“Little kings”: community, change and conflict in Icelandic fisheries

Abstract

Scholars of political ecology have long been interested in questions of access, equity, and power in environmental management. This paper explores these domains by examining lived experiences and daily realities in Iceland's fishing communities, 30 years after the implementation of a national privatized Individual Transferrable Quota (ITQ) fisheries management system. Drawing upon ethnographic data collected over 2 years in the rural coastal communities of Northwest Iceland, we address three questions; 1) How the ITQ system relates to other complex social and environmental factors facing coastal communities today. 2) How attempts to alleviate negative impacts of the ITQ system have led to new rifts in communities and 3) how the decision-making power of a few dominant interest groups in national politics leaves small-boat fishermen and rural communities at a disadvantage. In the words of our study participants, the Icelandic fisheries management scheme has created "little kings" in rural communities, where each little king acts in his own best interest, yet has no recourse to collective power and no platform to influence national politics. In this volatile political situation with cross-scale implications, it is difficult for fishermen, their families, and community members to imagine ways in which power over and access to the fisheries resource can be redistributed.

Moving beyond panaceas in fisheries governance

“…In fisheries, this allows influential fishers to limit competition via governance systems (26,74). It is a direct contravention of the theoretical logic of ITQs and ensures that any potential benefits in the form of increased efficiency through competition may be lost due to a combination of monopsony power in the market for quota and capture of political rents from the ITQ system (75)(76)(77)(78)(79)(80)(81). Furthermore, by "locking-in" overly simple ITQs via regulatory capture, power disconnects reduce flexibility in the long-run, thereby increasing systemic vulnerability (44,82,83).…”

Existential fisheries dependence: Remaining on the map through fishing

“…There is increasing attention to the impact on rural communities in situations of privatisation and/or commodification (Carothers ; Chambers et al ; Dobeson ; Ringer et al . ).…”

“…There is increasing attention to the impact on rural communities in situations of privatisation and/or commodification (Carothers 2015;Chambers et al 2017;Dobeson 2018;Ringer et al 2018). Under catch share systems, small peripheral communities lose their comparative advantage of geography since boats do not need to be positioned as closely to the resource in a situation of pre-assigned catch (Eythórsson 1996(Eythórsson , 2000Foley et al 2015;Foley and Mather 2018).…”

Nordic fisheries at a crossroad

“…In response to lengthy debates about fairness of the initial allocations and the subsequent closure of access for newcomers, a new quota system, the strandveiðar, was introduced in 2009. Even though it is only a summer fishery it is a new entrance point to fisheries and allows operators a range of daily catches in the summer months (Chambers, Helgadóttir, & Carothers, 2017). In 2016, almost 600 vessels took part in the new coastal fishery.…”