Neither Fish Nor Fowl: Navigating Motivations for Fisheries Participation and Exit in Sweden

Abstract

Fisheries' supply of ecosystem services depends on recruiting, maintaining and-in cases of overfishing-preventing fishers' participation. Participation is influenced by fishers' levels of job satisfaction and a variety of motivations that cannot be reduced to income size. Previous research on fishers' job satisfaction has applied Maslow's hierarchy of basic, socio-psychological and self-actualization needs. Using these as three categories of co-existing rather than hierarchical needs, we investigate Swedish fishers' motivations for considering fisheries exit. Our results suggest that more than half of fishers are considering exiting and that they identify conflicts with seals (31%), environmental policies (17%) and performance of government agencies (16%) as their main reasons. These motivations, we argue, impact simultaneously basic, socio-psychological and self-actualization needs. Accordingly, fishers' motivations for participation-exit decisions are not solely, and may not be primarily, monetary. A better understanding of fishers' motivations, particularly non-monetary ones, would improve fisheries management.

Sweden’s good fishers: Skills and values in a transforming social-ecological field

“…As Per said, fishers are stubborn and want to fish. They "act" and "struggle" (Bourdieu, 1990: 88) to continue because of the pleasure and satisfaction they experience in their ability to adapt to and overcome obstacles ranging from natural fish stock fluctuations and the depredations of marine wildlife to fisheries management measures that demonstrate an inadequate understanding of coastal fishing's realities (see also Arias Schreiber and Gillette 2021). Contrary to the reductionist model that guides fisheries management policies and environmental activism, fishing itself -skilled performances, creative improvisations, and intimate knowledges of lively local ecologies -drives engagement in coastal fishing (see also Andresen and Højrup 2008;Højrup 1983).…”

“…In the Baltic Sea, where the majority of coastal fishers operate, degraded cod stocks over the last decades have resulted in a cod fishing moratorium that has been operative since 2019. Competition from marine wildlife (seals and cormorants) and direct damage to catches and fishing gears also deeply concern coastal fishers (see Arias Schreiber and Gillette 2021;Svels et al 2019). In addition, dioxin and PCBs in high concentrations contaminate some Baltic Sea commercial species, precluding their use for human consumption and limiting markets (Karl and Ruoff 2007).…”

“…Yet while copious research shows that farming, fishing, and other economic activities are moral and cultural practices dynamically shaped by copractitioners, material and environmental circumstances, and the socio-political regimes in which practitioners are located (e.g., Burton et al 2021: 40-63;Carolan 2020;Cusworth 2020;Gustavsson et al 2017;Højrup 1983;O'Keeffe 2018;Saunders 2016;Sutherland and Calo 2020), reductionist models of commercial fishers continue to dominate policy, environmental activism, and the public imagination. In Sweden, where our study is based, official fisheries and food policies privilege profitability and competitiveness over other values (see Havs-och vattenmyndigheten and Jordbruksverket 2021;Löfven and Bucht 2017; see also Arias Schreiber and Gillette 2021). The scientific research undergirding such policies is exclusively biological and economic (see, e.g., Waldo and Blomquist 2020;Havsoch vattenmyndigheten 2020).…”

“…First, we seek to challenge oversimplified models of fishers and other livelihood actors. Many scholars regard this task as crucial for making progress toward food sustainability (see, e.g., Andresen and Højrup 2008;Arias Schreiber and Gillette 2021;Autzen and Ounanian 2021;Carolan 2020; Saunders 2016) -not least because environmental policy and management that treats fishers and farmers as selfinterested profit-maximisers encourages them to behave in this way (see, e.g., Davis 1991;Nightingale 2013;O'Keeffe 2018). Second, we seek to contribute to reconceptualising the role that material and environmental factors play in shaping what makes the good livelihood actor in "good farmer" research (e.g., Burton et al 2021: 130-152;Sutherland and Calo 2020).…”

Acoustic seal deterrents in mitigation of human–wildlife conflicts in the whitefish fishery of the River Iijoki in the northern Baltic Sea area

“…Socio‐economic impacts include catch loss and damage, damage to gear and indirect costs (Kauppinen et al., 2005; Tixier et al., 2021; Vetemaa et al., 2021). In some regions, fishers perceive growing seal populations as a threat to their income and viability of their profession (Arias Schreiber & Gillette, 2021; Blomquist & Waldo, 2021; Suuronen et al., 2023; Waldo et al., 2020).…”