Managing overcapacity in small-scale fisheries in Southeast Asia

It is now almost universally accepted that most of the nearshore fisheries in Southeast Asia are overfished. It is also accepted that overcapacity is one of the leading causes of this overfishing. The problem of addressing overcapacity in small-scale fisheries in Southeast Asia is much more complex than that of reducing overcapacity in industrial fleets. In order to manage capacity, managers need to measure and understand how much capacity currently exists in the fishery and what is the desirable level of capacity that best meets the set of management objectives. The only feasible solution to overcapacity may be based on a coordinated and integrated approach involving a mixed strategy of resource management, resource restoration and conservation, livelihoods and economic and community development, and restructured governance arrangements. The reduction of overcapacity implies an increased focus on people-related solutions and on communities.     

Development of small-scale fisheries in Yemen: An exploration

Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world. The development of its fishery sector is increasingly being mentioned as a source of livelihood creation. The aims of this paper are to: (a) provide an overview of the institutional environment in which small-scale fishermen in Yemen operate; (b) investigate the constraints they face; and (c) discuss the potential role that co-operatives could play in such development. Small-scale fisheries in Yemen are increasingly important, yet they struggle with access to infrastructure, markets, and credit. We identify significant differences in the development of the fisheries sector in the two main fishing regions: the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Overall, local capacity within co-operatives needs to be improved and private sector development should be encouraged.     

Capacity and economic efficiency in small-scale fisheries: Evidence from the Mediterranean Sea

To design an effective capacity management plan for small-scale fisheries one must understand what one is measuring and define its capacity. As recognized by some authors, overcapacity is a problem that generally affects small-scale fisheries just as much as it does other types of fishing. This study aims to estimate fishing capacity, technical efficiency, scale efficiency and capacity utilization in a particular small-scale fishery in the Mediterranean, i.e., the Northwest Sardinian fleet in Italy. A non-parametric approach using a data envelopment analysis (DEA) model was applied to a sample of trawls in order to estimate their economic capacity, and related measurements were taken. The capacity and efficiency with reference to two different alternative scenarios were also calculated.     

Corruption and regulatory compliance: Experimental findings from South African small-scale fisheries

Although corruption is often mentioned as an obstacle to fisheries management, its negative effects have seldom been investigated empirically in a systematic manner. This article examines the impact of corruption on regulatory compliance among South African small-scale fishermen. Results from scenario experiments with 181 participants confirm that perceived corruptibility of the enforcing authority corrodes the willingness to comply with regulations. Both grand and petty types of corruption have significant effects. Attitudes related to moral support of the regulations, perceived inclusion in the decision making leading to regulations and an individual record of law breaking all affect the willingness to comply. However, these effects are trumped by the relative size of the negative impact of corruption. These findings underline the importance of curbing corruption involving public officials in the small-scale fisheries sector.     

Subsistence and small-scale fisheries in South Africa: A ten-year review

The Marine Living Resources Act (1998), legally recognised subsistence fishers and made provision for the declaration of coastal areas for their exclusive use. In 2001, a limited commercial fisheries sector was created. These changes indicated government's commitment to addressing the historical marginalisation of small-scale fishers.     

Category, narrative, and value in the governance of small-scale fisheries

Since the 1970s, small-scale fisheries have had an important place in fisheries social science and in fisheries management. While there has been substantial discussion of what constitutes the category of small-scale fisheries, its considerable ambiguity is nevertheless often passed over. This paper argues that while the category of scale fisheries can be best understood in terms of scale, the underlying reason for the power of the category lies in the values of social justice and ecological sustainability that it has come to represent in response to dominant high modern narratives of change. Fisheries governance may better be served by prioritising these values rather than by making a fetish out of small-scale fisheries.     

Time preference of small-scale fishers in open access and traditionally managed reef fisheries

Individuals with high discount rates are likely not partial to conservation because they are unwilling to sacrifice short term benefits for potentially higher gains in the future. Many reef fisheries worldwide are open access, and fishers under open access systems are theorized to discount the future at an infinite rate. In contrast, fishers in a customary managed fishery can be expected to be more long term oriented, and thus possibly have lower discount rates. The present study tests this hypothesis by eliciting the discount rates of fishers in an open access small-scale reef fishery, and compares these rates to those of fishers in a customary managed reef fishery. Results indicate that fishers in both open access and traditionally managed reef fisheries have high annual discount rates that are on average over 200%. Contrary to expectations, fishers under an open access system are not associated with higher discount rates compared to customary management. It also appears that a larger proportion of open access fishers are more long-term oriented than those in the customary managed fishery, which is encouraging for the future conservation and sustainability of open access fisheries resources.     

