Microeconomic relationships between and among fishers and traders influence the ability to respond to social-ecological changes in a small-scale fishery

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Understanding the cross-scale nature of how natural resource trading links to local extraction patterns remains a topic of great relevance to stewardship and sustainable use of ecological systems. Microeconomic influences on a society's pattern of smallscale natural resources utilization can exacerbate resource overuse, especially under increased population pressure. In many rural communities that are based on a limited diversity of resource industries, quantifying the response of extractors and traders to market and environmental fluctuations is critical to understanding management constraints. We examine the fishing practices of a small lake in Uganda, East Africa, from the dual perspectives of the traders and the fishers using a Bayesian Belief Network approach based on detailed interview surveys. Fishers in this small lake target Nile perch (Lates niloticus) and Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), two fish species of high commercial and food security significance in East Africa. We combined data on financial, social, and ecological systems to understand how aspects of trading quantitatively relate to fish extraction patterns in Lake Nabugabo Uganda. Importantly, we find that the patron-client type relationships generate incentives to extract specific fish, whereas "freelancer" independent fishers are able to create responsive and flexible extraction practices that match market and environmental fluctuations. Management of fishing administered by local Beach Management Units will likely have a higher probability of success when in synchrony with trading relationships and ecological dynamics. We use this study in Uganda to reflect on methodological challenges and opportunities of combining multiple types of data sets for cross-scale analysis of social-ecological system dynamics.

An Experimental Approach to Exploring Market Responses in Small-Scale Fishing Communities

“…Outcomes of global markets are filtered by context specific conditions at the local fishery scale (Crona et al, 2016). However, conventional fishery management often simplifies or ignores this, especially the complex power relations intertwined with fishing capital access, local fish trading agreements, and market pressures that impact fisher's extraction (Kininmonth et al, 2017). Our somewhat unexpected findings are important as they highlight gaps in our understanding of human behavior in the fishery context, and illustrates that "conventional truths" of fishers' responses perpetuated in scholarly fields may need to be challenged in order to achieve truly sustainable governance strategies.…”

“…This paper aims to shed new light on the complex causality between international seafood trade and local fishing and loaning behavior by making use of experimental methods. We believe this provides a novel addition to SSF scholars struggling to understand these complex dynamics, but also provides knowledge on fisher and patron responses to market fluctuations, to better inform attempts to develop sustainable fishery governance interventions, as noted by Kininmonth et al (2017).…”

“…Contrary to theoretical approaches that assume "rational actors, " behavioral economic experiments can capture the bounded rationality of decision makers and test the influence of a particular variable (such as price), while accounting for other factors (such as gear type, gender norms, risk attitudes, and household funds or assets owned), which have all been argued as potentially important in determining fishers' financial and extractive decisions (Platteau, 1989;Eggert and Lokina, 2007;Fabinyi, 2007;Croson and Gneezy, 2009;Ruddle, 2011;Charness and Gneezy, 2012;Miñarro et al, 2016;Kininmonth et al, 2017). Yet, despite the promise of behavioral economic experiments to understand complex social-ecological causality, the SSF literature has, to date, been dominated by a "rational actor" model of decision-making (Fulton et al, 2011).…”

Analysis of fish market chain for Lake Zeway, Central Ethiopia

“…Fishers in the study area do not depend on one buyer since inability to store their fish makes them create relationships with several buyers. Hence, fishers in Lake Zeway can be called freelancers (Crona and Bodin, 2010;Kininmonth et al, 2017) because they do not depend on a single buyer.…”

From typhoons to traders: the role of patron-client relations in mediating fishery responses to natural disasters

“…Patron-client relationships are an example of such an internal dynamic which strongly influences the organization of market interactions, with far-reaching effects at individual and systems levels alike [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. These relations represent largely informal institutions [8], and are pervasive in rural economies worldwide [4,[9][10][11], including many tropical SSF [12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”