: 17 and 18). Clearly, this could involve a wide variety of financial arrangements, and it is unclear how much control the buyer/processor actually obtains over the license/quota. The report does go on to note, however, that:

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Table 14.1 Percentage of enterprise heads that have entered into financial agreements with processors/buyer companies. Atlantic Overall NL&L <35’ NL&L 35’–44’ NL&L > 45’

Pacific 23% 38% 47% 35%

Overall Seine Gillnet Troller Halibut/Sablefish

25% 26% 28% 15% 33%

The great majority of these agreements with processors or buyers involved the obligation to sell fish to the lender. However, 6% of such agreements on the Atlantic coast and 16% on the Pacific coast involved control by the lender over the future sale of the license (Praxis, 2005: 18). The report also states that: If not constrained by clear public policy objectives…market forces will rapidly move the industry towards concentration in ownership and geographical location of fishing licenses (Praxis, 2005: 6). Evidence has also emerged about this trend through talking to career fishermen in New Jersey. For example, the following exchange came from a career fish harvester in New Jersey:

INTERVIEWEE: Well here right now, this is another trend, the processor is owning the boats. For one, he gets a guaranteed profit. You’ve got to come to his dock. And with the cost of acquiring a boat, he’s probably the only one that’s got the money to do it and the financial ability to but these boats. RESEARCHER: So there’s fewer independent owner operators now than there were? INT: Yeah, yeah. I’m gone. And most of these boats that we have here came from independent operators that have been bought up by a bigger operation, and the same thing with Lund’s [a dock/processing facility]. They’re buying boats, Cold Spring [another dock/processing facility] has 3 or 4, so and if you go to New Bedford [Massachusetts] you find the same thing. I have a friend in N. Bedford that owns 21 boats. RESEARCHER: Wow, what do you think about that? INT: I’m not too crazy about the idea, but that’s the way it is. That’s the way it went with the farmers, you know, everything became corporate, and that’s what you have now. RESEARCHER: I forget who said it, but somebody said down here that fishing is feeling more like a business now than it used to. INT: Yeah. At one time it use to be individuals, you know, you work your butt off, you got enough money and a little bit of luck, you bought a boat. And that’s what everybody did. The docks didn’t own any boats. Little by little the docks started getting into the boats, so they had the income from the boats, they had the income from selling the product, so they had more of an opportunity to grow. And how that evolved, they got bigger and the individual boat owners little by little are disappearing as they get older and want to sell out or for whatever reason. It’s changed.

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Fishing as a way of life: Now and in the future These changes have clearly involved changes in the flows and distribution of economic benefits associated with fishing related ecosystem services. However, many of the harvesters we have interviewed also described how changes in these structures and processes precipitated a shifting in other, less readily quantified social values that derive from ecosystem services and/or are shaped by social-ecological interactions. These include, but are not limited to, security (in the future), family orientation, egalitarianism, tradition, individualism, and personal enterprise. For example, one interviewee in New Jersey spoke of what some of these trends will mean for fishing as a way of life: INT: I’d say maybe in the past 10 years as the older, independent fishermen retired and would sell their boats, instead of it being bought by another independent person, it’s going to people who have 3, 4, 5, 6 boats because they’re the only ones who can afford it…[ ] I don’t think it’s a good thing, but that’s the way it is. RES: Why isn’t it a good thing? INT: Because…you’re a fisherman because you’re independent, you know? [ ] and I don’t need someone, I mean, it took the incentive of a guy on deck wanting to be a captain, and the guy being a captain wanting to earn his own boat, you know, and it’s more, more moneydriven than a lifestyle, and I just, I mean you probably see that all up and down the coast. It was family-oriented and it changes, like everything else. Your family-oriented grocery store or hardware store is now Home Depot.

Here the individual is pointing to imminent threats to a number of social values that have been associated with traditional fishing communities, including personal enterprise, individuality, and family orientation. Another New Jersey fisherman expressed his frustration with some of the changes that he has seen over time on the water, and the loss of a way of life that he felt to be much simpler (and less regulated). INT: Well you got days at sea, you can’t do this, you can’t do that, so I mean there are just too many to list. I mean it wasn’t how I was brought up, you know, I’m from the old school. The old school says you go out on the ocean, you do the best you can, you get products, you bring it back to the docks, you sell it, and then you go again. Now, you know, they have regulations. You’ve got to sign in, you’ve got this, you’ve got boat tracks. To me it was just too much regulation.

Asking current fish harvesters whether or not they would encourage their children to fish also provided telling insights into eroding senses of tradition as well as, again, family orientation and future security. Of 34 individuals with children in Newfoundland and Labrador, 30 reported that they were not encouraging their children to fish. Likewise, a New Jersey fish harvester expressed some serious reservations about the future of the fishery when asked if he would encourage his children to enter (as well as pointing out some inequities within existing communities):

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INT: Probably not, you know, use it maybe for a … I just have no faith in the future, you know. I mean, you know, maybe a good, you know, launching pad to generate some income, but it’s hard to ever believe that, you know, 50 years from now or 30 years from now that there’s really going to be a … I mean there may be a, maybe a little puppet fishery, you know, maybe I’ll be, you know, I’ll be old then but I just don’t know you know. I mean the only ones that are now…I mean the full time scallopers are making a ton of money. You know they’re really doing it up, and that’s about it really. You know there’s some bright spots here and there, and there’s some good fishermen here and there, but the rest of the industry’s pretty … you know you go down to Carolinas and stuff, you know, and it’s pretty shaky really, you know. […] INT: Yeah, and everything, you know, nobody makes a whole lot of money, everybody’s struggling, you know, it’s kind of a mess really, you know. I don’t plan on doing that, you know, I’ll move. If I have to, you know, I’ll hang in as long as I can, but I’m not going to be this starving, you know, moron hahaha, you know, you’re trying to hold on till the last [ ] You know, I just refuse to do that, you know, I’m not going to be belittled.”

Discussion The preceding sections have highlighted how changing social-ecological interactions (“restructuring”) have already re-shaped social structures and processes within these fisheries. On the whole, the fisheries in each of the study areas are moving in directions defined by new ecological realities, and changing governance structures that emphasize economic “rationality”, conservation, and privatization. These trends are occurring across the range of situations examined with (somewhat) different management approaches and different ecological realities (though with important variations in structures and processes). Indeed, these trends are not unique to the study areas and some or all of them can be seen in other areas of the North Atlantic (Hamilton et al., 2003; Hamilton and Haedrich, 1999; Hamilton and Otterstad, 1998). While in a direct sense each of these systems continues to provide socio-cultural and economic benefits, these changes in social-ecological interactions have reshaped social structures and processes in certain ways, dramatically affecting how and where these benefits flow. Moreover, in each of the case studies the relative importance of “fishing” in traditional fishing communities has declined in size, and control of fishing enterprises has been shifting away from traditional fishing communities and towards more urban, “corporate” centers of control. Those remaining in the industry are aging, finding themselves differentiated from their fellow harvesters by reason of access, embedded in a complex and enclosed governance regime, and at the helm of vessels with vastly increased costs, expensive licenses, and tremendous capacity to locate and catch fish. So what does this mean in terms of designing “appropriate” coping strategies in the face of climate change? Several considerations follow from the findings presented above. First, that the types of values affected by restructuring range beyond those that are easily captured by aggregate economic measures of ecosystem services. Some of the values highlighted above – security (in the future), family orientation, egalitarianism, tradition, individualism, and personal enterprise – are not easily captured with economic measures. Yet, as many of

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the harvesters we have spoken to alluded to, these values are part of the core identity of fish harvesters, and of the fishing communities they live(d) in – and they are changing rapidly. A focus on total economic valuation and ecosystem services, however, may tend to prioritize those quantifiable values that flow from ecosystems to human communities, and to de-emphasize those values that are shaped by social-ecological interactions. Second, that when we speak of the adaptive capacity of coastal fishing communities, we must realize that these communities are not the same as they were 50 or even 10 years ago. Clearly, fishing communities and fishing actors have changed dramatically over the last several decades. Appropriate for whom and “adaptive capacity” of what therefore become operative questions. Many of the fishing actors of today and the imminent future have started to become more corporate and “dislocated” from traditional fishing communities.8 This suggests that the coping strategies that are designed for these fishing actors may be different from the coping strategies that are designed for those that remain in traditional fishing communities. Moreover, those that do remain are aging and increasingly differentiated from their neighbors in terms of access and income, suggesting that coping strategies designed for the “haves” might be different than those designed for the “have-nots”. Third, climate change will necessarily interact with ongoing processes of interactive restructuring, including ecological change, increasing operation costs and, perhaps most importantly, processes of enclosure. At the most basic level, climate change will likely affect the abundance, distribution, and/or behavior of marine species.9 This implies that existing fishing actors would need flexibility to pursue new species, change their fishing areas, adapt new technologies, and learn to interpret and respond to new ecological realities. However, we have seen that social-ecological restructuring (particularly processes of enclosure) can tend to reduce the flexibility of fishing actors. This suggests that appropriate coping strategies should promote flexibility for fish harvesters, either through licensing mechanisms that allow fish harvester to shift across species (as they have in the past) and/ or to adapt their fishing technologies (gear) or areas. For example, Hunter and Hyatt (personal communication) have documented a diversification of licensing in the salmon fishery of BC, where vessels formerly licensed solely/principally for salmon have begun obtaining licenses in other fisheries, which the authors suggest represents a positive adaptive response that may improve resiliency in the face of regulatory and/or climate change. It also seems important to point out that designing appropriate coping strategies will be complicated by a high level of uncertainty associated with specific local-level ecological impacts associated with global climate change and how those impacts will interact with other ongoing restructuring processes. This demands attention to designing effective learning mechanisms, which involves the capturing of feedback, or signals, from the environment, interpretation of those signals, and adaptation to them – all of which occurs through a complex feedback loop. Murray et al. (2008b) have argued, however, that processes of “creeping” enclosure in New Jersey marine fisheries have reshaped mechanisms of feedback and modified flows of information among fish harvesters, managers, and scientists because of changes in affecting both participation in fisheries, the relationship between harvesters, scientists and managers,10 and the accumulation of knowledge itself (see also Murray et al., 2006). They note that there appear to be both “positive” and “negative” implications of these modifications in information flows and suggest that this should be an avenue for further research.

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In a more general sense, it is worth re-examining the notion of “appropriate” when referring to designing appropriate coping strategies, and to the larger governance questions that the word “design” implies. This chapter has drawn attention to changes within social structures and associated value sets in fishing communities, and has further suggested that these changes have been perceived as negative by many of the interview respondents. On the other hand, values are subjective and context dependent and the degree to which “social” values are held necessarily varies from individual to individual and from community to community, as does the degree to which these values are shaped by socialecological interactions in general, or by fishing more specifically. Values are also time dependent, and some of the ongoing processes of global change elaborated above (including climate change) precipitate shifts in the constellation and distribution of values that particular individuals and communities derive from marine and coastal ecosystem services and/or those values that are shaped by interactions with the environment. Values and contexts vary and change, in other words, as they have always done. Deciding which values should be promoted and if/how they should be promoted through the design of coping strategies is itself a value-laden exercise, but if decision-makers wish to promote certain values (and the fishing communities that they help define), we will need to better understand how climate change is likely to interact with ongoing restructuring processes, and design governance regimes that are capable of elaborating appropriate coping strategies that will address value sets that range beyond those easily captured through tools such as total economic valuation.

Conclusion The interactions of traditional fishing communities with the marine environment as part of the act of fishing have shaped social structures and processes within those communities and helped give rise to certain value sets that define and give a shared identity to those communities. Across the range of study sites, several key elements of social-ecological restructuring continue to reshape social structures and processes, and appear to have affected a range of “social values”. To the extent that decision-makers wish to preserve these values within traditional fishing communities, it follows that mechanisms should be developed to identify, characterize, and monitor changes in these value sets. The type of data presented here provide a first step in this effort, but it is important to emphasize that these data do not directly measure these values. Designing longitudinal instruments that monitor these types of value shifts within fishing communities would help to design effective coping strategies that can be adapted to shifting social-ecological realities. Moreover, there are critical and local-level variations in terms of the adaptive strategies of fish harvesters that are based on locally specific and historically contingent socialecological realities (Murray et al., 2008b), and governance regimes and management measures need to be collaboratively developed and tailored to the specifics of these interactions. This is a highly complex task and the local specifics will necessarily vary, but as a starting point these strategies should promote flexibility, provide opportunities for learning, and be responsive to the differing needs within and across communities and fishing actors.

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Endnotes 1. In this chapter the idea of “social values” represents a broad category, which can be defined as abstract standards or empirical variables in social life which are believed to be important and/or desirable. 2. The author wishes to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), which have provided the major funds for CUS through the SSHRC Major Collaborative Research Initiative (MCRI) program. Funding was also provided by the host universities: Memorial University of Newfoundland and the University of Victoria. Rosemary Ommer, Principal Investigator. 3. “Cumulative Effects and New Jersey Fisheries,” Project funded by the New Jersey Sea Grant College Program, New Jersey Marine Sciences Consortium. Thanks also to the 40 fish harvesters that participated in oral history interviews. Bonnie McCay and Kevin St Martin, Principal Investigators. 4. In BC, the geoduck, halibut, sablefish, groundfish trawl, and three shellfish are currently under individual fishing quota programs. In New Jersey, only the surfclam/ocean quahog fishery is under ITQ, while in Atlantic Canada there are no official ITQ fisheries. 5. Moreover, as demonstrated by McDonald et al. (2009) in their case study of fishing communities in Newfoundland and Labrador, processes of enclosure driven by changes in fisheries policy/ management can interact with shifts in other policy areas (e.g., occupational health and safety and employment insurance) to negatively affect some members of coastal communities (including women) disproportionately. 6. http://www.ccpfh-ccpp.org/cgi-bin%5Cfiles%5C050824-Press-Release-and-BackgrounderE-Final.pdf 7. Available at http://www.nafo.int/fisheries/frames/fishery-stats.html 8. Johnsen et al. (accepted) further describe these processes of change in fishing actors as one of “cyborgization” where the fisheries actors of today have become techno-scientific systems. 9. There is evidence that marine ecosystems are already shifting, due to climate influences, both generally (Feely et al., 2008) and with respect to key fisheries stocks. For example, the effects of climate change on BC’s iconic and lucrative salmon stocks have begun to be documented (Beamish et al., 2008; Beamish et al., 2004; McFarlane et al., 2000; Beamish et al., 1999). The Centre de Ressources en Impacts et Adaptation au Climat et á ses Changements (CRIACC) provides an initial reference list partly specific to the Gulf of St Lawrence. 10. A second complication lies in a deep sense of mistrust for regulatory agencies, and a rising sense of persecution and government antagonism that many of our respondents have reported.

References Beamish, R. J., Noakes, D. J., McFarlane, G. A., Klyashtorin, L., Ivanov, V. W. and Kurashov, V. (1999) The regime concept and natural trends in the production of Pacific salmon. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 56, 516–526. Beamish, R. J., Benson, A. J., Sweeting, R. M. and Neville, C. M. (2004) Regimes and the history of the major fisheries off Canada’s west coast. Progress in Oceanography 60(2–4), 355–385. Beamish, R. J., Sweeting, R. M., Lange, K. L. and Neville, C. M. (2008) Changes in the population ecology of hatchery and wild salmon in the Strait of Georgia. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 137, 503–520.

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Beddington, J. R., Agnew, D. J. and Clark, C. W. (2007) current problems in the management of marine fisheries, Science 316, 1713–1716. Casey, K. E., Dewees, C. M., Turris, B. R. and Wilen, J. E. (1995) The effects of individual vessel quotas in the British Columbia halibut fishery. Marine Resource Economics 10, 211–230. Costello, C., Gaines, S. D. and Lynham, J. (2008). Can catch shares prevent fisheries collapse? Science 321, 1678–1681. de Groot, R. S., Wilson, M. A. and Boumans, R. M. J. (2002) A typology for the classification, description and valuation of ecosystem functions, goods, and services. Ecological Economics 41(3), 393. Dolan, A. H., Taylor, S. M., Neis, B. et al. (2005) Restructuring and health in Canadian coastal communities. EcoHealth 2, 1–14. Ecotrust Canada (2004) Catch 22: Conservation, communities and the privatization of B.C. fisheries: an economic, social, and ecological impact study. Accessed 4 December 2008 at http://www. ecotrust.ca/ocean/catch22 Feely, R. A., Sabine, C. L., Hernandez-Ayon, J. M., Ianson, D. and Hales, B. (2008) Evidence for Upwelling of corrosive “acidified” water onto the continental shelf. Science 320(5882), 1490–1492. Gough, J. (2006). Managing Canada’s Fisheries: From Early Days to the Year 2000. McGill-Queen’s University Press, Georgetown, ON. Grafton, Q., Arnason, R., Bjørndal, T. et al. (2006) Incentive based approaches to sustainable fisheries. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 63, 699–710. Grafton, R. Q. and Nelson, H. W. (1997) Fishers’ individual salmon harvesting rights: an option for Canada’s Pacific fisheries. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 54, 474–482. Great Northern Peninsula (GNP) Fisheries Task Force (2006). Final Report. Accessed 4 December 2008 at http://www.nedc.nf.ca/Final%20Report-Jan05.pdf Halpern, B. S., Walbridge, S., Selkoe, K. A. et al. (2008). A global map of human impact on marine ecosystems. Science 319(5865), 948–952. Hamilton, L. C. and Otterstad, O. (1998) Demographic change and fisheries dependence in the northern Atlantic. Human Ecology Review 5(1), 24–30. Hamilton, L. C. and Haedrich, R. L. (1999) Ecological and populations changes in fishing communities of the North Atlantic Arc. Polar Research 18(2), 383–388. Hamilton, L. C., Haedrich, R. L. and Duncan, C. M. (2003) Above and below the water social/ecological transformation in northwest Newfoundland. Population and Environment 25(2), 101–121. Hutchings, J. A. (1996) Spatial and temporal variation in the density of northern cod and a review of hypotheses for the stock’s collapse. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 53, 943–962. Kirby, M. J. L. (1982) Navigating troubled waters: a new policy for Atlantic fisheries: report of the task force on Atlantic fisheries. Department of Supply and Services, Ottawa. Mansfield, B. (2004) Neoliberalism in the oceans: “rationalization,” property rights, and the commons question. Geoforum 35(3), 313–326. Marchand, A. R. (2002) Urbanization and Concentration in the Pacific Fishing Fleet and the Sustainability of BC’s Coastal Communities. Unpublished Masters Thesis: Royal Roads University. McCay, B. (1995) Social and ecological implications of ITQs. Ocean and Coastal Management 28(1–3), 3–22 McCay, B. (2004) ITQs and community: an essay on environmental governance. Agriculture and Resource Economics Review 33(2), 162–170.

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McCay, B., Apostle, R. and Creed, C. (1998) ITQs, co-management and community: reflections from Nova Scotia. Fisheries 23(4), 20–23. McDonald, M., Neis, B. and Murray, G. D. (2009) State policy, livelihood protection and gender in coastal communities. International Journal of Canadian Studies/ Revue internationale d’études canadiennes 38, 149–180. McFarlane, G. A., King, J. R. and Beamish, R. J. (2000) Have there been recent changes in climate? Ask the fish. Progress in Oceanography 47(2–4), 147–169. Murray, G. D., Neis, B. and Johnsen, J. P. (2006) Lessons learned from reconstructing interactions between local ecological knowledge, fisheries science and fisheries management in the commercial fisheries of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Human Ecology 34(4), 549–572. Murray, G. D., Neis, B. and Schneider, D. (2008a) The importance of scale and a multi-method approach in reconstructing socio-ecological system change in the Newfoundland Inshore Fishery. Coastal Management 36(1), 1–28. Murray, G. D., McCay, B., St Martin, K., Takahashi, S. and Johnson, T. (2008b) Cumulative effects, creeping enclosure, and the marine commons of New Jersey. Paper given to the 12th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Commons, Governing shared resources: connecting local experience to global challenges, Cheltenham UK, 14–18 July. Myers R. A. and Worm, B. (2003) Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities. Nature 423, 280–283. National Research Council (1999) Sharing the Fish – Towards a National Policy on Individual Fishing Quotas. National Academy Press, Washington DC. Ommer, R. with the Coasts Under Stress Research Project Team (2007) Coasts Under Stress: Restructuring and Social-Ecological Health. McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal and Kingston. Palmer, C. T. and Sinclair, P. (1997) When the Fish are Gone: Ecological Disaster and Fishers in Northwest Newfoundland. Fernwood Publishing, Halifax NS. Pauly, D., Christensen, V., Dalsgaard, J., Froese, R. and Torres, F. (1998) Fishing down marine food webs. Science 279, 860–863. Philcox, N. (2007) Literature Review and Framework Analysis of Non-Market Goods and Services Provided by British Columbia’s Ocean and Marine Coastal Resources. Report prepared for the Canada/British Columbia Oceans Coordinating Committee. Accessed 4 December 2008 at http:// www.env.gov.bc.ca/omfd/reports/ocean-nonmarket-values.pdf Praxis Research and Consulting Inc. (2005) Setting a New Course: Phase II Human Resources Sector Study for the Fish Harvesting Industry in Canada. Report prepared for the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters. Accessed 4 December 2008 at http://www.ccpfh-ccpp.org/cgibin%5Cfiles%5CSS-PhII-Final-RPT-E.pdf Sinclair, P. (1987) From Traps to Draggers. ISER Books, St John’s NF. Squires, D., Campbell, H., Cunningham, S. et al. (1998) Individual transferable quotas in multispecies fisheries. Marine Policy 22(2), 135–159.

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Chapter 15

Economic Valuation of Mangroves in the Niger Delta An Interdisciplinary Approach Godstime K. James, Jimmy O. Adegoke, Ekechukwu Saba, Peter Nwilo, Joseph Akinyede, and Sylvester Osagie

Abstract Today, the concept of an interdisciplinary approach to research has gained tremendous attention, both because it is an antithesis to the conventional divisions of knowledge-based research, and because complex problems in applied research almost always span various disciplines. This study explores one interdisciplinary approach to research, which addresses the problem of equitable mangrove valuation for the sustainable management of the resource in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. By integrating results from satellite remote sensing analysis and socioeconomic surveys, the economic value of mangroves in the Niger Delta, discounted over a 30-year period at 20% discount rate, ranges from $640–2,825ha. The variation in economic value is attributed to the variation in the socioeconomic characteristics of the communities that participated in the study. Keywords: Interdisciplinarity, Niger Delta, mangroves, remote sensing, GIS, economic valuation

Introduction Today, the concept of an interdisciplinary approach to research has gained tremendous attention, because it is an antithesis to the conventional divisions of knowledge-based research. Similarly, according to Klein (1990), researchers turn to the concept of interdisciplinarity to provide explanation and answers to complex questions, address broad-based issues, explore the intersecting relationship between disciplinary and professional interests, address problems that are beyond the scope of a single discipline, and to unify knowledge at different scales of interest. Many practical problems of our time require interdisciplinary solutions: for example, addressing the problems that are inherent in natural resource management requires an interdisciplinary approach. As a result, our approach is collaborative in nature and includes ecologists and spatial scientists (natural sciences), economists and World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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sociologists (social scientists). It involves the integration of survey-based socioeconomic data and satellite remote sensing derived data to address the problems of environmental resource exploitation (Liverman et al., 1998; Fox et al., 2003; Mennis, 2006). This study explores the value of such a quantitative integrative approach in addressing the problem of equitable mangrove valuation in developing sustainable management of the resource in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. This chapter is divided into eight sections. In the next section “Study area”, a description of the study area (the Niger Delta) is presented, then a succinct review of the integration of remote sensing and socioeconomic data is presented in the section entitled “Integration of remote sensing and socio-economic data”. Economic valuation of mangroves and the method adopted in this study are presented in the sections “Economic valuation of mangrove resources” and “Methodology”, respectively. Then follows a section “Empirical data processing”, which provides an empirical estimate of the economic value of mangroves in the Niger Delta. This is followed by the section “Results and analysis”, in which results and analysis of results are presented. Finally, the concluding remarks address our findings.

Study area This study is focused on the Niger Delta region of Nigeria (Fig. 15.1), located in south central Nigeria. The Niger Delta consists of nine political states: Abia, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, and Cross River. The total population of these states is approximately 20 million and is projected to increase to 39.2 million by 2015 and 45.7 million by 2020 (UNDP, 2006). Settlement is largely nucleated and rural, typically occupying isolated dry sites within the low deltaic swamps. Cities such as Warri and Portharcourt are found in the upland areas, where most of the commercial activities in the region occur. The region is significant for three reasons. First, the region is rich in hydrocarbon deposits. The exploration and exploitation of this mineral resource account for 90% of Nigeria’s foreign exchange receipts. Second, the region has the most diverse culture in Nigeria. The inhabitants of the Niger Delta are, like other Nigerians, highly diverse culturally. The riverine geography of the region promoted the development of isolated settlement of islands surrounded by a maze of inter-woven creeks. These islands converged into small ancient city-states and kingdoms such as Bonny, Brass, Akassa, Kalahari, Okrika, Nembe, Ogoni, Opobo, Bassan, Andoni, Itsekiri, and Urhobo (Petters, 2004). Finally, the Niger Delta has significant biodiversity; for example, the mangrove vegetation in the region is the largest contiguous mangrove zone in Africa and third largest in the world, after Indonesia and Brazil (World Bank, 1995; Nwilo, 2003). The term “mangrove” refers to salt tolerant species of trees or shrubs that grow on sheltered shores and in estuaries located in the tropics and some sub-tropical regions of the world (Saenger, 2002). In the Niger Delta, the mangroves support highly productive marine food chains and provide shelter for large numbers of larvae and juvenile stages of commercially important fishes (Ludo and Snedaker, 1974; Held et al., 2003). They also provide water quality maintenance, local micro-climate stabilization, and shoreline protection. The economic value of mangrove resources in the Niger Delta,

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N

Map of Nigeria and the Niger Delta States

W

E S

Africa

Legend Niger delta States

5,100 2,550

0

5,100

10,200 Kilometers

Fig. 15.1 The Niger Delta States located in Nigeria.

however, is grossly underestimated by stakeholders in the region, and the lack of equitable valuation of mangrove resources has encouraged the continuous decimation of the coastal delta ecosystem over time. The need to estimate the economic value of the mangrove resources in the region stems from the lack of any empirical study in the public domain that estimates the worth of the mangroves in the Niger Delta, other than that of the 1994 World Bank (Western African Department) sponsored environmental economic assessment study of the region (Linddal, 1995), whose estimate of mangrove productivity was based on value transfer methods and did not involve any direct input from the local communities in the mangrove ecological zone.

Integration of remote sensing and socio-economic data The integration of remote sensing and socioeconomic data has been approached from different perspectives, one of which is the linking of census datasets with satellite imagery. The integration of remote sensing and census data consists primarily of four research approaches (Chen, 2002). The first focuses on the challenges of scale and zoning effects using area-based census data (Wrigley et al., 1997). A second explores methods for effectively representing areal census data spatially, for visualization and subsequent analysis (Langford and Unwin, 1994). A third focuses on the use of census data as ancillary information for satellite image classification (Mesev, 1998), and urban socioeconomic and

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environmental analysis (Lo and Faber, 1997). The fourth examines the correlation between census data at different zonal level and pixel based satellite imagery. Thus, two broad schools of thought that integrate remote sensing and socioeconomic data have emerged. The first deals with the application of remote sensing data to socioeconomic analysis (Liverman et al., 1998). Interest in this has increased as recognition of the usefulness of remote sensing for identifying the landscape effects of socioeconomic processes has grown over time (Fox et al., 2003). The second consists of an application of socioeconomic data to remote sensing data (Mertens and Lambin, 2000). This has focused to a great extent on integrating census data and survey-based socioeconomic data to remotely sensed land-use or land-use change data, particularly for modeling the anthropogenic drivers of environmental change (Pfaff, 1999; Walsh et al., 1999; Geoghegan et al., 2001; Mennis, 2006). In our study, we apply an integrated approach to the economic valuation of environmental resources such as the mangrove ecosystem (see also Kreuter et al., 2001; Zhao et al., 2004; Tianhong et al., 2010). In particular, the study by Zhao et al. (2004) coupled remote sensing and socioeconomic data to estimate changes in the economic value of ecosystem services at the local level. They applied three LANDSAT TM and ETM datasets to estimate changes in the size of five land-cover/land-use categories, and used previously published value coefficients to estimate changes in the value of ecosystem services delivered by each land category in Chongming Island, China. Finally, they ranked the contribution of various ecosystem functions to the overall value of the ecosystem services.

Economic valuation of mangrove resources Mangroves support human welfare in terms of the goods and services they provide (i.e., direct use values), and the ecological functions which indirectly support economic activity (i.e., indirect use values) (Baan, 1997; Barbier, 1994, 2007; Barbier et al., 1997; Carson, 1998; Hamilton et al., 1989). The direct use benefits derived from mangrove ecosystems in the Niger Delta include the extraction of firewood, charcoal, wood for building, salt, fish traps, and fish stack (a local material used to store and preserve fish). Similarly, the communities derive indirect use benefits from the mangroves, such as the fact that the mangrove ecosystem provides breeding grounds for both onshore and offshore fisheries (Barbier, 2007). This ecological service supports the vibrant offshore fishery on the Atlantic coast of the Niger Delta (NDES, 1997). That is why, in this study, the economic valuation of mangroves in the Niger Delta is based on net income benefit derived from the following mangrove resources: firewood, charcoal, demersal and nondemersal fish species. These items were selected because past studies have shown that communities within the ecosystem derive income from the sale of the mangrove resources (World Bank, 1995; NDES, 1997; Lindall, 1995). In addition, focus group sessions and household surveys conducted in the mangrove communities as part of this study also confirm that the communities derive income from mangrove resources. Hence, the economic value of one hectare of mangrove vegetation in the Niger Delta was estimated using Equation 15.1, which is made up of the net income from the sale of mangrove resources aggregated across the sampled households in a community, the total number of household sampled, the number of households that

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derive income from the extraction of mangrove resources in the community, and the mangrove area that supported the income. v

w

åå (G

ij

EVk =

j =1 i =1

vk

- Cij ) ´

Nk Ak

(15.1)

where: i = ith Mangrove resource; j = jth Household; w = Total number of mangrove resources sold by household (j); v = Total number of households surveyed in a community; G = Annual Gross income from mangrove resources ($); C = 10% Cost of extraction ($); Ak = Mangrove area that supports income from mangroves in community (k)(ha); Nk = Number of households that extract resources from mangroves in community (k).

Methodology Sourcing for the data requirements in Equation 15.1 requires an interdisciplinary approach that provides methods for delineating the mangrove areas that support the income from the mangroves, as well as estimates of the net income from mangroves. Remote sensing was used in this study to delineate the spatial extent of mangroves in the Niger Delta. Similarly, social research methods (focus groups and household surveys) were conducted to provide data for the net income derived from the sale of mangrove resources.

Remote sensing analysis Remote sensing is one of the commonly used approaches for mapping the spatial coverage of mangrove vegetation (Brackel, 1984; Borel, 1985; Congalton, 1991; Aschbacher et al., 1995; Gao, 1998, 1999; Mumby et al., 1999; Green et al., 2000; Coppin et al., 2004), and it was adopted in this study to produce mangrove thematic maps covering the Niger Delta region. We did this for three reasons. First, the large spatial coverage of the mangrove vegetation in the Niger Delta requires a large coverage data gathering method. It would have been economically challenging to use aerial photographs or other high resolution optical remote sensing systems. Second, the swamp terrain of the mangrove ecosystem in the Niger Delta limits accessibility and the application of ground survey methods. Third, optical satellite images for the Niger Delta are readily available dating back to the early 1970s and can be acquired for free or purchased at minimal cost. The remote sensing approach adopted in this study is documented in James et al. (2007) and involves three stages. First, Landsat images captured in 2003 and covering the Niger Delta were acquired and geometrically rectified. Second, an unsupervised image classification process was used to discriminate mangrove vegetation category from other land-use/

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land-cover categories. Third, the accuracy of the mangrove thematic map was tested by cross-referencing pixels from the thematic map with test sample data obtained during field visits to the Niger Delta (Congalton, 1991; Jensen, 2005). The reliability of the derived mangrove thematic maps was above 90%. The resulting thematic maps were used to estimate the mangrove area (Ak ) in Equation 15.1.

Focus group analysis The focus group sessions were conducted in 2007 with the following objectives: to identify the various mangroves resources that provide income for the communities within the mangrove ecological zone of the Niger Delta; to pretest the survey instrument that was to be used to source for the income data; and lastly, to identify the mangrove areas that support the income from mangroves. A major methodology in this study is the participatory approach to primary data collection that requires input from local knowledge (Habermas, 1984; Dryzek, 1987, 1990; Fishkin, 1991). To do this, we conducted focus group sessions in Buguma, Kuruama, and Burutu, communities in the Niger Delta. These communities were selected because they are the major communities found within the mangrove ecological zone in the region. Moreover, they derive their livelihood from daily interaction with the mangrove ecosystem. Participants in the focus group sessions were drawn from stakeholders in each community, including community elders, women, fishermen, and youths. Each session was conducted in an informal manner and all participants had equal chance of participation. Consequently, no speaker was hindered by external compulsion or pressure. Finally, participants were encouraged to express their own attitudes, needs, and preferences for the mangrove ecosystem goods and services. Each session was conducted in English and a local interpreter was hired to translate all the discussions into the local dialect for the benefit of the participants. Each focus group session was divided into two segments. During the first segment, participants were asked to provide a list of mangrove resources that generated income for community members. Some of the major mangrove resources extracted for subsistence income and their local names are presented in Table 15.1. During the second segment of the focus group sessions, participants were involved with the delineation of the mangrove area that supports the community’s income from mangroves. To identify the spatial extent of these mangrove areas, participants were shown a mangrove thematic map of their community derived from our remote sensing analysis. The names of neighboring villages were also included on the map, thus facilitating the ability of the participants to relate to the geographic location covered by the map. The participants were then requested to identify the distance traveled by members of their community to extract mangrove resources. This was achieved by calling the names of neighboring villages to find out if members of the community travel as far as such villages to extract mangrove resources. When some villages were called, participants all agreed that members of their community do not travel that far to extract mangrove resources. At the end of the exercise, the distance traveled by members of the community was delineated on the analog map and shown to the participants. Corrections were made until all the participants agreed that the area delineated was a fair representation of the extent that members of their community traveled to extract mangrove resources.

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Table 15.1 A list of mangrove resources and their local names. Mangrove Resources

Local Name for Mangrove Resources (Burutu)

Local Name for Mangrove Resources (Buguma)

Local Name for Mangrove Resources (Kuruama)

Firewood Charcoal Local Salt Fish Crabs Periwinkle Oyster Bush meat Wood Construction Fish Traps Bait Fish Fish Stack Potash

Fini Ayingbo Fun Nji Ikoli Isam Ngbe Pirinama Angalasi Ikata Kenge/Paipai Kassa Fungroma

Fene Angalameni Fur Ndi Ago Samon Ibe Bonama Ten Ita Fen Akasa Ikaoun

Fini Anyimigbolo Fu Nji Ikoli Esem Ngbe Piri-Nama Warinamasi Fughuma Koninye Akasa –

Household survey Results from the first segment of the focus group sessions were used to develop a survey instrument. The survey instrument was pretested during the focus group sessions before it was administered to households in Kuruama, Burutu, and Buguma communities. The household survey was conducted in 2008. The sample size was calculated at the 90% confidence interval and 95% confidence level for all the communities visited. Given the preceding sample parameters, the following minimum sample sizes were determined 87, 85, and 55 households in Buguma, Burutu, and Kuruama communities, respectively. However, the actual households interviewed were 136, 155, and 60, in Buguma, Burutu, and Kuruama communities, respectively. The difference between the estimated sample size and the actual number of households sampled was to account for non response errors. The household survey focused on the elicitation of income derived from the sale of fishery and non-fishery Mangrove products (listed in Table 15.1) in each of the households that participated in the survey.

Empirical data processing Estimation of net income from the sale of mangrove resources The approach adopted for estimating net income, which was then used in the empirical estimates of direct use value and indirect use value of mangrove, was as follows. Net income from the extraction of mangrove resources was taken to be gross income from such extraction less the cost of extraction. The weekly gross income from the extraction of mangrove resources for each household was estimated from the responses to the survey questions. Estimating the cost of extracting mangrove resources in the studied communities was a challenge, because the resource extraction is at the level of subsistence, the goal being use in household consumption and subsistence income. Therefore, household members constitute the major labor force during the extraction process (Focus Group, 2008), and the handpaddled dugout canoe is the primary mode of transport to the resource extraction location.

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Previous studies have suggested that the cost of resource extraction within a mangrovedependent peasant economy, such as the Niger Delta, ranges between zero and 10% of the gross income (Naylor and Drew, 1998; Ronnback and Primavera, 2000). Consequently, 10% of household gross income was adopted as the cost of extraction. Hence, the net income from the extraction of mangrove resources was estimated by calculating the difference between the gross income and 10% of the gross income at the household level. Subsequently, the household net income was aggregated for each community. The aggregated net income (Equation 15.2) is one of the numerator terms in Equation (15.1). The next variable estimated in Equation (15.1) was the mangrove area that supported the net income from the sale of extracted mangrove resources. v

w

Aggregated Net Income = åå (Gij - Cij )

(15.2)

j =1 i =1

where: i = ith Mangrove resource; j = jth Household; w = Total number of mangrove resources sold by household (j); v = Total number of households surveyed in a community; G = Annual Gross income from mangrove resources ($); C = 10% Cost of extraction ($).

Estimation of the mangrove area that supported mangrove income (Ak ) The analog mangrove thematic map on which the mangrove boundary layer had been delineated (based on inputs from the focus group sessions in each surveyed community) was scanned, added to a project layer created in an ESRI Arc Map environment, and georeferenced. The extent of the mangrove area visited by members of each community was digitized into a separate map layer as a shapefile. The thematic map produced from the remote sensing analysis in this study was added to the project folder in the ESRI Arc Map environment. The mangrove land-cover category was exported from the thematic map. Since the exported land-cover data was in raster format, it was converted to vector format using the raster-to-vector conversion routine in the spatial analyst extension of Arc GIS 9.2. The vectorized mangrove layer was also added to the map project layer in ESRI Arc Map environment. An intersect overlay operation was performed using the vectorized mangrove layer and the delineated boundary layer that was derived from the focus group session. The objective of the intersect overlay operation was to ensure that only the mangrove area in the focus group mangrove delineated boundary was included in the final intersect layer. Since the final intersect layer was a combination of fragmented polygons from the raster-tovector operation, the fragmented polygons were dissolved using the dissolve routine in ESRI Geoprocessing Arc Tool box. The value of the mangrove area from the dissolve operation was calculated by importing the dissolved polygon shapefile into a geodatabase. Given that the procedures described in the previous paragraph were to be repeated for each of the three communities visited in this study, a Geoprocessing model (called GEOND) was developed using the Geoprocessing tool in ESRI Arc Tool box. GEOND is made up of

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Buguma Fishing

Intersect

Raster to Polygon

Mangrove Layer

Output Feature class

Output polygon features

273

Dissolve

Output Feature class (2)

Fig. 15.2 Geoprocessing model for extracting mangrove areas.

three segments. The first segment converts raster data layer to a vector data layer (i.e., raster-to-vector operation). The raster-to-vector operation accepts the raster image of the mangrove coverage as input and produces the vectorized model of the image. The second segment of GEOND involves the intersection of the mangrove vectorized shapefile and the digitized mangrove area shapefile derived from the focus group sessions. The result of the intersection operation is fed into the dissolve module (i.e., the third segment of GEOND). The model diagram for GEOND is presented in Fig. 15.2.

Annual household net income at the community level The average annual net income from mangrove resources in each community was estimated by dividing the total annual net income by the total number of households that generated the income (vk) (Equation 15.1). The goal was to estimate the total annual income generated by all the households that derive income from the mangroves in each of the three communities sampled. To achieve this goal, the percentage of respondents in each community that derive income from mangrove vegetation was estimated from the results of the household surveys. In Buguma, Kuruama, and Burutu communities, 84%, 70%, and 82% of respondents sampled in that order, extract mangrove resources. Since the estimated number of households in Buguma, Kuruama, and Burutu were 900, 128, and 700, respectively, the number of households that extract mangrove resources in these communities (i.e., Nk in Equation 15.1) were 754, 90, and 575, in Buguma, Kuruama, and Burutu communities, in that order. To estimate the total annual household income (AI ) for a community (e.g., Buguma), the number of households that extract mangrove resources in the community Nk was multiplied by the average annual household income from mangrove resources in the community (Equation 15.3). v

w

åå (G

ij

AI =

j =1 i =1

vk

- Cij ) ´ Nk

(15.3)

where: i = ith Mangrove product; j = jth Household; w = Total number of mangrove resources sold by household ( j);

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v = Total number of households surveyed in a community; G = Annual Gross income from mangrove resources ($); C = 10% Cost of extraction ($); Nk = Number of households that extract resources from mangroves in community (k).

Results and analysis Socio-economic characteristics of household survey respondents The majority of household respondents who participated in the survey were male household heads. They accounted for about 60% of respondents, while female household heads constituted about 40%. The results from the focus group sessions conducted in the three communities indicated that women are also actively involved with the extraction of mangrove resources. Consequently, they can provide reliable information on the productivity of the mangroves. Most of the household heads sampled were within the age bracket of 41 years and above; they constituted 59% of the respondents. On average, the respondents had lived in their community for about 29 years; about 37% had completed their secondary education, while 33% had primary level education. This is not surprising because the majority of those with higher educational background are more likely to migrate to the cities for better opportunities. The majority of those sampled (~67%) reported the extraction of mangrove resources as their full-time occupation. The extraction of these resources is at the subsistence level. About nine out of every ten household respondents extract fishery resources within the adjoining community rivers and creeks. Similarly, 95% of respondents use hand-paddled dugout wooden canoes as their primary means of transportation to the locations where they collect mangrove resources. Furthermore, 62% of those sampled use fishing hooks, while about eight out of every ten respondents use fishing nets for the extraction of fish. The reported average monthly income of respondents was approximately N18,694 ($130).

Area of mangrove that support income stream (Ak ) Results from the implementation of the GEOND geoprocessing model developed in this study indicated that the area of mangrove that supported income streams from mangroves varies among the three communities considered in this study. While the estimated mangrove area was 20,215 hectares in Burutu community (Fig. 15.3), the area was 8,490 hectares in Buguma community (Fig. 15.4). The least area of 2,222 hectares was estimated for Kuruama community (Fig. 15.5).

Results from the economic valuation The results from the economic valuation of mangrove resources in the three sampled communities based on Equation 1 are presented in Table 15.2. The highest economic value ($483.40/ha/yr) was obtained in Burutu, followed by Buguma ($280.68/ha/yr), and the lowest value was obtained in Kuruama ($109.44/ha/yr). Similarly, the result of the

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N W

E S

Forcados River Estuary

Legend 0 1,500 3,000

6,000

9,000

Meters 12,000

Mangrove Area Burutu

Fig. 15.3 Mangrove area that supports the fishery in Burutu community.

net income stream, discounted over a 30-year period at 20% discount rate, is presented in Table 15.2. The 30-year period was adopted because it takes about 30 years for a degraded mangrove ecosystem to recover after a disturbance, giving favorable ecological conditions (Adegbenhin and Nwaigbo, 1990; Focus Group, 2008). Also, the 20% discount rate was adopted because the current lending rate (first quarter of 2008) in Nigeria is approximately 20%. The economic value of mangroves derived from Equation 15.1 represents annual net income from mangrove resources aggregated over households and the mangrove areas that supported the income in a community. As a result, the economic values represent an upper bound of marginal estimates of incremental use, and a lower bound for average estimates of total use under the usual assumptions of diminishing returns to scale and diminishing marginal utility (i.e., the productivity of a unit area depends on the remaining mangrove area) (Costanza et al., 1989; Naylor and Drew, 1998). The variations of the economic value of mangroves across the sampled communities reflect the variation in the socioeconomic characteristics of the communities within the zone. Kuruama community is a classical example of a small community with a low level of economic activities. They do not sell non-fishery mangrove products. By contrast, Burutu and Buguma communities represent large communities in the mangrove ecological zone that enjoy, to some extent, the influence of trade in mangrove resources. For example, mangrove products from Buguma are bought by

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N W

E S

Legend 0

700 1,400

2,800

4,200

Meters 5,600

Mangrove Area Buguma

Fig. 15.4 Mangrove area that supports the fishery in Buguma community.

traders from Portharcourt (Portharcourt is the largest city in the Niger Delta). Similarly, there is a weekly market in Burutu that attracts people from the various neighboring villages; traders from Warri visit the community during market days to buy mangrove products (Warri is the second largest city in the Niger Delta). However, these markets are largely imperfect because of the high degree of distortion in the prices paid for mangrove resources. For example, while a kilogram of mullet fish costs N500 ($4) in Burutu community, the same amount of mullet sells for N1,200 ($10) in Warri and N1,500 ($13) in Portharcourt. One of the far reaching implications of the economic valuation results in this study is that the estimated economic value for mangroves exceeds the compensation paid to Niger Delta communities for damaged/degraded mangroves. Compensation rates for damaged environmental resources resulting from the activities of the oil and gas industry operating in Nigeria is enshrined in the Nigerian oil and mineral laws of 1961 as well as the Land Use decree of 1978, and these provide for the payment of compensation whenever there is environmental degradation resulting from the activities of the oil industries. The communities in the Niger Delta are currently compensated with $24/ha for degraded or destroyed mangroves (UNDP, 2006). Comparing the current compensation rate with the economic valuation results in this study, there is a clear indication that the compensation rate is abysmally low. At a potential income stream of $2,825/ha from mangroves (Table 15.2), the paid

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N W

E S

0

350 700

1,400

2,100

Meters 2,800

Legend Mangrove Area Kuruama

Fig. 15.5 Mangrove area that supports the fishery in Kuruama community.

Table 15.2 Net Annual Income Stream from the Mangrove Ecosystem Services in Kuruama, Buguma and Burutu Communities. Community Kuruama Buguma Burutu

2008 ($/ha/yr)

20% Discount ($/ha)

109.44 280.68 483.40

639.51 1640.15 2824.75

compensation is less than 1% of what should be paid. On the other hand, if the least income stream derived in this study ($640/ha) (Table 15.2) is compared with the compensation rate, then the paid compensation is just about 4% of what should be paid.

Conclusions This study has demonstrated the role of interdisciplinarity in addressing natural resource valuation for sustainable management options. In particular, data sources from socioeconomic as well as satellite remote sensing datasets were integrated within an interdisciplinary framework to estimate the economic value of the mangroves in the Niger Delta region

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of Nigeria. Results reveal that the potential income from one hectare of mangroves over a 30-years period, discounted at 20% discount rate, ranged between $640 and $2,825. The variation in the economic value of mangroves is largely influenced by the socioeconomic background of the communities that participated in the study.

References Adegbehin, J. O. and Nwaigbo, L. C. (1990) Mangrove resources in Nigeria: use and management perspectives. Nature and Resources 26, 13–21. Aschbacher, J., Ofren, R., Delsol, J. P., Suselo, T. B., Vibiusresth, S. and Charrupat, T. (1995) An integrated comparative approach to mangrove vegetation mapping using advanced remote sensing and GIS technologies: preliminary results. Hydrobiologia 295, 285–294. Baan, C. (1997) The Economic Valuation of Mangroves: A Manual for Researchers. International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada. Barbier, E. B. (1994) Valuing environmental functions: tropical wetlands. Land Economics 70, 155–173. Barbier, E. B. (2007) Valuing ecosystem services as productive inputs. Economic Policy 22, 177–229. Barbier, E. B., Acreman, M. and Knowler, D. (1997) Economic Valuation of Wetlands: A Guide for Policy Makers and Planners. Ramsar Convention Bureau, Department of Environmental Economics and Management, University of York, Cambridge UK. Borel, D. (1985) Monitoring of mangroves areas through high resolution remote sensing techniques: the SPOT simulation campaign over Bangladesh. Bakawan 4, 6–8. Brackel, W. H. (1984) Seasonal dynamics of the suspended sediment plumes from Tano and Sabaki Rivers, Kenya: analysis of coastal imagery. Remote Sensing of the Environment 18, 165–173. Carson, R. T. (1998) Valuation of tropical rainforests: philosophical and practical issues in the use of contingent valuation. Ecological Economics 24, 15–29. Chen, K. (2002) An approach to linking remotely sensed data and areal census data. International Journal of Remote Sensing 23(1), 37–48. Congalton, R. G. (1991) A review of assessing the accuracy of classification of remotely sensed data. Remote Sensing of Environment 37, 35–46. Coppin, P., Jonckheere, I., Nackaerts, K. and Muys, B. (2004) Digital change detection methods in ecosystem monitoring – a review. International Journal of Remote Sensing 25, 1565–1596. Costanza, R., Farber, S. C. and Maxwell, J. (1989) valuation and management of wetland ecosystems. Ecological Economics 1, 335–361. Dryzek, J. S. (1987) Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy. Basil Blackwell Inc., New York. Dryzek, J. S. (1990) Discursive Democracy: Politics, Policy and Political Science. Cambridge University Press, New York. Fishkin, J. S. (1991) Democracy and Deliberation. Yale University Press, New Haven CT. Focus Group (2008) Proceedings of the focus group sessions conducted in the Niger Delta by Godstime James. (Unpublished). Fox, J., Rindfuss, R. R., Walsh, S. J. and Mishra, V. (2003) People and the Environment: Approaches for Linking Household and Community Surveys to Remote Sensing and GIS. Kluewer Academic Publishers, Boston MA. Gao, J. (1998) A hybrid method towards accurate mapping of Mangroves in a marginal habitat from SPOT multispectral data. International Journal of Remote Sensing 19, 1887–1899. Gao, J. (1999) A comparative study on spatial and spectral resolutions of satellite data in mapping mangrove forests. International Journal of Remote Sensing 20, 2823–2833.

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Geoghegan, J., Villar, S. C., Kelpeis, P., Mendoza, P. M., Ogneva-Himmelberger, Y., Chowdhury, R., Turner, I. B. L. and Vance, C. (2001). Modeling tropical deforestation in the southern Yucatan Peninsular region: comparing survey and satellite data. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 85(1–3), 25–46. Green, E., Mumby, P., Edward, A. and Clarke, C. (2000) Remote sensing handbook for tropical coastal management. In: Coastal Management Source Book (ed. A. Edward), 3rd edn, UNESCO, Paris. Habermas, J. (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action. Beacon Press, Boston MA. Hamilton, L., Dixon, J. and Owen Miller, G. (1989) Mangroves forests: an undervalued resource of the land and sea. In: Ocean Yearbook 8 (eds E. M. Borgese, N. Ginsburg and J. R. Morgan), University of Chicago Press, Chicago IL. Held, A., Ticehurst, C., Lymburner, L. and Williams, N. (2003) High resolution mapping of tropical mangrove ecosystems using hyperspectral and radar remote sensing. International Journal of Remote Sensing 24, 2739–2759. James, G. K., Adegoke, J. O., Saba, E., Nwilo, P. C. and Akinyede, J. (2007) Satellite based assessment of Mangrove ecosystem change in the Niger Delta. Journal of Marine Geodesy 30, 249–267. Jensen, J. (2005) Introductory Digital Image Processing: A Remote Sensing Perspective, 3rd edn. Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River NJ. Klein, J. T. (1990) Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory, and Practice. Wayne State University Press, Detroit MI. Kreuter, P. U., Heather, G. H., Marty, D. M. and Ronald, E. L. (2001). Change in ecosystem service values in the San Antonio area, Texas. Ecological Economics 39(3), 333–346. Langford, M. and Unwin, D. J. (1994) Generating and mapping population density surfaces within a geographical information system. The Cartographic Journal 31, 21–26. Linddal, M. (1995) Environmental Economic Study of the Niger Delta, Nigeria. Carl Bro International, Glostrup, Denmark. Liverman, D., Moran, E. F., Rindfuss, R. R. and Stern, P.C. (eds) (1998) People and Pixels: Linking Remote Sensing and Social Science. National Academic Press, Washington DC. Lindall, M. (1995) Environmental Economic Study of the Niger Delta, Nigeria. Submitted to the World Bank. Carl Bro International. Glostrup, Denmark. Lo, C. P. and Faber, B. J. (1997) Integration of Landsat Thematic Mapper and census data for quality of life assessment. Remote Sensing of Environment 62, 143–157. Ludo, A. and Snedaker, S. (1974) The ecology of Mangroves. Annual Review of Ecological Systems 5, 39–64. Mennis, J. (2006) Socioeconomic-vegetation relationships in urban, residential land: the case of Denver, Colorado. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 72(8), 911–921. Mertens, B. and Lambin, E. F. (2000) Land-cover change trajectories in southern Cameroon. Annals of the Association of the American Geographers 90, 3. Mesev, V. (1998) The use of census data in urban image classification. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 64, 431–438. Mumby, P. J., Green, E. P., Edwards, A. J. and Clark, C. D. (1999) The cost effectiveness of Remote Sensing for Tropical Coastal Resources Assessment and Management. Journal of Environmental Management 55, 157–166. Niger Delta Environmental Survey (NDES) (1997) The Niger Delta Environmental Survey (phase 1), Environmental and Socio-economic Characteristics. Environmental Resources Mangers Ltd, Lagos-Nigeria. Naylor, R. and Drew, M. (1998) Valuing mangrove resources in Kosrae, Micronesia. Environmental and Development Economics 3, 471–490.

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Nwilo, P. (2003) Spatial data infrastructure: an imperative in the management of the resources of the Niger Delta. Genova-Italy: Proceedings of the 5th International symposium on GIS and computer cartography for coastal zone management, 16–18 October 2003. Internet on-line. Available from http://www.gisig.it/coastgis/papers/nwilo.htm (last accessed 18 December, 2005). Petters, S. (2004) Conservation and development of the Niger Delta. Internet on-line. Available from http://onlinenigeria.com/links?LinksReadPrint.asp?blurb=497 (last accessed 25 June 2004). Pfaff, A. S. P. (1996) What drives deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: evidence from satellite and socioeconomic data. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 1772. World Bank, Washington DC. Ronnback, P. and Primavera, J. H. (2000) Use of environmental functions to communicate the roles of a mangrove ecosystem under different management systems – a critique. Ecological Economics 35, 135–141. Saenger, P. (2002) Mangrove Ecology, Silviculture and Conservation. Klumer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht. Tianhong, L., Wen kai, L. and Zhenghan, Q. (2010) Variations in ecosystem service value in response to land use changes in Shenzhen. Ecological Economics 69(7), 1427–1435. UNDP (2006) Niger Delta human development report. United Nations Development Programme, Garki, Abuja-Nigeria. Walsh, S. J., Evans, T. P., Welsh, W. F., Entwisle, B. and Rindfuss, R. R. (1999) Scale-dependent relationships between population and environment in northeastern Thailand. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 65(1), 97–105. Wrigley, N., Holt, T., Steel, D. and Tranmer, M. (1997) Analysing, modelling, and resolving the ecological fallacy. In: Spatial Analysis: Modelling in a GIS Environment (eds P. Longley and M. Batty), Geoinformation International, London. World Bank (1995) Defining an Environmental Management Strategy for the Niger Delta. Report prepared by Jasdip Smigh, David Moffat and Olof Linden. Industry and Energy operations division, West African Department, World Bank, Washington DC. Zhao, B., Kreuter, U., Li, B., Ma, Z., Chen, J. and Nakagoshi, N. (2004) An ecosystem service value assessment of land-use change on Chongming Island, China. Land Use Policy 21(2), 131–142.

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Chapter 16

US Marine Ecosystem Habitat Values Ussif Rashid Sumaila, Jackie Alder, G. Ishimura, William. W. L. Cheung, L. Dropkin, S. Hopkins, S. Sullivan, and A. Kitchingman

Abstract Sumaila et al. (submitted) estimated annual total use values from US marine ecosystems at $2.2 and $7.1 billion under the current and a more effective management scenario. The corresponding total non-use values were estimated at $5.2 and $8.5 billion. Hence, the sum of annual use and non-use values was estimated at $7.4 and $15.7 billion for the current and improved management scenario. In this chapter, we assign these estimated values to four marine habitats in the United States, i.e., estuaries, seamounts, coral reefs, and the remaining habitats. We find that estuaries contribute the largest value per km2, followed by seamounts, coral reefs, and then the remaining habitats. The importance of the three habitats in terms of their value per km2 cannot be overemphasized, with the cumulative percentage of the total value derived from these three habitat types exceeding 90% of the total value. Keywords: Gulf of Alaska, east Bering Sea, US section of the California Current, US section of the Gulf of Mexico, US East

Introduction The goal of this chapter is to assign the values from US marine habitats that were estimated in Sumaila et al. (submitted) to four habitat types within marine ecosystems found in the United States. We give particular attention to ocean bottom habitat, for example, estuaries,1 seamounts, and coral reefs. We obtain a measure of ‘worth’ that would be useful to regulators, the scientific community, civil society, and other interested

World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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parties in making decisions on how these habitats are used. Although estuaries, seamounts, coral reefs, and other fragile habitats were first documented hundreds of years ago, the value of these areas has only become apparent in the last few decades. With the development of deep-sea exploration technology, scientists have finally been able to study cold water corals, seamounts, and other bottom communities in their natural environment and capture both their astonishing diversity and beauty (Freiwald, et al., 2004), and also the damage inflicted on them by fishing gear (Koslow; et al., 2001; Roberts, 2002; Pauly et al., 2002). Juvenile fish seeking protection from predators tend to aggregate in areas of high underwater relief, including estuaries, mangroves, coral reefs, canyons, boulder and cobble bottoms, seamounts, and on cold water corals. Coral reefs, sponges, and sea squirts provide structure to the seabed in areas of high relief and offer complex habitat for numerous fish and shellfish species (Freiwald et al., 2004; Rogers, 2004). Commercially valuable fish are found associated with these types of habitat (Freiwald et al., 2004; Koslow et al., 2001). For this reason, the same areas are attractive to fishing trawls. Seamounts, canyons, and associated deep-water corals are used as breeding or nursery areas by many fish and are such important components of the deep-sea ecosystem that their destruction would cause long-term changes in associated animal communities (Hall, 1998; Morgan et al., 2005). It is essential that we understand the full value of these complex marine habitats before they are irrevocably damaged by destructive activities such as bottom trawling, mining, and seismic exploration.

Geographical scope of study The study covers all US marine ecosystems and significant habitats within the waters of the contagious US and Alaska. This includes all or part of the following large marine ecosystems (LMEs; Sherman et al., 1993): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

the east Bearing Sea; the Gulf of Alaska; the California Current; the Gulf of Mexico; the US part of the southeast Continental Shelf; and the US part of the northeast Continental Shelf (Plate 10 in the color plate section).

We regrouped these large LMEs into four “EEZ regions”, namely, Alaska (the parts of the Gulf of Alaska and the east Bering Sea that are within the US EEZ), US West (the part of the California Current that is within the US EEZ), Gulf of Mexico (the part of the Gulf of Mexico that is within the US EEZ), and US East (the parts of the northeast and southeast US Continental Shelves that are within the US EEZ), and based our analysis on these so-called EEZ regions of the US. For each of these EEZ regions, we assigned direct use values made up of use (commercial, recreational, and indirect) and non-use values (existence, option, and bequest values).

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Assigning use and non-use values to habitat types Direct use: Habitat associated commercial values To assign direct use values to habitat types, we split the landings and net catch values reported in Sumaila et al. (submitted) by: 1. 2. 3. 4.

coral reefs;2 estuaries; seamounts; and “other”, i.e., the remaining habitats for which no separate data were available.

The distribution of each habitat was mapped onto a 30' × 30' grid and the distribution of each commercial taxon from the US EEZ regions was mapped onto the same grid (http:// www.seaaroundus.org/distribution/map/DistMethod.htm (Watson et al., 2004).3 We assumed that the spatial distribution of landings of each taxon followed its predicted relative distribution. Total catch and catch values were then estimated from distribution overlaps with each habitat scaled by their relative area: k

Ch, E , y = å Ck , E , y × k

Vh¢¢, E , y = åVk , E , y ×

H h,k , E Tk , E

(16.1)

H h,k , E Tk , E

(16.2)

where C denotes habitat associated catch in tonnes per km2, H is habitat area (km2), T is total area, V˝ denotes habitat catch value ($ per km2), h is habitat, k is species, E is EEZ region, and y is year. In the case of seamounts, we estimated the average basal area to be approximately 100 km2 based on the average diameter and height of recorded seamounts (e.g., http:// earthref.org/index.html) and the number of seamounts. The number of seamounts in each EEZ region (Table 16.1) was counted by using two algorithms developed by Kitchingman and Lai (2004). First, counts based on the depth differences between adjacent horizontal cells of a digital global map distributed by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Table 16.1 Area of habitats (km2) in US EEZ regions. Area of habitats (km2)

EEZ regions

Alaska US west coast US east coast Gulf of Mexico 1 2

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Coral1

Estuary

Seamount2

Others

Total

– – 404 624

6,322 5,045 24,730 23,543

10,200 (102) 5,300 (53) 400 (4) 0 (0)

3,416,497 906,754 1,024,234 805,229

3,433,019 917,099 1,049,768 829,396

Refers to tropical coral reef only. Assuming average basal area of seamount to be approximately 100 Km2 (e.g. http://earthref.org/index.html). Values in parentheses are the predicted number of seamount in U.S. EEZ (Kitchingman and Lai, 2004).

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Administration (NOAA) were mapped. These distributions were then adjusted with a dataset of known seamount locations supplied by NOAA and Seamounts Online (http:// seamounts.sdsc.edu). Areas of habitat were estimated using locations of seamounts and overlapped grids. Finally, we assume that the quantity of fish that overlap with these grids is fish that can be associated with seamount (Rogers, 1994).4 Using the information derived above, we estimated catch and catch value per unit habitat (per km2) using the equations below: C H h, E , y = h, E , y Ch, E

(16.3)

V ¢¢ Vh, E , y = h, E , y H h, E

(16.4)

~ ~ where H is the catch per unit habitat area and V stands for value per unit habitat area.

Direct use: Habitat associated recreational values We combined the information reported by NMFS on species caught by recreational fishers, the data on direct expenditures, and the species classification presented at NMFS Recreational Fisheries website: http://www.st.nmfs.gov/st1/recreational/queries/index.html to assign recreational values to coral reefs, seamounts, estuaries, and “other”. Descriptions of species’ habitat association were obtained from FishBase (http://www.fishbase.org) and used to assign the species caught to different habitats. The proportion of fish caught in the different habitats was then applied to help pro-rate the total direct recreational expenditures to the different habitat types. Based on the net recreational values calculated earlier, we estimated the economic value of recreational fishing generated from the three habitats (coral, estuary, and others), not four because, as it turned out, recreational fishers do not target seamount associated species. Assuming that net recreational values relate positively to the quantity of anglers’ catch and the maximum body size of fish targeted, we divided net recreational values in each US EEZ zone by the number of fish caught weighted by their log-transformed maximum length (normalized to a range of 1–5). The value for each fish taxon was then equally divided by their associated habitats, from which total recreational value to each habitat i (Vi) was estimated: s=n

Vi =

v × å Ys × ws × H i ,s s i =3 s = n

åå Y × w s

i

s

(16.5)

× H i ,s

s

and æ L ' s - min( L ') ö w s = 1+ 4 ×ç ÷ è max( L ') - min( L ') ø

(16.6)

where v is the net recreational value for each US EEZ regions, Ys is the quantity (number of fish) of anglers’ catch on taxa s, w is the weighting factor based on normalized

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log-transformed maximum length (L´), and H is the taxon’s relative association to each habitat i. Recreational fishing value per unit area of a given habitat was also estimated.

Non-use and indirect value: Habitat values based on iconic species To compute non-use and indirect values, Sumaila et al. (submitted) employed the contingent valuation method (CVM), which is an indirect approach to estimating willingness to pay (WTP). The authors applied a logit regression model to estimate the mean WTP for indirect, option, and existence values. Using these estimates, a logit regression model was further employed to assign the estimated values to the four marine habitats based on the iconic species they support. Seven iconic species – shrimp (Panaeus spp.), salmon (Salmo spp.), lobster, Pollack (Theragra chalcogramma), rockfish (Sebastes spp.), grouper (Epinephelus spp.), and scallop (Placopecten spp.) were identified for US marine ecosystems (Sumaila et al., submitted).

The results

100 200 300 400 500 600

Estuaries

0

Total Value (US Million Dollar)

0.5

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Year

Year

Seamount

1000 2000 3000 4000 5000

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Others

0

0.4 0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

Coral

Total Value (US Million Dollar)

Total Value (US Million Dollar)

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0

Total Value (US Million Dollar)

Figure 16.1 presents the habitat associated catch values for seamounts, coral reefs, estuaries, and “other”. We see that the values derived from each of these habitats have peaked, and are trending downwards.

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Year

Year

Fig. 16.1 Habitat associated real landed values (note that the figures are not equally scaled).

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Table 16.2 Current and potential habitat associated net commercial values ($ km−2). Habitats

Net values in EEZ regions ($ km−2)

Management scenario

Coral Estuary Seamount Others

Alaska

US west

US east

Gulf of Mexico

US total

– – 602 4,232 510 3,587 27 188

– – 132 927 1,265 8,898 12 87

26 179 591 4,157 166 1,168 108 758

35 140 387 2,725 – – 63 443

61 319 1,712 12,041 1,941 13,653 209.8 1,476

Current Potential Current Potential Current Potential Current Potential

Table 16.3 Current and potential habitat associated net recreational values ($ km−2). Habitats Coral Estuary Others

Management scenario

US west

US east

Gulf of Mexico

US total

Current Potential Current Potential Current Potential

– – 6 43 0.4 3

146 1,124 13 103 0.3 2

115 888 8 62 0.3 2

261 2,012 27 208 1.0 7

Direct use: Habitat associated commercial values We report in Table 16.2 the habitat associated net commercial values for seamounts, coral reefs, estuaries, and “other” under current and potential management scenarios using the above methods. We see from the table that estuaries and seamount areas provide an order of magnitude of net commercial values per area compared to the coral and “other” habitats.

Direct use: Habitat associated recreational values We report in Table 16.3 below the habitat associated net recreational values for coral reefs, estuaries, and “other” for the current and potential management scenarios. The crucial role of coral and estuarine habitats in providing net recreational values cannot be overemphasized. Note that no values are assigned to seamounts because, according to the reported data, recreational fishers do not target seamount associated fish species. Coral values ranged between $115 and $1124 per km2, while estuary values ranged between $6 and $103 per km2. For the remaining habitats (other), the value was from $0.3 to $3 per km2. These numbers demonstrate the importance of coral and estuarine habitats in providing recreational values.

Non-use and indirect value: Habitat values based on iconic species The estimated value (million $) for each species – habitat combination, total habitat value, total habitat area in the continental USA and Alaska, and value on km2 are given in Table 16.4. We see from the table that for all four non-use and indirect use values, estuaries are over-

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Table 16.4 Current and potential habitat associated indirect and non-use values ($ km−2). Values

Management scenario

Indirect use Non-Use Option Existence Bequest

Corals

Estuaries

Seamounts

Other

Current Potential

332 611

1,558 2,871

140 258

170 313

Current Potential Current Potential Current Potential

602 1,111 278 278 440 484

2,829 5,221 1,308 1,308 2,069 2,274

254 469 117 117 186 205

309 570 143 143 224 246

Table 16.5 Current and potential habitat associated use (commercial, recreational and indirect) and non-use (option, existence and bequest) values ($ km−2). Values

Management scenario

Corals

Estuaries

Seamounts

Other

Current Potential Current Potential

654 2,942 1,320 1,873

3,297 15,120 6,206 8,803

2,081 13,911 557 791

381 1,796 676 959

Use Non-use

whelmingly valued more than corals and estuaries. While coral reefs are valued more than seamounts, the differences are not as large as those between corals and estuaries. Finally, we provide a summary of our estimates of total annual habitat associated use (commercial, recreational, and indirect) and non-use (option, existence, and bequest) values from US marine ecosystems in Table 16.5.

Concluding remarks According to Sumaila et al. (submitted), the estimated annual total use values from US marine ecosystems at $2.2–7.1 billion under current and a more effective management scenario. The corresponding total non-use values for US continental waters and Alaska were estimated at between $5.2 and $8.5 billion. Therefore, the sum of annual use and nonuse values was estimated at $7.4 and $15.7 billion. From the results of this study, we see that estuaries contribute the largest value per km2, followed by seamounts, coral reefs, and then the remaining habitats. The importance of the three habitats in terms of their value per km2 cannot be overemphasized, with seamounts, estuaries, and coral reefs contributing significantly more per km2 than the rest of the habitats. These values are important in deciding appropriate uses for marine areas and in evaluating the trade-offs that will be made in reconciling the competing uses for these marine habitats and their ecosystem services. For example, working out the trade-offs between developing coral reefs for tourism or destroying the same coral reefs for expansion

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of an airport runway. Similarly, the maintenance of an estuary for fish nursery services vs. developing it for aquaculture with its associated risks of diseases and invasive species can be evaluated. The direct, indirect, and non-use values of these habitats estimated in this study will enable policy-makers to compare the value of proposed development with other ecologically and socially important values.

Acknowledgements We thank our colleagues at the Sea Around Us project and Fisheries Economics Research Unit, Fisheries Centre for commenting on earlier drafts of the article. We also appreciate helpful comments from reviewers of the article. Finally, we thank OCEANA for their financial support.

Endnotes 1. Estuaries are defined as partially enclosed bodies of water where freshwater from rivers and streams flow into oceans. 2. Since cold water corals do not represent a large spatial area in US waters and data on cold water coral were not available by the time of this analysis, “coral reef ” denotes tropical coral species only in this report. 3. Analyses in this chapter are based on the predicted distribution of commercial taxa that were available during the time of this study. However, the research on the prediction of distribution of commercial taxa is ongoing by the SAUP. Hence, the predicted distributions could be revised upon new data and improved models. 4. Details of this procedure can be found in Kitchingman and Lai (2004).

References Freiwald, A., Fosså, J. H., Grehan, A. et al. (2004) Cold-water Coral Reefs. UNEP-WCMC, Cambridge UK. Hall, S. J. (1998) The Effects of Fisheries on Ecosystem Communities. Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Oxford, UK. Kitchingman, A. and Lai, K. (2004) Inferences of potential seamount locations from mid-resolution bathymetric data. In: Seamounts: Biodiversity and Fisheries (eds T. Morato and D. Pauly), Fisheries Centre Research Report, Vol. 12(5), Fisheries Center, the University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC, 78 pp. Koslow, J. A., Gowlett-Holmes, K., Lowry, J. K. et al. (2001) Seamount benthic macrofauna off southern Tasmania: community structure and impacts of trawling. Marine Ecology Progress Series 213, 111–125. Morgan, L. E., Etnoyer, P., Scholz, A. J. et al. (2005) Conservation and management implications of deep-sea coral distributions and fishing effort in the northeast Pacific Ocean. In: Deep-water Corals and Coral Ecosystems (eds A. Freiwald and J. M. Roberts), Springer, Heidelberg, Germany. Pauly, D., Christensen, V., Guénette, S. et al. (2002) Towards sustainability in world fisheries, Nature 418, 689–695.

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Roberts, C. M. (2002). Deep impact: the rising toll of fishing in the deep sea. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 17(5), 242–245. Rogers, A. D. (2004) The Biology, Ecology and Vulnerability of Deep-water Coral Reefs. IUCN-The World Conservation Union. Gland, Switzerland, 13 p. Sherman, K., Alexander, L. M. and Gold, B. M. (1993) Large Marine Ecosystems: Stress, Mitigation and Sustainability. American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington DC, 352 p. Sumaila, U. R., Alder, J., Ishimura, G. et al. (submitted). Values from Marine Ecosystems of the United States. Watson, R., Kitchingman, A., Gelchu A. et al. (2004) Mapping global fisheries: sharpening our focus. Fish and Fisheries 5, 168–177.

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Part V

Governance

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Chapter 17

Historical Transitions in Access to and Management of Alaska’s Commercial Fisheries, 1880–1980 Emilie Springer

Abstract Using illustrative sketches of important features of Alaskan social-ecological history, this chapter explores transitions in social and institutional priorities with respect to the interdependence of society and ecology, within the broad industry of North Pacific commercial fisheries over the century from approximately 1880–1980. It examines key elements of international history, stakeholder communication patterns, transformational technology innovations, US federal fisheries regulatory structure, and various institutional agencies and social groups involved in social and ecological decision-making within the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea Aleutian Islands. Keywords: Alaska, commercial fisheries, fisheries management, transitions The spotlight of the present sometimes leaves the purposes of the past in the dark when those purposes do not belong there. (Jay Hammond, Former Governor of Alaska, addressing the Issue of United States-Japanese Fisheries Negotiations, 20 August 1976)

Introduction This chapter explores transitions in social, ecological, and institutional priorities within the broad industry of North Pacific commercial fisheries and the manner in which the principal commercial development patterns of the fishing industry interacted with the marine systems over the century covering approximately 1880–1980. That century demonstrated significant continual and dynamic change in both the social and environmental dimensions of remote community development and the commodification of marine species. The chapter also examines how changes in commercial foci occurred in the context of social-ecological interfaces, and investigates the various social groups that were involved in the pursuit and development of World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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the fisheries: individuals employed on the fishing grounds; those involved in policy formation in congressional and other managerial settings; and those who are now permanently settled in coastal communities that have a strong linkage to the availability of marine resources.

Early days: Gold and salmon; 1867–1919 Alaska was purchased from Russia on 30 March 1867, as a contribution to a major defense system and territorial expansion for the United States. The population at the time was made up of 500 Russians, 1,500 Creole (Russian/Native mixed heritage), 300 Americana, and 24,000 “Alaska Natives” (US Army, 1965). US military forces were based mainly at Sitka, “The Russian Factory” in Cook Inlet, Kodiak, and Unalaska. By this time, the role of salmon as a commercial possibility was in a nascent phase but had begun to emerge. In Washington, Oregon, and California, catch was confined to and dependent upon large, primary river sources such as the Fraser, the Columbia, the Klamath, and the Sacramento. By contrast, there were “approximately 2,000 salmon streams (of varying sizes) in Alaska” (Crutchfield and Pontecorvo, 1969). Opportunities abounded and were dispersed across a very extensive coastline. The abundance of the resource functioned as a significant economic attraction to prospective settlers in the otherwise remote state. The 1891 statistics on cannery output for major northwest areas demonstrate Alaska’s huge processor output in comparison with the other river systems: River Columbia River ................................................. Other Oregon Rivers ......................................... Puget Sound ...................................................... Fraser River ....................................................... British Columbia and elsewhere… Alaska Total ..................................................... TOTAL

Number of Cases 390,000 20,000 20,000 225,000 235,000 800,000 1,680,000 (McDonald, 1892)

By 1888 there were 17 canneries operating in Alaska (Table 17.1) with an output of 412,115 cases and this peaked in 1889 at 37 canneries with an output of 714,196 cases. Then, over the next few years, the industry slowed as “the market became glutted and a consolidation of interests followed” (ibid.). A packing association was formed in 1891 for the explicit purpose of disposing of 363,000 cases of unsold salmon. It then ceased to exist, but its early success eventually led to the formation and incorporation of the Alaska Packer’s Association, which became the largest canning operator in Alaska.

1899 Report by Jefferson Moser, United States Navy Commander of the steam ship Albatross In 1899, the steam ship Albatross, commanded by US Navy captain Jefferson Moser, sailed into the Gulf of Alaska to research its salmon fisheries. The captain reported that the vessel sailed from Mary Island (southeast Alaska) to Sitka, then to streams and cannery sites on

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Table 17.1 Canneries Operating in Alaskai in the peak years of 1888 and 1889. Year

Name of Cannery and Location

1888

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

1889

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

i

Alaska Salmon Packing and Fur Company. Loring. Cape Lees Packing Company. Burroughs Bay. Northern Packing Company. Kenai. Kodiak Packing Company. Karluk. Aleutian Islands Fishing and Mining Company. Karluk. Arctic Packing Company. Larsen Bay. Nushagak Packing Company. Nushagak River, Bering Sea. MISSING INFORMATION FOR 10 Companies. Boston Fishing and Trading Company. Yes Bay. Baranoff Packing Company. Redoubt Bay. Astoria and Alaska Packing Company. Freshwater Bay. Bartlett Bay Packing Company. Bartlett Bay. Chilkat Canning Company. Chilkat Village. Peninsula Trading and Fishing Company. Little Kayak Island. Pacific Packing Company. Eyak. Pacific Steam Whaling Company. Eyak. Hume Packing Company. Karluk. Alaska Improvement Company. Karluk. Arctic Packing Company. Alitak Bay. Kodiak Packing Company. Alitak Bay. Royal Packing Company. Afognak. Russian-American Packing Company. Afognak. Chignik Bay Packing Company. Chignik. Shumagin Packing Company. Chignik. Western Alaska Company. Alaska Peninsula. Thin Point Packing Company.

For each year, assume the prior year canneries are still operational.

Kodiak Island (“Kadiak” in his text). The Albatross continued to Dutch Harbor in the Bering Sea and Chignik in Western Alaska and returned to survey the western side of Kodiak, Cook Inlet, Prince William Sound, Yakutat, and then returned to San Diego Bay, California. Moser noted that there were “large areas where not a single person can be found except during the fishing season”, and he emphasized the primary importance of sockeye in the region, commenting that other species were “packed incidentally, or to fill up quota when other kinds are scarce”. This, he explained, was why his vessel did not visit non-red salmon streams. By noting in his log that “the laws and regulations pertaining to Alaska salmon fisheries are very generally disregarded and they do little to prevent the illegal capture of fish,” Moser’s report provides early documented evidence of overfishing, in Alaska. Of the Karluk River, for example, he observed that: this river will soon cease to show such a state of productiveness, if it has not already done so, and we must conclude that the most formidable obstruction at present to the ascent of salmon in the Karluk for the purpose of reproduction is overfishing. By 1912, congressional statements by Governor Walter E. Clark expressed further concern about overfishing, and advised that a restrictive measure of the Bureau of Fisheries should be passed (Clark in the US Senate, 1912).

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Stream barricades were another biological problem faced by returning Alaska salmon as they inhibited the passage of fish and the natural spawning process by failing to give the fish access to critical upstream reproductive locations. By 1899, there were “strict laws that forbid complete obstruction of streams…penalties include $1,000 fine, three months imprisonment, and an additional fine for every day that the obstruction remains in place” (Moser, 1899). The subsequent use of salmon traps built at the mouths of streams was also considered a very effective and useful method for catching salmon, since they did allow some salmon to pass into the spawning zone. In the 1912 congressional report, Governor Clark provides this general description of a fish trap: A fish trap is established by a series of piling at some little distance from the shore with a barrier reaching to the shore. The position of the fish trap with reference to the width of the stream is fixed by law and regulation at the present time. The web [in the trap], if well cared for, will last about three years. Clark suggested the fish trap as an essential “factory” item for a fish-packing plant. “You might compare it in importance to the sawmill”, he claimed (US Senate, 1912).

1920–1939: The records of Hubbell and Waller One very prominent company, Hubbell and Waller, based out of Seattle, was responsible for the design and installation of many of the fish traps used in Alaska. This company was founded in 1920 as “The Hubbell & Waller Engineering Corporation”. It was a co-partnership between Charles S. Hubbell and Harold H. Waller and operated in southeastern Alaska and along the Aleutian chain: surveying homestead and mineral claims, trade and manufacturing sites, and salmon cannery sites as well as designing, surveying, and in some instances constructing pulp and saw mills, wharves, cargo handling facilities, hydroelectric power facilities, and private and municipal subdivisions, streets, roads, and water and sewer systems. [They] acted as consultants and agents for salmon canneries, oil companies, land developers, mining companies, pulp and lumber companies, and other commercial interests in conducting script transactions for their clients which secured titles to land in Alaska. (NWDA, 2008) Hubbell and Waller archival records, located at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, are an important source of information on the Alaska historical fishery: their clients included some of the largest canning and packing companies in the Pacific Northwest. Along with receipts and general correspondence regarding business records, the files include a series of “Client Files”, over 122 boxes containing Hubbell and Waller’s corporate and individual correspondence with administrators, legal advisors, and federal agencies such as the Chief of Engineers, US War Department, and the Secretary of the Interior. There are also, “contracts, land plans and charts, financial statements and receipts, court documents, photographs, survey field notes, legal land records such as homestead, and tideland applications as well as land and mineral patents” (NWDA, 2008). The archives contain Hubbell and

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Waller’s administrative files: descriptions of cannery locations and trap listings, by the latitude and longitude of the actual trap, as well as the name and address of the trap owner. Their clientele was diverse: some individuals are listed as possessing a single trap, while others show numerous traps. The Seattle-based New England Fish Company, for example, has 16 listings, Columbia River Packer’s Association has 5 listings, and PE Harris and Company has 29 listings. Few files showed clear Alaska ownership, but there are individual owners from the Kenai, Starisky, and Tyonek areas. These records also indicate the time of arrival for parts and service, checks, and money. Correspondence was from varied locations: Juneau, Cordova, Ketchikan, and Wrangell. Other correspondence occurred by general hand-written mail. In short, these records are a major source for the history of Alaskan commercial fishery operations during this era. They also provide rich social-ecological details of that fishery. For example, the original correspondence between Mr Bartlett Long – hired by Hubbell and Waller to maintain salmon traps in the Prince William Sound region of Alaska – and his supervisors gives a fine sense of firm client relations at the beginning of the 1930s, as well as telling details of the interdependence of the social and ecological components of the commercial fisheries of the time. The story begins with a letter from Hubbell and Waller, confirming the employment of Mr Bartlett Long and two follow-up telegrams. May 22, 1929. Dear Sir: It is understood that you will be available leaving Seattle on June 1st, on the steamer Yukon, to work for us in the summer in Alaska. Reservation has been made on this boat for your passage. It is also understood that you are to furnish your own transit; and your salary, for both transit and services to be $150 per month and expenses. If there is any hitch in this matter, please advise us at once…Very truly yours, Hubbell and Waller. Telegram: May 24, 1929 Expect to arrive Seattle about noon Tuesday unless you wish me before. Wish to bring army trunk bed roll and pack sack. If this is too much luggage for your boat please advise. BG Long. The company not only wished Long to survey client operations on the coast, but also to assess any other operations in the area. This letter, signed HHW to BG Long, briefly describes the tasks to be completed in the locality of Cordova, and also recommends discreetly surveying of other nearby traps, even though they belong to a different owner: July 6, 1929. Dear Sir: You will proceed to Cordova and report to Mr. Bert Williams of the New England Fish Co. whose cannery is situated on the dock where the steamer arrives. The NFC have about 8 or 9 traps in Prince William Sound. Your contract furnishes quarters and meals while work is conducted – this is preferable because [you] can get around having considerable hotel and restaurant bills while at Cordova and Latouche. When you are finished with their work, you will proceed to Drier Bay or the Franklin Packing Co. at Latouche, and report to Mr J. N. Gilbert…

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Our contracts with the cannery men contemplate that they will furnish you with quarters and meals while you are doing their work and will furnish what transportation for what men and gear is needed…Of course, this does not include your board if you should be done with one job and waiting for a boat to go to the next one.… We have gone over the matter of surveying adjacent traps, particularly the Booth Company and it is understood that you will do everything possible to re-survey the locations that are convenient to where you are working. As you recall we discussed this matter verbally and you are acquainted with the reasons for doing this. It is a good policy to tie in all other trap locations that are convenient to reach when you are making surveys…I recommend that you do everything possible to do this without taking up too much extra time of the boat from which you are working… You will also please not discuss these matters with cannery-men or others, and all information you get in regard to these trap locations, distances, etc. is absolutely confidential and only the cannery-men for whom we are working are entitled to it. HHW A second letter (composed on the same date) from HHW suggests the pressing need for attending to other nearby traps: July 6, 1929. Dear Sir: – In regards to additional work which may come up in the Prince William Sound district, you are authorized to survey any additional traps for other companies and if they should ask you what our charge will be on them, you can quote them $60 each plus field expenses. You can explain to them what the $60 covers, to wit: the survey in the field by our engineer, the complete compilation of maps, and the continued service. We do not solicit surveys from private individuals whose credit is unreliable, but any company or individual citizens who may have trap locations and who are well recommended by the canneries you can take them on and advise that we will bill them from Seattle when the work is finished. Very truly yours, HHW. Long’s reply graphically expresses dislike of being in a very remote location for an occupational task that is progressing poor. More importantly, it provides a colorful picture of fish operations, including competition, on the coast: July 17, 1929 Dear “Boss”: I’ve completed all of NEF’s traps but one. And, I’ve plotted all the notes and found only one “Douglas Islander.” He’s not so much ‘cause five minutes will fix him up and I have to go right by the trap anyway. Lucky! The weather has been dreadful and constant fog has rendered visibility the old sh—s and I’ve not be able to get the change shots over lights that I’d like to have – but I think we can make out. Williams has been doing the “painting” and has put the worst of the cement patches too near the tide mark – and used ordinary white paint (against my advice) – and hasn’t

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let me run the shores out as far as I wis – let alone work Booths! I fooled him on one anyway – where he had one on either side of Booth and I insisted on tying his two together. He carefully “skipped” Booth’s tail hold – however! Can you beat it? Maybe Gilbert won’t go with me and I can slip in a few more miles of traverse. I’ve drummed up the Pioneer business and hope to get the others. I’m quoting $60.00 and expenses and telling ‘em we’ll do everything but “brail” (what a witty word!) the traps for ‘em for that figure. But I’ve some keen competition ‘cause RR and Forestry guys do it for $50.00 (the damned skunks!!) and beat us [UNKNOWN] guys out of a living! (To Hell with de’ lumber barrows – les’ all sing de’ International!) I’ll get all I can anyway. Trig stations are scarce as virgins in a brothel up here. I’ve not found a single one yet—and Montague Island is “dotted” all over the charts.… So, I didn’t feel so badly when one o’ my traps landed two miles off shore (underlined 4 times)! I’m told that Hubbell had the same experience with some of Booth’s, on Montague too. I need some more “X-Sec” paper (Nick’s not Roosian – he’s SCOTCH!) and some note books and some more GIN! If I do Pioneer’s work and Gilbert wants the Wakefield traps surveyed AND I get Premier’s and Copper River’s – I may as well buy a house here in Cordova and ship my other [UNKNOWN] up! You’d better send the swag here – pick it up or get one of the tender’s to bring it over to Drier Bay. This is a pretty delicate little “school-girl” game at best – and it’s in a rough country – what? And, I’d like some large targets if you have any. These are pretty small for a lowpower telescope. However, I’ll make out. I’ll wire when I’ve completed NEF’s traps (which should be day after tomorrow). … Cheerio “Long”. PS: Yeah!! I’m sober – wot the Hell? The urgency to secure trap sites emphasizes the fact that pressure to secure appropriate ecological niches for salmon capture was building. Moreover, by the 1820s, there was growing commercial interest in appropriate sites for the expanding net and capture fishery technology: prime capture space was already at a premium, and this provides us with a good qualitative baseline for assessing later social-ecological pressure on stocks and people.

The mid-century era of fisheries: 1940–1969 Data on the Alaskan fisheries are scarce for this period, although significant local and international events were in progress: World War II took place, Alaska statehood was negotiated, local (human) Alaskan population increase was dramatic, and the desire for commercial fisheries led to the establishment of Alaska’s Limited Entry system of fisheries management. Offshore, basic monitoring of international behavior was gradually giving way to more national involvement and a clearer delimitation of national jurisdiction in order to protect “national” fish stocks. Institutional establishment of rights of access, along with increasing protection of coastal regions and realization of the need for

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food security, all combine to suggest that fishing effort was threatening stocks, and that awareness of the existence of limits to marine resources was growing. This is not surprising, since several other nations were involved in Bering Sea fisheries from (approximately) 1960–1980. According to Miles et al. (1982), these included Canada, Japan, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Republic of Korea, Russia, and the United States. Catch statistics for these nations show major effort. The list below shows total quantity of catch by nation:

1954–1970 Total Catch Statistics ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Japan, 8 million tons. Russia, 2 million tons. South Korea, 0.8 million tons. China (from the East China Sea) cannot be estimated. North Korea estimate, 0.7 million. Canadian catch, slightly over 0.1 million. United States, less than 0.7 million.1 Mexican catch, less than 0.2 million. (Kasahara and Burke, 1972).

A 1964 report by Haskell focuses on the rapid expansion of Soviet and Japanese fishing efforts in the North Pacific Ocean in the period following World War II. It is a monitorial report and states that in the period of the survey (the year 1963), the United States Coast Guard Coast Guard air service “patrolled 100,000 miles and made sighting reports of: 250 Japanese, 5,019 Russian, 53 Canadian vessels” (Haskell, 1964). Vessel based sightings were a result of cruise statistics of: 11,977 hours and 63,834 miles. In this period, the Coast Guard encountered 314 Japanese, 565 Russian, and 51 Canadian vessels. Another vessel, US Fish and Wildlife Service’s John R. Manning, also made patrols of the Alaska coastline, but these patrols were limited primarily to the Gulf of Alaska and the opinion of the patrol vessel, even in this official documentation, was very negative as to the state of the boat: [t]he inept and inadequate Bureau of Commercial Fisheries vessel, John R. Manning, is severely lacking as an enforcement vessel and should be replaced. Her very presence among the most modern fishing fleets of the world is damaging to US prestige” (ibid). The vessel’s inferiority seemed to inhibit more thorough patrols. Although the joint monitoring effort was considerable, there was little indication in the publications that there was a noted risk of marine ecological damage and possible human consequences. But, the reports do clearly describe how the fisheries were being conducted and the methodology of the gear (including crew tasks and processes). Here is an example of the details within such a report: A typical fishmeal operation consists of anchoring the factory ship in a favorable location where its trawlers fish over an area of 5 to 10 miles in radius. When the cod end of

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the otter trawl is full of fish, it is taken aboard or left hanging in the rigging over the port bulwark and the trawler proceeds to the factoryship…the catch is dumped in wooden bins on the deck of the factoryship and men wade through the fish sorting out edible species for human consumption. The remainder of the catch is then pushed and washed onto two conveyor belts and moved below decks to the processing plant (Haskell, 1964). According to reported conversations that occurred at sea, it was clear that the factory ship operators were under the impression that many of the ships were not large enough to deal with the typically adverse weather and sea conditions of the Bering Sea. For this reason, not for reasons of stock size, the fishing companies were interested in the idea of diverting the smaller (1,500-ton trawlers) to the Atlantic and replacing them with larger (3,500-ton trawlers) that could serve as centralized hub vessels. There was a marked absence of concern regarding comparative quantities of catch levels; at this time: discussions were not intense, nor was anxiety apparent, unlike the language that was to gradually emerge in the mid-1970s and grow further into later periods. Nonetheless, jurisdiction and management were regarded as important issues. Thus, in 1958 and 1960, the United Nations International Law of the Sea Conferences took place, their goal being the development of international agreements on fishing rights (Marchak et al., 1987).

Species shift, changing technology, improved access, and awareness of off-shore waters: 1970–1980s During the 1970s and 1980s, the majority of commercial interests in Alaska moved away from prosecuting the salmon fisheries and into groundfish fisheries and other offshore and deep-sea opportunities and the highly productive Bering Sea became a focal point of interest. Various federal and international communications tell of conflicts and tensions around those new grounds. The period was characterized by advances in fisheries technology, military monitoring, and the passage of major marine legislation, culminating in the federal Magnuson Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act. The Kasahara and Burke Report of 1972 shows clearly increasing social pressure around the fisheries in this final period of the study. It concludes that: … the United States government will continue to be under pressure from industry, as well as from the general public, for further jurisdiction as a means not only to eliminate the immediate problem of effects of foreign fishing on local fisheries but also fully to control the exploitation of any resource that might be considered potentially important to the United States (Kasahara and Burke, 1972). The Report did not, however, explain how the government was “under pressure from industry.” The Report also drew attention to the contrast between the fishing needs of the United States and those of Japan. It stated that “the United States has always been one of the greatest consumers of fish products and total consumption continues on a steady increase”

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Table 17.2 Percentage of World Fish Harvests Taken by North Pacific Nations (1960–1977). Data from Miles et al. (1982). Nation

1960

1965

1970

1975

1976

1977

Canada DPRK Japan China ROK Russia US

2.3 – 15.5 14.5 1.1 7.6 7.0

2.4 – 12.9 – 1.2 9.5 5.1

2.0 1.4 13.2 8.8 1.1 10.3 4.1

1.4 2.1 14.8 9.7 3.0 14.4 4.1

1.5 2.1 14.8 9.7 3.0 14.0 4.1

1.7 2.2 14.6 9.4 3.3 12.7 4.2

(ibid.), skirting around US food preferences that might include fish but were unlikely to be fish-based, in contrast to some Asian nations that therefore had significant interests in the Alaskan offshore waters. The United States, with its large land mass and significant grain production, was in sharp contrast to Japan, territorially small but with ease of access to the ocean. The traditional food system of Japan was, of course, therefore more marine protein-based and fisheries expansion was inevitably a priority. The contrast between Japan, China, and the US (Table 17.2) shows clearly in the statistics compiled by Miles et al. (1982).2 The increasing efforts of Japan and the Soviet Union/Russia were of tremendous significance to Alaska and require more detailed investigation, although it was actually the “last straw” of Korean salmon effort that brought the US to take Alaskan fisheries management seriously.

Three Alaskan competitors: Japan, Russia/Soviet Union, and Korea The Japanese traditionally fished their coastal waters with nets dragged over the sea bottom, and “offshore trawling” was not practiced until the [1990, estimated] introduction from European of trawling vessels3 large enough to fish with a farther distance range from Japan. World War II, however, halted North Pacific expansion of the Japanese trawl fishery, and nearly all off-shore Japanese trawlers were destroyed by US military efforts between 1941 and 1945. Post-war, Japan converted cargo vessels to floating canning and freezing factory ships, thus advancing their international fishery efforts. The 1960 trawl ships were often referred to as “fish meal” ships and were not specifically organized to harvest a particular species. The majority of the catch (pollack) went directly into meal. Perch, Pacific cod, and sablefish (also referred to as black cod) were “generally frozen, dressed whole or as fillets and [were] intended for human consumption … these more desirable fishes[were] hand selected out of a deck load” (ibid.), a process that must have been intense and messy. Japanese trawlers also harvested shrimp, king crab, and participated in whaling. The whaling industry had expanded rapidly in the 1930s but, like several of the other fisheries, it temporarily ceased operations during, and for a time after, World War II. By 1963, whaling

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was in full force again and occurred in both the Gulf and Bering Sea areas, along the Aleutians (especially in the western areas), near Unimak pass, near Prince William Sound, and along southeast Alaska outside waters. This fishery is now closed as a result of various federal legislative acts, such as the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), but the stocks show evidence of permanent ecological damage, and have never returned to their pre-harvest abundance. Most early Russian fisheries were conducted primarily from small sail or rowing craft and, prior to the 1917 Russian Revolution, Russian fisheries were relatively undeveloped. The bulk of the catch came from the Caspian Sea and other inland waters. At that time, British vessels made 70% of the catch in the Barents Sea and 85% of salmon caught in the Russian Far East was made by Japanese vessels. In 1920, the total Russian national catch was only 260,000 tons. However, war equipment advancements and improvements in mechanization provided opportunities for fleet expansion since, as Haskell’s records show, the ability to maximize time on the fishing grounds was very important given the distance that had to be traveled to reach them. Kodiak, for example, is 2,500 miles from Vladivostok and 1,200 miles from Petropavlovsk, and the Alaskan fleet was “equipped with the most modern fish-finding instruments. More accurate radar and radio navigational devices … installed to enable ships to fish their positions more precisely in the worst possibly weather” (Haskell, 1964). Russian involvement in major off-shore fisheries was not secured until about 1959: the 1960 catch was 3,500,000 metric tons, double the 1950 catch, and the major Gulf of Alaska efforts started slightly later in 1962. The expansion came from the fact that: the Russian consumer is demanding greater variety, better quality, more and more fish. The growing demand is mirrored in the five-fold increase in canned fish production. The industry has been forced to go further and further afield in its efforts to satisfy a market of over 200,000,000 people and have vowed to intensify activities in the northern Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea (Haskell, 1964). Whaling was also an important marine industry for the Russian fleet. “Blubber was used for food for cattle, pigs, and chickens. Whale products are also used for high-grade margarine and lard, vitamin A, insulin, cholestrin, other medical preparations”. Blubber meat and subcutaneous cellular tissue was used in tanning and chemical industry, perfumery and agriculture. “The same amount of food and oils derived from one season from one whaling flotilla is equivalent of that obtained from 2.5 million sheep” (ibid.). The significance of protein had implications that were both social (food preferences and standards) and ecological (species depletion). Fishing pressure continued to build in the north Pacific and, on 19 February 1970, Elmer Rasmuson (a member of the International North Pacific Fisheries Commission) was urged to pay attention to what was happening, because: actions could lead to termination of north pacific fisheries treaty with Canada and Japan and complete destruction of all United States and Canada salmon resources and destruction of US and Canadian salmon fishing and processing industries urge your help in having our government take all possible actions at the highest levels to prevent destruction of US salmon by Korea and other foreign countries (Rasmuson Papers, 1970).4

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A memorandum sent by Charles Meachum suggested that “this is one of the gravest situations facing the salmon industry of Alaska since its inception … we must take immediate action to avert disaster” (Rasmuson Papers, 1970). At last awareness of the vulnerability of marine ecosystem to over-exploitation was growing. On 26 March 1970, a notice filed jointly from the US Department of Interior and US Fish and Wildlife Service again urged attention: [t]he South Korean fishing industry is preparing to send a large mother-ship fleet to the Northeastern Pacific this year. This fleet, composed of a 9,400 ton mother-ship and about 30 catcher-vessels will be equipped to catch and process salmon. Although the SK government gave us assurances last year that its vessels would not be licensed to fish for salmon, they caught about 300,000 in waters near Alaska. We have received similar assurances this year about licensing, but the Korean government has not provided satisfactory assurances that it will prevent the recurrence of the same kind of incident this year (Rasmuson Papers, 1970). The UAF Rasmussen Papers holds a newspaper article published in The Daily Astorian (date unknown), which opened with this comment: “economic pressure was proposed Wednesday if diplomacy fails to prevent South Korean fishermen from catching salmon off of the Alaska coast…” Senator Magnuson stated that, “If we can’t [approach this] diplomatically, we’ll have to try some other way” (Rasmuson Papers, 1970), which summed up the situation and showed that serious legislation to control international fisheries was urgently needed

Organization of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) In 1976, the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act (now MSFCMA) passed and became effective in 1977, in order to organize a governing process for the US exclusive economic zone (EEZ) up to 200 nautical miles from federal land and territory. The act divided US waters into eight regional areas and established management Councils to create and maintain fishery management plans (FMPs) and FMP amendments. It was driven by fear of declining stocks, but also showed awareness of the social and economic dimensions of the industry, both nationally and locally. As the United States moved towards establishing its 200-mile exclusive economic zone, there was correspondence from Japanese stakeholders in the Bering Sea region to American political representatives, expressing diverse concerns, and pleas for opportunities to continue fishing. A 1976 letter from Yoshiro Okazaki suggests distress over rapid changes in regional regulatory structure: you have independently decided to bring [the] 200 mile fishery resources conservation law into effect, which will exert a serious influence on ship owners and fishermen. We sincerely appeal to you to consider matters and enable us to operate our fishery as before” (Rasmuson Papers,5 1976).

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To this day, NOAA, the overarching US federal oceans body, systematically arranges the Management Council process. The first Council conference occurred on 16 September 1976 and involved participation by all national councils. The conference was intended to organize and advise the federally standardized process. Council members were encouraged to ask questions, such as “Can Councils impose constraints on foreign vessels within our fishery zone relative to pollution?” A considerable bureaucracy was established and the basis for present-day meeting structure was initiated. The issues of the early years were surprisingly similar to the social and cultural ones addressed through Council meetings and actions today. The agenda for the first NPFMC shows how the groundwork was laid down. It contains consideration of the formation, function, and selection of the membership of the Scientific and Statistical Committee, and the Advisory Panel, and included discussion of management plans, priorities, and first assignments. Total allowable catch was debated, as was the possibility of making recommendations to the Secretary on “surplus stocks, if any, available for harvest.” The era of present-day fisheries management had arrived. All that remained to complete the picture was the creation of aquaculture – this is still a developing feature and highly restricted by Alaska state legislation, particularly in the commodity of salmon due in part to both the social concerns and the environmental impacts.

Discussion and conclusions Analyses of the human dimensions of Alaskan fisheries are often very basic and use simple statistical evidence as: social and community census information; stock assessments; fleet size; quota allocation quantities; standard catch patterns; and income indicators. Topics that are more qualitative or cultural are often overlooked. Such complex and important matters as the venue of decision-making related to participation in the fisheries, the hierarchy and power status of institutional interests in comparison with industrial or occupational interests, a consideration of the occupational workforce (employees and management) beliefs and customs, assessments of Alaska residential6 participation, involvement and subsistence fisheries use patterns, are usually beyond the purview of quantitative work. However, as this chapter shows, these cultural components are vital to any understanding of fisheries development and management, despite the fact that they may raise questions of ethical practice, and of aesthetics, that can be difficult to research and articulate using standard analytical quantitative methodologies alone. The evidence presented in this chapter shows a development path for Alaska fisheries involvement in an era of major population growth with organization and management structures from the very local to the international. Fisheries in Alaska first grew with the start of the lucrative canned salmon industry.7 In the late 1800s, salmon were caught in close proximity to land, with drift nets, set nets, or salmon traps, and distance traveled from the catch location to the cannery was generally very short, to minimize the need for ice or refrigeration. In the early days, fisheries were largely conducted under the direction of cannery owners, but later transitioned to independent vessel ownership and state authorized regulations for access to the fish. With incremental developments in marine vessel capabilities and navigational technology, and a shift in market opportunities as new fisheries were recognized by United States federal regulators, North Pacific fisheries interests

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gradually shifted to a greater focus on off-shore species. This shift in turn generated a new transitional phase of rapid development, in which issues such as environmental sustainability, while acknowledged, were not widely addressed. This was a period of relatively underregulated and minimally monitored fisheries, in which a gradual increase in research effort (which improved understanding of the physical and biological details of fisheries locations and productivity) eventually led to the formulation of national (i.e., the United States federal government’s Magnuson Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act) and international (i.e., United Nation’s International Law of the Sea) policies that strive to bring into balance the human dimensions of fisheries and the ecological features of the marine environment. Over time, networks of stakeholders shifted, and the methods and standards of interaction between these various industry stakeholders changed: for example, early federal documents generally describe Alaska and the various human dimensions of the commercial fishing occupation casually, while the later documents leading up to major federal policy transitions have a more defined sense of formal authority. Similarly, communication between vessels at sea and from vessels to land changed noticeably, as did employee status, which experienced transitions in formality. This can be clearly seen in the archived correspondence between Hubbell and Waller, where many of the letters are extremely informal. War and major international conflicts were also of more significant influence than might be immediately obvious. In wartime there was less time available to spend on the advancement of fisheries efforts, which received little political interest, given that community attention and labor were often more focused on military efforts than commercial fisheries. Moreover, the relationship between war, technology, and navigational supplies was crucial, generating valuable improvements in navigational opportunities, vessel size and capacity; in some cases, war ships were transformed into fishing or monitoring vessels. The international capability for over-exploitation also expanded as a result, hastening negative changes in marine social-ecological well-being. Coastal Alaska is often referred to as being fishery-dependent, though many Alaskan communities and their historic connections to commercial fisheries actually result in high vulnerability to this dependency over time. Alaska settler fishing community maturity is quite brief compared to that of very long-standing “fishing communities” in more established locations such as the Canadian east coast, Japan, and even other regions in the United States (although the indigenous subsistence fishing communities have deep roots in ecology and culture that were not examined here). The historic interpretation of settler Alaska as a remote, fairly inaccessible coast that gradually became dominated by outside interests remains in some cases true today. For example, non-Alaska residents still undertake a large portion of Bering Sea fisheries. Similarly, Alaska’s state commercial fishing industry has always had and still has substantial involvement by non-residents. Fishing “community”, in the case of Alaska, often seems to indicate an occupational rather than physical community. This suggests that social-ecological embeddedness can occur, even in a situation where commercial fisheries are only seasonally place-based and, on an international scale, have been carried out over a relatively brief time-period. The research discussed here demonstrates that the topic of commercial fisheries and social-ecological sustainability in the North Pacific cannot be adequately analysed purely

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from the perspective of the present day: the role of values and motivations at different times in history must also be considered. Many of the most significant contemporary issues do have a history in older issues – topics re-emerge, memories prompt new action, new events transpire, alliances form and disband, and new scientific findings are made – but the context alters. And so we can ask, in reference to Jay Hammond’s insightful comment that opened this chapter: Where do the purposes of the past belong in our understanding of the present? How can research be faithful to the past and present at the same time? Hammond suggests that the purposes of a different time need both to be preserved and re-evaluated, even though they are a mix of opinions, preferences, and circumstances that are the result of changing conditions. In the fishing industry, with its large numbers of stakeholders, the legacies of individuals are nonetheless very important. Such were the results of the activities of Captain Jefferson Moser, early Alaskan Governor Clark, the business of Mr Bartlett Long and the Hubbell and Waller Company, Elmer Rasmuson and Jay Hammond. They and others have, in their own ways, each cast light on the manner in which fish and fishermen are interconnected, on the way in which human communities are embedded in the environments which, quite literally and also culturally, nourish them. The qualitative evidence of stakeholders – essential human dimensions in the social-ecological system of fisheries – is important data in any time period. When linked over the long term, such evidence can provide us with a vital chain of developments in attitude, culture, economy, ecology, and society, not only locally, but also nationally and globally.

Endnotes 1. This quantity includes tuna catch in eastern tropical Pacific and spans the geographic region from northern Alaska to southern California. 2. The information in this chart is calculated from data in FAO’s Yearbook of Fisheries Statistics, Vols. 39, 40 and 42. 3. European trawl vessels were traditionally designed, constructed and utilized in Scandinavian regions. 4. This telegram is in the Rasmuson Papers, Series V, Box 45. 5. This letter is in the Rasmuson Papers, Record Group II, Series 2, File 9. 6. “Alaska resident” in this instance refers both to the indigenous population of Alaska, particularly relevant to the assessment of participation in early salmon operations as well as later Alaska resident interest in comparison to non-state residents. 7. Pacific cod fisheries pursued by sail powered schooner vessels based out of Seattle and San Francisco occurred prior to the salmon momentum by approximately a decade. However, the field of participants was fairly small and the industry had a lower profile and less of a boom effect than salmon.

References Primary Sources UAF Alaska Polar Regions Collections: Hubbell & Waller Records:

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Series I. Administrative Files. Box Numbers: 2, 45. Series II. Client Files. Box Numbers: 7–14, 24, 38, 47, 57–59, 60–62. Series VI. “Photographs.” Series VII. “Engineering Drawings.” Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions Collections, Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks. Rasmussen Collection: Series 1. Civic Activities and Associations. Box Numbers: 45 (Folders 1, 5), 46, 47, 50 (Folders 4, 9), 52 (Folder 2). Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions Collections, Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks. Secondary Sources Barber, W. (1987) the fisheries management structure and process under the MFCMA: a North Pacific perspective. Fisheries 12(6), 10–17. Berkes, F., Colding, J. and Folke, C. (eds) (1998) Linking Social and Ecological Systems: Management Practices and Social Mechanisms for Building Resilience. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK. Burke, P. (2002) Western Historical Thinking in a Global Perspective – Theses. Western Historical Thinking: An Intercultural Debate. Berghan Books, London. City of Seward (1965) Fisheries Potential in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea. Originally written by: Staff, Exploratory Fishing and Gear Research Base in Seattle WA, September 1965. Colt, St (1999) Salmon Fish Traps in Alaska. ISER Publication. http://www.iser.uaa.alaska.edu/publications/fishrep/fishtrap.pdf (last accessed 1 January 2008). Crutchfield, J. and Pontecorvo, G. (1969) The Pacific Salmon Fisheries: A Study of Irrational Conservation. The John Hopkins Press, Baltimore MD. Exploratory Fishing and Gear Research Base (1965) Fisheries Potential in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea. 30 September 1965. Reproduced by the City of Seward (20 April 1966). Fogelson, R. (1989) The ethnohistory of events and non-events. Ethnohistory 36(2), Spring 1989. Hammond, J. (1976) United States-Japanese Fisheries Negotiations. Address to Congress, Washington DC, 20 August. Hanna, S. (1997) The New Frontier of American Fisheries Governance. Ecological Economics 20, 221–223. Haskell, W. (1964) Foreign Fishing Activities Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. US Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, Region V. Office of Resource Management. Kasahara, H. and Burke, W. (1972) International Fishery Management in the North Pacific: Present and Future. University of Washington, Vancouver BC; Seattle WA. Marchak, P. et al. (eds) (1987) Uncommon Property: The Fishing and Fish-Processing Industries in British Columbia. Methuen Press, New York. McDonald, M. (1892) (Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries) Report on the salmon fisheries of Alaska. Senate Miscellaneous Document No. 192. 52nd Congress, 1st session. Miles, E. et al. (1982) The Management of Marine Regions: The North Pacific. UCLA Press, Los Angeles CA. Moser, J. (1899) Salmon and Salmon Fisheries of Alaska. Report of the Operations of the United States Fish Commission Steamer Albatross for the Year Ending 30 June 1898. Government Printing Office, Washington DC:

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New York Times (2008) President Taft appoints Walter Clark as governor of Alaska. 19 May 1909. New York Times Article Archives. http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/nytarchive.html (last accessed 18 Apri 2008). Northwest Digital Archives (2008) Guide to the Hubbell and Waller Records 1908–1976. http:// nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu/nwda-search/fstyle.aspx?doc=AkUV5_205.xml&t=a&k1=fisheries& k2=&k3=&t1=0&t2=0&t3=0&o1=0&o2=0&s=0&i=18 (last accessed 23 April 2008). United States Army, Alaska Headquarters (1965) Building Alaska with the US Army, 1867–1965. Pamphlet No. 360–5. October. United States Department of the Interior (1931) General Information Regarding the Territory of Alaska. Washington DC, June. United States Department of Commerce. Bureau of Fisheries (1914) Report of Alaska Investigations in 1914. Washington DC, 31 December. United States Fish and Wildlife Service (1976) Digest of Federal Resource Laws of Interest. Fishery and Conservation Management Act of 1976. http://www.fws.gov/laws/lawsdigest/fishcon.html (last accessed 6 May 2008). United States House of Representatives (1902) Committee on the Territories. Salmon Fisheries of Alaska. Report No. 2062. 57th Congress, 1st session. May. United States Senate (1904) Subcommittee of the Committee on Territories. Hearings. 58th Congress, 2nd session, 12 January. United States Senate (1912) Subcommittee of the Committee on Fisheries. Hearings on Senate Bill 5856. 62nd Congress, 2nd session, April. United States Senate (1956) Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. Hearings on Senate Resolution 13. 84th Congress, 2nd session. October and November. United States Treasury Department (1893) Letter from the Secretary of the treasury in response to Senate resolution of 19 January 1893, transmitting a report on the salmon fisheries of Alaska. 23 January 1893. Wolfe, R. et al. (1984) Theoretical considerations. In: Subsistence Based Economies in Coastal Communities of Southwest Alaska. Division of Subsistence, Alaska Department of Fish and Game and Minerals Management Services. Anchorage, Alaska.

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Chapter 18

Can Fishers’ Virtuous Behavior Improve Large Marine Ecosystem Health? Valentina Giannini

Abstract Fish landings have been diminishing over the last decades in the Bahía de Amatique, Guatemala, following a worldwide trend in natural food production. There are several drivers for this, acting at different scales and involving different issues. Some of the most obvious causes of natural resources production decline and ecosystem damage are a direct result of human activity: overfishing and pollution. There are also other, less obvious, social, environmental, and economic drivers. Many are linked in cause-effect relationships and, taken together, they have consequences for the livelihoods of coastal populations. In this chapter, I examine how these cause-effect relations work, and how they can be altered to ameliorate the livelihoods of artisanal fishers and their communities. Following discussion of the general issue, I analyse a case study: the “Red de Pescadores Artesanales del Caribe Guatemalteco y Lago de Izabal” (Red, Network of the artisanal fishers of the Guatemalan Caribbean and of Lake Izabal) based in Livingston, Guatemala. The Red is based on the recognition by fishers of common needs and the determination to find solutions to common problems. I examine the projects and goals of the Red in relation to the changes that have taken place since its foundation, and then propose further research needs to tackle some of the bigger scale issues, such as watershed contamination. Keywords: Artisanal fishers, overfishing, community management, adaptive management, ecosystem-based management, best practices, intermediaries, Red de Pescadores Artesanales del Caribe Guatemalteco y Lago de Izabal, Bahía de Amatique, Guatemala

Introduction Ecosystems have always changed in response to various global forces, either biophysical or anthropogenic or both (Holling, 1973; Gunderson, 2000). Today, world population is growing, particularly along coasts, and increased anthropogenic pressure is bringing World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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degradation and destruction of coastal habitats and declining near-shore water quality, which translate into losses of ecosystem services (Olsen and Christie, 2000). In the 21st century, the long-term goal of conservation and exploitation should be built into the coastal management plans and should take into account both natural dynamism and anthropogenic impacts (Bengtsson et al., 2003). In other words, ecosystems should be managed for resilience rather than thought of as static reserves, otherwise the result may be a few protected areas in a matrix of degraded ecosystems (Bengtsson et al., 2003). Holling (1973) defined resilience as: the persistence of relationships within a system and [it] is a measure of the ability of these systems to absorb changes of state variables, driving variables, and parameters and still persist. In this definition resilience is the property of the system and persistence or probability of extinction is the result. Resilience in an ecosystem can be enhanced by preserving biodiversity to facilitate recovery after major disturbances (Bengtsson et al., 2003). One way towards this is the reduction of fishing effort, according to the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (Pauly et al., 2002), which would also reduce the mortality of by-catch species, and thus be a step towards the preservation of biodiversity and the fostering of ecosystem-based fisheries management (Hall and Mainprize, 2004). Most of the planet’s fisheries management, however, is done through considerations based only on one species at a time. The models used to determine fishing effort, such as maximum sustainable yield (MSY) and total allowable catch (TAC), take into account only the management of one species, and do not take into account the damage predation inflicts on the habitat or other species, (Zabel et al., 2003). Several recent studies, however, suggest that fisheries management should be ecosystem-based (Pauly et al., 2003; Pikitch et al., 2004). This approach was examined and approved at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in 2002 in Johannesburg (Pauly et al., 2005). In accordance with this, interest in Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) has grown since the Rio Convention on Environment and Development of 1992 (Olsen and Christie, 2000). It has become clear, then, that fisheries research should focus on the ecosystem as a whole, considering entire food webs and not single species (Christensen and Pauly, 2004) since, given the clear interaction between land and sea, these need to be managed as a whole system in a governance structure capable of addressing multiple uses in a coherent way (Cicin-Sain and Belfiore, 2006). It follows that decisions under such a governance structure have to be taken at the appropriate scale, encompassing whole ecosystems and facilitating the participation of all relevant actors. Place-based management has to be integrated with wider regional strategic initiatives, for the good of both (Olsen and Christie, 2000), and any fisheries management plan has to be tailored to the specific needs and priorities of a given region (Olsen and Christie, 2000). The practice of ICM, then, has to be a learning process that will result in management adaptations (Olsen and Christie, 2000). Since ecosystem states vary, management will be a learning process, incorporating uncertainties, and proceeding through a trial and error methodology, adapting management to different states (Gunderson, 2000; Olsen and Christie, 2000). Variability of natural

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processes, and changes in anthropogenic drivers, both mean that management plans have to be continuously monitored, evaluated, and adapted to the changing conditions. Adaptive management will be the result of interactions among all stakeholders, including local communities (Bengtsson et al., 2003; Agrawal, 2000), not least because local populations can provide the long-term monitoring capabilities needed in an adaptive management scheme: they must be considered as managers, and not only as users (Agrawal, 2000; Berkes et al., 2000). The advantages offered by such adaptive management, in comparison with conventional management, include learning from experience and feedback, recognition of alternatives and trade-offs, and the possibility of achieving long-term goals (Agrawal, 2000; Berkes et al., 2000). Conservation of marine resources cannot be achieved if local communities are not involved: this is a matter both of social and environmental justice and of pragmatism (Chapin, 2004). Since fisheries are an open access resource, state regulation has come to be regarded as necessary to avoid possible overfishing. However, community-based management regulatory regimes can be used (Berkes et al., 1989): there is now evidence that Hardin’s (1968) paradigm of the “tragedy of the commons” is not always true, and case studies show that when a community is able to restrict access and to limit extraction, then the resource can be managed in an ecologically sustainable way (Berkes et al., 1989; McCay, 1981). Indeed, it is now increasingly recognized that all stakeholders should be involved in the decision-making process, each stakeholder bringing her/his own knowledge to the table (Kaplan and McCay, 2004; Colmenares and Escobar, 2002), and thus merging top-down and bottom-up approaches, and national and international agencies (Cicin-Sain and Belfiore, 2006; Olsen and Christie, 2000). The resultant continuous interchange among local fishers, and social and natural scientists may well lead to permanent collaboration, at least in those fisheries where traditional and local knowledge exists, and, where it can be made to have the same relevance as scientific knowledge (Drew, 2005; Kaplan and McCay, 2004). Local fishers provide site-specific information established over long-term observations, for example (Drew, 2005) and those data can be shared with social and natural scientists, who will all develop trust in each other’s actions as a result (Kaplan and McCay, 2004). Of course, marine resource management cannot be successful if carried out only by one local fishing community: the scale is too small, and since many fishes are mobile, management must include all potential stakeholders, or else what is protected by one group can be depleted by another (McCay, 1981). Ultimately, because the changes that are taking place are not only local but, indeed, are now global, management plans for each community are going to have to be linked to the broader context as part of a regional network. Overfishing has been exacerbated by the global adoption of a neoliberal economic agenda, which has fostered the global expansion of trade, including that based on fish extraction. That in turn is also driving conflict among interest groups (Thorpe and Aguilar Ibarra, 2000). There are some interesting examples, however, of resistance to the neoliberal model, as in the way that coffee can be produced and marketed. If the functioning of coffee cooperatives and certified Fair Trade (FT) are examined, there are some useful lessons to be learned. Coffee is the second most traded good worldwide after petroleum (James, 2000). Tracing the global commodity chain, however, it is clear that the farmers do not benefit from

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the high price set for coffee in the New York Stock Exchange (Mace, 1998). Most coffee farmers around the world are forced to sell at a price set by intermediaries below the market price (Levi and Linton, 2003; Mace, 1998). That is, the power of intermediaries has negative effects on local small-scale economies, while farmers who are Fair Trade certified will get a higher price for their produce, based on a guaranteed minimum that is linked to the New York Stock Exchange (Rice, 2001; Levi and Linton, 2003). Fair Trade coffee is only a partial success story, however (Levi and Linton, 2003). In the world market, only 0.001% of the coffee is sold as FT certified, and only 1.7% of the coffee produced is FT certified (Rice, 2001). This defines one problem: coffee farmers obtain FT certification for their produce, but are able to sell only about half of it as FT certified, because the demand for FT coffee is less than the supply, leaving some FT farmers subject to the intermediaries’ power (Hudson and Hudson, 2004; Levi and Linton, 2003). However, the application of the FT model to marketing fish is subject to specific constraints, which are not addressed by certification schemes. Fish is either sold fresh, with a time limitation, or frozen, with the need for equipment and infrastructure. Both options leave fishers vulnerable to the power of the intermediary. With fresh fish, fishers are forced to sell as soon as they land the catch, which does not leave them much time to bargain for a better price; if frozen, it is often only intermediaries who possess equipment and infrastructure, and who have enough money to lend. Moreover, the only available certification for fish is given by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), which does not address issues of Fair Trade. MSC ecolabel principles are, however, based on sustainable management practices of the fishing activity, as described in FAO’s “Code of conduct for responsible fisheries” (www.msc.org 2009; www.fao.org 2009). Sadly, although fishers pay for MSC certification, they are not always able to derive benefits from it: for some of the certified fisheries there is still no market (A.S., Comunidad y Biodiversidad, personal communication, 2006). Although Fair Trade certification might eventually become a long-term solution to weakening intermediary power, another mechanism, forming cooperatives, seems to be more effective in the short term and on the local scale. In Mexico, for example, the Vigía Chico Cooperative, established in 1968 by 49 members, is not only able to manage its fishery successfully, but is also able to select its buyer each year according to the best offer made. This offer is made in a meeting before the opening of the season, but the system allows for the possibility of changing a buyer during the season if another buyer offers a better price (Solares-Leal and Alvarez-Gil, 2003). Another example – the case of the Ibiraquera Lagoon in Brazil – illustrates how the shrimp local trade is influenced by ecological processes, socio-economic relations, and regional markets (Seixas and Troutt, 2003). When a local market for shrimp trade in the region developed along with tourism and its related infrastructure (Seixas and Troutt, 2003), fishers were able to choose whether to sell to intermediaries or directly to local stores and restaurants, weakening the pre-existing exclusive relation of patronage between intermediaries and fishers (Seixas and Troutt, 2003). In short, the success of the economic activity of rural primary producers such as fishers, or coffee farmers, seems to rely on their ability to avoid intermediaries. This happens when a local market can be accessed directly by producers, as in the case of the Ibiraquera Lagoon in Brazil (Seixas and Troutt, 2003), but when the local market is not large enough, a cooperative may be the only way for fishers to gain stronger bargaining power.

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Guatemala: A case study How does cooperation between fishers get established so that local communities benefit and are not tied inevitably to the power of intermediaries? A Guatemalan fisheries network called the Red (see below) makes a useful case study. In Guatemala, the Mesoamerican Reef Fund focuses on the Mesoamerican Reef Ecoregion (MAR), an area extending almost 1,000 km from the northern tip of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula to the Bay Islands/Cayo Cochinos complex off the northern coast of Honduras. The coastal and marine portion of the ecoregion ranges from about 40 km off the northern coast of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo to about 240 km from the Gulf of Honduras, and 50 km off the north coast of Honduras at the mouth of the Aguán River. The MAR also includes the Caribbean watersheds of those four countries, clearly establishing a ridge-to-reef approach to conservation in the ecoregion (www.marfund.org 2009). In 2006, while carrying out fieldwork there, I developed a methodology for community management of their marine resources, reported to them as “Diagnostic of community marine reserve models and methodologies for application in the Mesoamerican Reef Region” (www.marfund.org 2009). Conservationists, researchers, and fishers in Guatemala participated in the research by sharing information and experiences in unstructured interviews. The people I contacted were identified as key informants through peer recommendations. Field observations carried out in the Bahía de Amatique were recorded in photographs and in notebooks, and the knowledge I acquired there laid the groundwork for understanding the story of the fisheries decline in the Bahía de Amatique. All cause-effect relationships that led to over-exploitation and degradation of natural resources, were identified by people who described the local social-ecological system. Reports of workshops and studies carried out by local conservation organizations, as well as by international organizations, were also gathered and analysed to provide an assessment of the state of the environment, to collect evidence of impacts of human actions in the Bahía de Amatique, and to understand the socio-economic condition of the local fishing communities. All findings were then incorporated in a regional and global framework of reference. A land-use map was drawn to understand the spatial scale of the impacts described in the reports found, using data accessed from the web (www.ccad.ws 2009).

Vicious chains: Exploitation and degradation In the Bahía de Amatique, three things placed ecosystems at risk of serious damage: 1. frequent accidents that occur during transportation of hydrocarbons and other dangerous substances; 2. illegal fishing and overfishing; and 3. pollution from agriculture, pesticides and fertilizers, and from lack of sewage treatment (FUNDAECO, 2001).

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According to Burke and Sugg (2006), these problems are relevant for the whole Mesoamerican Reef ecosystem. Overfishing, sedimentation from land erosion, nutrient pollution from agriculture run off, bleaching, and disease are also common to the large marine ecosystem. There is anecdotal evidence that fisheries have declined in the Bahía de Amatique (Heyman and Graham, 2000; personal communications, 2006). Overfishing has several origins; commercial fishing is one of them, but we know that artisanal fishers can also be responsible (Pauly et al., 2005). Some of the fishing techniques used in the Bahía de Amatique area, such as trawling, can also be part of the problem. Local fishers are aware of this and want to be part of the solution. They have, in fact, already been proactive in problem solving, as testified by an agreement made in 1996 and discussed below. Fishers would like to be part of the decision-making process for the implementation of the Regulation for the General Law of Fisheries and Aquaculture (below): the closures are not effectively helping to increase fish stocks because they occur in the wrong seasons. In this region too trade is one of the drivers of the depletion of fisheries resources. Catches from the small-scale fleet supply the internal market, being transported to the distribution centers by intermediaries, who buy them from the fishers (www.fao.org 2009). All the fish caught in the Bahía de Amatique are sold through four or five intermediaries who act as a cartel and are thus able to set the price to their advantage. Estimates suggest that the final prices paid by consumers are 50–150% higher than the price paid to the fisher by the intermediary (www.fao.org 2009).Some fishers in the past have tried to sell their landings directly in the market in Guatemala City, but they were forced to abandon this practice because it was not economically feasible due to the small catches and the high transportation costs. The fact that fishers have no access to information about prices paid by consumers also hinders their ability to demand a fair price. These traded goods must be fresh, and this further constrains the bargaining capabilities of fishers: fish must be sold immediately to the available buyer. By obtaining a small price per unit of catch, fishers are forced to increase their fishing effort to sustain their livelihoods. This means using fishing techniques that cause habitat damage (e.g., trawling) and that do not allow for fish to grow to reproductive age (e.g., by using nets with small mesh sizes). The waters of the Bahía de Amatique are also visibly contaminated: the two harbors of the Bahía, Puerto Barrios and Santo Tomas de Castilla, house a hydrocarbon terminal and ship terminals (FUNDAECO, 2001). Moreover, the Rio Dulce-Polochic river system has its estuary in the Bay and the Rio Motagua has its estuary further east. Sea currents in the area are predominantly westward along the coast of Honduras, and southward along the coast of Belize (Thattai and Kjerfve, 2003) and so the waters of the Rio Motagua may reach Punta de Manabique and possibly circulate into the Bay. This is problematic: roughly 3.7 million people – or one-third of the total population – live in these two watersheds, which include a portion of Guatemala City, which has no sewage treatment system (www.infoiarna.org.gt/ guateagua/index.htm 2009). Land-use data and maps of these two watersheds, Rio DulcePolochic and Rio Motagua (which together constitute almost one-third of Guatemala), indicate that almost 44% of the land (>15,000 km2) is dedicated to agriculture, both in the valley plains and on the hillsides (www.ccad.ws 2009; web.pml.ac.uk 2009). Such intensive agriculture is the origin of nutrient and pesticide contamination in the marine environment: the hill slopes show signs of erosion (Burke and Sugg, 2006).

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Virtous chains and the Red: A partial solution to conflict and overfishing Today, there are three main fishing techniques employed in the Bahía de Amatique (Guatemala), used by four different ethnic groups. The first group, the Garifuna, are anglers: they fish with hook and line (pesca con anzuelo). They have been living in this region the longest, since 1802, and have very good knowledge of the location of patches of coral where their fishing activity is located; they employ wooden boats with small or no engine. Each day, they first fish for bait (carnada) with a cast net (atarraya), and then they use that bait to operate their subsistence fishery (J. A. Garifuna fisher, interview, summer 2006). The second group is the Ladino, who fish for shrimp with trawlers. The net is about one meter high at the center, and about 15 meters wide; the doors are about one meter high by a little over 2 meters wide, and mesh size is almost 4 centimeters. The net is hauled in by hand; no winches are used. Boats are smaller than 12 meters (35 feet), and engines are less than 200 hp. The third group, the Q’eqchi’ and the forth, the Hindu population, fish with gillnets (trasmallo) of both the set and encircling kind, casting them from small motorboats (lanchas). This is the major fishing technique in the area, and the fishers are aware that they overfish, mainly to sell their catch (Heyman and Graham, 2000). Conflicts have arisen among these groups due to the different fishing techniques used. For example, when gillnet fishers spot Garifuna fishers, they know that indicates a good fishing ground. With what is called “tiro de avión”, they circle the Garifuna with a gillnet, catching all the fish in an area much more quickly than a Garifuna with a hook and line. Worse still, gillnets set during the day will be destroyed at night by the trawlers. Fortunately, in 1996, with the help of the Alianza Trinacional de ONGs para la Conservación del Golfo de Honduras (TRIGOH; Tri-national Alliance of NGOs for the Conservation of the Gulf of Honduras), the four fisher groups were able to establish what is called the Pacto de Caballeros (Gentlemen’s Agreement) in which some of them came together to solve their common problems of interference that caused damage for all. As a result, the Bay has been divided into three sections, easily identifiable by any fisher. One section is permanently closed to fishing; one is open for shrimp trawlers (red de arrastre), and the third is open for gillnetting (trasmallos). Every Sunday these uses rotate. Anglers (pesca con anzuelo) are allowed to fish everywhere, and interfering with them is not permitted. Drawing on the experience of the Pacto de Caballeros, with the help of foreign cooperation, on the 2 February 2004, the Red de Pescadores Artesanales del Caribe Guatemalteco y Lago de Izabal (Red; Network of Artisanal Fishers of the Guatemalan Caribbean and of Lake Izabal) was founded. The five-year process that led to the foundation of the Red was facilitated by the Comitato Internazionale per lo Sviluppo dei Popoli (CISP; International Committee for the Development of Peoples), who organized workshops and collected socio-economic as well as ecological data and analysed it (M.T., CISP, interview, summer 2006). CISP is an Italian based NGO that works with local stakeholders in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Eastern Europe to design plans in development cooperation, for poverty alleviation, and for social justice (www.sviluppodeipopoli.org 2009). The foundation of the Red was based on the recognition by fishers of common needs and the determination to find solutions to common problems, thus to coordinate the efforts

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of fishers (A. M., Red, interview, summer 2006). The goals of the RED are conservation and exploitation of marine resources, and the creation of links to facilitate communication among fishing organizations (A. M., Red, interview, summer 2006). There are 17 member organizations, and five more organizations may join (H. H., FUNDAECO, interview, summer 2006). Its first action was to create the Centro de Servicio para la Pesca Artesanal en el Golfo de Honduras (CESPAGOH; Service Center for Artisanal Fishery in the Gulf of Honduras). This was the result of a series of workshops, organized and facilitated by CISP and by the Fundación para el Ecodesarrollo y la Conservación (FUNDAECO; Foundation for Eco-development and Conservation). FUNDAECO is a Guatemalan NGO, whose mission is to restore and conserve environments while improving people’s livelihoods (www. fundaeco.org.gt 2009). To achieve this objective, FUNDAECO promotes the empowerment of local communities. Fishers expressed the desire to sell their catch directly, avoiding intermediaries. The foundation of the CESPAGOH was driven by the desire to increase the price per unit of fish caught by avoiding intermediaries and by locally processing the catch, thus reducing the fishing effort and diminishing pressure on the marine environment. At time of writing (June 2008), the Red is waiting for the CESPAGOH to start its operations: the construction phase finished in the spring of 2006, but electricity supply and some machinery are still missing.

Discussion Local fishers are not the only cause of the depletion of natural marine resources; other causes are related to events in the entire sea and coastal area and its related watersheds (land-use practices), and to global change. The problem of what drives the depletion of marine resources is thus multi-causal and multi-scale, without clearly defined boundaries, and therefore the solution is best addressed on an ecosystem scale. This broader approach implies not only setting aside portions of the coastal waters as protected or managed areas, but also regulating all waters and all lands as a unit, recognizing the link between watershed, coast, and shelf regions including reefs. Recognizing that land and sea are linked ecosystems is referred to as Integrated Coastal Management (ICM). Although needed, this ICM approach unfortunately falls outside of the competences of the Red. Larger issues, such as watershed and sea water contamination, thus, remain unsolved. However, the Red has accomplished a lot in terms of fisheries management. Even before its foundation, some of the fishers who later founded the Red, united to define an agreement, i.e., the Pacto de Caballeros. The agreement has been successful; the demonstration of this is its incorporation into the New Fisheries Law approved in Guatemala in 2002. The Fisheries Law also recognizes the exclusive right of local fishers to access the waters of the Bahía de Amatique, prohibiting commercial fishing vessels to enter the bay. As a response to commercial over-exploitation of the resource, the New Fisheries Law approved in Guatemala in 2002 and its Regulation approved in 2005 permits only artisanal fishers to fish in the Bay (Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganaderia y Alimentacion; Ley General de Pesca y Acuicultura, Decreto No. 80-2002; Reglamento de la Ley General de Pesca y Acuicultura, Acuerdo Gubernativo No. 223-2005). The Law describes in detail the techniques that are

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allowed and incorporates the Pacto de Caballeros, but the implementation and enforcement of the Law are judged unsatisfactory by fishers and conservationists. The Red’s foundation fostered good fishing practices that follow sustainability principles, such as those defined in the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (www. fao.org 2009). This certainly sets an example to be followed by other fishers, which could adopt this alternative management model based on the cooperation of all fishers that refer to one fishing ground. The Red still feels it can accomplish much more. It is the understanding of fishers that to be able to maintain – or improve – their livelihoods, the fisheries must not be depleted. Consequently, fishers realize their practices need to be managed by implementing regulations, such as closures. However, fishers feel the management plans in place need to be improved, and want to participate in the decision-making process for the definition of new, more effective, management plans. Their knowledge, such as where breeding grounds are, or when reproduction occurs, is needed to best define fishing closures or other management plans. This brings more considerations. Fishers that founded the Red now understand they need to reach out and involve all the fishers of the area. Only in this way the implementation of their efforts for fish conservation and extraction can effectively be pursued; otherwise the benefit of good fishing practices of some might be outweighed by bad practices of others. Also, the inclusion of other fishers would foster cooperation, thus diminishing the power of intermediaries, increasing the possibility of market control. Last but not least, the creation of the CESPAGOH, i.e., a center that creates economic alternatives and possibly reduces intermediaries’ power, is also an example that could be followed. As we have learned from examples elsewhere, when fishing organizations were able to control the market, and have a fair price for their landings, livelihood of fishing communities improved, and fishing effort decreased. A diversified economy also generally leads to livelihood improvement.

Conclusions A social-ecological approach can contribute significantly to conserve the marine biodiversity of this region, because local populations must play an important role in the definition and implementation of protected areas (Agrawal and Ostrom, 2006). Governance and ecosystem processes have to be investigated as linked systems in a multidisciplinary approach, at the appropriate scale (Agrawal and Ostrom, 2006). The case study chosen, the Red de Pescadores Artesanales del Caribe Guatemalteco y Lago de Izabal (Red), illustrates some of the possible drivers, what here I have defined as vicious chains that cause fisheries depletion and marine ecosystem degradation. Local issues, such as overfishing, contamination, and the role of intermediaries have to be analysed and monitored at the appropriate scale, i.e., at the large ecosystem scale, using a ridge-to-reef approach, which integrates changing global and local conditions. The Red’s work also provides insights into, and identifies possibilities for, decisionmaking and problem solving, i.e., the several virtuous behaviors of the Red described in the discussion section. Ecosystem-based fisheries management, integrated coastal management, and avoiding intermediaries, seem to be plausible virtuous behaviors to improve the well-being of fishing communities. The Red is moving in the right direction. Having

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founded the CESPAGOH is the first step towards emancipation from intermediaries. However, many more actions must be put into place to improve the situation and address local and global change. Large-scale management (Integrated Coastal Management and Ecosystem-Based Management), and involving other sectors of the economy of Guatemala, will have to be addressed. The question is where the fishers of the Red will find the human and financial resources to assist them in this struggle.

Acknowledgements This work is drawn from my Master’s Thesis (Master of Environmental Management) at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (F&ES). I would like to specifically acknowledge the help of my advisor at F&ES, Carol Carpenter; during our conversations, I was able to focus my ideas and gain new perspective on issues. In the Master Lab at F&ES, Carol Carpenter, Amity Doolittle, Michael Dove, and fellow students shared with me helpful and encouraging thoughts. Last but not least, thank you to all who made my summer internship research possible, and to the many people in Guatemala who gave of their time and knowledge to allow me to understand their fishery, its problems, and potential solutions.

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Gunderson, L. H. (2000) Ecological resilience: in theory and application. Annual Review of Ecology 31, 425–439. Hall, S. J. and Mainprize, B. (2004) Towards ecosystem-based fisheries management. Fish and Fisheries 5, 1–20. Hardin, G. (1968) The tragedy of the Commons. Science 162, 1243–1248. Heyman, W. and Graham, R. (2000) La Voz de los Pescadores de la Costa Atlántica de Guatemala. Fundación para el Ecodesarrollo y la Conservación, Guatemala, Guatemala; Toledo Institute for Development and Environment, Punta Gorda, Belize. 44 pp. Holling, C. S. (1973) Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 4, 1–23. Hudson, M. and Hudson, I. (2004) Justice, sustainability, and the fair trade movement: a case study of coffee production in Chiapas. Social Justice 31(3), 130–146. James, D. (2000) Justice and java: coffee in a fair trade market. NACLA Report on the Americas 34(2), 11–14. Kaplan, I. M. and McCay, B. J. (2004) Cooperative research, co-management and the social dimension of fisheries science and management. Marine Policy 28, 257–258. Levi, M. and Linton, A. (2003) Fair trade: a cup at a time? Politics and Society 32(3), 407–432. Mace, B. (1998) Global commodity chains, alternative trade and small-scale coffee production in Oaxaca, Mexico. Masters Thesis, Miami University, Oxford, OH. McCay, B. J. (1981) Development issues in fisheries as agrarian systems. Culture and Agriculture 11, 1–8. Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganaderia y Alimentacion, Guatemala. Ley General de Pesca y Acuicultura, Decreto No. 80-2002. Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganaderia y Alimentacion, Guatemala. Reglamento de la Ley General de Pesca y Acuicultura, Acuerdo Gubernativo No. 223-2005. Olsen, S. and Christie, P. (2000) What are we learning from tropical coastal management experiences? Coastal Management 28(1), 5–18. Pauly, D., Christensen, V., Guénnette, S. et al. (2002). Towards sustainability in world fisheries. Nature 418, 689–695. Pauly, D., Alder, J., Bennett, E. et al. (2003) The future for fisheries. Science 302, 1359–1361. Pauly, D., Watson, R. and Alder, J. (2005) Global trends in world fisheries: impacts on marine ecosystems and food security. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 360, 5–12. Pikitch, E. K., Santora, C., Babcock, E. A. et al. (2004) Ecosystem-based fishery management. Science 305, 346–347. Rice, R. A. (2001) Noble goals and challenging terrain: organic and fair trade coffee movements in the global marketplace. Journal of Agriculture and Environmental Ethics 14, 39–66. Seixas, C. and Troutt, E. (2003) Evolution of a local Brazilian shrimp market. Ecological Economics 46(3), 399–417. Solares-Leal, I. and Alvarez-Gil, O. (2003) Socioeconomic assessment of Punta Allen: a tool for the management of a coastal community. Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, Mexico. Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas, Cancún, Quintana Roo, Mexico.102 pp. Thattai, D. V. and Kjerfve, B. (2003) Numerical modeling of tidal and wind-driven circulation in the Meso-American barrier reef lagoon, Western Caribbean. Oceans 5, 2930–2937. Thorpe, A. and Aguilar Ibarra, A. (2000) The new economic model and marine fisheries development in Latin America. World Development 28(9), 1689–1702. Zabel, R. W., Harvey, C. J., Katz, S. L. et al. (2003) Ecologically sustainable yield. American Scientist 91, 150–157.

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Useful Websites (last accessed 2009) http://web.pml.ac.uk/globec/structure/fwg/focus4/symposium/posters/S1-P3.pdf http://www.ccad.ws/mapas/mapoteca.htm http://www.cobi.org.mx/ http://www.sviluppodeipopoli.org/English/Home/Frameset.html http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/v9878e/v9878e00.htm http://www.fao.org/docrep/field/003/AC587S/AC587S03.htm http://www.fao.org/fi/fcp/es/GTM/profile.htm http://www.fundaeco.org.gt/ http://www.infoiarna.org.gt/guateagua/index.htm http://www.marfund.org/diagnosticofcommunitymarinereservemodels.pdf http://www.marfund.org/themesoamericanreef.html http://www.msc.org/about-us/credibility/how-we-meet-best-practice/?s

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Chapter 19

Ecosystem-based Management in the Asia-Pacific Region Mitsutaku Makino and Hiroyuki Matsuda

Abstract In this chapter, we derive several indicators of the fisheries sectors on a country-by-country basis, and clarify the social and ecological conditions in the Asia-Pacific area. These are summarized as financial, industrial profile, marine resource diversity, food security, social security, and human resource conditions. Then, with a case from an UNESCO World Natural Heritage site in Japan, we propose a socially and ecologically compatible ecosystem-based management framework in the Asia-Pacific area. Under this framework, the local fishers are the core of the management. The most important policy measure is the human capacity building and legal protection of each fishery. Keywords: Ecosystem-based management, fisheries co-management, Asia-Pacific area, social conditions, ecological conditions, Shiretoko World Natural Heritage, Japan

Introduction Ecosystems provide a variety of services (World Research Institute, 2005), including fish, for humans. Since fisheries harvests are only a small portion of all ecosystem services from marine environments (Costanza et al., 1997), fisheries operations should not jeopardize the wide range of goods and services from marine ecosystems that provide food, revenues, and recreation (US National Research Council, 1998). This thinking is central to what is called ecosystem-based fisheries management, or an ecosystem approach to fisheries.1 A closely related but broader concept is ecosystem-based management. Its focus is not limited to a single sector, i.e., the fisheries sector, but encompasses holistic, regionally integrated, and multiple use management of the oceans (UNEP GPA, 2006). In this chapter, we discuss resilient ecosystem-based management for the countries in the Asia-Pacific area.2 We pay particular attention to 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific, World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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i.e., Cambodia, China, Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. These countries are ranked within the top 40 fisheries production countries, in terms of production volume (tonnes) for 2002 to 2006, based on the FAO FISHSTAT. The top 40 countries globally cover 90%, and the above 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific area cover 42%, of global fish production. The situation and performance of fisheries and the characteristics of the surrounding ecosystem are closely linked (Worm et al., 2006). In the next section “Global comparison of fisheries sectors”, we derive several indicators representing the social and ecological conditions of fisheries on a country-by-country basis, and clarify the features of the fisheries sectors in the Asia-Pacific area. Then, based on these results, we propose an approach for building resilient ecosystem-based management in the Asia-Pacific areas, with a case study from an UNESCO World Natural Heritage site in Japan.

Global comparison of fisheries sectors Figure 19.1 shows the global comparison of per capita GDP (in Purchasing Power Parity) on a country-by-country basis. It covers OECD countries3 and the top 40 fisheries production countries. The vertical axis shows the latitude of the capital of each country. The NorthSouth divide is clearly observable. With the exception of Japan and Korea, all the fisheries countries in Asia-Pacific area are positioned in the left side of the figure (100 tonnes per fisher). On the other hand, all the fisheries countries in the Asia-Pacific area are much below the average. This means that fisheries operations in the Asia-Pacific area are conducted at a small scale. Figure 19.2 shows the diversity of fish taxa caught (as the diversity index H’) calculated for OECD countries over the period 2002–2006, and arranged by latitude of their capital city. To calculate H’, the Shannon Function (MacArthur and MacArthur, 1961) for diversity was applied to the FAO FISHSTAT data. Because the details of fisheries statistics reported to FAO largely depend on the domestic statistics system in each country, only the OECD countries are compared. This figure shows that in mid-low latitudes, in which

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70 Iceland Finland Swe Denmark Germany Ireland UK Netherlands France

60 Russia Latitude (degrees North or South)

Poland 50

Norway

Canada China 40

Turky Paki Argentina Morocco Chile Egypt India S.Africa Bangla Namib Vietnam Mexico Myanmar Brazil Philippine Senegal Thai Cambodia Peru Venezuela Nigeria Indonesia Ghana Malaysia

30

20

10

Italy NZ Portugal Spain Greece Korea Japan AU

USA

0 0

10000

20000

30000

40000

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US$/capita (PPP) Fig. 19.1 Global distribution of per capita GDP, arranged by latitude of the capital city (Source: The World Bank 2008).

fisheries countries in the Asia-Pacific area are located, a wider range of species is utilized than at higher latitudes. This can be understood as reflecting the high biodiversity as well as varieties of seafood culture in these lower latitude areas. Related to this, Fig. 19.3 shows the percentage of seafood as a source of animal protein in the top 40 fisheries countries. It shows that countries in the Asia-Pacific area have a larger reliance on seafood than other sources of animal protein, reflecting the importance of seafood to their food security. Figure 19.4 shows the percentage of fishers in the total population, demonstrating the importance of the fisheries sector as a source of employment. For many countries in the Asia-Pacific area and Northern Europe, the fisheries sector is more important as a source of jobs than in other countries. It is worth pointing out that in many developing countries, it is often the poorest social class that work in the fisheries sector, which serves as a kind of social security net for landless people. Finally, Fig. 19.5 shows the average number of marine fishers per kilometer of coastline. The appropriate balance between the number of fishers and the biological productivity of an area is an important theme for further research, because excess numbers of fishers could easily lead to overfishing. However, the people living along the coast are the most direct stakeholders and recipients of the marine ecosystem services (UNEP CBD, 2000), and we

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Table 19.1 Fisheries production, number of fishers, and average production per fisher in the top 40 fisheries countries (Source: FAO, 1999, FAO FISHSTAT). Shaded cells represent those countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Country or area name China Peru USA Indonesia Chile Japan India Russia Thailand Norway Philippines Vietnam Iceland Republic of Korea Myanmar Mexico Malaysia Bangladesh Canada Denmark Chinese Taipei Argentina Morocco Spain South Africa Brazil United Kingdom France Faroe Islands Namibia New Zealand Turkey Nigeria Netherlands Venezuela Pakistan Senegal Egypt Cambodia Ghana Average

Fisheries production by volume (tonnes)*

Total number of fishers**

Per-fisher production (tonnes/fisher)***

17,190,201 8,178,363 4,959,275 4,639,326 4,593,475 4,440,150 3,680,819 3,241,117 2,824,466 2,649,158 2,197,587 1,885,598 1,789,424 1,666,571 1,590,768 1,362,649 1,285,864 1,240,546 1,120,344 1,069,481 1,028,689 986,820 934,065 878,002 798,481 748,663 654,503 653,596 586,950 579,760 540,382 516,896 499,395 499,299 489,487 485,791 423,009 394,985 388,571 384,018

1,286,799 65,290 290,000 4,649,153 75,367 278,200 5,958,744 n.a. 438,934 22,916 990,872 3,030,000 6,300 180,649 580,962 258,850 100,666 1,320,480 84,775 4,792 297,523 12,320 96,708 75,434 10,500 290,000 19,044 26,113 2,761 2,700 2,227 33,614 481,264 3,711 39,621 416,405 51,197 61,977 73,425 230,749

0.1 120.7 20.5 1.0 84.5 26.6 0.8 n.a. 8.0 149.3 2.8 0.5 353.8 18.1 1.4 6.1 12.4 1.0 13.1 359.7 n.a. 104.8 8.2 18.8 52.3 2.2 51.8 35.6 127.4 99.4 325.9 19.4 0.9 148.2 12.7 1.5 9.9 7.4 1.6 2.1

2,101,914

560,283

58.2

* The average production volume (tonnes) for 2002 to 2006 from FAO FISHSTAT. ** Based on the total employment recorded by FAO (1999). *** The production data are from FAO FISHSTAT for the year when the employment data were collected by FAO (1999).

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70 Iceland Finland

60

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Swe Denmark

Ireland Germany UK Netherlands

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Poland 50

France Canada

40

Italy NZ Portugal Spain USA Greece Japan AU Korea

Turkey

30

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Fig. 19.2 Diversity of fish taxa caught, with diversity calculated using the Shannon function H′, for OECD countries arranged by latitude of their capital city (Source: FAO FISHSTAT). 70 Iceland Norway

Latitude (degrees North or South)

60 Denmark Russia UK Netherland

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Morocco

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Bangladesh Vietnam Philippines

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Peru Nigeria

Myanmar Seneg Thailand

Cambo

Indonessia

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Malaysia 0 0%

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Fig. 19.3 Percentage of seafood as a source of animal protein in the top 40 fisheries countries, arranged by latitude of their capital city (Source: FAO Food Balance Sheet)4.

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70 Iceland

60

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Faroe Islands

Denmark

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50

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NZ Spain China Turkey USA Korea Japan Argentina Pakistan Morocco Chile Egypt 30 India

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Mexico Brazil Myanmar Senegal Philippine Thai Peru Cambodia Venezuela Nigeria Indonesia Ghana Malaysia

0 0.00

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Fig. 19.4 Percentage of fishers in the total population in the top 40 fisheries countries, arranged by latitude of their capital city (Source: FAO 1999, CIA 1997).

presume that they could therefore play the most important role in coastal co-management. From this perspective, Fig. 19.5 suggests that in the Asia-Pacific areas, local people can potentially play an important role in local ecosystem management, i.e., those areas are rich in potential human resources. The summary of the fisheries sectors in the Asia-Pacific area is in Table 19.2. When we create ecosystem-based management in the Asia-Pacific area, all these conditions should be clearly taken into account. In addition, other social aspects, which cannot be quantified, must be considered. For example, anthropological studies point out that in many parts of the world, especially in tropical areas, a redistribution of wealth through social interdependence and a traditional credit system is the norm (Ruddle, 2008). That may bind fishers to their communities and occupation, as embodying a sense of cultural identity. For example, crew sizes may be determined more by social imperatives, or obligations to share economic benefits, than by economically rational choices. It is important to consider these societal norm conditions in order to facilitate effective co-management of local natural resources (Ostrom, 1990, Armitage et al., 2007).

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70 Iceland Faroe Islands Norway Denmark

60

UKNetherland France

Latitude (degrees North or South)

50

Canada NZ Spain USA Japan Argentina Morocco Chile Egypt

40

30

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S.Africa

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Bangladesh

Namibia 20

Mexico

10

Philippine Thai Peru Venezuela

Myanmar Senegal

Indonesia

Ghana

Malaysia 0 0

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100

150

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300

Number of marine fishers/Km Fig. 19.5 Average number of marine fishers per km of coastline in the top 40 fisheries countries, arranged by latitude of their capital city (Source: FAO, 1999; CIA, 1997). Brazil, Cambodia, China, India, Korea, Nigeria, Russia, and Vietnam are not indicated in this figure because appropriate data for marine fishers are not available.

Table 19.2 Summary of the social and ecological conditions of the fisheries sectors in the Asia-Pacific area. Condition 1 Condition 2 Condition 3 Condition 4 Condition 5 Condition 6

Expensive policy measures are impossible (financial condition). Fisheries operations are small-scale (industrial profile condition). Diversity in resource use is high, reflecting the high biodiversity of the surrounding sea (marine resource condition). People largely rely on seafood as a source of animal protein (food security condition). Fisheries sector is important as a source of employment (social security condition). Rich in the potential human resource in the coastal area (human resource conditions).

How, then, can we build socially and ecologically resilient systems based on the social and ecological conditions listed in Table 19.2? How we can build an ecosystem-based management framework, which fits well to the Asia-Pacific area? In the section “Ecosystembased management at the Shiretoko World Natural Heritage, Japan”, a case from Japan is discussed as an example.

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Ecosystem-based management at the Shiretoko World Natural Heritage, Japan Shiretoko Peninsula is located in the northeast of Hokkaido Island, Japan. A distinguishing characteristic of this area is the interrelationship between its marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Many anadromous salmonids swim up the rivers in the peninsula to spawn. They serve as an important source of food for upstream terrestrial species such as the brown bear, Steller’s sea eagle, and whitetailed eagle (Plate 11 in the color plate section). The peninsula is also internationally important as a stopover point for migratory birds (Ministry of Environment of the Government of Japan, Hokkaido Prefectural Government, 2007). At the same time, Shiretoko is also famous in Japan for fisheries production, and the fisheries and tourism sectors are the most important industries here. In 2006, 851 fishers were engaged in the fishing industry, yielding 73,641 tonnes for a cash value of 22,966 million yen (Hokkaido Prefectural Government, 2007). To maintain sustainable fisheries, local fishers who possess fishing rights and licenses have implemented a wide range of autonomous measures under a fisheries co-management framework.4 For example, they autonomously enlarged the mesh size of walleye pollack gillnets from 91–95 mm in the 1990s, in accordance with research results provided by the local research station. Gillnet fishers divided the fishing ground into 34 areas, based on their local knowledge and experience, and declared 7 of them protected in order to conserve resources. These protected areas include a portion of the scientifically identified spawning ground of walleye pollack. The protected areas are re-examined every year on the basis of the previous year’s performance and scientific advice from the local research station. After nomination of the peninsula and its surrounding marine areas for UNESCO World Natural Heritage Listing in 2004, six other areas were also designated as protected, and the fishers implemented various autonomous measures for other species in the Shiretoko ecosystem. In addition, the fisheries cooperative associations fund their own monitoring programs and research vessel. Although these co-management measures are not well defined or described in documents, they regulate the impact of fishing on stock very strictly. Since 2004, various additional measures have been implemented to conserve the outstanding ecosystems of this area. The approach taken was one that did not displace local fishers from the area, but placed their activities at the core of the management scheme to sustain ecosystem structure and function, while other sectors were integrated into the existing co-management framework. That is, fisheries co-management was expanded to ecosystem-based co-management to achieve ecosystem conservation. We call this the “Shiretoko Approach”. One of the most important new measures implemented in the Shiretoko area is a system for coordination among the wide range of sectors involved (Fig. 19.6). The Shiretoko World Natural Heritage Site Regional Liaison Committee is composed of officers from related ministries and departments, such as the Fisheries Agency, Coast Guard, Ministry of Environment, Forestry Agency, Ministry of Education, etc. Fisheries cooperative associations, the tourism sector, the Scientific Council (described later), and NGOs, also participate. The committee serves as the core arena for policy coordination among administrative

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Shiretoko World Natural Heritage Site Regional Liaison Committee (since 2003) Role: exchange information, and coordinate interests/policies amongst administrative sectors. Participants: Central/local government, Fisheries Cooperative Associations, Sightseeing Guide Associations, and NGOs.

Shiretoko World Natural Heritage Site Scientific Council (since 2004)

coordination and cooperation

Role: Provide scientific advice on management, research, and monitoring activities

Role: Build use rules for tourists to reduce negative impacts on environment

Participants : Scientists, Central/local government, Fisheries Cooperative Associations, and NGOs.

Marine WG

River Construction WG

Shiretoko National Park Committee for the Review of Proper Use (since 2004)

Participants: Scientists, Central/local government, NGOs. Yezo Deer WG

Fig. 19.6 Coordinating system in the Shiretoko World Natural Heritage site.

bodies. The Shiretoko World Natural Heritage Site Scientific Council is the scientific advisory body for the formulation of the management plan and for research and monitoring activities. The council has three working groups (WGs): for marine ecosystem management (Marine WG), for improvement of river constructions (River Construction WG), and for Yezo deer (Cervus nippon yezoensis) management (Yezo Deer WG). The Shiretoko National Park Committee for the Review of Proper Use has conducted research and discussions on proper-use rules for tourism, which is another important sector in this peninsula. These organizations and their interrelationships have helped to ensure participation, to exchange information and opinions, and to build consensus between the wide-ranging interests of multiple users of the ecosystem services, supporting the legitimacy of the management plans and rules. The official management plan for the marine area of the World Heritage site, called the Multiple Use Integrated Marine Management Plan, was drawn up by the Marine WG in December 2007. Its objective is “to achieve both conservation of the marine ecosystem and stable fisheries through the sustainable use of marine living resources in the marine area of the heritage site” (Ministry of Environment of the Government of Japan, Hokkaido Prefectural Government, 2007). It defines management measures to conserve the marine ecosystem, strategies to maintain major species, along with monitoring methods, and policies for marine recreational activities. The fisheries sector has participated from the beginning of the drafting process. To monitor the Shiretoko marine ecosystem, the Marine Working Group drew up a food web (Plate 11 in the color plate section), identified indicator

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species, and specified monitoring activities. Because the local fishers have caught a wide range of species in responsible ways (>50 species), the catch data has been compiled by local fishers and it includes many of the indicator species and other major marine species in the food web. This information is an important foundation for monitoring changes in the functions and structure of the Shiretoko marine ecosystem. Under the Shiretoko Approach, the local fishers are recognized as an integral part of the ecosystem, as indicated in Plate 11 in the color plate section, and their data are officially utilized to monitor the ecosystem cost-effectively. However, catch data are not enough for monitoring the entire marine ecosystem, because fishers are targeting only commercial species. Therefore, the Marine Management Plan specifies monitoring of non-commercial species, as well as basic environmental indices such as weather, water quality, sea ice, and plankton. Also, it is worth noting that the Shiretoko Approach can save considerable costs for ecosystem-based management. In 2006, the public expenditure from both the local and central governments, excluding fisheries management measures, was about 470 million yen, corresponding to about 2% of the fisheries production value in the area. For the full details of the ecosystembased co-management in the Shiretoko area, see Makino et al. (2009).

Discussion Copes and Charles (2004) categorized Japanese co-management as a kind of “communitybased co-management”, which recognizes that fishers are the primary participants in management, and that involvement and support of the broader community is essential. The system is open to consideration of a wide range of human needs in the community, and therefore lends itself to the implementation of a balanced mix of biological, social, and economic objectives. The Japanese institutional background naturally leads to a different ecosystem-based management framework from, for example, that of Iceland or New Zealand, where market-based individual transferable quotas are the central policy tool. The Shiretoko Approach is an example of extension from community-based co-management to an ecosystem-based management approach. Furthermore, based on the social and ecological conditions summarized in Table 19.2, we discuss the compatibility of the Shiretoko Approach to the Asia-Pacific area. First, under the Shiretoko Approach, due respect is paid to the local fishers’ knowledge and to their autonomous activities, and local fishers are not excluded from the heritage area. Rather, they are the core of the ecosystem-based co-management. Therefore, local norms and livelihoods are not destroyed (Condition 5), and fisheries products are continuously supplied to the market (Condition 4). The importance of this requirement cannot be overemphasized, especially for the remote fishing communities on islands or peninsulas in the Asia-Pacific area. Matsuda et al. (2008) pointed out that, based on their mathematical model of fisheries’ impacts on an ecosystem, profit maximizing fisheries are likely to utilize only one or two highly-valued species from the food web. This means, from the ecosystem-based management point of view, that we can gain information about very limited aspects of the ecosystem through the fisheries sector. Government has to monitor the rest of the ecosystem, and these costs are beyond the budget of many countries in the Asia-Pacific area. In the

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Shiretoko area, however, local fishers are utilizing a wide range of species from the ecosystem; they conserve species by various autonomous measures, and compile the catch data by themselves. Their data cover most of keystone species of the ecosystem, and government saves the cost of ecosystem monitoring. In other words, the Shiretoko case shows that diversity in fisheries can save costs in ecosystem monitoring (Conditions 1 and 3). Participation of local stakeholders in all the decision-making processes (Fig. 19.6) also helps to increase the legitimacy and applicability of management measures, and saves enforcement costs (Hilborn, 2007).

Conclusion Because the Asia-Pacific area is potentially rich in human resources, the most important policy measure when applying the Shiretoko Approach is human capacity building in order to achieve community-based co-management (Condition 6). Legal protection of each fishery, such as the fishing rights and license system in Japan, is indispensable as it permits coordination of fisheries on equal terms. Without such legal guarantees, the co-existence of small-scale, artisanal fisheries and large-scale, efficient fisheries is difficult (Condition 2). The analyses outlined in this chapter are still in their very early stages, and much can be done to improve them. The indicators discussed in the section “Global comparison of fisheries sectors” are just a snapshot, but trends in indicators could be calculated from the time series data, and would give more insight into macro changes in societies, as well as in ecosystem services. Also, large countries cannot be represented by a single latitude and value, so division by eco-region is the next fruitful analytical step.

Acknowledgement This work was supported in part by the Global COE Program (grant to Hiroyuki Matsuda).

Endnotes 1. For more details in the terminologies, see Garcia et al. (2003). 2. In this chapter, the Asia-Pacific area refers to the East Asia and the Southeast Asia. 3. The term “OECD countries” refers to the member countries of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development whose fisheries production volume (tonnes) for 2002–2006 were ranked within top 100 countries in the world. Therefore, OECD member countries with relatively small fisheries production, such as Belgium (ranked 111), Hungary (146), the Czech Republic (157), Slovakia (184), Switzerland (186), Austria (203), and Luxembourg (232) are excluded from the figure. 4. For the institutional features of fisheries co-management in Japan, see Makino and Matsuda (2005). Other case studies of Japanese fisheries co-management can be found in Townsend et al. (2008).

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References Armitage, D., Berkes, F. and Doubleday, N. (2007) Adaptive Co-Management, UBC Press, Vancouver BC. CIA (1997) The 1997 World Fact Book. Copes, P. and Charles, A. (2004) Socioeconomics of individual transferable quotas and communitybased fishery management. Agricultural and Resource Economics Review 33, 171–181. Costanza, R., d’Arge, R., de Groot, R. et al. (1997) The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387, 253–260. FAO (1999) Number of Fishers 1970–1997. FAO Fisheries Circular 929. FAO, Rome. Garcia, S. M., Zerbi, A., Aliaume, C. et al. (2003) The Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries. Issues, Terminology, Principles, Institutional Foundations, Implementation and Outlook. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper 443. FAO, Rome. Hilborn, R. (2007) Defining success in fisheries and conflicts in objectives. Marine Policy 31, 153–158. Hokkaido Prefectural Government (2007) Hokkaido Fisheries white paper. Ostrom, E. (1990) Governing the Commons. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK. Makino, M. and Matsuda, H. (2005) Co-management in Japanese Coastal Fishery: its institutional features and transaction Cost. Marine Policy 29, 441–450. Makino, M., Matsuda, H. and Sakurai, Y. (2009) Expanding fisheries co-management to ecosystembased management. Marine Policy 33, 207–214. Matsuda, H., Makino, M. and Kotani, K. (2008) Optimal Fishing Policies that Maximize Sustainable Ecosystem Services. In: Fisheries for Global Welfare and Environment, 5th World Fisheries Congress 2008, (eds K. Tsukamoto, T. Kawamura, T. Takeuchi, et al.), TERRAPUB, Tokyo, pp. 359–369. MacArthur, R. and MacArthur, J. W. (1961) On bird species diversity. Ecology, 42, 594–598. Ministry of Environment of the Government of Japan, Hokkaido Prefectural Government. (2007) The Multiple Use Integrated Marine Management Plan. Ruddle, K. (2008) Misconceptions, outright prejudice, SAMUDRA Report 48, 4–9. Townsend, R., Shotton, R. and Uchida, H. (2008) Case Studies in Fisheries Self-governance. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper 604. FAO, Rome. UNEP CBD (2000) Decisions adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity at its 5th Meeting, UNEP/CBD/COP/5/23. UNEP GPA (2006) Ecosystem-Based Management: Markers for Assessing Progress. UNEP/GPA Coordination Office, Hagure. US National Research Council (1998) Sustaining marine fisheries. A report of the Committee on Ecosystem Management for Sustainable Fisheries. Ocean Studies Board, Commission on Geosciences, Environment and Resources, National Research Council. National Academy Press, Washington DC. World Bank (2008) World Development Indicator 2007. World Bank, Washington DC. Worm, B., Barbier, E. B., Beaumont, N. et al. (2006) Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services. Science 314, 787–790.

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Chapter 20

A Network Approach to Understanding Coastal Management and Governance of Small-scale Fisheries in the Eastern Caribbean Kemraj Parsram and Patrick McConney

Abstract In the eastern Caribbean, many people depend on the good governance of fisheries and other marine resources for their livelihoods and for development to be sustainable. The governance of small-scale fisheries in the eastern Caribbean often lacks the interactions among stakeholders needed to sustain fisheries management. There is an urgent need to understand networks in the governance of these fisheries without claiming that they are necessarily good or bad. Small, low status government fisheries units often have tenuous links to public sector policy and resource users. Other stakeholders, such as in tourism, may be more connected to policy, marginalizing small-scale fisheries even in the context of integrated coastal management. Network analysis has been applied to both social systems and ecological systems, but much less to social-ecological systems. We use cases of coastal and fisheries networks in the Caribbean to investigate and seek to understand the governance of social-ecological systems in the eastern Caribbean and their capacity to adapt. Keywords: Caribbean, coastal, governance, small scale fisheries, social network analysis

Introduction Images of the insular Caribbean, promoted mainly by tourism marketing, typically depict palm trees on white sandy beaches that stretch for miles along coasts washed by clear, turquoise waters and fringed by pristine coral reefs teeming with marine life. These idyllic images typically omit the local inhabitants pursuing the livelihoods and developments that link coastal and marine ecosystems to the equally important social, cultural, and economic systems of the Caribbean. This link is strong. The Caribbean Sea Ecosystem Assessment World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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(CARSEA), a sub-global component of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) asserts that: The peoples of the Caribbean are defined by the Sea whose shores they inhabit. In the rich diversity of cultures and nations making up the region, the one uniting factor is the marine ecosystem on which each ultimately depends” (Agard et al., 2007: xiv). The touristic images mask the underlying difficulties and escalating challenges of governing and managing coastal and marine resources, in the contexts of globalization and global change, among increasing and competing users and uses. Depletion of some fisheries resources, worsening coastal habitat degradation, increasing threats from climate variability and change, food security risks and concerns over fossil fuel costs, all contribute, among other factors, to the challenges faced by the small island developing states (SIDS) of the eastern Caribbean. These places and their people, characterized by coastal communities and enterprises (mainly fishing and tourism) that are heavily dependent on coastal and marine ecosystems, are particularly vulnerable to both natural and anthropogenic threats to life and livelihoods. Decisions on resource governance and management need to be cross-scale (e.g., jurisdictional and institutional) and multi-level (e.g., sub-regional, national, and local). Understanding how such societal decisions are now made and how they can be improved in the future for superior outcomes is crucial to coping with global change in marine social-ecological systems. With our perspective on the governance of fisheries and coastal management, grounded in thinking about them as complex adaptive systems (CAS) and social-ecological systems (SES), we examine aspects of a network approach to understanding coastal management and governance of small-scale fisheries in the eastern Caribbean. We briefly describe the resources and governance arrangements before illustrating the network approach with three examples. The cases are of: 1. international governance in the tuna fishery; 2. sub-regional management via fisheries science information exchange; and 3. mobilization of fisher folk organizations for participation in regional fisheries governance.

Coastal and fisheries resources The eastern Caribbean sub-region is geographically and politically diverse, with SIDS stretching in an island chain from the northern Leeward Islands to Trinidad and Tobago just north of South America (Fig. 20.1). This chapter focuses upon the majority, which are English-speaking member states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), but interspersed among them are the dependencies and territories of metropolitan countries (USA, UK, France, and The Netherlands). The islands vary in terms of geology, physical size, political status, governance structures, economic situation, history, and culture among many features. There also similarities among some features. The latter include critical coastal and

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Costa Rica

Nicaragua

Colombia

60°W

US

Venezuela

I

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I in irg Anguilla V h Antigua and Barbuda itis Br St. Martin/St. Marten St. Kitts & Nevis 20°N Montserrat Guadeloupe Dominica Martinique St. Lucia Barbados St. Vincent & Grenadines Grenada

in rg Vi

Turks and Caicos I

ATLANTIC OCEAN

Haiti Dominican Puerto Rico Republic

Bahamas

Jamaica

Panama

Cayman I.

Honduras

Cuba

Fig. 20.1 Hypothetical Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) in the Wider Caribbean.

PACIFIC OCEAN

Belize

Mexico

USA

GULF OF MEXICO

70°W

Gu ya na

80°W

Su rin am e

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marine ecosystems such as island shelves and slopes, coral reefs, sea-grass beds, mangroves, coastal lagoons, and beaches. These ecosystems and the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) around the islands form a mosaic of adjacent marine spaces that support a variety of goods and services, particularly fisheries and tourism related activities. The islands of the eastern Caribbean face similar environmental and socio-economic challenges. They are all highly dependent socially and economically on the marine environment and associated living resources. Many aspects of sustainable development in the insular Caribbean are intricately linked to living marine resources (Heileman, 2007). These resource bases support small-scale fisheries that contribute to local economies, more or less significantly depending on location, as sources of food supply, employment, and foreign exchange income earnings (Berkes et al., 2001; Mahon and McConney, 2004a). This dependence places intense pressures on living marine resources. The health of coastal ecosystems and fisheries resources has declined due to over-exploitation, habitat degradation, and pollution (UNEP, 2005), leaving a wide range of problems that are among the major challenges confronting the eastern Caribbean. Sustainable use and effective management of coastal and marine living resources are of major importance to these places, not only at local and island scales but at transboundary sub-regional and international scales due both to ecological processes (e.g., migration, larval dispersal) and global governance (e.g., political unions, international conservation instruments). The fisheries of the eastern Caribbean are dynamic and evolving small-scale socialecological systems, employing labor intensive harvesting, processing, and distribution technologies to exploit a few large stocks and several smaller stocks with a diverse array of species over several management units (Berkes et al., 2001; Fanning et al., 2007b). Most of the fishery resources are transboundary and shared. Species and species groups targeted include tunas and tuna-like species, dolphinfish, flyingfish, snappers, hinds, grunts, sea urchins, lobsters, conch, and many others. These fisheries vary in status of resources and exploitation trends, vessel and gear used, and the approaches to governance used for their development and management (Fanning et al., 2007b). In general shelf, reef, and near shore fish, which includes lobster and conch, are said to be either fully exploited or overexploited. The status of coastal large pelagic stocks is generally unknown, although there is evidence that some mackerel stocks are over-exploited. There is better information on the status of the oceanic stocks from the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) assessments. Yellowfin, albacore, and big eye tuna are estimated to be fully exploited. The status of the skipjack tuna and sailfish is unknown, while swordfish, blue marlin, and white marlin are over-exploited. However, some regionally distributed stocks may be adequate to allow expansion of pelagic fisheries (Mahon et al., 2003; Mahon and McConney, 2004a).

Governance issues In the eastern Caribbean, many people depend on the good governance of the small-scale fisheries and coastal resources described above for their livelihoods. They would wish for development to be equitable and sustainable, especially in coastal communities. However,

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ICCAT WECAFC ACS

OLDEPESCA

CARIFORUM CARICOM and CRFM

OSPESCA

OECS

Fig. 20.2 Overlapping fisheries governance organizations in the Caribbean (WECAFC = FAO West Central Atlantic Fishery Commission, ACS = Association of Caribbean States, CARICOM = Caribbean Community and Common Market, CRFM = Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism, OECS = Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, OLDEPESCA = Latin American Organization for Fishery Development, OSPESCA = Organización del Sector Pesquero y Acuícola del Istmo Centroamericano, ICCAT = International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas). CARIFORUM is a forum consisting of 16 Caribbean states which facilitates economic discussions with the European Union.

the governance of these complex fisheries and coastal resources has been challenging the diverse national and regional institutional arrangements that typically have limited capacities for fishery management due in part to small and fairly independent fisheries authorities (Mahon et al., 2005; Fanning et al., 2007a,b). Although these fisheries authorities operate much on their own, they are inevitably linked to the several regional and international level intergovernmental organizations with interest in fisheries that currently overlap each other creating issues of scale, capacity, power, politics, equity, law, and jurisdiction (Fig. 20.2) (Chakalall et al., 1998; Mahon and McConney, 2004b). Key organizations in the English-speaking eastern Caribbean include: the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and its Environment and Sustainable Development Unit (ESDU); the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and its Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM); and the Western Central Atlantic Fishery Commission (WECAFC) of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The approaches by national governments and these organizations to coastal and marine resource governance have generally been poorly coordinated or integrated. This is one of the reasons driving a currently ongoing project aimed at enhancing the transboundary governance and sustainable management of the shared living marine resources of the Caribbean Large Marine Ecosystem (CLME) (Parsons, 2007).

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At the national and local levels there are issues related to weak institutions, poor leadership, inadequate information, and limited capacity that contribute to low levels of governance and non-governmental stakeholder engagement in dialog and action related to fisheries and coastal management in the eastern Caribbean (McConney and Parsram, 2007). Government authorities and/or statutory corporations, which typically have responsibility for fisheries, tourism, trade, transportation, foreign affairs, public health, environment, marine parks, and protected areas are seldom coordinated on marine policy matters. Management tools have either not been tried or have failed, and consequently most of the fisheries are lightly managed or unmanaged and are open access (Mahon, 1997, Chakalall et al., 1998; Grant, 2006; Mahon et al., 2008). Small states have tried unsuccessfully to mimic the organizational structures and management approaches of large countries, and indeed this is not appropriate (Mahon and McConney, 2004b). The diverse mix of regional and international organizations that often compete for the attention and time of the small staffs in the national fisheries departments at times unnecessarily duplicate efforts and serve to disrupt, rather than enhance, governance arrangements (Parsons, 2007). At the local level, and in a few countries at the national level, there are small fisher folk organizations (FFOs) operating with inadequate capacity and leadership in most cases. The majority of resource users and postharvest workers are not formally organized and often lack critical linkages with other stakeholders, across levels and scales in the governance regimes. These issues suggest that coastal and marine resource governance remains difficult and sometimes ineffective in the eastern Caribbean. Sustainable management of these systems and resources require a coordinated multi-sectoral approach taking, account of the needs and potential impacts of complementary and competing industries including agriculture, fishing, manufacturing, recreation, shipping, and tourism (Fanning et al., 2007b). It has been argued that transboundary and shared fisheries require strong regional integration of governance regimes, associated management approaches, and linkages across spatial and jurisdictional scales and at all levels (Mahon and McConney, 2004a; Fanning et al., 2007a; Chakalall et al., 2007). There is a need for stronger inter-organizational linkages in fisheries management, for example, as a means for enhancing and scaling-up the adaptive capacities of the small fisheries authorities from the national to regional levels, and fisher folk stakeholder groups from local to regional levels. However, these linkages seem to be lacking or poorly developed in the eastern Caribbean, and instead current governance and management arrangements appear to remain fragmented (Chakalall et al., 2007; Parsons, 2007, McConney et al., 2007). This situation calls for innovative approaches and perhaps a shift in the model of governance from attempts at command-and-control by the state authorities to ones that are more enabling, approached from complex adaptive systems (CAS) and social-ecological systems (SES) perspectives. Enabling policies with these perspectives encourage conflict management, collaboration, participation, subsidiarity, self-organization, collective action, adaptive co-management, and similar arrangements (McConney, 1997; Chakalall et al., 1998; Berkes et al., 2001; Mahon and McConney, 2004a; Kooiman et al., 2005; Bavinck et al., 2005). Self-organization, learning, and adaptive capacity, combined with polycentric networks of institutions with adequate cross-scale and cross-level linkages, are believed to confer resilience on governance systems (Berkes, 2006; McConney et al., 2007). These concepts are considered next.

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Network governance thinking Conventional approaches to fisheries governance and management typically assume that fisheries are more deterministic and predictable than they really are, and that they can thus be controlled through management action (Berkes et al., 2003; Charles, 2001; Mahon et al., 2005). For fisheries managers, other stakeholders and policy decision-makers to see the governance of fisheries as occurring through social-ecological system networks will require significant changes in the ways people think about fisheries, their connectivity, feedback loops, and generally the concepts that they use (Berkes and Folke, 1998). Berkes and Folke (1998) coined the term “social-ecological system” (SES) to emphasise the integration of humans-in-nature, proposing that social and ecological systems are inevitably linked or better described as interconnected, and that the delineation between the two systems is artificial and arbitrary. Models and conceptual frameworks of such coupled systems have been constructed to also integrate economic, cultural, political, and institutional dimensions of social-ecological interactions in ways that acknowledge and address complexity (Walker et al., 2006; Berkes et al., 2003). For example, Janssen and Ostrom (2006) explain SES as systems with both biophysical and social components, in which individuals self-consciously invest time and effort in developing forms of physical and institutional infrastructure that are embedded in layers of networks of relationships among smaller and larger clusters of actors, which affect the way the systems function over various time-scales in coping with diverse external disturbances and internal problems. Complex systems theory suggests that the structure and nature of connections between the elements of a system govern the dynamics and functions of that system. In social networks these connections describe who relates to whom in what way, and these linkages institutionalize the formal and informal operational rules that guide and govern people’s behavior (Straton and Gerritsen, 2005). Network theory has been used to describe and analyse emergent features of connected actors (Scott, 2000). A social network is a set of nodes (individual or organizational actors) related or linked to each other through specified relationships (ties). The relationships can involve the exchange of material or non-material resources, such as goods, money, information, services, social or emotional support, trust, or influence. Networks can be mapped and drawn to visually describe the many different features and types of interaction among actors. How a network is structured partly determines its function and performance (Straton and Gerritsen, 2005; Carlsson and Sandström, 2006). For example, the relative positions of nodes and the numbers of ties or frequencies of exchanges (strength of ties) can reveal who are the key and potentially powerful players in a network. Such actors may have significant influence over decisions and outcomes, or may be critical for facilitating or blocking the communication of information to others. Network analysis can also suggest the level of social capital possessed by a group or community. Networks are real and observable structures that can be measured using quantitative techniques in social network analysis (Wasserman and Faust 1994; Scott, 2000; Hanneman and Riddle, 2005). Networks of actors and stakeholders are gaining attention in studies of natural resource management. Janssen et al. (2006), Bodin (2006), Bodin et al. (2006), Carlsson and

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Sandström (2006), and Crona (2006) suggest that network theory has the potential to aid understanding of the interactions between institutional arrangements, individual decisions, and environmental and social outcomes in identifying strategies for improving collective management and governance of common pool resources such as fisheries. However, no comprehensive application of network analysis of fisheries and coastal resource governance in the eastern Caribbean has yet been undertaken. Here we seek to illustrate the potential practical application of how the network approach helps with understanding coastal and marine resource governance in the eastern Caribbean. These brief cases concern tuna management, fisheries science networks, and aspects of fisher folk organization.

Tuna fishery management Mahon and McConney (2004a) reviewed fisheries for large pelagics in the CARICOM region. Several countries in the eastern Caribbean have small-scale tuna fleets. These range from artisanal longline, 6-meter undecked and outboard-powered boats making trips of only a few hours in Grenada, to the 15-meter inboard-powered longliners of Barbados that make trips of up to 2 weeks. In all cases the main target species landed is yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) destined for export to the USA. Other tunas and billfishes are bycatch sold locally along with the non-exportable grades of yellowfin. As described earlier, all of the large tunas are under the international management jurisdiction of ICCAT, to which only a few of the countries are contracting parties. Unlike the large tunas of interest to international industrial fleets and world trade, there are eastern Caribbean small-scale fisheries for several smaller tunas and tuna-like species that are less commercially important globally, and in which ICCAT takes little interest either for assessment or management at this time. The management of the tuna fisheries of the eastern Caribbean must be considered at different levels comprising diverse actors linked across jurisdictional, institutional, and geo-spatial scales in the formulation and delivery of policy, implementation of management measures, and use of resources. Figure 20.3, adapted from McConney et al. (2007), presents a very much simplified view of governance illustrated by the key linkages in tuna fishery management that impact the eastern Caribbean. The presence and directions of the arrows indicate major pathways for information and instruction flow. Arrow size is a rough indicator of the strength of the relationship. The network perspectives presented here were derived from literature related to CARICOM views on policy, planning, and management (Singh-Renton et al., 2003; Mahon and McConney, 2004a). The stylized diagram, arranged in four levels on a jurisdictional scale, shows ICCAT uppermost and communicating to the regional level CRFM Secretariat along with national level contracting parties, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados. The link to Trinidad and Tobago is stronger because that country requested and received assistance from ICCAT in data management, whereas Barbados only receives communication from ICCAT but has so far not really engaged the organization in any way. Countries are members of the CRFM, OECS, and WECAFC, but on tuna matters the interaction is mainly with the CRFM Secretariat, which compiles data, interprets ICCAT decisions, and has attended ICCAT meetings.

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Food and Agriculture Organisation

International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas

INTERNATIONAL

342

Complex institutional linkages at policy level

WECAFC Secretariat

OECS Secretariat

REGIONAL

CRFM Secretariat

CRFM

St. Vincent and the Grenadines Barbados

Grenada

Trinidad and Tobago

WECAFC

Countries with adjacent EEZs share more linkages

Guyana USA Venezuela

Fewer connections among countries at the local level

LOCAL

St. Lucia

NATIONAL WITH ORGANIZATIONAL MEMBERSHIP

OECS

Fig. 20.3 Tuna fishery management linkages.

The local level communities have no direct interaction with either ICCAT or any of the regional bodies. They interact among themselves primarily by fishers encountering each other at sea, and to a lesser extent by various interactions in fish trade. On some matters there may be more lateral interaction among fishers of different countries than between the fishers and fisheries authorities in the same country, and the latter interaction tends to be top-down (such as when fisheries authorities simply disseminate information). The diagram suggests primarily top-down power and policy linkages within a heterogeneous, hierarchical, but sparse network. National through to local level stakeholders are policy-takers,

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rather than makers or influencers. However, at the local level there is some dense and strong networking among fishers (e.g., longline fishers exchange information at sea; tournament anglers form a community of interest). Berkes’ (2006) analysis of tuna management in the eastern Caribbean within the context of cross-scale governance argued for bottom-up integration in fisheries management and suggested that ecological management units and maritime jurisdictions at the international, regional, national, and community levels were mis-matched and poorly linked. He pointed out scale mis-matches of power and knowledge that were seldom considered in conventional management. Local fishery knowledge has no way of making an impression in ICCAT assessments, since ICCAT is heavily focused on the complicated numerical models of “big” science. However, ICCAT wields power through its allocation criteria and management measures that affect the livelihoods of tuna fishers at the community level (Grant and Berkes, 2007). McConney et al. (2007) followed-up on this argument, noting that both bottom-up and top-down linkages between the three pairs of adjacent levels were weak. According to Mahon and McConney (2004a), although fisheries for large pelagics are economically important to most of the countries, they do not necessarily receive much attention from policy-makers such as fisheries ministers and their advisers. Information on international or regional fisheries management may not always penetrate beyond the national level fisheries authorities to reach fishing communities, fisher organizations, and individual fishers, due to the limited extension and outreach capacities of small fisheries authorities (McConney et al., 2007). There are few linkages between the industry and fisheries authority that assist in empowering the latter successfully to pursue policy decisions and to build national management capacity to participate internationally in ICCAT. Fisher folk organizations and harvest stakeholders at the local level are poorly organized to act collectively and influence policy processes (McConney et al., 2007). When the capital investment in tuna fishing enterprises increases, the individual wealth, power, and socio-economic status of vessel owners is such that there may be little interest in collective action since individual interests can be met through personal networks alone. The network perspective suggests that since the above conditions constrain, rather than build, the development of adaptive capacity and self-organization at the local level, resource users may not be adequately prepared for the shock of ICCAT management measures under the current arrangements if no enabling policy is implemented. Furthermore, additional national and regional vertical and horizontal linkages among organizations involved in governance may need to be established and sustained if the countries of the eastern Caribbean are to have their voice heard in ICCAT among the industrialized nations.

Fisheries science networks The CRFM member states’ national fisheries authorities contain fisheries data managers and scientists who have met with selected fisheries consultants and international fish stock assessment experts annually in the CRFM Scientific Meetings. For two weeks in the year they form a transient network, or community of practice, of pooled capacity for data sharing and some level of collaborative stock and fishery assessment, with the aim of tendering scientific advice to underpin fisheries policy and management decisions. The structure is

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to have regional working groups of scientists working in clusters based on the species or species groups to be managed. The record of these meetings suggests that the quantity and quality of data collected and shared for assessment, and the assessment processes themselves may often be insufficient for working groups to make concrete policy and management recommendations (Parsram, 2008). This inadequacy of fisheries science data and information may be due, in part, to poor communication, collaboration, and informationsharing among organizations involved in fisheries science in the remainder of the year during which preparation for the assessments should be taking place. Reduced intersessional communication may constrain the opportunities to improve governance through scientific advice offered to fisheries managers and policy-makers. The structural and functional characteristics of the fisheries science information exchange networks of national fisheries authorities in the eastern Caribbean are believed to have direct influence on the potential for successful communication and collaboration (Crona and Bodin, 2006). To examine this possibility, a preliminary social network analysis of the fisheries science network containing the four national fisheries authorities of Grenada, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados, was conducted with emphasis upon information exchange. The analysis involved mapping the network of organizations (nodes) that participate in fisheries science; determining the relationships (ties and links) among these; and determining where fisheries science information is generated (source) and communicated to be used (sink) (Fig. 20.4). The resulting network (Fig. 20.4) shows nodes and their level in the governance hierarchy represented by shapes. Circles are organizations at the international level; squares are organizations at the regional level; triangles are organizations at the national level; and diamonds are organizations at the local level. The information that flows within these networks includes fisheries data, general fisheries information, scientific/analytic advice, funding for science, training in science, and assistance in science through consultants. The size of the arrows connecting nodes is proportional to the number of ties between any two nodes. In these networks most ties (thicker arrows) converge on the national fisheries authorities and the regional and international organizations, particularly the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM), the Western Central Atlantic Fisheries Commission of the FAO (WECAFC), International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), University of the West Indies (UWI), and the Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). The least numbers of ties connected the national and local level organizations. There were no direct ties between any of the national fisheries authorities. However, key regional and International level organizations act as “boundary spanners”, connecting the otherwise unconnected national fisheries authorities. The results of the social network analysis suggest that the networks of the national fisheries authorities are not realizing their potential for fisheries science information exchange (i.e., the national fisheries authorities are not adequately connected across all levels). Their existing communication and information exchange linkages seemed to be directed upward, mainly towards organizations at the international and regional levels and not so much downward to the local level or laterally within the national level. The fisheries authorities are communicating less with each other and their local stakeholders than with the regional organizations.

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GRDDIVEASSOC

CARRIACOU_EC

OCEANSPIRITS GRENCODA SGU

SLUMINPLANSTATS

NMSF UNIWALES

TNC GRDFOREST

SLUSWASTE

SLUGAMEFISH_ASSOC

NOAA WIDECAST

SLUNATASSOC_FISHCOOP

GRDENVD

GRDFISH GRDPPLAN

IWC

SLUMARPOLICE SLUFISH

ART CANARI

SLUNATDEVCORP OECS CRFM SMMA

UWI

FAO_WECAFC SLUNATTRUST

ICCAT

CITES

BARFISH

SVGFISH SVGFISHCOOP

Barnufo

SVGMINTOUR

KTOWNFISHCORP

CALLIQFISHCENTER CZMU

BEQFISHCTR

CANFISHCTR SVGMINEDU

SVGSTATS

Fig. 20.4 Network map of fisheries science information exchange in the eastern Caribbean. Nodes are represented by shapes: circles = international organizations; squares = regional organizations; triangles = national organizations; diamonds = local organizations. Ties include fisheries science information, advice, funding, training, and assistance. Thickness of connecting arrows is the number of types of ties between any two nodes: thin line = 1, medium line = 2–3, and thick line = >3.

The national fisheries authorities and regional and international organizations (CRFM, WECAFC, ICCAT, UWI, OECS, and TNC) seem to be in positions to control the information flow in the network. They are likely to coordinate some of the flows within these network exchanges around their specific shared mandates (e.g., CRFM and ICCAT on tuna management as discussed in the section “Tuna fisheries management”). These exchanges have the potential to improve the communication and coordination at the lower levels if there are mechanisms that enable stakeholder participation. National fisheries authorities, and the regional and international fisheries organizations, that dominate the science communication and information exchange, could benefit from improving linkages with the other components such as national and local fisheries organizations. There was little or no information exchange between the national fisheries authorities and fishers, fisher’s organizations and other national level organizations, but strong communication and information linkages with organizations at the national and local levels could be crucial. For example, local and national fisher folk organizations should ideally be sources of raw fisheries-dependent data and may serve to validate fisheries independent data. Local harvesters should be receiving fisheries management and scientific information from the fisheries authorities via outreach initiatives. They also should be receiving

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information on opportunities for funding, training, and assistance in doing collaborative science from regional and international organizations through the national fisheries authorities, and sometimes directly from regional fisheries management organizations such as the CRFM.

Regional fisher folk organization The CRFM was designed to be a network of stakeholders (Haughton et al., 2004), although the term was used rather loosely. The intention was for nodes (countries or organizations) within the Mechanism to take the lead on various issues by using regional teams, making the CRFM polycentric and perhaps more adaptable while building indigenous capacity. Instead, activity has primarily been fairly centrally coordinated or implemented by the CRFM Secretariat. The CRFM is not (yet) operationalizing the network concept used in its design. Yet, despite the CRFM having set aside its own network thrust, it has taken the lead in supporting the establishment of a regional fisher folk organization (RFO) comprising a network of national fisher folk organizations (NFOs), each with its set of local level or primary groups (PFOs). In CARICOM countries, PFOs tend to be place-based, being associated with particular fish landing sites, markets, or harbors rather than being associated with the target marine resources or fishing gears and methods as common in North America and Europe. The project is expected to produce a transboundary, hierarchically networked RFO comprising three tiers, with the lower two being within the boundaries of member states on geographic and jurisdictional scales. The RFO network is intended to make inputs into enabling policy through engagement with the components of the CRFM, being primarily the Caribbean Fisheries Forum and the Ministerial Council (Fig. 20.5). The use of network perspectives goes further in that a collaborative planning group of researchers, fisher folk leaders, and personnel from the CRFM Secretariat are investigating options for the design of the RFO to optimize characteristics such as adaptive capacity and self-organization, in order to cope and achieve the resilience required for the RFO to be sustainable under changing global conditions. One of the favored

CARIBB

Nevis Montserrat

Barbuda Antigua

NISM

St. Kitts

S

HA EC

EA N

AL FISHER ION IE

M

G RE

Guadeloupe Dominica Martinique St. Lucia

St. Vincent Grenada

Barbados The Grenadines*

Fig. 20.5 Fisherfolk organization inputs into enabling fisheries policy.

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THE BAHAMAS

The Wider Caribbean

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

CUBA

THE UNITED STATES AND BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS ANGUILLA PUERTO RICO

BELIZE

JAMAICA

HAITI

ANTIGUA

DOMINICA

ST. LUCIA

BARBADOS

GRENADA TRINIDAD

GUYANA

Fig. 20.6 Regional fisherfolk organization model as decentralized linked clusters.

network configurations is that of multi-clusters that form around areas in which there are social-ecological similarities in resource use and human institutions. Figure 20.6 illustrates one such hypothetical option. Although it is inevitable that the RFO structure will result in a network of sorts, given the physical distribution of the participants around the Caribbean, it is an unconventional and progressive step for interested parties to collaborate in explicitly devising a network structure in order to derive the most benefit from CAS thinking in relation to fisheries governance.

Conclusion The network perspective is a very useful and complementary approach to understanding coastal and marine resource governance. We have briefly highlighted three cases in the eastern Caribbean of how network perspective can be applied to thinking about, analysing, and designing governance. Network perspectives provided useful observations on the nature of governance. Key structural characteristics and pathways through which information for policy and science flows were determined, identifying actors in critical positions of power and authority. Knowing these characteristics in systems of governance can help managers find problematic areas and implement appropriate solutions to improve performance, stimulate learning and innovation, build resilience and adaptive capacity, strengthen networks for better policies, and promote interactive good governance (Kooiman et al., 2005).

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The examination presented here was mainly conceptual. Network theory can be usefully applied to understanding governance and institutional arrangements in terms of network structure and particular roles in governance. More formal, quantitative analysis is required in exploring these and other cases of coastal and marine resource governance. This will provide better understanding how network structures, and the existence or absence of organizations and people playing particular roles within social networks, can impact on governance to achieve sustainability in the eastern Caribbean.

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Fanning, L., Mahon, R., McConney P. et al. (2007b) Living Marine Resource Governance for the Wider Caribbean with Particular Emphasis on Non-Extractable Resources and LME Level Monitoring and Reporting. A Discussion Paper for the CLME Synthesis Workshop, CLME Project, CERMES UWI. Grant, S. (2006) Managing small-scale fisheries in the Caribbean: the surface longline fishery in Gouyave, Grenada. Ph.D. Thesis. Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba. Grant, S. and Berkes, F. (2007) Fisher knowledge as expert system: a case from the longline fishery of Grenada, the Eastern Caribbean. Fisheries Research 84, 162–170. Hanneman, R. A. and Riddle, M. (2005) Introduction to Social Network Methods. University of California, Riverside CA. (online) URL: http://faculty.ucr.edu/∼hanneman/ Haughton, M., Mahon, R., McConney P. et al. (2004) Establishment of the Caribbean Regional fisheries mechanism. Marine Policy 28, 351–359. Heileman, S. (2007). Thematic report for the insular Caribbean sub-region. A discussion paper for the CLME synthesis workshop, CLME project, CERMES UWI. Janssen, M. A. and Ostrom E. (2006) Governing social-ecological systems. In: Handbook of Computational Economics II: Agent-Based Computational Economics (eds L. Tesfatsion and K. L. Judd), Elsevier, North Holland, pp.1465–1509. Janssen, M. A., Bodin, Ö., Anderies, J. M. et al. (2006) A network perspective on the resilience of social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society 11(1), 15. (online) URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss1/art15/ Kooiman, J. Bavinck, M., Jentoft, S. et al. (eds.) (2005) Fish for Life: Interactive Governance for Fisheries. MARE Publication Series No. 3, University of Amsterdam Press, Amsterdam. Mahon, R. (1997) Does fisheries science serve the needs of managers of small stocks in developing countries? Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 54, 2207–2213. Mahon, R. and McConney, P. (eds) (2004a) Management of large pelagic fisheries in CARICOM countries. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper No. 464. FAO, Rome, 149 pp. Mahon, R. and McConney, P. (2004b) Managing the managers: improving the structure and operation of fisheries departments in SIDS. Ocean and Coastal Management 47, 529–535. Mahon, R., Bavinck, M. and Roy, R. (2005) Governance in action. In: Fish for Life: Interactive Governance for Fisheries (eds J. Kooiman et al.), MARE Publication Series No. 3, University of Amsterdam Press, Amsterdam. Mahon, R., McConney, P. and Roy, R. (2008) Governing fisheries as complex adaptive systems. Marine Policy 32(1), 104–112. Mahon, R., Chakalall, B., Cochrane, K. et al. (2003) Preparation for expansion of domestic fisheries for large pelagic species by CARICOM countries. Proceedings of the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute 56, 213–226. McConney, P. (1997) Social strategies for coping with uncertainty in the Barbados small-scale pelagic fishery. Proceedings of the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute 49, 99–113. McConney, P. and Parsram, K. (2007) Fisheries governance in the eastern Caribbean: network and institutional perspectives on policy. Fourth International Conference, MARE, Amsterdam. McConney, P., Oxenford, H. A., Haughton, M. (2007) Management in the Gulf and Caribbean: mosaic or melting pot? Gulf and Caribbean Research 19, 103–112. Parsons, S. (2007) Governance of Transboundary Fisheries Resources in the Wider Caribbean. A discussion paper for the CLME synthesis workshop. CLME project. CERMES UWI. Parsram, K. (2008) A preliminary analysis of fisheries science networks in the eastern Caribbean. Proceedings of the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute 60, 88–96. Scott, J. (2000) Social Network Analysis: A Handbook, 2nd edn. Sage Publications, California. Singh-Renton, S., Mahon, R. and McConney, P. (2003) Small Caribbean (CARICOM) states get involved in management of shared large pelagic species. Marine Policy 27(1), 39–46.

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Straton, A. and Gerritsen R. (2005) Using network theory to analyse adaptive resource governance and distribution. In: ANZSEE Conference: Ecological Economics in Action, 11–13 December, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand., Society for Ecological Economics Palmerston North, New Zealand, pp. 40–56. United Nations Environmental Programme (2005) Caribbean Environmental Outlook. Special edition for the Mauritius International Meeting for the 10-year Review of the Barbados Programme of Action for Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States. UNEP, Nairobi. Walker, B., Gunderson, H., L. H., Kinzig, A. P. et al. (2006) A handful of heuristics and some propositions for understanding resilience in social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society 11(1), 13. [online] URL:http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss1/art13/ Wasserman, S. and Faust, F. (1994) Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK.

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Chapter 21

Uncertainty Demands an Adaptive Management Approach to the Use of Marine Protected Areas as Management Tools Michel J. Kaiser

Abstract Networks of marine protected areas are important conservation and resource management tools that are under development in Europe and elsewhere. The ability of MPAs to deliver stated objectives and targets is likely to be challenged under a scenario of a rapidly changing climate. Such changes will be greatest in shallow coastal areas where multiple physical stressors impinge on marine habitats and species. Links between fish abundance and prey biomass mediated by physical stress highlight the sensitivity of coastal carrying capacity to changes in the physical environment. Adaptive management approaches are required to accommodate changes in the capacity of coastal systems to deliver desired objectives. Keywords: Marine protected areas, physical stressors, adaptive management, “plaice box”, performance metrics

Introduction Marine protected areas can be used as management tools to achieve either conservation of specific species and habitats, or they may be used as tools to underpin the resilience of local fisheries eventually leading to spill-over effects, but more importantly providing insurance against environmental shocks (Gell and Roberts, 2003). Since 1964, more than 4,000 MPAs ranging in size from less than 1 Ha to 345,000 km2 have been declared around the world (UNEP, 2007). When extractive activities have been removed, wholesale or selectively, numerous studies have reported higher densities and larger sizes of fish and invertebrates within MPAs compared with adjacent areas where these activities continue (Bell, 1983; Buxton and Smale, 1989; Murawski et al., 2000; Halpern et al., 2004; Blyth-Skyrme World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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et al., 2006; Claudet et al., 2006; Guidetti, 2007). Quantitative syntheses of these studies, generally confirm these observations but highlight variation in the performance of individual reserves that is likely linked to local environmental and enforcement factors (Mosquera et al., 2000; Côté et al., 2001; Halpern, 2003; Micheli et al., 2004; Claudet et al., 2008). Most agree that the contribution of MPAs as tools to meet management and policy objectives will be enhanced if they contribute to a coherent network implemented at the appropriate scale. The scientific arguments for developing networks of MPAs are well understood, but the science that would underpin the design process is both demanding and incomplete (Soto, 2001; Sala et al., 2002, 2005). Such knowledge gaps are inevitable and managers and policy-makers need to develop strategies that can accommodate such uncertainties and accordingly incorporate mechanisms that impart adaptability to the MPA design process. In this chapter, I briefly highlight some important considerations for quantification of the performance of MPAs, and the issue of future changes in the marine environment that will impact upon the ability of networks of MPAs to deliver their intended objectives. This chapter is not intended to be a comprehensive review of all these issues, but to draw the attention of policy-makers to them. Finally, I suggest strategies that need to be incorporated into the legislative and design process that will promote adaptability.

Quantifying the performance of MPAs In general, MPAs are considered to be a management tool that can contribute to achieving either conservation, or sustainable (or both concomitantly) fisheries objectives. Attainment of the latter may rely upon achieving the former if it can be shown that the maintenance of biodiversity underpins the resilience of exploited systems (Worm et al., 2006). MPAs potentially enable the attainment of these objectives through the removal of anthropogenic activities that impinge upon the environment, habitat, or species of interest. A selection of such activities would include certain types of bottom fishing, aggregate extraction, land reclamation, etc. (Hall, 1994). The use of MPAs as a management intervention can only remove anthropogenic activities that might have an effect upon the “metric” of interest, and may thus contribute to the overall resilience of a system subject to large-scale background environmental change. In this chapter the word “metric” hereafter refers to the quantity of the response variable, for example, the quality of the environment, the amount of a certain habitat, or the abundance or biomass of a particular species. The effectiveness of an MPA as an intervention is related to the degree that an anthropogenic activity was the limiting factor for the metric of interest (Hiddink and Kaiser, 2005). For example, if trawling kills 50% of the benthic biota on a given area of seabed, while natural predation and density dependent effects account for only 20% of mortality, the removal of trawling is likely to have a positive outcome because its effect was large relative to other causes of mortality. Clearly if trawling accounted for only 20% of mortality while natural mortality accounted for a further 50% of mortality, the effect of the removal of trawling would be less pronounced or undetectable using inappropriate sampling designs and methodology (Table 21.1). Interpreting correctly the response of the metric (e.g., fish abundance, benthic biomass) to the MPA intervention becomes increasingly difficult as the importance of an

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Table 21.1 Consideration of objectives, desired outcomes and appropriate limiting factors that need to be measured to assess the success or failure of MPAs as a management intervention. The examples given are illustrative only. Desired outcome

Performance metric

Intervention

Other limiting factors

Causative agent

Increase abundance of species A

Abundance of species A

Remove fishing activity

Abundance of competitors

Community shift due to prior fishing history

Abundance of predators

Outcome of conservation objectives beyond boundaries of MPA, e.g., increasing seal abundance Changing environmental conditions altering carrying capacity Additional anthropogenic (pollution) or environmental factor altering key habitat characteristics

Biomass of prey Habitat quality

anthropogenic activity in limiting the metric declines relative to other limiting factors. Measuring the effectiveness of the intervention is further complicated if limiting factors act synergistically. If we accept the importance of understanding the factors that are key in limiting the response of the chosen metric, it follows that we need to invest effort in identifying the mechanistic relationship between response metrics (e.g., fish abundance) and potential limiting factors (e.g., prey abundance). In other words, when attempting to quantify the effectiveness of MPAs as a management intervention, it is not sufficient to quantify the change over time in a single response metric (e.g., fish abundance) in isolation from other limiting factors (Fig. 21.1). In situations where multiple variables have been measured, it is possible to differentiate the effects of the removal of trawling from the effects of variation in environmental variables (e.g., food supply, temperature, and salinity). However, examination of the literature relating to the outcome of implementing MPAs reveals that often few metrics have been measured, for example, fish biomass/abundance, and that time-series of data are scarce in relation to these studies. Time-series of data provide the necessary statistical power to differentiate the impacts of environmental variables from pressures such as trawling activity; hence it is clear that a policy commitment to monitoring the performance of MPAs is a necessary prerequisite to the quantification of potential outcomes.

The “plaice-box” as a case study A recently published case study highlights the necessity of understanding the additional limiting factors that influence response metrics of interest (Hiddink et al., 2008). The North Sea “plaice box” is an MPA designed to protect juvenile and under-sized plaice from the high levels of mortality associated with discarding: that is, the metric of interest is “the proportion of catch discarded as undersized plaice”. The key feature of the plaice box is that it extends over a large area of the sea (along the coastline of The Netherlands, Germany,

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(c) Response variable

Response variable

(a)

Time (years)

Time (years)

Response variable

(b)

Time (years) Fig. 21.1 Different scenarios of the response variable that quantifies the outcome of the implementation of a Marine Protected Area (MPA). The dashed line shows the response within the MPA after removal of the limiting anthropogenic activity, the solid line shows the response of the same variable measured in comparator sites in which the anthropogenic activity remains. (a) In this scenario the removal the anthropogenic activity was the main limiting factor and other factors have little influence on the outcome. (b) Here the removal of the anthropogenic activity is beneficial; however, there has been a concomitant change (negative) in another limiting factor (e.g., prey abundance) that contributes to a continued decline in the response variable. Nevertheless this remains a positive outcome of the MPA as a management intervention. (c) This scenario illustrates the situation created by the North Sea plaice box, in which fishing actively stimulated the production of particular types of prey organisms that were the preferred food for plaice (flatfish). Consequently the proportion of the plaice catch that was retained declined (i.e., the proportion discarded increased) (from data in Hiddink et al., 2008).

and Denmark), from which large beam trawlers (that part of the fleet that has maximum impact on the fishery) are excluded. Beam trawling causes direct physical disturbance of the seabed, and this leads to the mortality of some components of the benthos, while creating space for colonization by smaller-bodied opportunistic species such as polychaete worms and small bivalve mollusks (Kaiser et al., 2006). Smaller vessels are allowed to continue fishing within the plaice box, while large beam trawlers tend to fish most heavily along the edge of the plaice box, presumably because they assume that greater numbers and larger fish will spill over at the edge of the MPA (Rijnsdorp and Leeuwen, 1996). In practice, however, fishermen began to report increasing catches of undersized plaice inside the box, leading to discards of more than 90% of the plaice catch. Using an extensively validated body-size-based model (Hiddink et al., 2006), Hiddink et al. (2008) were able to model the response of the benthic community to the removal of the direct disturbance caused by large beam trawlers within the plaice box, and the effect of the displaced activity along the edge of the plaice box. They found that the overall production of the benthos within the plaice box had increased between 1.5 and 2

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times compared with that outside At the same time, however, the production of smaller soft-bodied fauna (the preferred food of plaice (Hinz et al., 2006) was twice as high outside the plaice box. As plaice abundance is positively correlated with prey biomass, Hiddink et al. (2008) concluded that plaice aggregate most in the areas outside the plaice box where the production of their preferred prey is higher. This explains the rather counter-intuitive observed response illustrated in Fig. 21.1c, and demonstrates the importance of understanding more fully the ecology of the species of interest. Reflecting on the plaice-box as a management intervention is instructive, as it illustrates a number of pitfalls that may occur when attempting to evaluate the performance of MPAs. As a tool to achieve the objective of reducing the proportion of the plaice catch discarded as undersized individuals, it is clear that the plaice box was not effective. However, there were other positive outcomes: the production of larger-bodied benthic fauna increased within the plaice box and, while these are not the preferred prey of plaice, they may perform important ecosystem functions (bioturbation, habitat creation) and provide prey for other commercially important fish species such as gadoids, elasmobranchs, and triglids. Thus, in terms of the response of large body-sized benthos, the response is similar to Fig. 21.1a, which is perhaps more intuitive.

Climate effects on MPA performance metrics The plaice-box case study also provides some insights into likely future changes in response metrics in relation to the changing global climate regime. Current predictions of future climate change scenarios predict that in the northeastern Atlantic the frequency and intensity of storm events will increase, while elevated sea-level will lead to changes in tidal current strength. In addition, precipitation will increase in intensity in northern Europe, with a greater likelihood of flood scenarios. These predictions have several implications. First, wave height will increase and consequently wave erosion at the seabed will increase concomitantly. Second, freshwater run-off patterns will change, which could affect the quality of water discharged into coastal areas (e.g., through increased nutrient loading from agricultural run-off) as well as the sediment loading. Furthermore, increasing the volume of riverine discharge into coastal waters would impact directly upon the associated Regions of Freshwater Influence (ROFI) that generate alongshore coastal currents driven by the density gradient between the surface freshwater discharge and coastal full salinity water (Parry et al., 2007). The majority of the world’s MPAs are located in shallow continental and coastal waters and adjoin the coastline (Gell and Roberts, 2003). Inshore coastal waters are among the most productive and consequently support commercially important fisheries (Paerl, 1997). Due to their shallow nature, marine ecosystems in coastal regions are subject to disturbance from wave and current induced stress and are directly affected by discharges from adjacent coastal catchment areas. Changes in physical processes will have considerable implications for coastal benthic communities and the species that depend upon them. Specifically, tidal currents generate water movement that transports sources of food to benthic communities, but as current strength increases, the effects of scour and reduced feeding efficiency begin to have negative effects on the benthos (Emerson, 1989). Wave erosion at the seabed is a

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determinant of mortality in benthic invertebrates, with increasing wave stress associated with higher levels of mortality in the benthos (Rees et al., 1977; Emerson, 1989; Hiddink et al., 2006). Wave stress is highest in the shallowest areas and progressively decreases into deeper water, thus wave stress is a key determinant of benthic mortality in the shallowest waters. Changes in the quality of estuarine discharge linked to increased precipitation levels may stimulate production in coastal waters through the additional input of nutrients derived from catchments. Above a certain threshold, the associated increased sediment load will elevate mortality associated with smothering of fauna and interference with feeding structures (Rhoads, 1974). Empirical studies have demonstrated that interactions between physical processes in the coastal zone are key drivers that determine patterns of benthic production and biomass close the coast (Rhoads, 1974; Kaiser et al., 2006; Hiddink et al., 2008). In the shallowest waters adjacent to the coastline, wave stress is the key limiting factor and determinant of mortality of the benthos. As depth increases the effects of wave erosion are ameliorated such that biomass increases. Tidal currents in this region also ensure an adequate supply of food to the benthos. Moving further offshore into deeper water (>15 m), the effects of wave induced mortality declines rapidly, but the supply of food diminishes as tidal current strength weakens and hence benthic biomass declines once more. Given the predicted responses of physical drivers under a changing climate scenario, the likely outcome is net decrease of overall biomass supported in coastal waters and an offshore shift in the occurrence of the biomass peak that is determined by these physical processes. Given the observed link between benthivorous fish species abundance and prey biomass (benthic biomass), the carrying capacity of coastal seabed habitats for fish will decline with increasing levels of physical forcing (Hiddink et al., 2008). This has important implications for consideration with respect to the metrics that are set to determine the performance of MPAs or other spatial management measures. Setting absolute figures against which to judge performance (e.g., MPA X will maintain a biomass of 400 tonnes of fish species Y) run a considerable risk of leading to the potentially inaccurate conclusion that the MPA intervention has failed. Performance metrics should be relative measures that are compared with valid comparator sites (e.g., MPA X will maintain a biomass Y% higher than comparator site Z with fishing activity level N). Nevertheless, in some circumstances there may be valid ecological reasons (e.g., critical spawning stock biomass) for setting absolute values for conservation purposes. It therefore follows that if carrying capacity declines, a network of MPAs designed under present environmental conditions may not deliver the desired outcome at some point in the future.

Dealing with future uncertainty There are several approaches that can be used to accommodate future uncertainties regarding the ability of MPAs to deliver their stated targets. In the case of species of commercial importance, a decline in the ability of MPAs to support the desired level of fish could be compensated by reductions in existing fishing effort. Alternatively the spatial extent of the MPAs could be increased to the required level to deliver the desired outcome. However the latter is unpalatable for policy-makers either because of difficulties associated with

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renegotiating boundaries, or because of the perception that this can been seen as a potential loop-hole that some might use to reduce the integrity and extent of a network of MPAs. Such difficulties emphasize the necessity of ensuring that legislative frameworks exist such that it is clear from the outset that assessment and revision is part of and evidencebased process. If we are serious about convincing stakeholders about the value and contribution that networks of MPAs can make towards sustainable use of natural resources, we must be prepared to refine spatial restrictions that were initially informed by incomplete scientific knowledge, or that were designed under a set of environmental conditions that no longer apply.

References Bell, J. D. (1983) Effects of depth and marine reserve fishing restrictions on the structure of a rocky reef fish assemblage in the northwestern Mediterranean. Journal of Applied Ecology 20, 357–369. Blyth-Skyrme, R. E., Kaiser, M. J., Hiddink, J. G., Edwards-Jones, G. and Hart, P. J. B. (2006) Conservation benefits of a marine protected area vary with fish life-history parameters. Conservation Biology 20, 811–820. Buxton, C. D. and Smale, M. J. (1989) Abundance and distribution of three temperate marine reef fish in exploited and unexploited areas off the southern cape coast. Journal of Applied Ecology 26, 441–451. Claudet, J. et al. (2006) Assessing the effect of MPA on a reef fish assemblage in a NW Mediterranean reserve: identifying community based indicators. Biological Conservation 130, 349–369. Claudet, J., Osenberg, C. W., Benedetti-Cecchi, L. et al. (2008). Marine reserves: size and age do matter. Ecology Letters doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2008.01166.x Côté, I. M., Mosqueira, I. and Reynolds, J. D. (2001) Effects of marine reserve characteristics on the protection of fish populations: a meta-analysis. Journal of Fish Biology 59, (Supplement A), 178–189. Emerson, C. (1989) Wind stress limitation of benthic secondary production in shallow, soft-sediment communities. Marine Ecology Progress Series 53, 65–77. Gell, F. R. and Roberts, C. M. (2003) Benefits beyond boundaries: the fishery effects of marine reserves. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 18, 448–455. Guidetti, P. (2007) Potential of marine reserves to cause community wide change changes beyond their boundaries. Conservation Biology 21, 540–545. Hall, S. J. (1994) Physical disturbance and marine benthic communities: life in unconsolidated sediments. Oceanography and Marine Biology Annual Review 32, 179–239. Halpern, B. S. (2003) The impact of marine reserves: do reserves work and does reserve size matter? Ecological Application 13(1), 117–137. Halpern, B. S., Gaines, S. D. and Warner, R. R. (2004) Confounding effects of the export of production and the displacement of fishing effort from marine reserves. Ecological Application 14, 1248–1256. Hiddink, J. G. and Kaiser, M. J. (2005) Implications of Liebig’s law of the minimum for the use of ecological indicators based on abundance. Ecography 28, 264–271. Hiddink, J. G., Hutton, T., Jennings, S. and Kaiser, M. J. (2006) Predicting the effects of area closures and fishing effort restriction on the production, biomass, and species richness of benthic invertebrate communities. ICES Journal of Marine Science 63, 822–830. Hiddink, J. G., Rijnsdorp, A. D. and Piet, G. J. (2008) Can bottom trawl disturbance increase food production for a commercial fish species? Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 65, 723–732.

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Hinz, H., Bergmann, M., Shucksmith, R., Kaiser, M. J. and Rogers, S. I. (2006) Habitat association of plaice, sole and lemon sole in the English Channel. ICES Journal of Marine Science 63, 912–927. Kaiser, M. J., Clarke, K. R., Hinz, H., Austen, M. V. C., Somerfield, P. J. and Karakassis, I. (2006) Global analysis of response and recovery of benthic biota to fishing. Marine Ecology Progress Series 311, 1–14. Micheli, F., Halpern, B. S., Botsford, L. W. and Warner, R. R. (2004) Trajectories and correlates of community change in no-take reserves. Ecological Applications 14, 1709–1723. Mosquera, I., Côté, I.M., Jennings, S. and Reynolds, J.D. (2000). Conservation benefits of marine reserves for fish populations. Animal Conservation 3, 321–332. Murawski S. A., Brown, R., Lai, H. L., Rago, P. J. and Hendrickson, L. (2000) Large-scale closed areas as a fishery management tool in temperate marine systems: the Georges Bank experience. Bulletin of Marine Science 66, 775–798. Paerl, H. W. (1997) Coastal eutrophication and harmful algal blooms: Importance of atmospheric deposition and groundwater as ‘new’ nitrogen and other nutrient sources. Limnology and Oceanography 42, 1154–1165. Parry, M. L., Canziani, O. F., Palutikof, J. P., Van der Linden, P. J. and Hansen, C. E. (eds) (2007) Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 976 pp. Rees, E. I. S., Nicholaidou, A. and Laskaridou, P. (1977) The effects of storms on the dynamics of shallow water benthic associations. In: Biology of Benthic Organisms (eds B. F. Keegan, P. O. Ceidigh and P. J. S. Boaden), Pergamon, Oxford UK, pp. 465–474. Rhoads, D. (1974) Organism-sediment relations on the muddy sea floor. Oceanography and Marine Biology Annual Review 12, 263–300. Rijnsdorp, A. D. and Leeuwen, P. I. (1996) Changes in growth of North Sea plaice since 1950 in relation to density, eutrophication, beam-trawl effort, and temperature. ICES Journal of Marine Science 53, 1199–1213. Sala, E., Aburto-Oropeza, O., Paredes, G., Parra, I., Barrera, J. C. and Dayton, P. K. (2002) A general model for designing networks of marine reserves. Science 298, 1991–1993. Sala, P. F., Cowen, R. K., Danilowicz, B. S. et al. (2005). Critical science gaps impede use of no-take fishery reserves. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 20, 74–80. Soto, C. (2001) The potential impacts of global climate change on marine protected areas. Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries 11, 181–195. UNEP World Database on Protected Areas (WWW document) URL http://www.unep-wcmc.org/ wdpa/index.htm (last accessed 30 November 2007). Worm, B., Barbier, E. B., Beaumont, N., Duffy, et al. (2006) Impacts of biodiversity loss on ocean ecosystem services. Science 314, 787–790.

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Chapter 22

Building Resilience to Climatic and Global Change in High-Latitude Fishing Communities Three Case Studies from Iceland and Alaska1 James R. McGoodwin

Abstract The 2007 IPCC reports conclude with virtual certainty that a global warming trend is underway. This chapter first discusses the sorts of impacts that are forecast for marine ecosystems and the world’s fisheries, and then discusses impacts that are forecast for fisheries in highlatitude regions, where the impacts of global change are forecast to be especially severe. Three case studies from high-latitude fishing communities – one from Iceland, two from Alaska – are presented in this chapter. Each explores how fishing people have responded in recent decades to climatic and marine-environmental phenomena of the sort that may be altered by global warming and change. These phenomena include: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

ordinary climatic variability; severe coastal storms and extreme weather events; changes in marine-ecosystem compositions; sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion; and the urgent necessity for developing fisheries-management systems that can enhance coastal fishing communities’ abilities to cope with the foregoing phenomena.

Knowing how these three communities have responded to the foregoing phenomena provides insights concerning their relative degree of resilience to the sort of changes that global warming and change may prompt in high-latitude regions. A number of broad recommendations are offered at the end of the chapter concerning how to build the resilience of high-latitude fishing communities to global warming and change. Several recommendations are offered, including the necessity of increased World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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planning and coordination to build resilience to severe coastal storms and extreme weather events, sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion, and changes in marine-ecosystem composition. Recommendations for fisheries-management regimes are also provided. Keywords: Climate change, fisheries, Arctic, Sub-Arctic, Alaska, Iceland

Introduction The IPCC reports released in 2001 and 2007 conclude with virtual certainty that a global warming trend is underway, driven by anthropogenic emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (IPCC, 2001 reports include those by Houghton et al., 2001; McCarthy et al., 2001 and Metz et al., 2001; IPCC, 2007 reports include those by Bernstein et al., 2007; Metz et al., 2007; Parry et al., 2007 and Solomon et al., 2007). A global increase in temperature, as well as sea level rise prompted by ocean water expansion and melting ice in high latitudes, is anticipated. And even if greenhouse gas emissions are stabilized, the warming trend is forecast to continue for centuries to come, with the extent of its future increase depending mainly on the relative intensity of human fossil fuel use in the future. There will be more frequent heat waves and heavy rainfalls, glaciers will continue to disappear, and there will be an overall increase in droughts, extreme high tides, tropical cyclones, and significant changes in the Earth’s living ecosystems. Various forecasts of the consequences of this change for the Earth’s natural ecosystems and global humanity have emerged, ranging from the relatively benign to the truly catastrophic. Some describe gradual, incremental changes that humanity will have a high likelihood of adapting to. Others foresee catastrophic and even “doomsday” changes that would be disastrous for much of the world’s human population. And yet, while most scientists agree that a long-term global warming trend is already underway, there is little agreement among them regarding its specific impacts and ultimate consequences for humanity. Similarly, forecasts of the impacts in fishing communities in coastal regions are also currently characterized by high degrees of uncertainty. Thus, until a global monitoring system is put in place, many scientists think that forecasting global warming’s impacts on coastal fishing communities will have to rely on case studies that link past climate and marine-ecosystem changes with changes in fisheries. This chapter first discusses the sorts of impacts that are forecast for marine ecosystems and the world’s fisheries. Next, it discusses impacts that are forecast for fisheries in highlatitude regions where the impacts of global change are forecast to be especially severe. Three case studies from high-latitude coastal fishing communities are presented: one from Iceland, the other two from Alaska. The central concern in each of these case studies is to discover how fishing people in these regions have responded to past climatic and marine-ecosystem variability, on the assumption that this may provide important clues concerning their resilience to longer-term climatic and marine-ecosystem change. Specifically, the study focuses on how these fishing communities have been affected by four climatic, marine-ecological, and hydrological phenomena of the kind that the IPCC 2007 reports suggest will significantly change throughout the rest of this century, as well as a fifth variable concerning the capacity of their fisheries-management systems to cope with this. The five key variables are:

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1. Ordinary climatic events (e.g., precipitation, snowfall, atmospheric temperature, prevailing winds, and, where relevant, river conditions), which the IPCC 2007 reports project with “very high confidence”, will undergo significant pattern changes in coastal regions. 2. Severe coastal storms and extreme weather events, which the IPCC 2007 reports project with “very high confidence”, will increase in frequency and intensity. 3. Changes in marine-ecosystem composition, including changes in fish-stock availability, composition, and size, which the IPCC 2007 reports project with “high confidence”, will undergo significant changes. 4. Sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion, which the IPCC 2007 reports project with “high confidence” and “very high confidence,” respectively, will see significant increases in the near future. 5. The capacity of the fisheries management system to cope with the foregoing climatic and marine-ecosystem phenomena. How well these coastal communities have, or have not, been able to adapt to these stressors in the past suggests their degree of resiliency to them in the future. Based on the findings, recommendations are presented for increasing these communities’ resilience to the sorts of climatic and marine-ecosystem changes that are forecast to take place in their regions through to the year 2100. Social-ecological resilience is described in Folke et al. (2002), Holling (1973), and Walker et al. (2004). Folke et al. state: resilience for social-ecological systems is often … related to three different characteristics: (a) the magnitude of shock that the system can absorb and remain within a given state; (b) the degree to which the system is capable of self-organization, and (c) the degree to which the system can build capacity for learning and adaptation. Similarly, Holling says, “resilience determines the persistence of relationships within a system and is a measure of the ability of these systems to absorb a change of state … and still persist,” while Walker et al. see resilience as “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and re-organize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedback.” To the foregoing, I have also applied thinking appearing in Rubinoff and Courtney (2008), regarding the resilience of coastal communities to severe coastal storms and other extreme weather events, sea-level rise, and saltwater intrusion. Moreover, my conception of resilience also allows for the possibility that certain stressors may so overwhelm a coastal community that it precludes its future existence.

Impacts that are forecast for marine ecosystems and the world’s coastal fishing communities A variety of future climate change projections have been proposed with respect to global warming’s impact on the world’s fisheries and fishing communities, ranging from the mildly beneficial to the truly catastrophic. At the most benign end of the spectrum, a few

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scientists have suggested that a general global warming of ocean waters may actually increase global ocean productivity, especially in high-latitude regions. Still, they concede, this may not occur, at least not in the immediate future, if the rate of global change is too great, and in any event such a change would still entail significant changes in species distributions, ecosystem biodiversities, and ecosystem biomass. Most scientists, however, offer projections describing more disruptive changes in ocean productivity, marine-species distribution, and ecosystem biodiversity. Some suggest there will be outright extinctions at the margins of various species’ current distributional ranges, and many think the impact of ocean warming on various marine species will be most pronounced at the northern and southern margins of their customary ranges. Even slight changes in ocean temperatures may prompt significant shifts in the distribution of various fish species – for example, from one nation’s EEZ to that of a nearby nation, while changes in stock distributions within a nation’s EEZ may be disruptive to various components of the fish chain, including producers, processors, marketers, ancillary fisheries enterprises, and ultimate consumers. And such disruptions may be especially disruptive in developing countries, whose coastal inhabitants often have few other economic alternatives available to them. Although global warming will prompt a general increase in ocean water temperature worldwide, some regions may actually become cooler. Thus new climatic and ocean-current patterns will prompt the development of temperature regimes in many regions that are currently unprecedented and difficult to foresee. And whether these changes will be sufficiently gradual to allow species and ecosystems to adapt to them also remains to be seen. Moreover, global climate change may prompt fisheries in some regions to display unanticipated, anomalous, and even counter-intuitive effects. For regional changes in the abundance of various fish species, there will be “winners” and “losers”, but not necessarily in a zero-sum sense. This is because the pace of change will remain an important determinant of how various marine species fare as a result of warming. Warming may therefore prompt rapid collapses of species in marine ecosystems that are unable to adapt to environmental changes as quickly as they are taking place. Some catastrophic projections have also been proposed including extreme changes in climate regimes and ocean currents, extraordinary sea-level rise, and acidification of the ocean. Regarding the first of these catastrophic possibilities, some scientists propose that the Gulf Stream may be significantly slowed, or even shut down, by an influx of cold fresh water from melting Arctic ice. Should this happen, they think a new ice age might ensue in Europe in less than 10 years. It has also been suggested that widespread melting of ice in Arctic and Antarctic regions could prompt as much as a 20-foot rise in sea level during the coming century, displacing roughly 50–70% of the world’s human population, which now lives in coastal zones. Indeed, even modest rises in sea level may be catastrophic for people living in many developing countries. The World Bank, for example, has recently estimated that even a 1 m rise in sea level would turn at least 56 million people in the developing world into environmental refugees (World Bank, 2007). Acidification of the ocean, depending on its degree, could also be catastrophic for ocean ecosystems. Acidification of ocean water is caused by increased CO2 in the atmosphere, which increases the amount of carbonic acid that is dissolved in ocean waters. And while temperature changes will vary considerably in different regions of the ocean, increased acidification and CO2 in ocean water will likely be spread more evenly and pervasively throughout the oceans worldwide. Especially at risk from acidification will be corals and

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mollusks, the “marine calcifiers”, whose skeletons and shells are constructed from calcium carbonate. Significant acidification may therefore lead to a widespread decimation of tropical reefs around the world, as well as the decimation of the many fish and other marine species that live around them. At the same time ocean acidification may reduce the general health and productivity of marine species found in temperate and high-latitude regions (Conover, 2007; Feely, 2007). A realization of even the more conservative projections of increasing frequency and intensity of storms, sea-level rise, and saltwater intrusion will place great strains on coastal communities. Rising sea levels accompanied by increasingly persistent coastal flooding in some regions, and permanent inundations in others, as well as increased saltwater intrusion that threatens supplies of domestic drinking-water and water used in agriculture, may prompt not only radical marine ecological change but may also require costly relocation of shore-side facilities, other supporting infrastructure, and domestic dwellings. The global warming trend may also prompt unprecedented, extraordinary, and lasting changes in some fisheries, which may be much more difficult, and in some cases impossible, for fishing communities to adapt to. Fish species never seen before may suddenly become abundant in some locations, while other species that have been long relied upon there may disappear. In some regions climatic and ocean-ecosystem changes may be the sole reason for fish disappearance, but these changes may also be exacerbated by the combined effects of ocean-ecosystem change and excess fishing effort. In sum, as global warming proceeds, the management regimes that fishing communities work within will likely be confronted with higher degrees of uncertainty than they have faced in the past. This will heighten tensions between fishing people and fisheries managers, and likewise heighten fishing peoples’ uncertainties regarding what investments they should make in the fisheries. Working in dynamic combination, climate change and fishing effort will prompt sometimes unprecedented ocean-ecosystem changes in ways that are currently difficult to forecast. Indeed, these two stressors influence ocean ecosystems in rather different ways: climatic and environmental change are usually more extensive, while fishing activity is more often selective and intensive, targeting larger individual fish or larger fish species. Fisheries scientists may be increasingly less able to provide credible assessment advice for preventing major fishery collapses as the climatic and marine-environmental conditions move farther from their historic baselines. Heretofore estimates of the abundance of fish species have been derived mainly from records of fish landings. But landings are often as much influenced by politico-economic factors, fishing methods, and fishing effort, as they are by climatic and ecosystem conditions. Thus, fisheries managers who are poorly informed about changing ocean-ecological conditions, and who continue to rely on data on landings, may unwittingly accelerate stock collapses or other unintended situations. Nonetheless, for the world’s fishing communities, from the smallest-scale subsistenceoriented ones to the largest-scale industrialized ones, being able to adapt to future climatic and marine-ecological variability and change will be essential for sustaining their societies, economies, and general well-being. It will also be essential for sustaining those world food supplies that are derived from the sea. The impacts of global warming are expected to be especially severe in high-latitude regions. As the planet warms, melting sea ice will infuse greater quantities of fresh water into ocean ecosystems. And more problematic, because sea ice reflects much of the sun’s

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heat back into space, as it melts ocean waters will absorb more of the sun’s heat, accelerating the warming phenomenon and correspondingly accelerating the rate of sea-level rise. As a result, the pace and intensity of ocean-ecosystem change in high-latitude regions will be especially pronounced. The 2004 ACIA report, for example, concluded that the Arctic climate is changing almost twice as fast as the rate of climatic change at lower latitudes (ACIA, 2004), while the 2001 and 2007 IPCC reports demonstrate that the greatest temperature increases over the last 35 years occurred in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. In parts of these regions the warming has been extreme, as much as 3.9–5.6°C (~7–10°F). Projecting this trend two to three decades into the future, such warming may prompt rapid disruption, alteration, or even collapse of marine-ecological systems as they are unable to adapt as fast as the rate at which change is taking place.