Building adaptive capacity to climate variability: The case of artisanal fisheries in the estuary of the Patos Lagoon,Brazil

The vulnerabilities of fishing communities to climate and environmental change represent major issues for the governance of fisheries resources which have a direct effect on human security, livelihoods and rights. This paper explores the dynamics of social-ecological systems in the estuary of the Patos Lagoon in southern Brazil. The paper identifies key factors that increase and/or minimize the vulnerabilities of the fishing communities in this lagoon with the objective of understanding: (a) the degree to which fishing communities are able to build adaptive and learning capacities to minimize/reduce vulnerabilities and maintain their livelihoods; and (b) how and under what circumstances external and internal factors may influence and disrupt the social-ecological resilience in this lagoon system. Results show that fishing communities with a higher degree of self-organization are able to create ways to minimize their vulnerability to adverse climatic conditions. However, only a few communities have developed adaptive mechanisms to cope with the influence of climate on resource abundance and availability. Little external institutional support for small-scale fishing communities, erosion of their traditional resource use systems and decreasing fish stocks in recent decades have all led to a gradual increase in the vulnerability of fishing livelihoods in this lagoon. The uncertainties associated with climate are related to increasing vulnerability and influence the degree of resource conservation and exploitation. The lack of public policies to deal with the impact of climate variability on the livelihoods of fishing communities and the presence of weak institutions in resource governance represent major threats to the social security of fishers in this region.     

Foregone harvests and neoliberal policies: Creating opportunities for rural,small-scale,community-based fisheries in southern Alaskan coastal villages

Neoliberal policies of effort limitation and privatization have reduced commercial salmon and other fishing opportunities available to the coastal, predominantly Alaska Native, villages of southern Alaska. However, there are a variety of circumstances, including the manner in which the current commercial fishery is prosecuted, that lead to surpluses of unharvested salmon, and potentially other species, available in certain areas. This paper will define the concept of “foregone harvests”, discuss the environmental and managerial conditions that lead to “foregone harvests” and describe the possibilities such conditions create for the development of small-scale, local and community-based fisheries. Case studies of possible Huna Tlingit (Hoonah) and Kaigani Haida (Hydaburg) salmon fisheries will be presented. Alternative arrangements of salmon fisheries and institutions in southeast Alaska are presented through case studies of the villages of Yakutat and Metlakatla. These examples demonstrate how such fisheries could be built on local and traditional knowledge, as well as currently used subsistence technologies resulting in new economic opportunities compatible with local cultural patterns and interests and buttressing local identities and commitments.     

Community involvement in fisheries management: Experiences in the Gulf of Thailand countries

This paper examines the involvement of coastal communities in fisheries management among the countries of the Gulf of Thailand—Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. Initiatives to decentralize management to local governing bodies, to utilize traditional management methods and to engage in community agreements to protect local resources are explored. An examination of recent experiences indicates some movement toward more local involvement in management. However, the study also leads to several suggestions for the future: in Vietnam and Cambodia, there is a need for significant legislation to control fisheries operations and greater clarity of the role of communities in management; in Malaysia, there is an overall need for more support to local fisheries management; and in Thailand, the need is for greater support of local-level enforcement and monitoring activities.     

Property relations and the co-management of small-scale fisheries in Costa Rica: Lessons from Marine Areas for Responsible Fishing in the Gulf of Nicoya

Marine fisheries in Costa Rica have become characterized by overexploitation, ineffective centralized management and increased conflict among fishing sectors. Despite high economic and socio-cultural importance of small-scale fisheries, no formal mechanisms existed until recently to facilitate the participation of fishers in management. Marine Areas for Responsible Fishing (Áreas Marinas para la Pesca Responsable, AMPR) were legally recognized in 2009 as a co-management approach, enabling the designation of spatial management areas to be implemented collaboratively by artisanal fishers and government agencies. In this paper, we examine property and access relations shaping this emerging participatory management model using case studies primarily from the Gulf of Nicoya region. The policy demonstrably improves upon some aspects of management, for instance, by allowing artisanal fishers to determine gear restrictions within designated areas. However, the model lacks other attributes of more successful co-management scenarios, particularly exclusive access. The fugitive nature of resources further complicates property relations over these fisheries. The cases explored also illustrate broader institutional and systemic issues that preclude effective participatory management. Lessons from the region are used to propose significant shifts to the management of small-scale fisheries in Costa Rica.     

