A chain of fools: or, why it is so hard to stop overfishing

Abstract

We fish too much, and by doing so, we threaten marine ecosystems and people's livelihoods. But the curious thing is: we have known this for a long time. Nonetheless, we continue to overfish. How is that possible? Why can we not stop? This paper recounts our search for an answer. We start by giving an overview of how scientists explain overfishing, and suggest that the riddle of its obduracy has not been addressed systematically. We conceptualize overfishing as an unplanned and unintended outcome of a chain of interrelated social and ecological events. We then analyze the chain of events leading to overfishing for two typical cases -the groundfish fishery in the Gulf of Maine and the South African abalone (Haliotis midae, Haliotidae) fishery -and two atypical cases where overfishing has stopped or been substantially reduced -the Patagonian and Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides, Nototheniidae and Dissostichus mawsoni, Nototheniidae) fishery in the Southern Ocean, and the Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua, Gadidae) fishery in the Barents Sea. Studying and comparing these cases reveals no sufficient set of factors to explain the persistence of overfishing. Rather, distinct pathways emerge from a concatenation of proximate and remote factors, leading to and sustaining overfishing. Understanding these pathways and their mechanisms can assist in locating leverage points for intervention aimed to stop overfishing.

The quality of compliance: investigating fishers’ responses towards regulation and authorities

“…Histories of social and political upheavals also teach us that orders that outwardly look stable can be punctured by sudden bursts of non‐compliant behaviour (de Tocqueville [1856]; Mayntz ). It has indeed happened that a fishery that looked outwardly stable and compliant quickly changed into a non‐compliant, unsustainable one (Boonstra and Österblom ). These changes often seem so unexpected, sudden and chaotic because not enough attention is paid to the long‐term and intermediate social mechanisms that produce order (Scott ; p. 38; Elster , p. 150–180; de Tocqueville [1856]).…”

An empirical model of the Baltic Sea reveals the importance of social dynamics for ecological regime shifts

“…Social identity (29), risk aversion (30), and other factors may have contributed to delaying fishers' responses to changing stock levels (31,32). Time spent fishing was therefore treated as a "stock" in the system dynamics sense (33): that is, a quantity that only gradually responds to changes in input.…”

What are the major global threats and impacts in marine environments? Investigating the contours of a shared perception among marine scientists from the bottom-up.

“…However, despite important efforts [10,12,17,3], interdisciplinary research continues to be a challenge. It is certainly hopeful that marine scientists share to a large extent the perception that impacts and threats in marine environments are integrated parts of a large syndrome of global marine change [13,2]. Nevertheless, as our findings indicate, disciplinary boundaries remain clearly distinguishable especially when processes of global marine change are perceived in terms of causes and effects.…”