Communities, knowledge and fisheries of the future

Abstract

The 'human dimension' in fisheries management has historically been incorporated via a specific economic understanding of fisheries wedded to a single-species approach. Meeting the challenge of fisheries, however, will require a broadening of fisheries science towards an ecosystems-based approach. There is also the need for a parallel shift in social science understandings of fishing towards context and interrelationships amongst and between fishermen and fishing communities. While the move towards ecosystems is well underway, a corresponding movement in fisheries social science is less well established. The latter will require a commitment to new sources of data, methods and forms and scales of analysis. Promising initiatives that align with ecosystem-based approaches include the documentation and incorporation of Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK), cooperative research that bridges communicative and epistemological gaps between fishermen and scientists and community-level data collections and analyses emerging from legislative mandates and community-based advocacy. These examples suggest a reorientation of fisheries social science in step with ecosystem approaches.

Improving or overturning the ITQ system? Views of stakeholders in Icelandic fisheries

“…Thus the impetus for enhanced stakeholder involvement in bottom-up strategies has to come from the the stakeholders themselves. Increased stakeholder involvement in numerous fields of fisheries management, such as data gathering, knowledge utilisation, and stock assessment, is advocated by academia (Jentoft and Mikalsen 2014;Rettig et al 1989;Soliman 2014a;St Martin et al 2007) as well as stakeholders themselves (Folke et al 2005). …”

Historical Perspectives and Recent Trends in the Coastal Mozambican Fishery

“…In response, fisheries managers and researchers are calling for more nuanced understandings of the complex historical interactions between fishers and marine systems (Murray et al 2006, St. Martin et al 2007). Developing effective fisheries governance and management responses requires an understanding of social-ecological transformations, including major trends and the suite of behaviors, rationales, and motivations that drive the interactions between fishers and their environments at different scales (Ludwig et al 1993, Ommer 2007.…”

Implementing the Western Gulf of Maine Area Closure: The Role and Perception of Fishers' Ecological Knowledge

“…Johnson and van Densen (2007:834) indicated that direct benefits of cooperative research included "increased quantity and quality of data, inclusion of fishers' knowledge in science and management, improved relevance of research to fisheries management, and reduced costs of science." Recent studies of collaborative research have identified it as a medium for knowledge sharing (St. Martin et al 2007, Johnson 2010, 2011. Seen from this perspective, active and effective collaboration between fishers and scientists in a large part depends on level of social capital, i.e., trust, respect, and network connections, present between the two groups (Williams and Bax 2003).…”

“…Indeed, as Wilson (2005:3) explains, characterizing knowledge as anecdotal does not diminish its validity; it simply describes a particular observation that "cannot be used to characterize phenomena at higher scale levels." Similarly, the qualitative nature of FEK makes its use in quantitative analyses, such as stock assessment, difficult (Pálsson 1998, St. Martin et al 2007). However, there are ways FEK can be incorporated in fisheries management to expand "the basis for interpreting quantitative surveys used in fisheries (Neis et al 1999(Neis et al :1949.…”