Destructive gear use in a tropical fishery: Institutional factors influencing the willingness-and capacity to change

The aim of this study was to empirically assess institutional aspects shaping fishers’ behavior leading to unsustainable resource use, by using the example of destructive drag-net fishing in Zanzibar, Tanzania. A broad institutional approach was used to specifically assess institutional factors influencing the fishers’ reasons for the current use of destructive drag-nets as well as their willingness- and economic capacity to change to less destructive gears. Different regulative, normative, cultural-cognitive and economic factors (tradition, group-belonging, social acceptance, common practice, identity of drag-net users and weak economic capacity) were identified as critical elements influencing the current use of destructive gears, as well as obstructing changes to other gears. Hence, the importance of addressing all of these factors, matching to the different contexts, rather than focusing on fast-moving regulative measures, is emphasized to increase chances of management success. More promising approaches would be resource allocations to more sustainable fishing gears, well-managed gear exchange programs, as well as alterations of slow-moving normative and cultural factors, e.g. awareness raising on the advantages of more sustainable fishing gears, their traditional and cultural values, information on the actual income they generate, as well as education and an exchange of traditional knowledge on how to use them.     

Knowledge gaps in tropical Southeast Asian seagrass systems

Seagrasses are habitats with significant ecological and economic functions but we have limited knowledge of seagrasses in Southeast Asia, the hypothesized centre-of-origin for tropical seagrasses. There have been only 62 ISI-cited publications on the seagrasses of Southeast Asia in the last three decades and most work has been in few sites such as Northwest Luzon in the Philippines and South Sulawesi in Indonesia. Our understanding of the processes driving spatial and temporal distributions of seagrass species here has focussed primarily on backreef and estuarine seagrass meadows, with little work on forereef systems. We used Pulau Tinggi, an island off the southeast coast of Peninsular Malaysia, as an example of a subtidal forereef system. It is characterized by a community of small and fast growing species such as Halophila ovalis (mean shoot density 1454.6 ± 145.1 m⁻²) and Halodule uninervis (mean shoot density 861.7 ± 372.0 m⁻²) growing in relatively low light conditions (mean PAR 162.1 ± 35.0 μmol m⁻² s⁻¹ at 10 m depth to 405.8 ± 99.0 μmol m⁻² s⁻¹ at 3 m water depth) on sediment with low carbonate (mean 9.24 ± 1.74 percentage dry weight), organic matter (mean 2.56 ± 0.35 percentage dry weight) and silt-clay content (mean 2.28 ± 2.43 percentage dry weight). The literature reveals that there is a range of drivers operating in Southeast Asian seagrass systems and we suggest that this is because there are various types of seagrass habitats in this region, i.e. backreef, forereef and estuary, each of which has site characteristics and ecological drivers unique to it. Based on our case study of Pulau Tinggi, we suggest that seagrasses in forereef systems are more widespread in Southeast Asia than is reflected in the literature and that they are likely to be driven by recurring disturbance events such as monsoons, sediment burial and herbivory.     

Managing fishing capacity in tuna regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs): Development and state of the art

Overcapacity is a major threat to the sustainability of tuna resources. Diverse actions are being carried out by tuna RFMOs to counteract this problem. This paper reviews and analyses both the historical development of fishing capacity management in tuna RFMOs and their state of the art practices. Despite the fact, that thus far, management measures have not yielded the expected results for capacity reduction, they provide a good basis for improved management of capacity at regional and global levels.     