Case studies from three high-latitude fishing communities The IPCC 2007 working group on fisheries (Parry et al., 2007) acknowledged that its forecasts regarding global warming’s impacts on fisheries had been mainly informed by case studies that had focused on how ocean-environmental changes may have influenced fish stocks in the recent past. Indeed, scientists currently have to rely to a great degree on case studies to help them understand how fishing communities and fisheries-management organizations should respond to the challenges posed by global warming. In recent years a number of case studies have emerged suggesting the linkages between fishing effort, climatic and environmental changes, and fishery collapses, including the collapse of the long-abundant herring stocks around Iceland in the 1960s. Initially thought to have resulted from overfishing, recent advances in the environmental sciences now support conclusions that the collapse was actually the result of excessive fishing combined with changed environmental conditions (Arnason, 1995; Belkin et al., 1998; Dickson et al., 1988; Durrenberger and Pálsson, 1989; Hamilton et al., 2004). In 2001 through 2004, I explored how three different high-latitude fishing communities (one in Iceland and two in Alaska) had responded to climatic and marine-environmental variability in the recent past. In the first phase of the research, I mainly looked for how fishing activities and fishing production had been influenced by climatic and other environmental variability in recent decades. This phase also entailed studies of meteorological data and various archival sources. Excellent data tracking climatic and marine-environmental variability over several past decades, and excellent data tracking fishing activities and production over the same decades, were also available. But data on longer-term climatic and marine-environmental change were virtually non-existent, as is the situation in most of the world’s fisheries. Initially, I sought to understand how fishing communities in these regions had responded to climatic and marine-environmental variability in the past, since that could provide clues as to how they might respond to future climatic and marine-environmental change. From that, fisheries-management policies could be derived to give these communities a better chance of making sustainable adaptations to change, which would help to generally inform fisheries policies for high-latitude regions. Eventually, I undertook broader considerations of the communities themselves, and their potential resilience to phenomena that are forecast to be prompted by climatic and global change.

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Case Study 1: Heimaey, Iceland Heimaey, Iceland lies at 63° North latitude, approximately 315 km South of the Arctic Circle. Situated on a small island off Iceland’s South Central coast, it is a fully modern, industrialized fishing community, its high-relief coastline providing a well-protected harbor with naturally hardened shore-side facilities. Although it has only 4,600 inhabitants, it is Iceland’s largest fishing port in terms of landings and value of landed catch, and it has extensive industrialized fish-processing facilities. A very high percentage of the town’s year-round population works in the fisheries, although some of the fishers who work on large-scale vessels are based here only seasonally. Nonetheless, most of the people who work in the fisheries live in Heimaey. The community targets a great diversity of fish species year-round, and has small-, intermediate-, and large-size fishing vessels that work within Iceland’s 200-mile EEZ and are managed by a stock-assessment and ITQ system that is operated by the Icelandic government. Virtually all of the fish produced by the community is turned over to a local market for export abroad, and this local market is highly interconnected with global fish markets. I found as follows:

Responses to ordinary climatic events As with the other two case study communities, ordinary climatic events and variations in their annual impacts have had virtually no impact on fishing activities, fishing production, and everyday life over several past decades. Regression analyses comparing climatic variability with data on fishing activity and production over the past two decades showed no significant relationships. This suggests that this fishing community is well-able to cope with ordinary climatic and environmental variability.

Responses to severe coastal storms and extreme weather events Because of the nature of the coastline, over the past several decades severe storms and extreme weather events have had little impact on either the community’s terrestrial infrastructure, or its large-vessel enterprises that are able to fish in practically any conditions. On the other hand, there are high risks for small-vessel enterprises, causing frequent curtailments of fishing activities and fishing production, as well significantly higher losses of life at sea, especially during the stormy winter months. Indeed, in recent years the community’s large-scale operators have enjoyed a sizeable competitive advantage over their smaller-scale counterparts by virtue of their being able to spend more time fishing, especially during Iceland’s severe winter months. Because the larger vessels can catch far more fish per crew member employed than can the smaller vessels, this also has given them a significant competitive advantage. Hence, while most large-scale enterprises have prospered in recent years, small-vessel enterprises have been progressively marginalized, and unemployment levels among small-boat crew members has increased. This trend is also evident in the increasing concentration of ITQ licenses among largescale enterprises seen in recent years, and their corresponding decrease among smallscale enterprises (see also Pálsson, 1991 and 1998, and similar findings regarding Iceland, as well as Newfoundland and Norway, appearing in Hamilton and Butler, 2001,

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and Hamilton et al., 2006). An increased incidence of ocean storms prompted by climatic change in the future would likely marginalize Heimaey’s small-boat operators even more.

Responses to changes in marine-ecosystem composition, including changes in fish-stock availability, composition, and size Although the ITQ management regime has so far prevented over-harvesting, most fish stocks are being harvested to near their theoretical limits. The nature of this regime imposes harvest levels that would be difficult to reduce under ITQs, should changes in climatic and ocean-ecosystem conditions require it, and leaves fishers vulnerable to severe economic risks should, changing ocean-ecosystem conditions require a rapid revision of the customary quotas. Even though ordinary fish-stock variability has, for the most part, remained within historic baselines in recent years, there have been a few occasions when the management system was unable to effectively manage some extreme variations in certain stocks. Although local fishers and fishery managers have often claimed that these extreme variations were “unforeseen”, in fact there were precedents for some of them in the past two decades. Furthermore, virtually all fishers stress that the current ITQ regime affords them little flexibility in being able to respond to natural variations in fish-stock availability. In essence, those having quota rights for certain stocks cannot easily switch to fishing other stocks when the stock they “own” is unavailable, not even when no other fishers have rights to those alternative stocks. The local fishing community’s economic security is also threatened by its high degree of integration in global fish markets, including markets that are greatly influenced by climatic variability in distant other parts of the world. Notably, when the El Niño drastically curtails Peruvian fish-meal production, those Icelandic reduction fishers who have quota rights for “reduction species”, along with reduction processors, will have a very profitable year. On the other hand, high production seasons in the Peruvian fishery can render the Icelanders’ quotas for reduction species virtually worthless – no matter how abundant they may be. Thus, the local fishing community in Iceland is economically vulnerable to the effects of distant climatic events over which it exerts no control, and which are also often difficult to anticipate. In this semi-isolated island community, which is highly dependent on its fishing industry, a lack of alternative economic opportunities also places its inhabitants at great economic risk should ocean-ecosystem changes bring about declines in essential fish stocks. There is a growing economy based on summer tourism, but this is seasonal, and in any event would not provide very many employment alternatives for Heimaey’s inhabitants should the fisheries experience significant reversals.

Responses to sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion Because of its location on a high-relief rocky coastline, with its harbor and shore-side facilities well protected from prevailing seas and most of its domestic dwellings on higher ground, Heimaey’s fishing community is not currently threatened by sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion. Of course, that would not be the case in many other Icelandic fishing communities, which are situated along low-lying coastal plains.

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Responses regarding the capacity of the fisheries-management system to cope with the foregoing climatic and marine-ecosystem phenomena The current management system has been effective in sustaining the most important stocks at high levels. However, its policy of managing for maximum sustainable yields leaves little margin for error in the annual stock assessments, and would be ill advised for managing in the face of unprecedented marine ecosystem change. Moreover, the current ITQ management system has not been sufficiently flexible to permit fishers to take advantage of unforeseen surges in various fish species for which they do not have quotas. Moreover, the management system has been unable to mitigate the economic downside of the boom/bust cycle in the reduction fishery, stemming from its high degree of articulation with international fish markets.

Case Study 2: Dillingham, Southwest Alaska Dillingham, Southwest Alaska lies at 59° North latitude, approximately 840 km south of the Arctic Circle. A modern industrialized, small-vessel fishing community, it is located on the shore of Nushagak Bay, an offshoot of Bristol Bay in Southwest Alaska. It is situated on a low-relief coastline and lacks hardened features that might protect it (both domestic dwelling sites, and important shore facilities) from storm surges and coastal flooding. Although it has only 2,400 year-round inhabitants and can be reached only by air or water, Dillingham is Southwest Alaska’s regional hub and site of one of Alaska’s oldest fish-processing plants. Here also is the headquarters for the region’s native association, as well as a hospital that serves its dispersed indigenous population. The fishery is highly seasonal and from early spring through the end of summer targets migratory salmon that have left the sea and entered coastal bays. A majority of the fishers who work aboard fishing vessels, as well as the workers in the local processing plant, are migratory and only based here during the spring/summer salmon-fishing season. Drift gillnets are the main gear used to catch salmon, and the fishery is managed by a limited-entry licensing system that also mandates maximum vessel length (32 feet) and fishers’ observance of open/closed fishing days. Open/ closed days are determined on the basis of ongoing stock assessments and the escapement that is deemed necessary to sustain the stocks. This management system is operated by the State of Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG). The largest single employer in the community is Peter Pan Seafoods, Inc., whose facility was one of the first fish processing and packing plants to be established in this region, and which employs a large number of workers during the spring/summer salmon fishing season. Virtually all of the wild salmon that is commercially produced in the region is turned over to this firm and exported for sale into various domestic and international markets. I found:

Responses to ordinary climatic events As in Heimaey, and in the Yup’ik community described in Case Study 3, ordinary climatic events and variations in their annual impacts had virtually no impact on fishing activities and fishing production in Dillingham over the past two decades. Regression analyses comparing climatic variability with data on fishing activity and production over the past two decades found no significant relationships.

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Responses to severe coastal storms and extreme weather events Because Dillingham is located on the shore of a very low-relief coastline, an increase in the frequency and intensity of coastal storms would likely force the relocation of many of its shore-side facilities, other businesses, and domestic dwellings. Since the town is located only slightly above mean sea level, several coastal storms in recent decades have already caused serious flooding in the town and surrounding region. Moreover, because in recent years the principal fisheries-management response for combating a steady decline in salmon stocks has been to increase the number of closed days to permit salmon escapement, this has increasingly compelled fishers to fish on open days that coincide with dangerous weather conditions, and several recent fatalities have been attributed to this increased pressure on local fishers. Thus, local fishers find themselves in a triple bind: their relative safety at sea is diminished by management provisions that limit vessel length to 32 feet. Because they fish from these relatively small vessels, severe coastal storms often compel them to curtail fishing activities; and the management system also compels them to take advantage of open days, even when threatening storms are forecast. Inasmuch as global warming portends an increase in the frequency and intensity of coastal storms in this region, unless changes are made in the management system, this problem can only get worse.

Responses to changes in marine-ecosystem composition, including changes in fish-stock availability, composition, and size Despite diligent stock-assessment efforts, limited entry and transferable licenses, limitations on vessel length, and open/closed fishing days, salmon stocks and salmon production have declined over the past two decades. Fishers are faced with declining yields and economic marginalization, with many going out of business. The causes of the salmon decline are poorly understood, although it is likely a combined result of local fishing effort and changes in ocean-ecological conditions taking place over the salmon’s vast migratory range. Indigenous fishers who harvest salmon for subsistence purposes also impact the stocks, although fisheries officials feel their impact is so small that it is not an important factor in the decline. At the same time, due in part to the steady increase of inexpensive farm-raised salmon in global fish markets, prices for the wild catch have been declining and so, although salmon production in 2003 tied a longstanding old historical record for the number of salmon landed at the local processing plant, it was still a “bad” year for the fishers because of poor prices. These problems have created hard times for the region’s commercial salmon fishers: many have gone out of business in recent years, and many are currently attempting to sell their fishing vessels and gear, as well as their limited-entry licenses, which not many years ago were expensively obtained at auction but are now worth much less. Moreover, few other economic alternatives are locally available, and especially among the seasonal migratory fishers and fish-plant workers there seems little interest in developing them.

Responses to sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion At the time of the field work, sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion had not been observed, and there seemed to be little local concern regarding these phenomena – even though they are forecast to increase significantly. Indeed, because of its location, even slight increases

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in sea level and saltwater intrusion will have disastrous consequences for both its terrestrial human infrastructure and surrounding natural ecosystems. In that event, profound ecological change would occur in this region’s key salmon habitats – in the coastal bays, in the numerous freshwater rivers and creeks that empty into the bays, and in the briny marshes that fringe the expansive low-lying coastal plain, diminishing salmon production and habitats. Shore-side fishing facilities, supporting infrastructure, and domestic dwellings, are also vulnerable to saltwater intrusion that may be prompted by sea-level rise and increased frequency and intensity of storms. While many of the fishers dwell here only seasonally, they still greatly depend on various local businesses, notably the local fish processing and packing plant, as well as on the infrastructural offerings of Dillingham – including its electrical power, fresh drinking water, and harbor facilities. Thus, even slight sea-level rise would force relocation of the community.

Responses regarding the capacity of the fisheries-management system to cope with the foregoing climatic and marine-ecosystem phenomena Despite diligent stock-assessment efforts, limited entry and transferable licenses, limitations on vessel length, and open/closed fishing days to permit salmon escapement, the current management system has been unable to stem the drastic decline in salmon stocks seen over the past two decades. At present there seem no alternative under-utilized and commercially valuable species that fishers might target. That said, the local management system, which is unable to monitor and control marine-ecological changes and fishing effort over the salmon’s vast migratory ocean range, cannot be held solely to blame for the salmon stocks’ recent decline.

Case Study 3: The Yup’ik community, Southwest Alaska The coastal region of Southwest Alaska is home to the indigenous Yup’ik people, who are a part of the Inuit culture that is spread from Northeastern Siberia, eastward across Northern Alaska and Canada to Greenland. Four inland Yup’ik villages were selected for this study, all of which are situated on the coastal plain generally north or northeast of the regional hub, Dillingham, at approximately 59° North latitude, or approximately 668 km south of the Arctic Circle. Three of these villages are situated along the banks of the Nushagak River, are rather isolated, and reached mainly by small airplanes. A fourth village is situated in a different drainage, is only slightly north of Dillingham, and can be reached by road from that town. There are several dozen small and permanently settled Yup’ik villages in this region, which are dispersed and widely separated from one another across the broad, low-lying coastal plain. Most of these villages are situated inland along rivers and streams, although a few can be found along the shores of Nushagak Bay (an offshoot of Bristol Bay). There are also a few seasonally-occupied settlement sites along the bay shore. Yet despite their dispersion and seeming isolation from one another, virtually all of the Yup’ik villages in this region regularly interact with one another, especially during the long winter when travel across the marshy coastal plain becomes feasible by snow machine. The four villages that were studied were selected on the basis of their high reliance on harvesting salmon ascending the region’s rivers and streams for subsistence purposes,

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their reputations as being among the more traditional villages in the region, and – at least regarding three of the four villages – their relatively high degrees of isolation. At the time of the field work, the smallest of the villages studied had 107 inhabitants, the largest had 355. And for purposes of this study these villages were regarded as a single community because they share a common cultural heritage, have virtually identical subsistence economies, are highly interrelated through kinship ties, and regularly interact with one another – especially during the winter. Although ethnographers might appraise these communities as “rich” in terms of their common cultural heritage and subsistence economies, by modern standards their level of development and standard of living is quite low. Nevertheless, their cultural heritage does feature a web of social-ecological adaptations that have sustained them for millennia. Indeed, this web of social-ecological adaptations has been extensively explored by many ethnographers and others who have studied the Yup’ik (with excellent accounts including Barker, 1993; Fienup-Riordan, 2000; Jolles, 2002; Joseph, 1997; Kawagley, 1995; Van Stone, 1984a,b). Their subsistence economy is based on longstanding cultural-ecological adaptations; salmon are the mainstay and the main dietary staple throughout the year. Salmon production, which is solely for subsistence, takes place mainly in the spring and summer months, and produces migratory salmon that are ascending the region’s freshwater rivers and creeks. Gillnets are the main gear used for harvesting the salmon, and the main methods of preservation are sun drying and smoking. Each spring and summer enough salmon are harvested to meet the villagers’ annual needs. Other wild foods are also obtained in various seasons, including moose, caribou, marine mammals, various fish species, waterfowl, other small animals, and plants. All are locally consumed and commercial sale of locally-caught salmon is strictly prohibited. The subsistence fishery is managed by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game – Division of Subsistence (ADFG-DS). Because the ADFG-DS does not regard the Yup’ik’s subsistence fishery as a significant threat to the sustainability of the salmon stocks, it places few restrictions on subsistence fishing activities and production. Hence, the subsistence fishery is open access and participants are merely required to obtain cost-free permits and report their catches to the ADFG-DS to help inform stock assessments. I found:

Responses to ordinary climatic events As in the modern communities of Heimaey and Dillingham, ordinary climatic events and their variable incidence had virtually no impact on fishing activities over several past decades in the Yup’ik community. In essence, these people fish as they always have, regardless of variations in climatic and environmental conditions and declining salmon stocks. I had assumed that climatic variations would influence subsistence fishers more than more modernized ones, who have far more sophisticated technologies at their disposal, but regression analyses comparing subsistence fishing production in the four Yup’ik villages with cardinal climatic variables (such as precipitation, temperature, and snowfall over a nearly 20-year period for which there are excellent meteorological data) revealed that subsistence fishing activities were only weakly influenced by variations in these variables, with the linear regressions yielding r2 values generally less than 0.2. This suggests that these high-latitude

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fishing communities, which still depend on traditional subsistence approaches using rudimentary technologies, are highly resilient and well adapted to ordinary climatic events and variability2.

Responses to severe coastal storms and extreme weather events An increase in the frequency and intensity of coastal storms would likely have only a slight impact on this community, since all of the villages that were studied are inland. The most severe storms occur in the winter months when very little subsistence fishing takes place, and most subsistence fishing activities take place well inland, at some distance from the more dangerous bays. There might be a heightened risk among the few persons who fish and hunt seals and whales in the bays, although even in those settings loss of life has been rare – which again seems to underscore the rich heritage of social-ecological adaptations these people’s ancestors developed to sustain them in this region’s harsh environmental conditions.

Responses to changes in marine-ecosystem composition, including changes in fish-stock availability, composition, and size Salmon stocks and salmon production for subsistence purposes have been steadily declining in recent years (Plate 12 in the color plate section). Yet despite this recent steady decline there seems little concern in the community. Some maintain that if they did not choose to engage in seasonal migratory wage-labor work, or increasingly purchase food items in local stores, their subsistence salmon production would be greater than it has been in recent years. Others insist that more fish than they need to satisfy their annual subsistence needs still ascend the rivers and streams. Indeed, one commonly hears people say, “there has always been enough salmon to meet our subsistence needs.” This is probably true, at least for now, inasmuch as their collective demand for the salmon resource continues to be small relative to its availability – a situation having few parallels in most commercial fisheries nowadays. Thus, for now, these native people have excellent food security, although otherwise their overall standard of living in modern-contemporary terms is low. This situation may change drastically, however, and quickly, should salmon stock levels fall below what they need to supply their key dietary staple. But because that has never happened before it is difficult to foresee how they would respond. On the one hand, even then they might still have many other abundant wild food resources available to them – still enjoying a form of economic pluralism, at least in a dietary sense. But on the other hand, these things too might change, and drastically, should climatic and environmental change decimate these other wild food resources as well. Add to this that few other economic alternatives are locally available, and the ability of this community to sustain itself should it lose its most important subsistence resource, may ultimately turn out to be quite low. In this regard, a few community members have recently begun to express an increased interest in developing and diversifying the local economy, which they acknowledge will be a daunting undertaking, given their relative isolation, the harsh environmental conditions, the lack of other resources, and the lack of local know-how for bringing about economic diversification and development.

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Responses to sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion At present sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion have not been experienced, and as a result there seems little concern among community members, even though they are forecast to become increasingly significant in the future. Indeed, because they are on a low-lying coastal plain, catastrophic social-ecological and economic disruption would result from sea-level rise sufficient to inundate the coastal plain, and from the intrusion of salt water into freshwater ecosystems and domestic drinking supplies. In those events, the villagers would have no choice but to relocate to less familiar, and most likely less naturally provident, areas lying further inland, where their ability to rely on salmon as their subsistence mainstay would be uncertain.

Responses regarding the capacity of the fisheries-management system to cope with the foregoing climatic and marine-ecosystem phenomena So far the fisheries-management system has been adequate to ensure that this community’s subsistence-fishing needs are met. However, salmon production levels are now near the minimum that community members regard as necessary to meet their subsistence needs, and if the stocks continue to decline, will no longer be adequate.

Conclusion: recommendations for increasing the resilience of the three high-latitude coastal fishing communities Recommendations for Heimaey, Iceland The ITQ system should build in a margin of safety by backing away from its current practice of fishing various species to near their theoretical sustainable limits. At the same time the government should sponsor more extensive monitoring of ocean conditions in Icelandic waters to try to anticipate emerging trends that seem to be prompted by global warming and ocean-ecosystem change. The ITQ system should also be made more flexible to permit quota owners to switch among species that are more or less abundant in various seasons. Clearly, large-vessel enterprises will be the most resilient to the sorts of changes that global warming may prompt, by virtue of their ability to range over larger areas in practically all weather conditions, as well as their ability to mobilize capital to retrofit gear and take advantage of changing opportunities. Small-vessel operators, therefore, should be afforded extra fishing opportunities to offset the limitations placed on them by unfavorable weather conditions. Sustaining the small-vessel fishery is also desirable for sustaining local levels of employment, without which the local community will be more vulnerable to climatic and global change. A more diversified local economy should also be developed to provide alternative income opportunities for local fishers who experience reversals in the fisheries. Finally, although the fishing community’s integration in a global marketing system somewhat reduces its vulnerability to local and regional market swings, global markets have occasionally shown themselves to be unstable, and new means should be explored for reducing

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the economic risk of operators who target species whose market prices are significantly influenced by climatic and financial events taking place in other parts of the world.

Recommendations for Dillingham, Southwest Alaska More research is needed to determine the causes of the salmon-stock declines in recent years. Moreover, international cooperation will be required to put in place the extensive and expensive monitoring systems that will be needed over vast trans-boundary ocean regions. The Alaska state government should also subsidize license buy-out schemes to reduce the number of limited-entry licenses. At the same time, it should redouble its efforts to promote the superiority of wild-caught salmon over farmed salmon, to justify the higher prices that the wild fish must bring in export markets. Finally, the current system of prescribing open and closed days for fishing should continue to be predicated on what is needed to conserve the salmon stocks. But these approaches should also be augmented with new regulations that prevent fishers from going out on open days, which coincide with forecasts of dangerous weather and sea conditions.

Recommendations for the Yup’ik community, Southwest Alaska At current stock levels, the subsistence fishery focusing on salmon is adequately managed and meets local subsistence needs, providing excellent food security. However, the management regime should begin to incorporate contingency plans regarding changes in stock availability, composition, and size. The native subsistence-fishing community in southwest Alaska manifests high resiliency and capacities for adapting to the region’s ordinary climatic and ecosystem variability. This resiliency is a result of considerable long-term cumulative experience from living in this climatically harsh region. However, the local economy does not provide an adequate standard of living in modern-contemporary terms, and in recent years, as these people have become more aware of the world beyond their region, this has been a source of increasing dissatisfaction and strain. Thus, greater efforts should be made to develop a more modern and diversified economy. This low-lying region is highly vulnerable to catastrophic disruption caused by sea-level rise, saltwater intrusion, and increased frequency and intensity of coastal storms. This underscores an urgent need for contingency planning for relocation to areas where the best chances for assuring food security and economic growth can be sustained.

General recommendations The following general recommendations for building resilience to climatic and global change in high-latitude fishing communities also emerge from this research:

Regarding ordinary climatic variability For the most part, it seems little needs to be done to build fishing communities’ capacities to adapt and respond to ordinary climatic variability.

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Regarding severe coastal storms and extreme weather events, sea-level rise, and saltwater intrusion Although coastal storms and extreme weather events, sea-level rise, and saltwater intrusion are different phenomena, they suggest similar responses for mitigating their impacts on vulnerable coastal communities. Hence there is an urgent need to: ●

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identify coastal communities at high risk to severe coastal storms and other extreme weather events, sea-level rise, saltwater intrusion, and increased inundation; increase efforts to raise awareness in such communities that are situated along low-relief, low-lying coastal plains, concerning the potential risks to them; develop contingency planning exploring various strategies for relocating coastal communities, especially those that are situated in low-lying areas, including identification of sustainable sites for relocation; develop more coordinated regional, macro-regional, and global planning and assistance for such communities; legally institute coastal setbacks to build in a margin of safety from seasonal, long-term, and occasionally extreme fluctuations in coastlines (Hettiarachchi and Samarawickrama, 2005); and, only where absolutely necessary, and where there would be a high benefit/cost ratio for doing so, harden coastlines to protect vulnerable communities, their domestic living sites, and shore-side facilities. This should only be done in extreme situations; because of the typically high costs, diminution of aesthetic values, and often only partial effectiveness of such measures.

Regarding changes in marine ecosystem compositions Improving fisheries-management systems will be an integral part of building high-latitude coastal fishing communities’ resilience to marine-ecosystem variability and change. Because marine-ecosystem variability and change can profoundly affect fish stock availability, composition, and size, causing severe to catastrophic social and economic strains in high-latitude fishing communities, this sort of variability and change has often arrived unexpectedly, exacerbating its impact in fishing communities. There is therefore an urgent need to: ●

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develop a global observation system that provides continuous time series of environmental data, tracking climate change and its consequences in marine ecosystems. do this by emphasizing the development of more accurate methods for forecasting marine-ecological trends in specific regions, including trends in fish-stock availability, composition, and size. This will be very expensive, requiring global international cooperation. However, the technology for doing it currently exists, and at present there seems no other way to reliably monitor and anticipate the consequences of global warming and change in marine ecosystems. continuously track the following: atmospheric CO2 and temperature; ocean wind and current patterns; ocean water temperature; change trends in climatic variables, including

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frequency and intensity of storms; change trends in sea levels from historic norms; ocean salinity and pH; dissolved CO2 and oxygen in ocean waters; chlorophyll, mineral, and nutrient loads in ocean waters; and ocean ecosystem species compositions, distributions, and biomasses. engage the following persons and organizations for promoting and supporting the foregoing developments: interested members of the UN General Assembly; interested facilitators of the United Nations Agreement on Highly Migratory and Straddling Fish Stocks (UNFSA), which urges that States cooperate to ensure conservation and optimum utilization of fisheries resources, both within and beyond the exclusive economic zone (United Nations, 1995); various persons and components of the FAO (FAO, 1999); the Consortium for Ocean Leadership; US NOAA Research, and others. develop a cooperative international effort that will be comparable to, if not exceed, previous global-scale monitoring projects – the International Geophysical Year (1957–1958), for example.

Regarding building the capacity of fisheries-management systems to more effectively deal with global warming and change ●

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Incorporate more flexible and adaptive approaches to management, which enhance the ability of both fishers and managers to adapt to changing marine-ecological conditions. Otherwise, the more specialized the solutions that management systems develop for meeting various problems, the less flexibility they will have for responding to unprecedented problems that may arise in the future. In essence, future management policies must build in specific means for coping with change, regardless of the direction it takes (McGoodwin, 1990: 182).3 Emphasize management strategies that especially enhance the safety of fishing crews working in smaller-size vessels. Strive to reduce the smaller-scale fishing sector’s competitive disadvantage relative to the larger-scale sector. Of course, some economists may object to this recommendation because of its potential for reducing a fisheries’ overall economic efficiency and productivity. Indeed, it does imply a value judgment on my part concerning the desirability of sustaining employment levels in fishing communities – that is, instituting economies where human concerns are foremost. Develop international agreements that aim to enhance price stability among fish producers and processors who produce internationally-marketed species whose availability is highly variable due to marine-ecological conditions arising in various parts of the world.

Regarding future fisheries research ●

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Continue and expand the effort to discover the interactive dynamics of fisheries, marineecosystems, and global warming and change, while similarly continuing to support the development of theoretical fisheries models that integrate the effects of fishing effort and climatic and global change. Start by focusing on situations where good data exists concerning the interactive dynamics of these variables, and continue to support studies

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of documented instances of stock increases or declines that cannot be attributed to fishing effort alone. Similarly, promote further research regarding marine ecosystem dynamics prior to fishing effort. Promising research currently underway includes studies based on historical climate change (e.g., the Medieval Optimum from ~AD 800–1100, and the Little Ice Age from ~1550–1850), studies focusing on paleo-climate information (e.g., the Altithermal ~4,000–8,000 years ago), and sediment studies tracking variability in marine life prior to fishing activity. Continue to rely on case studies of fisheries that are impacted by marine-ecosystem variability and change and other phenomena that may be prompted by global warming and change. Given the inadequacy of current mainstream science to forecast the future impacts of global warming in various fisheries, a situation which is likely to continue until a coordinated worldwide monitoring system is in place, generalizations will still have to be drawn from case studies. For now, therefore, continue to build the store of case studies concerning how fishing people and fishing managers have responded to climatic and marine-ecosystem variability and change. These studies will provide important clues concerning how fishing people may attempt to adapt to climatic and global change in the future, and help to inform the development of more sustainable fisheries policies. Promote research that explores ways to reduce the carbon footprint of the fisheries themselves, facilitating, for example, a return to a greater reliance on sail propulsion in certain fisheries.

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Inasmuch as regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) are the primary means for managing global fish stocks, expand the scope of these organizations’ charters to monitor and address the consequences of climatic and global change in the world’s fisheries, and to develop innovative management measures for dealing with them. In this regard, new organizations may need to be formed. RFMO’s should become more involved in reducing the vulnerability of fishing people and other coastal dwellers to the physical and economic risks posed by increasing inundations, storms, and other climatic events. Prescribe for the UNFSA relating to the conservation and management of straddling and highly migratory fish stocks enhanced State-level cooperation and global trans-boundary cooperation, providing a framework that may be capable of elaboration and extension, which would help RFMOs to incorporate considerations of ocean-ecosystem change that is driven by climate change (United Nations, 1995). Where applicable, RFMO’s should devote more attention to how climatic, marine-ecosystem, and global changes impact the small-scale fishing sector. Small-scale fishers constitute a decisive majority of the world’s fishing people, and compared with large-scale fishers are generally less mobile geographically and more vulnerable to ecosystem changes. RFMO’s should also explore means for integrating various components of the fishing industry itself into monitoring climate-change impacts, making these more active and integral participants in fisheries-management reform and implementation. And because

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the fishing industry is the main economic beneficiary of fisheries resources, it should share in the costs of these efforts. RFMO’s should incorporate scientifically informed information regarding ocean-ecosystem trends that are driven by climate change into their efforts to assist developing countries. In this realm they can play an important role in coordinating policies and programs at regional and sub-regional levels that are aimed at sustaining vital fishery resources.

Finally, because there are limits to the resilience and adaptive capacities of human socialecological systems, we must grant that some coastal communities may be so overwhelmed by climatic and global change that they may not be able to sustain themselves and will disappear. Yet, while some of the problems posed by climatic and global change currently seem to be virtually insurmountable, we must never underestimate humanity’s ability to come up with innovative solutions when faced with extraordinary challenges – and to persist nevertheless.

Acknowledgements Support for the research in Iceland was provided by a National Science Foundation grant, “Seascapes and landscapes: linkages between marine and terrestrial environments and human populations in the North Atlantic [Iceland Sector]: a contribution to the HARC Initiative,” Astrid E. J. Ogilvie, Principal Investigator. Support for the research in Alaska was provided by the Council for Research and Creative Work, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, for the project, “Yup’ik Eskimo fishers’ adaptations to climatic variability, climate change, and other changing environmental conditions,” James R. McGoodwin, Principal Investigator. I also thank the following people and institutions for their generous help and support: in Iceland: Jónas Gunnar Allansson, Gísli Pálsson, Hjalmar Vilhjalmsson, and the Marine Research Institute; at the University of Colorado, Boulder, CO: Astrid E. J. Ogilvie, and the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research; among the Yup’ik in Southwest Alaska: Andrew Petla and Wassillie Andrews; in Dillingham, Southwest Alaska: the Bristol Bay Native Association, George and Noi Guthridge, and Peter Pan Seafoods, Inc.; and in the Alaska Department of Fish and Game - Division of Subsistence: Molly Chythlook, James A. Fall, Terry Haynes, and Ted Krieg.

Endnotes 1. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Symposium on Coping with Global Change in Marine Social-Ecological Systems, held at FAO Headquarters, Rome, Italy, 8–11 July 2008, with support from GLOBEC and other organizations. Some of its results also appeared in McGoodwin (2007). 2. In the formal analyses that looked for influences on human subsistence fishing activities and behavior, only climatic variables that could be sensed or experienced directly by subsistence fishers in the 4 villages were taken into account (e.g., precipitation, snowfall, atmospheric temperature, prevailing winds, river conditions – and in a few instances severe coastal storms and other

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extreme weather events). Marine-environment variables such as sea temperature, salinity, sea level, saltwater intrusion, and shoreline erosion were not incorporated in these analyses because all four of the villages that were studied are situated inland, where presumably their inhabitants would not be able to sense these phenomena. Of course, these and other marine-environmental phenomena undoubtedly play a crucial role in determining the size and timing of the salmon runs that the villagers intercept, and no doubt these variables combined with the commercial fishing harvest have played a decisive role in bringing about the steady decline in salmon stocks that has been observed in this region over the past two decades. 3. I strongly feel that holding to these principles will be fundamental to humanity’s ability to cope with climatic and global change, and remain in debt to anthropologist Elman R. Service, who elucidated them in his book, Primitive social organization: an evolutionary perspective (Service, 1971: 34).

References ACIA (2004) Impacts of a warming Arctic – Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK. (The ACIA report stems from the Fourth Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting, Reykjavik, Iceland, November 2004). Arnason R. (1995) Icelandic fisheries and fisheries management: adaptation to a limited resource base. In: The North Atlantic Fisheries: Successes, Failures and Challenges (eds R. Arnason and L. Felt), Institute of Island Studies, Charlotte, Prince Edward Island, pp. 237–266. Barker, J. H. (1993) Always getting ready. Upterrlainarluta: Yup’ik Eskimo subsistence in Southwest Alaska. University of Washington Press, Seattle WA. Belkin, I. M., Levitus, S., Antonov, J. and Malmberg, S. A. (1998) Great salinity anomalies in the North Atlantic. Progress in Oceanography 41, 1–68. Bernstein, L. et al. (2007) Climate change 2007: synthesis report, summary for policy-makers. An Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf Conover, D. O. (2007) Written testimony titled Effects of Climate Change on Fisheries, submitted to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard, for the hearing, Effects of Climate Change and Ocean Acidification on Living Marine Resources, 10 May. Dickson, R. R., Meincke, J., Malmberg, S. A. and Lee, A. J. (1988) The “Great Salinity Anomaly” in the northern North Atlantic 1968–1982. Progress in Oceanography 20, 103–151. Durrenberger, E. P. and Pálsson, G. (1989) The Anthropology of Iceland. University of Iowa Press, Iowa City IA. FAO (1999) International Plan of Action for the Management of Fishing Capacity. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Feely, R. A. (2007) Written testimony at the Hearing on Effects of Climate Change and Ocean Acidification on Living Marine Resources, before the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard, United States Senate, 10 May, http://www.legislative.noaa.gov/Testimony/feely051007.pdf Fienup-Riordan A. (2000) Hunting Tradition in a Changing World: Yup’ik Lives in Alaska Today. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick NJ. Folke, C., Colding, J. and Berkes, F. (eds) (2002) Synthesis: building resilience and adaptive capacity in social-ecological systems. In: Navigating Social-Ecological Systems: Building Resilience of Complexity and Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK.

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Hamilton, L. C. and Butler, M. J. (2001) Outport adaptations: social indicators through Newfoundland’s cod crisis. Human Ecology Review 8(2), 1–11. Hamilton, L. C., Jónsson, S., Ögmundardóttir, H. and Belkin, I. M. (2004) Sea changes ashore: the ocean and Iceland’s herring capital. Arctic 57(4), 325–335. Hamilton, L. D., Otterstad, O. and Ömundardóttir, H. (2006) Rise and fall of the herring towns: Impacts of climate and human teleconnections. In: Climate Change and the Economics of the World’s Fisheries (eds R. Hannesson, M. Barange and S. F. Herrick, Jr), Edward Elgar, Northampton MA, pp. 100–125. Hettiarachchi, S. S. L. and Samarawickrama, S. P. (2005) Planning and implementing coastal management in Sri Lanka. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Maritime Engineering 158, Issue MAI, pp. 25–32, March. See www.thomastelford.com/journals/DocumentLibrary/maen.158.1.25.pdf Holling, C. S. (1973) Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annual Review of Ecological Systems 4, 1–23. Houghton, J. T., Ding, Y., Griggs, D. J., Noguer, M., van der Linden, P. J. and Xiaosu, D. (eds) (2001) IPCC Third Assessment Report: Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK. Jolles, C. Z. (2002) Faith, Food and Family in a Yupik Whaling Community. University of Washington Press, Seattle WA. Joseph, D. S. (1997) Fishcamp. Maverick Publications, Bend OR. Kawagley, A. O. (1995) A Yupiaq Worldview: A Pathway to Ecology and Spirit. Waveland Press, Prospect Heights IL. McCarthy, J. J., Canziani, O. F., Leary, N. A., Dokken, D. J. and White, K. S. (eds) (2001) Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK. McGoodwin, J. R. (1990) Crisis in the World’s Fisheries: People, Problems, and Policies. Stanford University Press, Stanford CA. McGoodwin, J. R. (2007) Effects of climatic variability on three fishing economies in high-latitude regions: implications for fisheries policies. Marine Policy 31, 40–55. Metz, B., Davidson, O., Swart, R. and Pan, J. (eds) (2001) Climate Change 2001: Mitigation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK. Metz, B. et al. (2007) Working Group III Report: Climate Change 2007: Mitigation. IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg3/ar4-wg3-frontmatter.pdf Pálsson, G. (1991) Coastal Economies, Cultural Accounts: Human Ecology and Icelandic Discourse. University of Manchester Press, Manchester UK. Pálsson G. (1998) The virtual aquarium: commodity fiction and cod fishing. Ecological Economics 24, 275–288. Parry, M. et al. (2007) Working Group II Report: Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/ wg2/ar4-wg2-intro.pdf. Rubinoff, P. B. and Courtney, C. A. (2008) How resilient is your coastal community? A guide for evaluating coastal community resilience to tsunamis and other coastal hazards. In: Basins and Coasts News, Integrated Management for Coastal and Freshwater Systems (ed. J. Tobey), USAID, 2(1), January, 24–28. Service, E. R. (1971) Primitive Social Organization: An Evolutionary Perspective, 2nd edn. Random House, New York.

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Solomon, S. et al. (2007) Working Group I Report: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4wg1-frontmatter.pdf United Nations (1995) United Nations Fish Stock Agreement (The United Nations Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks). Van Stone, J. W. (1984a) Southwest Alaska Eskimo: Introduction. In: Handbook of North American Indians (eds D. Dumas and W. C. Sturtevant), Vol. 5: Arctic, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, pp. 205–208. Van Stone, J. W. (1984b) Mainland Southwest Alaska Eskimo. In: Handbook of North American Indians (eds D. Dumas and W. C. Sturtevant), Vol. 5: Arctic. Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, pp. 224–242. Walker, B., Folke, C., S. Carpenter, S. et al. (2004) Regime shifts, resilience, and biodiversity in ecosystem management. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 35, 557–582. World Bank (2007) Climate Changes and Impact on Coastal Countries. Risk of Sea-Level Rise: High Stakes for Developing Countries. Research at the World Bank, February, http://econ.worldbank. org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/0,,contentMDK:21215328~pagePK:6 4165401~piPK:64165026~theSitePK:469382,00.html

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Chapter 23

Coping with Environmental Change Systemic Responses and the Roles of Property and Community in Three Fisheries Bonnie J. McCay, Wendy Weisman, and Carolyn Creed

Abstract We compare how fisheries in three marine systems – from Atlantic Canada, Pacific Mexico, and the eastern United States – respond to significant environmental changes, whether deviation-amplifying or deviation-mitigating. We ask what triggers changes that can avert fisheries collapse and how this is affected by intersections of governance and environment. We conclude by affirming the importance of both exclusive, secure property rights, and community-oriented decision-making power in tipping the balance towards more adaptive ways of responding to environmental change. Keywords: Atlantic Canada, Pacific Mexico, eastern United States, environmental change, ITQs, property rights, community, Newfoundland northern cod fishery, moratorium, surfclam fisheries, stewardship, deviation mitigation, deviation amplification, enclosure

Introduction In this chapter we compare how fishers and communities in three marine social-ecological systems – in Atlantic Canada, the Pacific coast of Mexico, and the eastern United States – have coped with significant environmental changes. In addition to providing material for analysing how and why people do and do not respond in time to protect a fishery or rescue it from imminent collapse, the comparison allows us to consider the roles played by distinct kinds of management of common resources: privatized rights in the form of Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs), communal rights, and top-down centralized management. Incentives and desire on the part of resource users to sustain the fishery in the long term are present in all three cases; we turn to specific social, historical, and natural features of each case to explain their different outcomes to date. We conclude by affirming the importance of both exclusive, secure property rights and community-oriented decision-making power in tipping the balance towards more adaptive ways of responding to environmental change. World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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The study of fisheries makes clear many of the patterns and outcomes of using and managing resources held in common (“common pool resources” or “the commons”). Indeed, although the challenge of managing the commons has been labelled “the fisherman’s problem” (McEvoy, 1986), the scope and scale of environmental challenges now facing aquatic as well as terrestrial common pool resources suggests that it is everyone’s problem. Property rights (more specifically access rights to common resources) strongly influence capacities for and outcomes of natural resource use and management. Property rights can be thought of along a continuum from lesser to greater exclusivity of access to places and resources and the benefits derived from them; they range from public and/or free rights at one end to individually exclusive, “sole owner” rights at the other. Economists have persuasively shown the losses of “rent” or productive potential that come about with totally free access rights in fisheries, the “tragedies of the unmanaged commons” (Hardin, 1968, 1994) that often ensue, and the economic benefits that attend more exclusive, privatized rights (Gordon, 1954; Scott, 1955). Limiting of access to fisheries and other commons can be referred to as “enclosure” – another way of talking about degrees of exclusivity of access, whether in terms of bounded spaces, time (seasonality of access or limited term concessions), or users (some people, institutions, or classes of organizations are granted access) or a combination. Our three cases for comparison include one that has become a classic “tragedy of the commons,” the Canadian northern cod fishery, and two others characterized by more exclusive property rights, which appear to have helped people manage their relationships to the commons and its climate-induced perturbations: surfclams in the US and lobster and abalone in Mexico. The two latter cases are especially interesting for comparison because they represent arrangements from two opposite ends of the spectrum of ways of enclosing a commons: individual (private) ownership of access to resources in the US case, and collective rights to access (though not “open” access) in the Mexican one. The surfclam fishery – the first US fishery to be managed with ITQs – comes close to the economists’ ideal; we will consider whether and how ITQs affect human capacity to respond adaptively to the effects of climate change on surfclams. By contrast, small-scale benthic fisheries of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula in an area known as the Pacifico Norte represent a clear-cut instance of “communal” property rights (McCay and Acheson, 1987), with exclusive property rights held by community-based cooperatives rather than individuals. We ask in turn how exclusive but collective rights have influenced their capacity to respond adaptively to environmental changes linked to ENSO or El Niño events. This chapter is written in the spirit and framework of systems thinking, as it evolved through the cybernetics era of the mid-20th century and was elaborated by Bateson (1963, 1972), Slobodkin (1968), Slobodkin and Rapoport (1974), and McCay (2002). System frameworks have come to inform a great deal of thinking and research in recent years, as evidenced by the focus on complex adaptive systems and resilience (Berkes et al., 2003; Davidson-Hunt and Berkes, 2003). From this perspective, responses to the effects of climate change can occur at many levels and scales. Some responses can make matters worse or merely fail to help restore system health or its ability to rally from insults. In systems language, ineffectual or backfiring responses that worsen the problem are called “deviationamplifying” responses, and though it may sound counter-intuitive in ordinary speech, are called examples of “positive feedback” to the system. We discuss the Newfoundland cod

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case in those terms. Other responses can mitigate the negative effects of change, helping to protect or even restore system health, and are referred to here as “deviation-mitigating” or “negative feedback” responses. The Baja California fishery we describe is an example. As significant effects of climate change are just beginning to be felt in the Mid-Atlantic surfclam fishery and the resource users and other observers do not yet have the luxury of hindsight, we engage in reasoned conjecture about future outcomes for this economically important American fishery. All three cases form part of larger marine ecosystems, with complex dynamics and different environmental and fishing challenges for the people that work them. Fogo Island, Newfoundland, is within the Newfoundland-Labrador Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem (LME), with sharply seasonal productivity arising from the confluence of the cold waters of the Labrador Current and the warm ones of the Gulf Stream, since it is seasonally constricted by coastal ice. The fisheries of the Pacific coast of Baja California Sur are in the southern part of the California Current LME, and have always been strongly influenced by El Niño and La Niña changes in ocean conditions and weather. Surfclam fisheries of the Mid-Atlantic region are part of the Northeast Continental US LME, and are experiencing direct effects of sea temperature warming. The three cases offer a contrast between smallscale, local, and artisanal (the Mexican case) to large-scale, offshore, and industrial (the US surfclam case), with the Newfoundland case in between, but each is dependent on producing commodities for distant, globalized markets and is fully embedded in government-run and science-based fisheries management regimes. Other points of similarity and difference are made within our descriptions of the three cases, and in our conclusion we focus on the factor of property rights or “enclosure of the commons” as manifested in each of the cases.

Case Study 1: Fogo Island, Newfoundland, Canada Fogo Island, on the northeast coast of Newfoundland, Canada, is the locale of nine small remote villages where fishing and fish processing are the primary sources of work. A local cooperative processes and markets the products, although fishers can and in later years often did market through off-island private firms. Weather and sea ice reduce the fishing season to four to six months of the year. Until recent decades, the fishery was primarily small-scale, involving locally built small (15–35′) and mostly open boats, using fish traps, gill-nets, and hook and line gear for cod and other species; in the 1970s and 1980s, larger vessels called longliners enabled more diversified and mobile fishing but cod remained important and the small-scale fishery continued side-by-side with the longliner fishery (McCay, 1976, 1978). Today the small-scale fishery has diminished greatly, a consequence of the “tragedy of the northern cod” that shows deviation-amplification at work. Fogo Island is part of a much larger social-ecological marine system that can be defined by the very large spatial scale of fish migration and current structures and by the top-down federal institutional structure of Canada (the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, DFO, a federal ministry with regional offices for science and management). Despite the centralized management scheme, Fogo Island has some local autonomy through its communitybased fish processing and marketing cooperative. Moreover, the fishers participate in fisheries management in various consultative capacities through their producers’ cooperative and through committees of a province-wide union and advisory meetings with DFO

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officials. As elsewhere in Newfoundland and Labrador, there is some small-scale locallygenerated data for fisheries management through a program called “sentinel fisheries.” However, that occurred after the fisheries collapse of 1992, and most data, stock assessments, and management rules come from the science and policy branches of DFO. Management decisions have been made on a large scale. These features of the case have important implications for the possibilities for responding and adapting appropriately to environmental changes, and help explain the responses seen during the critical period before and during the cod fishery collapse, described below. The story of Fogo Island’s fishery is that of the entire east and northeast coast of Newfoundland. It experienced the process, now known throughout the world, of the collapse, or “tragedy” of the northern cod (Harris, 1998; Rose, 2007; May, 2009). In June 1992, the fishery for the stock of northern cod found off the east and northeast coasts of Newfoundland and southern Labrador was closed due to evidence of a nearly total collapse of the fish stock. Closures or severe cutbacks of other groundfish fisheries soon followed. The build-up to the 1992 moratorium on cod fishing involved deviation-amplification. For one reason or another (see Case Study 3) the allowable catch levels during the 1980s were always greater than the actual catch, and the dominant response to declining catches was to intensify efforts (Finlayson, 1994; Finlayson and McCay, 1998), which, in the circumstances, led to worsening overfishing, or deviation-amplification. For example, in the inshore fisheries, which were the mainstay of the small fishery-dependent communities of Fogo Island and other coastal areas, fishers’ response to catching smaller sizes of fish and smaller catches overall was to adopt smaller mesh nets and more efficient fish traps; the cooperative, like other cod processors, refined its filleting machines for small fish. Many participants in the coastal fishery knew that the stocks were declining, but they appeared unable to do much about it. In such a centralized system, management was a government responsibility anyway. The situation was made worse by government decisions to rely more on the offshore trawler fishery in the effort to industrialize and modernize the fisheries, making them more year-round. As George Rose recently observed (Rose, 2007), in the early 1980s, the critical time for this tragedy to unfold, the federal and provincial governments reacted to evidence that the inshore fishery could not catch its 120,000 tonnes quota by giving more of the overall quota to the offshore fishery, thinking the fish stock was growing despite trouble in the inshore fishery. This was unfortunate because the less efficient inshore fishery tended to catch fewer fish when abundances were declining, making it inherently precautionary, whereas the offshore fishery was only too efficient and capable of keeping its catches high in the context of decline. The decision to give more to the offshore “lessened the inherent precaution of the inshore fishery and increased the potential for overfishing when quotas were set too high, as indeed they would be” (Rose, 2007). The direness of the situation was masked by landings data coming from the offshore fishing strategies that compensated for declining catches by opening up new fishing grounds. It was also masked by a retrospective bias in stock assessments, whereby data on the later years of a fish cohort tended to show that the size of the cohort in earlier years had been overestimated (Finlayson, 1994; Finlayson and McCay, 1998). The signs and signals of trouble were hard to translate into terms usable in scientific population dynamics models, and the provincial court struck down an effort led by some inshore fishermen, academics,

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and lawyers to force a review of the situation (Steele et al., 1992; Martin, 1992, 1995). The problem was belatedly recognized by a government unwilling to make hard choices when confronted by scientific evidence of stock decline, when those choices involved thousands of fishers and fish plant workers. There seem to have been large and grave disconnects between experience-based observations, scientific knowledge, and policy, one effect of which was that the observations and efforts of many of the fishers, experiencing stock decline, as well as of some scientists, seeing problems in the data, were readily ignored. Even after the 1992 moratorium, science reports were allegedly edited and tailored to fit political efforts to continue providing jobs and revenue to fishery dependent communities at the cost of the natural resource that had sustained these communities (Hutchings et al., 1997a,b). The moratorium of 1992 was supposed to last only a couple of years, allowing the fish a chance to recover, but recovery has barely occurred almost 20 years later. Water temperature changes linked to the North Atlantic Oscillation, seal predation, a possible ecological regime shift, and continued fishing – offshore in international waters and inshore by-catches, both legal and illegal, and smallscale inshore commercial and subsistence fishing – have kept northern cod stocks at a very low level (Shelton et al., 2006). The fishery management measure of a virtually complete closure of the fishery was unable to arrest the decline in cod stocks that had been precipitated by the “deviation-amplification” processes of the 1980s. Given the sad outcome of the northern cod story, we feel compelled to look for more hopeful signs and positive responses to environmental change. What if any are the signs of significant restructuring and shifts toward more sustainable, “deviation-mitigating,” system dynamics in this case, as might be predicted from such a dramatic collapse (Gunderson and Holling, 2002)? Finlayson and McCay (1998) found little evidence of institutional change within the parameters of fisheries management in Newfoundland, despite the creation of a broader and more representative consultative system (Charles, 2001). Instead, the dominant response to change has been industrial diversification, taking advantage of both strong markets and strong, even increasing, populations of crustaceans (Schrank, 2005); queen crab and northern shrimp, which may have increased in response to decline of top predators such as cod. The fisheries management system has seemed more precautionary in the management of crab and shrimp, but this may have as much to do with lack of the data and scientific understanding needed for sophisticated stock assessments as with any “lesson learned” from northern cod. Diversification has been the key to survival of Newfoundland’s fisheries economy and fishery-dependent coastal communities in the wake of the collapse of northern cod. However, there is nothing inherently more sustainable about diversification per se; outcomes are still unfolding and will depend in part upon the nature of marine resources and unpredictable global markets. Indeed, “diversification” includes a “fishing down the food web” response (Pauly et al., 1988), to the point that sea cucumber has been processed on Fogo Island and even jellyfish has undergone pilot studies. The fishery has also continued a focus on other groundfish, particularly “turbot” or Greenland halibut, which amounts to another kind of “fishing down,” not down the food web but into far deeper (and more distant) waters, with very questionable management controls (Healey and Mahé, 2005). From a broad systems perspective (and from economic ledgers) we might interpret the situation as not tragic at all, but rather involving a viable restructuring, a positive regime

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shift. Crab and shrimp turned out to be more valuable than cod and generate many jobs as well. Diversification has enabled the islanders to survive the demise of the cod fisheries, but there are social costs. For the most part, crab and shrimp fishing takes place offshore and thus requires large and expensive boats, up to 65 feet in length, and long fishing expeditions. Striking economic differences are evident within the local fishing communities between the families heavily involved in the large-scale crab and shrimp fisheries and those which are not. Such stratification, with its effects on vulnerable sectors of the population (e.g., older and poorly educated men and women and fish plant workers) and on the viability of local communities, is among the social costs of diversification in response to change in the fisheries system. The high investments required for crab and shrimp combined with intense competition among buyers for the product (especially crab) have threatened local institutions such as the Fogo Island cooperative and, indirectly, local communities. Many of Fogo Island’s vessel owners stopped delivering their catches to the local cooperative because of agreements made with other buyers in order to secure financing for the costly vessels required for successful crab and shrimp fishing. This reduces jobs available in the cooperatives’ fish plants, which are the principal source of income for island households, and it created the backdrop for a dramatic conflict over gender, equity, and human rights, which has torn the island’s communities further apart (Penton, 2001; McCay, 2003). A coda to the Fogo Island case, and the others we discuss, concerns critical moments or forms of intervention from the outside. Although the island’s population declined from almost 5,000 in 1992 to less than 3,000 in 2009, Fogo Island’s fishers and communities have shown considerable resilience. This is in part due to the constructive engagement of outsiders, working with local leaders, in helping provide resources for coping and adaptation. Such work on Fogo Island began in the 1960s, with a major rural development effort organized around community films and the creation of the cooperative (Healey and Mahé, 2005), and it has recurred from 2006 to the present with the efforts of a private foundation begun by a former resident of the island to revive aspects of traditional culture in ways that foster community survival (McCay, 2003).

Case Study 2: Pacifico Norte, Baja California Sur, Mexico In sharp contrast to Fogo Island and its experience of the “tragedy” of the northern cod, the fishery of Mexico’s Pacifico Norte region, on the west coast of the peninsula of Baja California, has been internationally recognized as a fisherman-led, community-based effort to prevent major stock decline (in the spiny or red rock lobster fishery) and help restore diminished stocks with government partners (in the abalone fishery). The unusual social and institutional organization of resource users in this case appears to shape the more corrective responses and adaptations to environmental change we observe. The fisheries of the Pacific coast of Baja California Sur are in the southern part of the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem, which is marked by strong upwelling and complex rocky shore habitats, and these fisheries are strongly influenced by ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation), or El Niño and La Niña changes in ocean conditions and weather. This has notable effects on the two main fisheries of lobster and abalone. The fishers are engaged mainly in lobster pot fishing and diving for abalone and whelk from small

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open boats 15–30 feet in length; they also engage in finfishing with gill-nets. They, like many of the fishers of Fogo Island, Newfoundland, belong to cooperatives. The ten fishing cooperatives of this region manage the harvesting and processing operations and are engaged in some marketing through their federation. They are more extensively involved in the fisheries than is Fogo Island’s cooperative. The cooperatives, not the fishers, own the vessels and most other factors of production and marketing. Even more striking and important to the outcome is the fact that the cooperatives hold exclusive concessions to vast areas of inshore fishing grounds for abalone, lobster, and turban snail, the major export fisheries. The basic feature of institutional structure, through which response and adaptation at various scales are implemented, is a co-management relationship between government fisheries agencies and this group of ten local cooperatives (Ponce-Diáz et al., 2009), which allows for both local-level and coordinated responses to signs of trouble in the fisheries and environment. The cooperatives of the Pacifico Norte region are organized into a federation which coordinates many marketing and other services, such as resource monitoring and analysis of scientific information and providing advice to government agencies and the cooperatives. The cooperatives’ prosecution of the fisheries is regulated in significant ways, from internal regulations made through general assemblies of all members, to co-management (“co-responsibilidad” or co-responsibility) with government agencies, within the framework of a law governing cooperatives that originates from the same socialist principles that created the ejido system of collective land tenure in Mexico. In 1992, the Pacific Norte cooperatives were granted 20-year, renewable fishery concessions for abalone and lobster. The concessions, which gave the cooperatives and their members exclusive rights of access to those stocks within well-defined territorial boundaries, provide a major incentive for localized resource management, especially for lobster, whose life history better fits the 20-year time span than does that of the longer-lived abalone (Costello and Kaffine, 2008). Concessions come with rules created by the government fisheries agency, but in practice many of them are negotiated with the cooperatives and federation experts; the cooperatives hold significant leverage for political reasons and because the enforcement of these rules depends greatly on the cooperatives. Certain rules governing the concessions derive from top-down mandates, such as closed seasons and quota limits for abalone, which are based on a biomass model used by the fisheries research agency (Muciño-Diaz and Sierra-Rodriguez, 2002). Other rules come about through negotiation with the government, such as when cooperatives argue to shift the date of the open season to be more in line with observed reproductive patterns of lobster. And still others are locally derived, such as choosing to make the size limit for abalone even more stringent than the one recommended by government in order to rebuild abalone populations faster. They have averted the complete fishery failures we see in cases like northern cod, Although decline in abalone populations since the 1960s has been dramatic, the fishery continues, under strict but collaborative management, and appears to be holding its own (Ponce-Diáz et al., 1998), unlike the case for other abalone fisheries in North America, which are commercially and in some cases biologically extinct. The lobster fishery has seen increases in both effort and catches and was awarded certification as a sustainable fishery by the Marine Stewardship Council. In other words, the fisheries of the Pacifico Norte cooperatives appear to be cases of “deviation-mitigation,” or corrective and/or precautionary responses to environmental change.

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The stewardship involved took a long time to develop, however, and was itself the outcome of response to environmental change. In 1982/83 (before the concessions were implemented and before the current orientation towards stewardship within the cooperatives), a major El Niño brought warmer waters through the disruption of local upwelling. This resulted in decline of the kelp that sustains abalone. Combined with already declining catches in prior years, a drastic decline of abalone began. The government fishery agency threatened the cooperatives with complete closure of the lucrative abalone fishery if they did not agree to severe austerity measures. Added to the fact that the government had long sought to gain more control over these lucrative, locally-run export fisheries, the rise of global awareness of El Niño helps explain the response by government. In 1982/83, fears circulated about the actual and predicted catastrophic effects of the most severe El Niño in memory; it made global headlines and was experienced in some developing countries as a sort of Armageddon (Broad et al., 2002). The negotiated outcome of the government ultimatum was that cooperatives took on greater responsibility for sustainable and cooperative management of the fishery in exchange for being allowed to continue fishing but at a lower and more tightly regulated level. In effect, this formed the beginnings of co-management that continues to evolve in these fisheries (Weisman, 2007). El Niños occurred again in the 1990s, and cooperatives had to adjust once again to lean and uncertain times. In each case, when quotas for lucrative, abalone fisheries were severely reduced by government, cooperatives, family members, and anyone living in the communities felt the impact. To help tide families over, the cooperatives took on additional debt and gave credit to members to help them get through the worst times. Community cohesiveness and the degree to which the survival of the cooperatives is connected with the survival of its members made such critical institutional responses possible (Weisman et al., 2007), as did the lucrativeness of the fisheries. Another response by some cooperatives during and after the El Niño events described was diversification to other fisheries, such as finfish, whelk, and more recently sea cucumber and sea urchin, which are sold to Asian markets (Weisman et al., 2007). Diversification to other fisheries was initially thought of as a short-term solution to the problem of economic crisis when abalone became scarce. But, in fact, the cooperatives have come to depend on them, and the finfish fisheries now fill a social niche in many cooperatives, functioning to keep more people gainfully employed than would be otherwise possible, and provide such work at times of year when more lucrative lobster or abalone is out of season and economically leaner times set in. Longer-term effects of those diversifications, as in the case of Fogo Island, are still playing out, but thus far they have not required new sources of capital and new business arrangements. Nor have they yet created differences in social position and income within the communities that may threaten the system itself. However, greater effort in fishing for finfish may have implications for the ecological system, depending on the ecological impacts of the gill net fisheries that appear to have more substantial effects on coral and other structures than the traps used for lobster (Shester, 2008). Regarding the question of identifying what triggers change that can avert fishery crash, in this case the threat of fishery closure in 1982/83 was one of several critical moments in which cooperatives had to reassess what they were doing and consider alternatives. Government intervention was the clear initial impetus for the shifts towards more careful fishing practices and other rules and scientific monitoring, which cooperatives put into

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effect themselves over the following years, with various ups and downs in the process of trying to implement them as well as ongoing debate with government about how much conservation was enough. The willingness of the cooperatives to undertake the costs of carrying out these and other responsibilities aimed at sustainable fisheries can be traced to the incentives provided by the concessions (Costello and Kaffine, 2008), but their ability to do so is very impressive and unusual given the limited intervention of government in many aspects of the cooperatives’ internal operations. The cooperatives have shown strong capacity for both reducing the threat of illegal fishing in the cooperatives’ zones and enforcing the internal rules and standards for work within the cooperatives. The Pacifico Norte cooperatives’ distinction as the only small-scale fishery worldwide to receive certification for a sustainable fishery (for lobster) is another example of their success in responding and adapting to change – not only changes in the environment but also in markets, political climates, and global trends being set by environmental conservation NGOs (Weisman, 2006). In 1999, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) together with a local NGO, Community and Biodiversity (CoBi), initiated a program to use certification as a method of helping small-scale, community-based fisheries receive recognition for and improve their management of local fisheries. The objective was to use certification, or “green marketing,” to help them get financial benefits in exchange for their commitments to practices believed to ensure greater sustainability of fisheries (WWF, 2008). In April 2004, certification for sustainable lobster fishing was granted to nine of the Pacifico Norte cooperatives by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), a non-profit certifying body, and although wholesale prices did not go up markedly, other benefits of eco-certification, including enhanced political capital affecting interactions with government, led the cooperatives to seek and gain renewal (McCay and Weisman, 2007). In sum, many factors contribute to the capacity of the Pacific Norte fishing cooperatives to carry out “deviation-mitigating” actions, which translate into what we would call positive actions for the system, including protection against over-fishing in the case of lobster, and efforts at both protection and restoration in the case of abalone. This comes from and informs the local history of experience with environmental changes, due to both El Niño and overharvesting as well as larger changes in laws and fisheries governance. It is also affected by an immensely productive natural environment that has helped buffer those changes and offered alternative fishery resources that required no major changes in investment or organization (in contrast with the Newfoundland case). The cooperatives also had capacity to respond to such challenges because of their strong structure and the degree to which they are embedded in the local communities, which had been poorly served by state and federal governments and depended on the cooperatives for survival. They had the incentives to respond because of the very high value of the fisheries, as well as a high level of dependence on the resources (which Fogo Island also displays) combined with some measure of autonomy to make and act on important fishery decisions (which Fogo Islanders did not have). Paradoxically, isolation, which accounts in part for the lack of full government service, has also helped the cooperatives avoid overharvesting and fisheries decline. The self-sufficiency of the Pacifico Norte fishing settlements, supported by the cooperatives, has created an ethic of proud autonomy. That in turn has contributed to extraordinary efforts by the

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cooperatives to enforce concession boundaries against outsiders and to maintain discipline within their organizations. Furthermore, the timing of the earlier El Niño events as well as the 1992 concessions was critical, in that fisheries in this region were still in relatively good shape, enabling the cooperatives to make significant investments in monitoring and enforcement when other cooperatives in the region appeared unable to do so, their abalone and lobster fisheries apparently in worse shape by this time. The Pacifico Norte case represents a fishing economy built upon a place-based sense of community – through the cooperatives – that has incorporated what Princen calls “the logic of sufficiency” (Princen, 2005), whereby people embrace, or at least accept, the need to limit what they take, produce, or consume for a more sustainable – and sufficient – way of using nature’s endowments. The system of locally managed fisheries operating within the framework of an otherwise highly centralized federal government regulatory structure also helps explain the timing and quality of responses by the cooperatives to environmental changes. Another factor may be that the high value of the major species involved and the fact that they remained at some level of profitability even at the time of crisis, gives the cooperatives the financial buffer they needed to be able to respond to signs of trouble and change, a condition that may be atypical for small-scale fisheries and for remote coastal communities. However, this system has its vulnerabilities. The concession system marginalizes some people in the communities who are not members of the cooperatives. Membership is limited, especially where the cooperatives have developed policies to stabilize membership; family members are given preference for membership; and women in particular have few work opportunities. The system seems to depend quite heavily on the tight-knit nature of the communities and their isolation, both of which can end very quickly, as is beginning to happen with relaxation of Mexico’s rules against foreign ownership of coastal properties and wakening interest in developing these coasts for tourism as well as salt production. Moreover, a decisive moment looms: the concessions are up for renewal in 2012. Prior to 1992, fishing cooperatives had exclusive rights in another sense, similar to those of landbased ejidos, but as of 1992, neo-liberal policies have opened access to the fisheries to market competition. Private businesses as well as cooperatives may be eligible for concessions. The cooperatives are therefore very aware that concession renewal is not guaranteed, adding considerable insecurity to their property rights, but also creating a motive to strive to maintain a reputation as good stewards and exemplars of “co-responsibility” (Costello and Kaffine, 2008). As in the case of Fogo Island, Newfoundland, outsiders and the “globalization” they represent have been critical to the Pacifico Norte fisheries, helping to provide resources for coping and adaptation. This is clear in the intervention of NGOs to help the cooperatives gain eco-certification for their lobster fisheries. In addition, for many years, scientists from academic and government research institutions have worked with the cooperatives, especially on abalone biology, and they have played important roles from time to time in politics and fisheries management decisions. Regional and international NGOs and wealthy US-based foundations also have been involved. In addition, the decisions of the separate cooperatives and the federation of cooperatives are strongly influenced by standards and norms of international fisheries science through the training of technicians and scientists and the use of particular stock assessment models. Finally, the cooperatives were able to attract scientists, including social scientists, from both the United States and Mexico to

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carry out a large interdisciplinary research project, which is helping efforts towards providing annual reports on and eventual renewal of eco-certification (Shester, 2008) and, it is hoped, concession renewal.

Case Study 3: US Surfclam Fishery Surfclam fisheries of the Mid-Atlantic region are part of the Northeast Continental US LME, an expansive, sloping continental shelf marine system strongly influenced by the Gulf Stream and coastal estuaries and rivers. After at least two decades of stability in terms of management and harvests, surfclam populations are now experiencing serious die-offs, which are being attributed to global warming effects. The US surfclam fishery represents a case of distinct signs of the effects of global warming on marine resources, and one in which the human and institutional components of the system appear on the brink of significant change. Response to the effects of climate change is still in its early stages. It is also different from the two other cases in that access and use rights have been privatized at the level of individuals, and they are fully marketable, unlike the case of concession rights, which are held by the collective organization and are not transferable through market mechanisms. The US surfclam harvesters rely on large vessels, 60–150 feet in length, equipped with hydraulic dredges to harvest surfclams (Spisula solidissima) from the sandy bottom of the continental shelf. The canned and frozen clam products that result from this industry are not high-valued luxury foods as are Mexican lobster and abalone, but the scale of the clam harvests is very large and a great deal of money is at stake in the management of the fishery. Although long situated in certain ports, there are no local communities that are dependent on this fishery; the fishing ports of the region are located within fully gentrified and/or industrialized coastal communities. Harvesters, owners, and processors are spread out over a large area and intersect with numerous place-based communities, no one of which is dependent on this fishery or even fishing in general. But there is a kind of community that arises out of the industry itself, a small, very competitive, but tightly networked one with considerable vertical integration between harvesters and processors. It also arises from long-term involvement in the fishery management system for the region (McCay and Creed, 1990, Creed and McCay, 1996); and from the myriad of relationships engendered by trading within the ITQ system. Unlike the Fogo Island fishers and the Pacifico Norte fishers of Mexico, the surfclam fishers have not formed cooperatives that buy their product and run processing facilities. The surfclam fishery of the northeast region of the United States is much more industrialized and much less connected with local communities than are the other two cases. It is similar to the lobster fishery of the Pacifico Norte case in having been relatively sustainable over a long period of time, in terms of overall landings and harvestable biomass (MAFMC, 2008). This is due partly to the intensive government-directed program of management; this fishery was one of the very first in the United States to be managed after the 200-mile limit was enacted in 1976, and it was the first to have both quota controls and limited access, by the late 1970s. From that point to the present it has been managed through quota limits, plus various effort limitations, and the management rules and landings have been relatively stable in recent decades (MAFMC, undated).

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Whereas the biological dimension of this fishery had been fairly stable until about 1999, its property rights system had gone through dramatic changes. The open access condition changed in 1978, when access was restricted by a moratorium or ban on new vessels and catches were limited by quotas, time limits, and other means. In the late 1990s, the surfclam fishery became the first in US federal waters (outside 3 miles) to be managed with individual transferable quotas (ITQs). Already an industrialized fishery dominated by a few vertically integrated firms, the small owner-operator fleets disappeared very quickly as the harvesting sector consolidated to gain the efficiencies promised by ITQs (McCay and Brandt, 2001). The surfclam resource had increased from lows in the early 1980s to record highs in the late 1990s, and catches were mainly constrained by market limitations. Though it may seem bizarre to outsiders imbued with the notion that fishermen are inherently “risk-prone” rather than “risk-averse” and want the highest allowable catch they can get (Ludwig et al., 1993), almost every year, until about 2000, the surfclam industry asked the regional fishery management council to keep the overall total allowable catches (TACs) considerably below what would be allowed if the biological models were used as strictly to guide quota setting. Given that the clams are long-lived and that the fishery is an ITQ system, keeping the quota low can be seen as a good business decision. Hence, the fishery’s sustainability may also be related to the strong presence of the industry in the management arena, which in the United States is highly participatory, making it open to an industry such as this that is fairly small and able to organize itself to affect management decisions. Consequently, at times the industry has been able to translate the concern about limited markets for product of many of its members into management council decisions to impose lower quotas than what is biologically recommended. Beginning in about 2000, the surfclam fishery began to experience declining catches, as expressed in landings per unit effort and, in particular, what is interpreted as a recent and dramatic die-off of clams in the southern part of their known range, correlated with a rise in sea surface temperatures (Weinberg et al., 2002, Weinberg, 2005). Being so market-oriented, with little evidence left of fishing community allegiance, the industry can and has begun to respond by moving boats closer to the more northern clam beds, and even by shifting where the clams are sent for processing, as predicted in spatial choice economic models (Hicks et al., 2004). But there are other uncertainties beyond the community impacts that such a response to change will create: the market situation and a problem with the distribution of the clams. Surfclams and ocean quahog products – frozen and canned – have global but limited markets, with strong competition. Price is inelastic even as catch efficiencies decline and the costs of fuel, insurance, and other inputs increase. This is forcing out even more of the smaller companies, creating a situation that has prompted calls for addressing a question that was left open when ITQs were legislated in 1990: what is an “excessive share” of the quota? Among the vulnerable in this situation are also those small-holders who opted to remain in the fishery as “sealords,” leasing out their ITQs, but finding it difficult to find lessees or even buyers. The most vulnerable are workers in clam processing plants, the forgotten participants (many of whom are either immigrants from Central America and Southeast Asia or rural African-Americans). As surfclams in the southern part of their range die off and the boats move north, these workers are left behind. A large processing plant in the State of Virginia cut back workers in recent years and finally moved to New England in the spring of 2008, removing one of the last sources of jobs in its rural area.

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The problem of clam distribution is that whereas clams appear to be dying off in the southern part of their range, correlated with a rise in sea surface temperatures – a possible signature of global warming – they do not seem to be increasing in the southern New England parts of their range where temperatures should still favour this bivalve. This is possibly because one of the large submarine canyons of the region serves as an effective barrier to larval transport and successful recruitment (Powell, 2008). Vessels are responding to this state of affairs by focusing on a smaller area for fishing and may be endangering the healthier subpopulations of clams. As of early 2009 the situation has not called for major reassessment of the stocks or changes in the quota (MAFMC, 2008), but industry members, managers, and scientists are concerned, a major stock assessment is underway, and people have begun to talk about adopting temporary or rotating area closures to alleviate pressure on the healthier clam beds. The question is, as it was in the case of northern cod and in the case of abalone, whether a major change will actually take place in managing this fishery – either significant decline of the quota or area-based management, or both – to reduce the risk of unsustainable harvesting, or will the status quo persists? How will the ITQ structure of the surfclam industry and management systems and its history of experiences influence the outcome? Scholarship and experience would suggest that the ITQ system creates incentives to care enough for the future that people will act both privately and collectively to protect the resources involved (Scott, 1993, 1996). A recent worldwide survey suggests that ITQs and similar restricted catch allocation systems are somehow linked to improved stewardship, not just efficiency (Costello and Deacon, 2007; Costello et al., 2008). Indeed, the surfclam industry had formed a committee to explore the situation and alternatives facing it, including creating a self-governed system of rotating closures, following the example of the sea scallop fishery of the region (Valderrama and Anderson, 2005), but to this date (March 2009) had not come to agreement on such a system nor on including such measures in the next formal management plan. Outsider engagement has influenced the surfclam fishery and its options for adapting and responding to environmental change in this as in the other cases. Much wealthier overall than the local industries in the Newfoundland and Mexican cases, the US surfclam industry has not depended on NGOs for assistance. However, during the 1980s, economists who promoted and reviewed ITQs in other countries helped create the surfclam ITQ system (Anderson, 1989a,b). In addition, the surfclam industry established close relationships with academic and government scientists. The industry itself has been able to generate both collective action and financing to address problems and opportunities, and the capacity to do this may be attributed at least partially to incentives created by the market-oriented form of enclosure. With fewer “owners” and clear identification of stakeholders due to ITQs, it has been possible for this industry to present a united front in fisheries management (by meeting early to decide on what they will ask of the management council) and to invest in research, as predicted by fisheries economist A. Scott (1993). Industry-supported research became a priority when evidence was found of a major discrepancy in a key parameter in the stock assessment carried out by government scientists. The industry persuaded a university biologist to help them obtain cooperation from the government fisheries agency to do side-by-side analyses of catchability, which resulted in a major correction in stock assessment (Bochenek et al., 2005; Johnson, 2007).

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Consequently, the surfclam industry is prepared to collaborate with university and government biologists in monitoring effects of warming on the resource and in exploring options for both adapting to and mitigating the effects of observed and anticipated changes. It has the organizational capacity to do this, through a committee created for earlier projects that obtains and manages contributions from industry companies for research projects. The chances are good that the surfclam industry will find a way to adapt to the effects of climate change on the resource, at least in the short term, and thus join the ranks of “deviation-mitigating” fisheries. The wealth of fishery “owners” is not only used to help pay for research but also to explore problems linked to climate change. Indeed, one of the industry leaders has also taken a leadership role in developing offshore wind farms off the New Jersey coast (Fishermen’s Energy www.fishermensenergy.com), an important step towards responding correctively to the larger issue of anthropogenic emissions into the atmosphere.

Conclusion: Enclosures, feedback, and the future The Mexican case and the Newfoundland case represent two faces of place-based or community-based fishing, although many Newfoundland fishers may have found themselves in the position of having to extend their activities far beyond the local territories where they once worked and their communities are undergoing associated changes (Ommer and Team, 2007). Enclosures of different types have played a major role in transitions in fisheries, including the ability to cope with and adapt to global changes in environments and markets. In the Newfoundland case, the key “enclosure” at first was the moratorium on cod fishing, which has been in place since 1992 with only small openings for commercial and subsistence fishing. That has been a failure, or at least a big disappointment, in terms of northern cod recovery. It is possible that the cod fishery will never come close to what it was in the past, given the greater market value of crab and shrimp and the strong cultural claim for early reopening of the cod fisheries (Shelton, 2007). A cod fishery may be sustainable, but at a very low level. Meanwhile the inshore fishers and plant workers are even more vulnerable and resilience is attained mainly through outmigration of the young and able, responding to higher wages in the oil, gas, and mining industries of western Canada. Not mentioned here but extremely important is the enclosure that has occurred through licensing and other policies of the government (Matthews, 1993), including a new policy that encourages the remaining inshore fishing enterprises to “combine,” removing more people from the fishery and therefore from a direct stake in creating a more sustainable future. In the Pacifico Norte case in Mexico, the enclosure that has most transformed the nature of resource use is the concession, which grants to local fishery cooperatives exclusive rights to fish for the most lucrative species, particularly abalone and lobsters, within clearly demarcated areas adjacent to settlements. The concession, to which are attached contractual obligations and the threat of non-renewal, is one of the tools for the development and sustainability of practices that enable both sustainable fishing for lobster and some protection for and restoration of abalone. These include local involvement in monitoring stock status and contributing in other ways to research and knowledge production. A longer

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history of co-management, or what is called there “co-responsibility”, plays a role as well and comes out of earlier efforts to cope with the effects of dramatic environmental changes, the El Niño events. This combination, as well as factors such as isolation and autonomy, contributes to the evident success of the Pacifico Norte cooperatives in achieving certification for sustainable fisheries even in the context of global environmental change and globalized markets. The role of isolation in these accomplishments points to the likely vulnerability of the system to the effects of tourist-led and other coastal development. At the same time, a new Fisheries Law in Mexico may be used to support regional systems of management that may help bolster systems such as that of the Pacifico Norte (Diario Official de la Federación, 2007; Ramirez-Sanchez et al., 2008). In the US surfclam case, enclosure is in the form of quasi-private property rights, or individual transferable quotas, which have intensified the strong market-orientation and may have diminished the place-based community orientation of this fishery, although many owners continue to try to keep local people employed. Those remaining in the industry have strong incentives it seems, to contribute to knowledge production through collaborative research, some of which is totally funded by the industry. They also have the facility to shift their operations to respond to the apparent demise of clams in their southern range. The smaller operations are less able to do so, and all are constrained by market limitations, but the most vulnerable are the processing plant workers. Enclosure and the property rights implied by it are critical to these cases but only part of the story. Knowledge and community are key variables as well. A question that deserves fuller attention is the production and use of knowledge in uncertain, complex, and conflicting situations, which some have identified as the conditions of “post-normal science” (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1993; Tognetti, 1999; Ravetz, 2004) or “wicked problems” (Rittel and Webber, 1973), which call into question the fundamentals of inherited ways of doing things, including fisheries management (Ludwig, 2001). In such conditions, the scope of knowledge producers needs to go beyond professional experts to include non-professional experts such as fishers, fishery workers, and others who have traditional and experiencebased knowledge and wisdom (Power, 2002; Neis and Felt, 2002). Our three cases show much greater integration of non-professional expertise into decision-making in the Mexican and United States cases than in the Newfoundland case. This may be explained by the fact that the scale of the fish stocks in the Newfoundland case is so large compared with the experiential scale of fishers, but it also appears related to the strongly entrenched top-down structure of fisheries management, which has been only modestly altered to incorporate the views of fishers and other stakeholders in recent years. We have used the language of negative and positive feedback, of deviation-amplifying and deviation-mitigating responses to environmental change, in presenting these cases. The critical question is what enables or prompts a switch to the mitigating or conserving strategies. In popular language, we are searching for “tipping points” (Gladwell, 2002), or conditions that lead people who are experiencing hard times to take stock, to learn and explore alternatives, and to make changes that help them adapt to the hard times better by finding ways to cope and to reduce vulnerability to the effects of environmental change. This is what “adaptation” appears to mean in climate change discourse. Diversifying fisheries and other income opportunities is a clear example of adaptation. But they may also be led to make changes that help make the situation better; “mitigation” in climate change discourse.

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The Baja California cooperatives are mitigating the effects of El Niños when they close abalone banks or reduce allowable harvests in those years. If the surfclam fishing industry agrees to a rotational system, it may be able to mitigate, or reduce, the effects of climate warming on the surfclam populations. Making the transition from responses that make matters worse to ones that enable adaptation or mitigation is no small accomplishment. Our cases support those who argue for the importance of some form of “enclosure” or exclusivity of rights to exploit fishery resources, because secure and exclusive rights provide stronger incentives for future-oriented actions than do systems with relatively loose or insecure rights. This has recently been found in a very large-scale survey, where exclusive catch shares have a statistically significant negative correlation with collapsed fish stocks. Our cases add some sense of the range of conditions that may lead to this outcome: not just the market-oriented, privatized ITQs of the surfclam case, but also the community-oriented, exclusive concessions of the Pacifico Norte cooperatives. It is intriguing and it may be telling that in addition, in both these cases, representatives of the fishing industries have argued for stricter measures – closed periods and areas in Mexican case, lower quotas in the US case – than were suggested by government scientists. We could add the Newfoundland inshore fishers from the 1980s, in that many of them were involved in an effort to get the government to reduce allowable catches. However, the big difference is that the Newfoundlanders failed in this quest, forced instead to be involved in continued overfishing when they knew better. The US surfclammers and the Mexican cooperative fishers instead have succeeded, at least at times, and this speaks to a critical factor: power. Simply, the structure of decision-making in the Newfoundland case had no place for the say of the fishers who experienced problems and asked for solutions, whereas in the Pacifico Norte, the cooperatives had long had semi-autonomy and were able to negotiate management agreements with government agencies. Similarly, in the US surfclam case, although the industry groups do not have formal decision-making authority, they do have power within the participatory management system. Consequently, our cases lead us to agree with both those who argue for more exclusive and secure property rights and those who argue for stronger local autonomy and co-management power.

Acknowledgements Support for the research that contributed to this chapter came from the US National Science Foundation (OCE-0410439); the New Jersey Sea Grant Program; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration program for Cooperative Marine Education and Research, in affiliation with the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University; the MidAtlantic Fisheries Management Council; the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; and the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. We acknowledge the generosity and expertise of the many participants in these fisheries and fishery management systems who helped us understand them, but we blame no one but ourselves for misinterpretations of their realities. Finally, we thank Rosemary Ommer and Ian Perry for inviting our participation in the FAO Symposium and we thank them and anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions.

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Conclusions

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Chapter 24

Conclusion Hierarchy, Power, and Potential Regime Shifts in Marine Social-Ecological Systems Rosemary E. Ommer and R. Ian Perry

Abstract This chapter summarizes the message from the book, looking at the multi-dimensionality of marine social-ecological systems and the crucial interdependence and interconnectedness of the ecological and the social in global marine fisheries. It concludes that without clear understanding of this, responsible governance cannot be achieved. Keywords: Marine social-ecological systems, human agency, interconnectedness, adaptations, top-down, bottom-up governance, relationships, multi-dimensional The introductory chapter by Berkes sets the context for this book on world fisheries and social-ecological systems, by examining the interdependence of humans-in-nature. This connectedness, usually unrecognized in the literatures on fisheries governance, poses challenges for the successful management of what are, in fact, complex adaptive systems that operate at a range of scales and involve human agency. That agency is of paramount importance to the effective (or otherwise) outcome of management strategies and policies. This is why, according to Berkes, place-based case studies of local fisheries are vital: local dynamics are vital to successful outcomes. But, since different fisheries in the world are increasingly set within the context of a globalized trade in fish products, and an increasingly globalized catching technology, what the world’s fishing nations need to create is a sensitive interplay between place-based cases and global trends. With that as context and backdrop, this volume focuses for the most part, although not exclusively, on small-scale fisheries. The general findings recorded here identify and discuss the major global changes that face the marine social-ecological systems they examine. In the process, they underline and insist upon the vital importance of interdisciplinary research and social-ecological thinking in coming to grips with issues of scale, climate, power, technology, and the other challenges that face small-scale fisheries from both the perspective of the fish and the fishers. World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Recent thinking about marine ecosystems sees them in terms of top-down and bottomup forcings (Cury et al., 2003). In marine systems, this is energy from the bottom: the climate influences the oceanography, which controls the supply of food energy from phytoplankton to zooplankton to fish. Regime shifts occur because of a change in the relationship of power between different levels (de Young et al., 2008). They are produced by tipping points when a regime becomes unsustainable. There are similarities to human socioeconomic systems here, although (as Berkes warns) we must not fall into the trap of social determinism, human agency being always at play. In human terms, top-down pressures and responses to change are created in the exercise of economic and political (as policy and management) power, while bottom-up responses and pressures are more likely to arise from the need for sustenance at the local level, and the creation of local adaptations to change. The linked social-ecological system then, operates through complex and dynamic responses at many scales, and is thus ever-changing and a major challenge to societies as they seek to maximize product output from marine fisheries, while also attending to the needs of human populations at several scales that depend on and are interdependent with marine ecosystems, also at several scales. The chapters that comprise this volume are the result of scientific (writ large) thinking about the challenge of how to make the world’s social-ecological marine fisheries systems work in such a way as to make fisheries operable at a range of scales. That is why the volume has looked at modeling, knowledge gaps and issues, a range of important values that must be considered if fisheries managers are to achieve “buy-in” from fishers and the industry for their policies and programs, and finally examines governance options under the rubric of socialecological thinking. The interdisciplinary nature of the work is leading edge and can and should set the agenda for the next five years of fisheries analysis and governance thinking. The modeling exercises reported on here speak to major scholarly efforts to come to grips with the challenges of industrial large-scale fisheries where the main human driver has been profit. Whether through sophisticated modeling of northern industrial fisheries or game theory applications of tropical tuna fisheries, the essays by marine scientists and economists in this volume have demonstrated how crucial interdisciplinarity is to the effort to come to grips with difficult issues of industry, profit, management, and governance. There is also new work on how local knowledge might inform such modeling, and a discussion of how to integrate such work in a truly interdisciplinary manner while retaining the modeling methods that throw light on complex systems. One of the challenges faced by managers globally, and one of the reasons why modeling is such an essential methodology in marine policy, is the lack of knowledge of both scientists and managers locally, nationally, and globally: knowledge gaps exist in both parts of the social-ecological marine system. Without knowledge, as Neis points out, we cannot hope for “right action”, and that knowledge stretches from inadequate understanding of the marine ecosystems of the world, to equally inadequate understanding of the things that are crucial to fishers beyond the simplistic notion of profit as the all-important driver. While that is crucial to industrial fisheries, small-scale fisheries are not only economically important in the subsistence or very small business sense. They are also important in other ways, and this volume has pointed not only to knowledge gaps in economics and science, but to a slew of cultural, spiritual, and social values that small-scale fisheries support and enhance over the long term, both in terms of social well-being and that of the ecological habitat of marine fishes.

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Governance, then, is extremely complex. It needs to be place- and society-based, while also responding to industrial (some of this multi-national), national, and global requirements. The accounts of local and national governance models and issues in this book, and the detailed examination of a potential solution through networking and cooperative comanagement arrangements, highlight this point. The range and breadth of the chapters in this volume is unusual, and makes it clear that not all global changes will be negative, that there will be winners and losers. It is also clear that we must always proceed with caution since some industrial development strategies, intended to reduce poverty in fishing communities, may inadvertently undermine their economic basis and make their poverty worse. It also needs to be recognized that “one size does not fit all”, that exposure, susceptibility, and resilience vary immensely, and that one framework and policy response may not apply to all situations. The important question is: How do we develop policies that are flexible and support a wide range of adaptation situations? Fisheries stock assessments have yet to fully integrate the environment, climate change, ecology, and human behavior into their models and management recommendations. This is a critical step in the implementation of sciencebased ecosystem approaches and should be a priority. Thus, continued development of models will remain very important, as will continued synthesis and integration of the work of natural and social scientists. Such inter-disciplinary teams will have to think outside the box of their disciplinary expertise and work together cooperatively, creatively, and imaginatively to address these challenging problems. The book shows that already progress has been made on the social science side of conceptualizing marine ecosystems, and there is a firm foundation for moving ahead on ecosystem approaches to natural marine resource conservation and management now that human beings have been brought into the equation. This book moves us nearer to agreement concerning what we mean by, and how we will formalize and operationalize, such concepts as resiliency, adaptability, flexibility, and capacity. We must, however, always keep in mind that fisheries are a human phenomenon in which human activities interact with natural ecosystems. We should therefore never think of a fishery as just a particular stock in a particular geographic region. Moreover, the politics or political economy of fisheries remains under-developed, particularly with regard to the metropolitan countries while, despite the small size of many fisheries in national economies, they continue to be politically troublesome. Understanding the interests, values, and practices of those involved in fisheries issues from within the broader political economy will be valuable. We need to make sure that government, business, and managers get to experience the sweep of ideas that are contained in this book with its strong insights into the kind of pragmatic policy guidelines in fisheries management practice that are needed to prevent future overfishing, including new guidelines for the application of stock assessment science, which will reduce data errors. We need to work on these ideas with fishers and others in fishing and coastal communities, and others using marine ecosystems, and we should enhance our communication of the significance of global changes on marine ecological systems to the general public. That said, although life is mostly lived locally, we must continue to think globally, while remembering that most fishers’ perspectives are decidedly local, and their lives are embedded in the particular local environment in which they live, upon which they depend, and from which they derive important aspects of their individual and cultural identities. Their long-term and intimate embedding in these environments gives local people insights and specialized knowledge from which the visiting

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expert can always learn. Finally, we must promote international cooperation and support to help humanity face the challenges posed by global change. A coordinated worldwide system to monitor global changes needs much additional development. New conventions may also be needed to help the world’s nations to cooperatively engage in problem solving and coping with global change – in particular as it impacts marine environments. Organizations and programs such as FAO, UNEP, GLOBEC, and others can play important leadership roles to bring about this enhanced international cooperation. Overall, this book has taught us a great deal about the relationships between global (in particular, climate) changes and marine ecosystems, made them more visible, generating models to help us understand and model the future and starting to build humans and social and economic impacts into these models. It begins to provide a common language across disciplines, increasingly more sophisticated conceptual frameworks, with a strong focus on drivers and system dynamics, couplings/interactivities, scale (spatial, temporal, organizational), complexity, coping and adaptation, and governance including considering the contributions of traditional and local knowledge. In terms of gaps and weaknesses, in systems theory there is a tendency towards teleological or circular thinking (are we really getting at cause and effect?), blunt distinctions (i.e., between things that are functional and nonfunctional for systems), stretched concepts (do we really mean the same thing by drivers?), and paradigmatic stasis. Building the social into the ecological requires more than adding on a couple of variables, because social power is multi-dimensional and operates at multiple scales, especially during periods of rapid change. Adaptive co-management works best when it can handle both bottom-up and top-down “drivers” in society, but – as this volume shows – we are still in need of identifying and practicing creative ways of managing articulation points between the local fisher and ecosystem and the national or international drivers of economics, fisheries policies, and sustainable livelihoods. Only when we have come to grips with that problem, and identified positive and balanced ways of dealing with it, will we be able to achieve flexibility in world fisheries management, leading to that productive adaptive capacity, which can enhance ecological wellbeing and human sustainability, and also respond to negative shifts in the ecological part of the social-ecological system as and when these occur. That day is not yet here, but this volume – at the cutting edge of social-ecological fisheries thinking – shows that there is much to encourage policy-makers as they seek to find and employ the kind of balancing act between the many factors that are crucial to the good governance of world fisheries and the social-ecological resilience that such management will bring about.

References Cury, P., Shannon, L. and Shin, Y. -J. (2003) The functioning of marine ecosystems: a fisheries perspective. In: Responsible Fisheries in the Marine Ecosystem (eds M. Sinclair and G. Valdimarsson), CAB International, Wallingford, pp. 103–123. de Young, B., Barange, M., Beaugrand, G. et al. (2008) Regime shifts in marine ecosystems: detection, prediction and management. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 238, 402–409.

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aboriginal groups (of Pacific Northwest), 133, 185–6, 224–7, 229, 232–3, 235, 244, 246 aboriginal leaders, 224 ACIA report (2004), 364, 378 acidification, 129, 139–40, 149, 237, 362–3 activism, 15, 17 adaptation, 44, 48, 53, 128, 141, 143, 149, 165, 188, 311, 386–7, 390, 395, 404–6 to environmental feedback, 260 high-latitude fishing communities, 361, 364, 370, 377 measures, 36, 44 policies for, 10 socio-ecological, 371 strategies, 130 aerial photography, 269 agency, 22, 63, 102, 186, 207, 213, 329, 387–8, 393 human, 23, 403–4 of knowers, 184 Alaska Department of Fish and Game, 367, 370 algal blooms, 140, 237 analysis, 3–4, 8, 10, 12, 16, 20, 23–4, 44, 52, 61–2, 67–8, 72–4, 86, 90–93, 95, 97, 127, 130–132, 142–3, 155–6, 168–9, 170, 173–4, 176–7, 180, 187–8, 192, 207, 213, 216, 249, 266–7, 274, 282, 343–4, 387, 404, Plate 4 affinity, 179 assumption, 108, 110–11 bibliographical, 172, 174, 176 bio-economic, 104 comparative, 101, 174, 176 conjoint, 45 cost/benefit (social), 143, 230, 236 economic, 143, 233 environmental, 268 factor, 47 focus group, 270 FOK-based, 125–8, 131

forced simulations, 39 gap, 174, 177 impact, 159 indicator-based, 34 joint, 126, 163 matrix (structural), 168, 170, 174, 176 multivariate, 45, 47 network, 334, 340–341 social, 334, 340, 344 problems, 180 quantitative, 156, 348 risk, 140, 152 satellite remote sensing, 265, 269–70, 272 scientific, 130, 143 sensitivity, 45, 108, 110–11 social-ecological, 17, 24 statistical, 109 structural, 179 anchovy, 49, 93, 96–7, 111–14, 116, Plate 4, Plate 11 artisanal fisheries, 3, 4, 53, 155, 179, 203, 332, 383 fishers, 126, 228, 310, 315–17 assumption analysis, 108, 110–11 ATLAFCO (Ministerial Conference on Fisheries Cooperation among African States Bordering the Atlantic Ocean), 154–5, 166, 403–4 backcasting, 46–7, 54, 196 Bahía de Amatique, Guatemala, 310 balance, 33, 53, 111–12, 117, 153, 210, 232, 238, 306, 324, 331, 381, 406 checks and, 195 chemical, 141 contribution, 105, 118 energy demands, 36 modeling, 109 payoffs, 80 types of constraints, 84 Bali Strait, 203–7, 209, 212–13, 215, 218

World Fisheries: A Social-Ecological Analysis, First Edition. Edited by Ommer, Perry, Cochrane and Cury. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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banks, 210, 215–16, 369, 396 Bay of Biscay, 6, 90 changes in fisheries operating within, 92–3, 96–102, Plate 4, Plate 5 beam trawling, 354 benthic, 33, 37, 43, 93, 100, 352, 354–6, 382 bequest value, 231–2, 238, 282, 287 biodiversity, 10, 13–16, 18, 37, 123–4, 148, 189, 266, 311, 318, 324 community and, 389 ecosystem, 362 French Biodiversity Institute, 102 loss of, 231 maintenance of, 352 bio-economic, 5, 10, 48–9, 67, 73, 170, 174 biogeochemical cycling, 3 bio-geographic ecotone, 97 biotic-commodification, 227 bioturbation, 355 bonuses, 209 bottom conditions, 125 bottom trawling, 282 bottom up approaches, 312 “drivers”, 406 impacts of climate change, 53 integration, 343 knowledge, 6, 118, 122, 130, 132 linkages, 343 processes, 124 responses, 404 trophic alterations, 130 Buddhism, 235 Buguma Community, 274, 276 Burutu Community, 274–6 bushmeat, 228 buy-out schemes (fishing licenses), 373 California Current Large Marine Ecosystem, 386 Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters, 252–3 cannery(ies), 206, 214, 294–6, 298 capacity, 7, 10, 15–16, 21–2, 34, 44, 49–51, 53, 65–7, 69–72, 74, 84, 94–5, 142, 157, 160, 163–4, 171, 179, 190–191, 193–4, 196, 229, 251, 259, 306, 321, 323, 332, 334, 338–9, 343, 346, 360–361, 367, 369, 372, 375, 382, 389, 393–4, 405 adaptive, xx, 10, 34, 44–7, 53–4, 250, 260, 339, 343, 346–7, 406 carrying, 351, 353, 356 effort, 74, 76, 80 government, 180

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harvesting, 82–3, 87, 196 ideological, 194 national management, 343 productive, xx, 24 cap and trade, 144 capital markets, 144 carbon, 38, 39 carbonate, 37 carbonate, calcium, 141, 363 carbon-based, 141, 144 carbon footprint, 376 carbon free society, 144 carbonic acid, 362 carbon-limited, 144 carbon tax, 144 career changes, 187 Caribbean Fisheries Forum, 346 Caribbean Sea Ecosystem Assessment, 334 case studies, xx, 4–5, 7, 47–8, 52, 101–2, 259, 312, 359–60, 364, 376, 403 cash crop, 152 catch per unit effort, 189 causal relationships, 129, 132 CECAF (Fishery Committee for Eastern Central Atlantic), 154–6 Celtic Sea fishing community, 92 Central Statistical Bureau (BPS Indonesia), 211–12 CESPAGOH (Service Center for Artisanal Fishery in the Gulf of Honduras), 317–19 Chichilniski criterion, 232–3 Chilean fisheries, 6, 168–70, 172–4, 176, 181 Christianity (with respect to destruction of nature), 226, 235 CISP (Italian NGO), 316–17 class(social), 185, 324 climate change, 5, 6, 14, 31–9, 43–6, 48, 51–4, 91–2, 94, 100–101, 120–121, 124, 128, 132, 139–42, 144–9, 183, 191, 227, 230, 232, 236–7, 247–9, 259–61, 355, 361–3, 374–7, 382–3, 391, 394–5, 405–6 biophysical impacts of, 6 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 32 climate variability, 5, 36, 48, 51–2, 61, 109, 164, 335 clusters of minimum knowledge (CMK), 169, 174 coalition, 76, 80, 82, 87, 195 formation of, 80, 87 coastal, xx, 3–8, 15–16, 35, 37–8, 41, 53, 60–61, 63, 67–79, 84, 87, 111, 123–6, 128, 130, 132, 142, 144–6, 152–3, 171–2, 175–6, 178, 184–5, 196, 226–7, 229–30, 250–252, 255, 260–261, 267, 294, 299, 302, 306, 310–11, 314, 317–19, 327–8, 333, 335, 337–9, 341, 347–8, 350,

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Index

355–7, 359–63, 365–9, 371–4, 376, 383–5, 390–391, 395–6, 405, Plate 2 aquifers, 142 bays, 185, 367, 369 estuaries, 391 Coasts Under Stress, 7, 249, 385 Code of Conduct For Responsible Fisheries, 17–18, 311, 313, 318 cod fishery, 252–3, 384, 394 Canadian Northern, 382 cod stocks, Atlantic collapse, 192, 250 co-governance, 196 Colin Clark (fisheries economist), 227 collaborative, 6, 10, 19, 21–2, 128, 132, 181, 183, 186, 195, 211–12, 261, 265, 343, 346, 387, 395 collapse, 14, 16, 91, 93, 95, 182, 184, 192, 196, 233, 250–252, 362–4, 381, 384–5, 396 collective action, 339, 343, 393 co-management (of fisheries), 10, 21–3, 121, 164, 186–9, 327, 329, 339, 387–8, 395–6, 406 commodification, 293 biotic, 227 commodity chain, 312 Common Fisheries Policy, 94 community(ies) based co-management, 331–2 development, 293 maritime, 121, 129 of practice, 21, 343 competing users, 335 complexity, xix, 5, 11, 14, 18–19, 22, 36, 40, 48, 106, 121, 131, 148, 164, 188, 192, 194, 236, 390, 406 conceptual approaches, 112, 120, 129–32 Confucianism, 235 Connectivity, 53, 192, 340 Conservation, 17, 20, 65–6, 123, 130, 147, 188–9, 192, 196, 224, 231, 235, 239, 247, 259, 304, 311–12, 314, 317–18, 329–30, 337, 351–3, 356, 375–6, 389, 405 Alianza Trinacional de ONGs para la Conservación del Golfo de Honduras (TRIGOH: Tri-national Alliance of NGOs for the Conservation of the Gulf of Honduras), 316 Conservation and Management Measures (CMMs), 65–6 Convention for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Cantral Pacific Ocean, 65 FAO Agreement to Promote Compliance With International Conservation and Management Measures by Fishing Vessels on the High Seas, 61

Ommer_bindex.indd 409

409

Fundación para el Ecodesarrollo y la Conservación (FUNDAECO; Foundation for Eco-Development and Conservation), 317 goals, 60 International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), 337–8, 342, 344 Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSFCMA), 304, 306 World Conservation Union (IUCN), 165 Consilience, xix continental shelf, 38, 102, 124, 152, 282, 391, Plate 10 contingent valuation, 231, 236, 285 cooperatives, 312–13, 382, 386–91, 394–6 coping strategies (in fisheries), 247–9, 259–61 coral reefs, 237, 281–7, 334, 337 co-responsibility, 387, 390, 395 corporate memory, 185 corporatization (of fisheries), 247, 249–50, 256 cost/benefit analysis, 143, 230, 236 creationism, 225 credit system, 327 culture, xix, 6, 8, 13, 140, 143, 148, 183–5, 191, 225–6, 229, 235, 266, 306–7, 324, 335, 369, 386, agriculture, 4, 18, 142, 152, 203, 303, 305, 314–15, 338–9, 342, 363, 396 aquaculture, 13, 15–16, 18–19, 32, 48–51, 53, 93, 128, 237, 288, 315 mariculture, 216 monoculture, 16 polyculture, 16 subculture, 17 cutting edge issues, 192 Dab, 99 Daoism, 235 data triangulation, 207 Dawkins (Richard), 229, 235–6 dead zones, 140, 237 debt, 204, 209–10, 215, 217, 388 decentralization (of wealth and power), 15, 18 deep water, 38, 184 corals, 282 fisheries, xx deferred use value, 235 demographic (change), 148, 153, 252 denitrification, 37 deviation amplification, 381, 383–5 deviation mitigation, 381, 387 Dillingham, Alaska, 367–70, 373

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410

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diminishing marginal utility, 275 diminishing returns to scale, 275 discarding (fishery practice), 189, 196, 206, 208–9, 353 disciplinary boundaries, 106, 191 discount rates, 144, 175–6, 178, 218–19, 232–3 disease(s), 15–16, 142, 190, 227, 288, 315 distant-water fishing nation (DWFN), 5–6, 60, 62, 65 diversification, 47, 260, 371, 385–6, 388 divisions of labor, 183 double feedback (within social-ecological systems), 14 drift gillnetting, 316 drivers of change, 7, 9, 11, 14–15, 24, 44, 46–8, 90, 92–3 dynamics, 10, 12, 14, 17, 23, 43, 48, 51, 53, 72, 101, 115–16, 129, 182, 185–6, 194–5, 340, 375, 383, 403 compensatory, 33 competitive, 61 economic, 34, 49 ecosystem, 14, 106 marine ecosystem, 23, 375 Global Ocean Ecosytem Dynamics (GLOBEC) program, 4, 8, 220 hydro, 126 market, 34 population, 65, 90, 109, 384 price, 49 stock, 68, 188 surplus production, 50 system, 110–12, 385, 406 thermo-, 36 trophic, 106 EAF (ecosystem approach to fisheries), 120–121, 130, 132 Eastern Little Tuna, 204 eco-labeling, 15–16 ecological, xix, 4–5, 9–16, 21–24, 32, 35, 39–40, 49, 52–3, 90–92, 101, 120–123, 152, 170, 183, 185, 190, 194, 196, 207, 224, 233, 237, 247, 250, 252–3, 259–60, 268, 270, 275, 288, 293, 297, 299–300, 303, 306, 312–13, 316, 322–3, 328, 331, 334, 337, 340, 343, 356, 363, 369, 385, 388, 404, 406 biological-, 169, 171, 173–4, 176–7, 179–80 cultural, 370 -economic, 92 equilibrium, 50 ethno-, 122 heterogeneity, 187 indicators, 139–40

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macro-, 32–3, 35, 40–41, 53, 97 marine, 360, 363–4, 369, 374–5, 403, 405 ocean-, 363, 368 rent(s), 65 restoration, 233, 235 social-, xix–xx, xxii, 4–7, 9, 11–24, 46, 52, 105–6, 111, 120, 124, 128–30, 182–7, 190–192, 194–6, 220, 247–50, 258–61, 293, 297, 299, 306–7, 314, 318, 334–5, 337, 339–40, 347, 361, 370–372, 376, 381, 383, 403–4, 406 sustainability, xx value (of recreational fisheries), 6, 234, 284 value of social values, 5, 248 ECOST/ISTAM survey, 155 ecosystem approach to fisheries, 105, 110, 120, 322 ecosystem-based management, 319, 321–3, 327–9, 331 marine ecosystem habitat values, 281 modifications, 6 services (estimation of value of), 224–5, 229–30, 234–5, 237, 258–61, 268 eco-theology, 224, 235 efficiency, 42, 147, 155–6, 159, 189, 250, 355, 375, 393 inefficiency, 83 ejido system, 387 El Niño Southern Oscillation, 48, 396 embedded knowledge, 184 Embeddedness, 182, 306 embodied knowledge, 184, 186 emissions, 36, 40, 145, 147–9, 171, 360, 394, Plate 3 employment, 4, 15, 17, 140, 142, 146, 159, 252, 297, 324–5, 328, 337, 366, 372, 375 unemployment, 252, 365 empowerment, 123, 317 enclosure, 250, 260, 262, 381–3, 393–6 end users, 147 environmental change, 4–5, 10–11, 14, 23, 34, 44, 46, 48, 52, 139–40, 148, 189, 191, 268, 352, 362–4, 371, 381–90, 393, 395 environmentalists, 195–6 episteme, 23 equity, 15, 144, 210, 215, 248, 338, 386 ethnic origin, 185 ethno -ichthyology, 123 -oceanography, 6, 119, 121–2, 124, 128–32 European Community, 18, 87 Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), 62, 67–8, 304, 336–7, 375

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Index

USA EEZ regions, 282–4, 286 existence value, 171, 228, 230–231, 234–5, 239, 285 experience-based observation, 385 exploitation, worldwide fisheries, 16, 32, 41, 43, 51–3, 62, 65, 90, 92, 96, 100, 121, 130, 152, 156, 163, 171, 227, 230, 266, 301, 304, 306, 311, 314, 317, 337 externalities, 4, 145, 171, 175, 178, 230 external shocks, 33 extinction, 227–8, 231, 234, 237, 311, 362 fair trade coffee, 313 FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, 17, 311, 318 FAO Compliance Agreement, 61 Feedback, 6, 8, 12–14, 17, 21–2, 49, 120, 122, 130–131, 260, 312, 361, 382–3, 394–5 loops, 14, 16, 260, 340 fish abundance, 7, 53, 351–3 distributions, 5 harvesters, 183, 185, 188, 249, 252–3, 255–6, 258, 260–262 -packing plant, 296 vendors, 17 fisher canoe fishers, 126–7, Plate 7 folk, 17, 24, 335, 339, 341, 343, 345–6 folk organizations, 335, 339, 343, 345–6 fisheries Alaska, 299, 302 bottom-up integration in, 343 Caribbean, 334 Chilean, viii, 168–169 commercial, 91, 100, 189, 227, 293–307, 315, 317, 371 Council, Fisheries Management, 396 -dependant areas, 19, 249, 251, 306, 335, 337, 384–5, 391 eco-system based, 121, 311, 318, 322 European, 187 Indonesia, 213 landings, 91–3, 100–102, 186, 211, 315, 363, 365, 384, 391–2, Plate 4 management, 15, 17, 19, 22, 75–7, 105–6, 112, 155–6, 162–5, 170, 174, 179, 184, 188, 233, 305, 311, 331, 339, 343, 345, 368, 376, 383–5, 390, 393, 406 organizations, 85–6, 346, 364, 376 policies, 364 practices, 6, 405

Ommer_bindex.indd 411

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RED, 317 regimes, 360, 383 science, 10, 120–121, 162–3, 183, 185–8, 192, 335, 344–5, 390 science networks, 187, 341, 343 systems, 359–61, 367, 369, 372, 374–5, 385 fisheries ecosystems, xix fisher’s oceanological knowledge, 120 fishing capacity, 51, 94 -day limits, 83 down the food web, 91, 385 effort, 67–8, 80, 95, 151, 155, 162, 171, 175, 178, 300, 311, 315, 317–18, 356, 363–4, 368–9, 375 license, 189, 257 lobbies, 162 mortality, 40, 43, 53, 79, 83, 86, 90–91, 100–101, 162, 171, 189 safety, 184 strategies, 116, 123, 125, 384 trips, 206 fishmeal, 32, 34, 40, 47–51, 53, 300 fleet separation policy, 255 flexibility, 7, 47, 250, 260–261, 366, 375, 405–6 focus groups, 269–70 Fogo Island, Newfoundland, 383–91 FOK, 120, 124, 126–32 food security, 15, 17, 32, 130, 300, 321, 324, 328, 335, 371, 373 web, 16, 33, 40–41, 53, 90–92, 126, 141, 311, 330–331, 385, Plate 11 footloose capital, 228 Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), 63 frame-based modeling, 6, 105, 112–13, 115 frame switch, 113 French fleets, 91–4, 96, 101–2, Plate 4 Future, xix, 6–8, 31–3, 36–7, 39, 41, 44–7, 51–4, 86, 128, 139, 144, 146, 148, 153, 165, 169, 179–83, 193, 196, 227–8, 230–234, 238, 250–252, 257–8, 335, 352, 355–6, 360–364, 366, 372, 375–6, 383, 393–4, 396, 405–6 Game, 51, 61, 68, 71, 76, 299, 367, 370, Plate 12 bio-economic, 67 dynamic single-season grid, 73 harvesting, 67, 87 model, 60, 66 RMFO-guided seasonal, 70, 72 theoretic, 61, 68 theory, 404 three stage (3 stage), 71

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Game (cont’d) two-coalition, 76, 82 two-fleet interior, 68 GDP, 140, 146, 227–8, 230, 233, 323–4 gear(s), 63, 65, 69, 124, 156, 186, 204–5, 207, 250–251, 253, 260, 282, 298, 300, 337, 347, 367–8, 370, 372, 383 gender, 20, 184–5, 207, 386 GEOND (geoprocessing model), 272–4 Global Circulation Model (also Global Climate Models)(GCM), 31, 34, 36–9, 52 global monitoring system, 360 networks, 183 Global Environmental Facility (GEF, World Bank), 35, 147 Globalization, 10–11, 14–18, 23–4, 251, 335, 390 of trade, 11 golden rules (of the Pacific Northwest), 226 governance, 5–7, 9–13, 16–19, 21–4, 35, 53, 120, 128, 131–2, 148, 155, 164, 168–70, 179–81, 188, 196, 250, 259, 261, 291, 311, 318, 333–5, 337–41, 343–4, 347–8, 381, 389, 403–6 filter, 12–13 Gray literature, 249 Great Lakes fisheries, 230, 233 greenhouse gases (GHG), 140, 142, 144–5, 147–8 gross registered tonnage of fishing vessels, 94–6 groundfish trawl, 255, 262 habitat, 7, 11, 14–15, 23, 68, 122, 126, 129, 192, 229, 236, 282–8, 311, 315, 335, 337, 351–3, 355–6, 369, 386, 404 associated values (of species), 5, 281–7 marine, 5, 7, 23, 281, 282, 285, 287 Haddock, 99 Halibut, 253–5, 257, 385 harvesting power, 250–251 harvest sub-sector, 153 health, 13, 49–50, 141–3, 146, 182–3, 189–95, 234, 236, 309, 337, 363, 382–3 Heimaey, Iceland, 365, 372 hierarchy (theory), 12–13 high-grading, 89, 208–9, 215 high-latitude fishing communities, 359, 364, 373–4 high seas, 5, 60, 62, 66–8, 71, 74–8, 80–85, 87 Hinduism, 235 historical transitions, 293 HIV (among fishers), 15, 17–18, 24 hook and line, 316, 383 household surveys, 268–9, 273 Hubbel and Waller (Seattle company), 296–7, 306–7 human agency, 23

Ommer_bindex.indd 412

Human Development Index, 47 human dimensions, xxii, 305–7 human-environment integration, 11 human-ocean interactions, 7 humans-in-nature, 2, 8, 11–12, 340, 402 Humboldt, 39, 47, 49, Plate 3 Hurricane Katrina, 144, 148 Hydrocarbon, 266, 314–15 Ibiraquera Lagoon (Brazil), 313 ice age, 225, 375 new, 362 iconic species, 285–6 ideology, 194 ILGRA, 164 illegal fishing, 87, 151, 153, 314, 389 IUU (illegal, unreported, unregulated), 6, 203–4, 218 unregulated, unreported, 203 indicator species, 126, 331 indigenous knowledge (for management), 20 individualism, 248, 258–9 individual transferable quotas (ITQ), 250, 331, 381, 392, 395 Indonesia Central Bank (Bank Indonesia), 215–16, 219 industrial coastal communities, 3 inertia (Societal resistance to change), 149 information flow, 131, 142, 260, 345 innovations, 61, 144, 292 inshore fisheries, 384 institutional, 92, 150, 153–4, 159–60, 169–70, 182, 190–194, 204, 293, 299, 305, 331, 335, 340–342, 385–6, 388, 391 arrangements, 21, 35, 334, 338, 348 capacities, 160–162 constraints, 188 context, 92, 94, 96 development, 23 experimentation, 22 foundations, 148 framework, 95, 151, 164–5 inertias, 191 infrastructure, 340 interactions, 23 inter-institutional coordination, 180 interplay, 23 learning, 10, 19, 21 power, 185 priorities, 293 recognition, 6 relationships, 63 structure, 179–81, 194, 383, 387

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Index

values, 193 instrumental role, 163 value, 224, 228, 234 integrated analysis, 90 Integrated Coastal Management (ICM), 311, 317 intensification (of fishing effort), 32, 151 interactions, between fishing and climate, 91 interdisciplinarity, 105, 132, 265, 277, 404 inter-generational fishing, 148, 184 intergovernmental organizations, 338 intermediaries (fish trade), 313–15, 317–19 internal stratification, x, 247, 249, 253 International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas. (ICCAT), 337, 344 international markets, 15, 49, 367 inter-organizational linkages, 339 intrinsic value, 7, 224, 228, 230, 234–5 investment priorities, 144 IPCC, 32–3, 36, 44–7, 140, 359–61, 364 Islam, 226, 235 Isolation, 51, 237, 353, 369–71, 389–90, 395 ITQ system, 250, 323, 365, 372, 391–3 Jainism, 235 Japanese fisheries (in Alaska), 300, 302, 304 Judaism, 226, 235 Jukung, 205 Jurisdictions, 12, 35, 204, 207–8, 211–14, 220, 299, 301, 335, 338–9, 341, 343, 346 Justice, 237 environmental, 312 social, 144, 192, 316 Kasahara and Burke Report, 300–301 knowledge clusters, 177, 180 collaborative, 6, 22, 183 elements, 170–181 matrix, 169, 172 production, 6, 9, 11, 22, 183–4, 187, 191, 194–6, 394–5 transfers (KT), 183, 185 labor force (percentage involved in fishery), 252 landing(s) tax exemption, 203 LANDSAT (satellite system), 268–9 La Niña, 64, 383, 386 large marine ecosystems (LME), 35 larval dispersal, 130, 337 latitudinal analysis of fishing countries, 33 learning by doing, 20–22

Ommer_bindex.indd 413

413

least advanced countries, 152 Lemuru (Sardine species), 204–9, 211–15, 218 lending predatory, 204, 215 rate, 275 schemes, 215 liberalization of trade, 95 line-fishing (in Caribbean), 124 livelihood, xx, 5, 13, 15–19, 32, 48, 53, 140, 184, 189, 219, 270, 309, 315, 317–18, 331, 333–5, 337, 343, 406 liability(ies), 210, 270 local ecological knowledge (LEK), 183, 185–7, 189 elites, 253 knowledge (LK), 20–21, 164, 183, 194–5, 270, 312, 329, 404, 406 in primary data collection, 270 local and traditional knowledge (as qualitative indicators), 19 log books, 208, 219 lunar spawning cycles, 20 Maastricht Treaty, 18 Mackerel, 97, 204, 253, 337, Plate 11 macro-ecological, 32, 40–41, 53, 97 rules, 33 management strategies, 6, 73, 112, 375, 403 mangrove(s) land-cover, 272 products, 271, 275–6 resource, economic value of, 266–74 marine ecosystem stewardship, 23 Marine Protected Areas, 7, 20, 351 Marine Resources Committee, 229 Marine Stewardship Council, 16, 313, 387, 389 market dynamics, 34 matrix analysis, 167, 170, 174, 176 Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY), 73, 311 mechanical harvesting aids, 251 mentorship, 185 Mesoamerican Reef Ecoregion (MAR), 314 meso-scale eddies, 124 migration, 68, 122, 128, 171, 225, 337, 383 capelin, 189 out-, 251, 394 stock, 60 millennium development goals, 17–18, 211–12 Millennium Ecological Assessment, 12, 23 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 24, 45, 231, 234–5, 335 Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (DKP Indonesia), 211–13, 220

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414

Index

Mobility, 15, 17, 121 modeling, v, vii, 5–6, 29, 32, 34, 38–9, 50–52, 54, 101, 105–13, 115, 117–18, 120–121, 163, 183, 195, 268, 404 frame-based, 6, 105, 112–13, 115 modeling (pertaining to interdisciplinary research), 6, 104, 106–7, 109, 111, 117 models coupled physical-biological, 109 monitoring, 7, 10, 15, 21–2, 32, 65, 71, 87, 142, 146, 148, 163, 193, 238, 299–301, 306, 312, 329–32, 353, 360, 372–3, 375–6, 387–8, 390, 394 monoculture, 16 monsoon(s), 204 moratorium, 381, 384–5, 392, 394 MPAs, evaluation of effectiveness, 351–3, 355–7 multi-agency, 207, 213 multi-dimensional, 403, 406 multinational, 3, 60 National Income Accounts, 146 Nature, 4–5, 9, 11–12, 20, 23, 32, 34, 44–5, 52, 59, 141, 143, 179, 193–4, 204, 223–6, 229–30, 234–6, 249, 256, 265, 340, 347, 355, 365–6, 385, 390, 394, 403–4 as the “new poor”, 236 Nauru Agreement, 63 nautical maps, 207 neoclassical economics, 230 nested systems, 12, 52, 54, 249 net income, 210, 217, 268, 272, 275 benefit, 268 from mangrove resources, 268–70, 273, 275 net present value, 216, 232–3 network(s), 21–2, 49, 51, 154, 163, 165, 170, 183–7, 190, 193–5, 236, 306, 312, 334, 339–47, 351–2, 356–7 advice, 154 analysis, 334, 340–341, 344 approach, 334–5, 341 economics, 49 European Network of Excellence for Ocean Ecosystems Analysis, 8 fisheries, 7, 185, 187, 334 fisheries science, 341, 343–4 governance, 340 knowledge, 190, 192, 194, 196 social-ecological, 194 perspective, 7, 343, 346–7 Red, Network of the artisanal fishers of the Guatemalan Caribbean and of Lake Izabal, 309, 314, 316

Ommer_bindex.indd 414

simulated topological, 183, 187, 194 social-ecological, 183, 187, 194 theory, 340–341, 348 New Fisheries Law (Guatemala), 317 Niger Delta, 265–70, 272, 276–7 non-decomposability, 14 non-equilibrium processes, 12 non-linear processes, 14, 249–50 non-market values (of fisheries industries), 248 North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC), 304–5 Northwest passage (opening), 227 Nushagak Bay, 367, 369 Nutrients, 33, 37, 141–2, 171, 356 observer data, 189 occupational health, 183, 194, 262 ocean economy (value of), 143 warming, 33, 130, 362 ocean acidification, 139–40, 237, 363 open access, 82, 89, 91–2, 94, 96–7, 101, 312, 339, 370, 382, 392 option value, 230–231, 238 oral history, 249, 262 otter trawl, 250, 253, 301 Pacifico Norte, Mexico, 382, 386–7, 389–91, 394–6 Pacto de Caballeros, 316–18 paradigm shift, 142, 145–6, 148 parameterization, 36, 53 participatory methodology(ies), 9, 11, 24 patron-client relationship, 206, 209 pay-for-pollution, 11, 14, 128, 147, 305, 310, 314–15, 337, 353 pelagic (recycling), 33, 37 Peruvian fish-meal production, 366 Peter Pan Seafoods, 366, 377 Phronesis, 23 place-based fishing, 10, 12, 16, 23, 306, 311, 346, 390–391, 394–5, 403 management, 311 Plaice-box (fishery case study), 351, 353–5 Plankton, 33, 39, 109, 114, 175, 331 functional types, 38 phytoplankton, 37–8, 41–2, Plate 11 production, 32 zooplankton, 37–8, 404, Plate 11 PNA, 62–8, 71, 76, 80, 87 Pokkali polyculture, 15–16 Policy, xxii, 4, 18, 63–5, 72–4, 76, 80, 84, 86–7, 146, 148–9, 152–4, 162–5, 169, 187, 191, 196, 225,

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Index

236, 238, 255, 262, 298, 331, 333, 337, 340–344, 346–7, 353, 367, 384–5, 394, 404–5 change, 194 choices, 61–2, 66, 72–4, 139 Common Fisheries-, 94 consequences, 60 coordination, 329 designs, 66 dynamic strategic-, 67 fisheries, 17, 61 fleet separation, 255 formation, 294 -makers, 139–42, 145, 148, 152, 162, 183, 195, 288, 343–4, 352, 356, 406 -making, 141, 145, 148, 179, 183 management, 4, 61, 67, 262 measure, 322–3, 328, 332 National Environment Policy Act (NEPA), 303 objectives, 257, 352 options, 46–7, 54, 70, 80 outcomes, 140 performance, 62 preferences, 74 public sector, 7 RFMO, 60, 80, 84 transition(s), 306 variables, 72 Pollack, 93, 99, 285, 302, 329, Plate 4 Pollution, 11, 14, 128, 147, 305, 310, 314–15, 337, 353 population dynamic, 65, 90, 109, 384 poverty index, 203–4, 210, 217–19 Poverty Reduction Strategy (programs), 18 power, 5, 18, 21, 36, 41–2, 53, 65, 82, 94, 113, 146–7, 180, 182–3, 190–191, 194–6, 226, 235, 250–251, 296, 299, 305, 313–14, 318, 323, 338, 342–3, 347, 353, 369, 381, 396, 403–4, 406 predator-prey relationship, 42–3, 171, 186 prey, 33, 43, 90–91, 238, 353–5 biomass, 7, 351, 353, 355–6 privatization of science, 193–4 production primary, 31, 33, 35, 37–44, Plate 3 profit maximization, 51 Project Global, 15, 17 property rights, 7, 47, 227, 380, 382–3, 390, 392, 395–6 secure, 7, 381, 396 prototype, 109–12, 115, 118 psychology, 8

Ommer_bindex.indd 415

415

public good, 193 managers, 155–6, 165 sector policy, 7, 334 qualitative indicators, 19 quantitative modeling, 12, 46, 115, 122, 305 quasi-option value, 231, 238 QUEST_Fish, 30–31, 34–41, 44–9, 51–4, Plate 1 quota(s) fisheries, 227 race for fish, 94 rapid prototyping, vii, 11, 105, 109, 115, 117 recommendations, 44, 156–7, 168, 187, 204, 219, 305, 314, 335, 344, 359–61, 372–3, 405 Red (Network of Artisanal Fishers), 309, 314, 316–19 reef and lagoon tenure, 20 reflexivity, 182, 184, 187, 190, 192, 194 regime shifts, 16, 121, 403–4 regional fisheries management organizations, 346, 364, 376 regional models, 34, 38, 52, 120, 132 regions of freshwater influence, 355 regulated open access, 91–2, 94, 96, 101 regulatory measures, 155, 166 relationships between people and nature, 9, 12, 73, 226 relative poverty, 204, 210, 217 resilience (of ecosystems), 4, 12–13, 16, 19, 24, 100–101, 311, 352, 376, 406 resilience perspective, 12 resource-rich, 3 responses to change, 40, 53, 366, 368, 371, 404 restructuring economic, 203, 219, 259, 385 revenue, 209–10, 216–17, 234, 251, 322, 385 RFMO (regional fisheries management organizations), 60–62, 65, 67–74, 76, 80, 82–4, 86, 376 Rio Dulce-Polochic, 315 Rio Motagua, 315 risk manager, 152 risk-taking, 17 risky, 17 “Roving Bandit” model of resource exploitation, 16–18, 24 Russian fisheries (in Alaska), 303 Sablefish, 255 Sacred, 224, 235 Salience, 187–8

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416

Index

Salinity, 124, 129, 141, 353, 355, 374, 377 Salmon stock decline, 373 salt water intrusion, 142 sampan, 205 sardine, 49, 93, 102, 110–14, 116, 124, 203–6, 209, 213, Plate 4, Plate 11 satellite remote sensing, 265–6, 277 scale, xix–xx, 3–7, 11–14, 18–23, 31–2, 34–41, 45, 47–9, 53–4, 90, 92–3, 96–7, 106, 112, 120–121, 124–7, 129–31, 145, 156, 163, 171, 175–6, 178, 181–2, 184, 187–8, 192, 194–6, 203–6, 208–12, 214–16, 219–21, 230, 237, 249, 265, 267, 275, 283, 285, 306, 310–15, 317–19, 323, 328, 332, 334–5, 337–41, 343, 346, 352, 363, 365, 375–6, 382–7, 389–91, 395–6, 403–4, 406, Plate 7 scarcity, 87, 151, 189, 194–6 scenarios, 36, 38–9, 44–9, 51–3, 130–132, 144, 160, 231, 286, 354–5 science informed policy, 4, 139, 162–4, 323, 343–4, 404 scientific advice, 65, 151–2, 154–61, 163–5, 329–30, 343–4 credentials, 187 integrity, 193 knowledge, 6, 121, 123, 131, 183, 312, 357, 385 sea agitation, 126–7 level rise, 13, 126, 130, 132, 143, 146, 359–64, 366, 368–9, 372–4, Plate 6 urchin(s) fishery, 16, 24, 337, 388 warming (and effects on fish), 97 water cooling, 126 Sealords, 392 Seamounts, 124, 281–7 Seasonality, 33, 206, 382 security food, 15, 17, 32, 130, 300, 322, 324, 328, 335, 371, 373 self-organization, 14, 339, 343, 346, 361 sensitivity analysis, 45, 108, 110–11 sentinel fisheries, 384 separate silos, 4 sequential depletion cycles, 16 serok, 205 shared vision, 107 shellfish, 13, 262, 282 Shiretoko approach, 329, 331–2 peninsula, 329 World Natural Heritage Site Scientific Council, 330

Ommer_bindex.indd 416

Shrimp, 13, 15–16, 18–19, 24, 32, 91, 124, 153, 158, 165, 184, 250, 253–4, 285, 302, 313, 316, 385–6, 394 simulations Monte Carlo, 203–4, 208, 220 slerek (fishing method), 204–6, 209–10, 216–19, Plate 8 “slipper skipper”, 255 small boat harvesters, 184, 252 Small Island Developing States (SIDS), 335 small-scale coastal community(ies), xx fisheries, 3–4, 7, 19, 21, 210, 237, 334–5, 337, 341, 390, 403–4 small-vessel enterprises, 365 fisheries, 372 snowball sampling, 207 social change, 7, 183, 196 -ecological history (of Alaska), 293 interactivity, 182 resilience, 361, 406 systems, 1, 4–12, 14, 16–20, 22–4, 46, 104–5, 111, 118, 124, 128, 183–4, 191, 194–5, 220, 237, 247–9, 334–5, 339, 361, 381, 403 -ecology (of our bodies), 181, 183–4, 190, 196 -economic (status), 35, 53, 61, 155, 265–8, 275, 277–8, 404 engineering, 192 inclusion, 123 infrastructure, 142 justice, 144, 192, 316 management, 7 organization, 19 power, 190–191, 194, 406 values, changes in the fishing life, 7, 247–8, 259, 261, 404 Social Vulnerability Index (SOVI), 143 socio-economic characteristics, 274 sociology of science, 183, 193 Southern Oscillation Index, 209 spatial ownership, 125 spawning zone, 296 species at risk, 3 species shift, 301 spiritual value, 5, 7, 224–9, 231, 234–5, 248 spiritual value of nature, 224–6, 236 stakeholders, 7, 20, 47–8, 106, 110, 120–121, 132, 147, 155, 164, 179, 267, 270, 304, 306–7, 312, 316, 324, 332, 334, 339–40, 342–4, 346, 357, 393, 395 State-and-Transition (approach), 112

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Index

stock assessment science, 186–8, 196, 405 highly migratory, 60–61, 65, 171, 374, 376 recruitment, 68, 70, 73 restoration, 73 stream barricades, 296 Striped Shiner, 231 Sub Regional Fisheries Commission (West Africa), 153–4, 157–8, 161 subsistence fishery, 316, 370, 373 subsystems, biophysical and social, 8–14 Surfclam fishery, 382–3, 391–3 surprise(s), 12, 14, 17, 19–20, 225, 231 survey instrument, community derived, 270–271 sustainability, xx, 5–6, 10, 12, 14–15, 17, 23, 34, 51, 61, 123, 162, 306, 318, 348, 370, 389, 392, 394, 406 systemic responses, 381 system model, 111–13 techne, 22 “techno-hubris”, 192 Tellus Institute, 147 territorial waters, 3 thematic maps, 269–70 thermohaline circulation, 129 third industrial revolution, 144, 148 tipping point (re, global warming), 6, 141, 404 tipping points, 6, 141, 147–8, 395, 404 top-down (knowledge), 6, 119, 122, 130, 132, 188, 312, 342–3, 381, 383, 387, 395, 404, 406 top-down mandates, 387 total economic value, 224–5, 229–35, 237 tourism, 53, 128, 238, 287, 313, 329–30, 333–5, 337, 339, 366, 390 traditional canoe fishing, 125 ecological knowledge (TEK), 121–3, 125–6, 185 fishing communities, 247, 251–2, 256, 258–61 Tragedy of the Commons, 312, 386 Transboundary, 61, 66, 68, 195, 337–9, 346 Transdisciplinarity, 192 transformational technology, 293 transformative, 183–4 triggers, 381, 388 TRIGOH (conservation alliance), 316 trophic interactions, 35, 43 level (of targeted species), 33, 39–42, 91–3, 97, 99–100, Plate 11 trust agreements, 255–6

Ommer_bindex.indd 417

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tsunami, 2004 South-east Asia, 15, 225 Tuna fisheries, 5, 60, 62–3, 65, 341, 345, 404 Turbot, 253, 385 UNCED, 17 Uncertainty, 7, 13–14, 22, 41, 45, 106, 108–9, 121, 123, 129, 139, 148, 164, 192, 194, 196, 203, 207, 215, 218, 231, 238, 252, 260, 351, 356, 360, 363 uncertainty (in fisheries), 13, 22, 45, 121, 123, 129, 192, 203, 215, 356, 360, 363 under-reporting, 203, 219 unemployment, 252, 365 United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement (UNFSA), 61, 375–6 United Nations International Law of the Sea, 306, 310 upwelling, 37–8, 40, 111–14, 124, 152, 206, 386, 388 use values, 230–231, 233, 235, 268, 281–3, 286–8 variability, 13, 39–40, 93, 129, 186, 311, 371, 374–5 climate, 5, 36, 48, 51–2, 61, 105, 109, 164, 335, 359, 365–7, 373, 377 climate driven, 60 inter-annual climate, 36 ecological, 13 marine-ecological, 363 ecosystem, 373 marine-ecosystem, 360, 374, 376 environmental, 85, 109, 364–5 marine-environmental, 364 fisheries, 129 fish stock, 366 flow of resources, 13 inter-annual, 39, 185 natural, 225 short-term, 40 vertical, 38, 323 gradients, 171, 175, 178 integration, 391 levels, 36 linkages, 21, 23, 343 mixing, 33, 38 resolution, 37 stratification, 33 vested interests, 191–2, 194 virtuous behaviour (of fishers), 309, 318 vulnerability, 5, 10, 15–17, 32–4, 44–8, 52–3, 128, 143, 189, 195, 304, 306, 372, 376, 395 indices, 45–6 Walleye Pollock, Plate, 11 warming sea, 6

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Index

Warri (city), 266, 276 wave induced mortality, 356 weak institutions, 338 well-being, 12, 18, 23–4, 67, 73, 190, 306, 319, 363, 404 West African fisheries, 152–3 Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, 65 Whaling, 295, 302–3 Whitemouth croaker, 124 willingness to pay (for ecosystem survival), 231–4, 236, 239, 285

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Wilson, E.O., xix, 236 wind tunneling, 46–7 Wisconsin, Northern Highland Lake District, 14 world model, 108–10 real, 73, 76, 87, 108–11 World War II (WWII), 250, 299–300, 302 World Wildlife Fund (WWF), 165, 389 Yup’ik community, Alaska, 367, 369–70, 373

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