Status,trends and challenges in the sustainability of small-scale fisheries in the Philippines: Insights from FISHDA (Fishing Industries' Support in Handling Decisions Application) model

Managing small-scale fisheries in a developing country like the Philippines is very challenging because of high pressures from expanding fishing population, poverty and lack of alternative options. Thus, resource-focused fisheries management initiatives such as marine protected area (MPA) establishment will likely result in further marginalization of the poor fishers which could pose more serious problems in coastal communities. In this study, the status of small-scale fisheries in 44 coastal towns in the Philippines was assessed using FISHDA (Fishing Industries' Support in Handling Decisions Application), a simple decision support tool which requires minimal or easily-generated data. Results showed that 68% (30 out of 44) of the studied towns have unsustainable fisheries unless 58% of their fishing grounds are protected from all fishing activities. Alternatively, 53% of the active fishers in towns with unsustainable fisheries must totally stop fishing to avert fishery collapse. Alarming as it may sound, this is still an underestimate as catches incurred by the highly efficient and destructive illegal fishing activities such as blast, poison and large-scale fishing, which are reported to be still rampant in many coastal areas in the Philippines, were not accounted for in this study. This study demonstrated that MPAs alone may not be enough to avert fishery collapse even if MPA size is increased from the current 3% to 15% of the municipal waters, i.e. up to 15 km from the shore, as required by the Philippine law. Various challenges confronting the fishery and important recommendations to address them are further discussed.     

Private provision of public information in tuna fisheries

Private enumeration of landings data and traceability is an emerging phenomena in developing world tuna fisheries. The general goal of these systems is to facilitate compliance with mandatory market requirements such as the European Union’s Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fisheries regulation, as well as support aspirations for voluntary requirements such as the Marine Stewardship Council. The long-term success of these systems appears to be dependent on their ability to complement and extend government data and information systems. Developing and maintaining the credibility of these voluntary private enumeration and traceability systems requires strong market incentives as well as strong state support and assurance. If this credibility can be maintained private fisheries information systems may provide a promising basis for innovative stock assessment and management approaches relevant for complex developing world fisheries such as tuna.     

Ecosystem-based fisheries management in small-scale tropical marine fisheries: Emerging models of governance arrangements in the Philippines

There has been a gradual evolution in fisheries management over the past decades from a focus on sustainability of a single species or stock and resources to a focus on marine ecosystems. Among the issues to be addressed for effective implementation of ecosystem based fisheries management (EBFM) are the appropriate governance arrangements and scale for management. The purpose of this paper is to examine these issues of governance and scale as related to EBFM in tropical developing countries through an analysis of approaches being taken in the Philippines to manage fisheries on a multi-jurisdictional level. The management of fisheries and coastal resources in a number of bays and gulfs, which represent marine ecosystems, is presented. The opportunities and constraints to ecosystem based fisheries management in the Philippines are discussed and lessons for broader application of these governance structures in tropical developing country marine ecosystems are presented.     

Participatory practices in fisheries across Europe: Making stakeholders more responsible

Drawing on an EU-funded project titled “Sharing responsibilities in fisheries management” this paper assesses the institutional landscape of fisheries management in a number of European countries, with a particular emphasis on stakeholder involvement in regulatory decision-making. What are their roles and responsibilities in the chain of governance? What are the specific characteristics of each country, and what is similar and what is different as compared with other sectors? Although there is a move towards devolvement and decentralisation in some European countries, there is quite an ambivalence regarding such reforms in other countries. These differences in stakeholder involvement are partly a result of institutional traditions within each country, but also a reflection of how management authorities struggle with the dilemmas pertaining to such reforms of participatory practices. Thus, we argue that even within a reformed fisheries management system that allows greater participation of stakeholder groups, there can hardly be one European model that fits all.     

Small-scale fisheries and food security strategies in countries in the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem (BCLME) region: Angola,Namibia and South Africa

This paper provides an overview of the small-scale fisheries sector in countries within the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem (BCLME), one of the most productive large marine ecosystems in the world. The study revealed that Angola, Namibia and South Africa have very different legal and policy frameworks, show different levels of compliance with international and regional agreements to protect the livelihoods and food security of small-scale fishers, as well as of integration of fisheries into food security objectives. Angolan law recognises and protects small-scale fishers through legal and institutional mechanisms. In Namibia, this sector of fishers is not legally recognised, while in South Africa traditional fishers have been largely excluded from the new fisheries management framework. Trends in national and regional fish consumption and in the extent of export orientation in fisheries are explored, as well as the potential threats to small-scale producers and food security in the region posed by ongoing drives to incorporate fisheries in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements.