Emerging customs: Small-scale fishing practices in Aceh,Indonesia

Off the western coast of Sumatra among the islands of Pulau Banyak, fishing is the primary occupation for the men of Haloban. They are self-described “traditional” fishers, using low-tech gear and small boats to catch fish, octopus, lobster, and other sealife in the nearby coral reefs and mangroves. Women also regularly venture out into the deep mud of the mangroves to collect clams. Their efforts to extract livelihoods and subsistence from the reefs take place in an open-access commons with few formal institutions or enforcement mechanisms to regulate resource use. While explicit regulations and customary limitations on fishing in the coral reef commons are lacking, Haloban fishers improvise some common etiquette and practices that are adaptable to the shifting context.This case study presents Haloban fishers' use of the commons as situated practices, unarticulated and embedded within a complex social–ecological system. These practices reflect fishers' understanding of, and relationship with, their environment, and may represent a nascent form of local “rules-in-use”, informing behavior without direct social mechanisms for enforcement. This paper presents research collected using ethnographic methods, including participant observation at sea. As NGOs and government agencies work to craft management plans that share use of the reefs with tourism and conservation, a better understanding of actual resource use and fishing practice may inform more nuanced, adaptable, and truly “local” community-based management.     

Ecologically Sustainable Fishing in Theory and Practice: Individual transferable quotas in Australia's South East Fishery

In 1988, responding to international legislation that requires sustainable fishery management, the Australian Fishery Management Authority (AFMA) implemented an individual transferable quota (ITQ) management system to address the environmental crisis in the South East Fishery. Defining sustainability in its broadest context to include social as well as economic and ecological dimensions, this paper firstly describes the environmental crisis and the South East Fishery's ITQ management system. Secondly, Christy's (1973) paper is employed as a catalyst to compare the theoretical socio-economic outcomes with the actual operation of ITQs. The brief South East Fishery experience suggests that the logic behind ITQs is correct. Production has become reorganised. Operators are not only fewer, but also embrace professionalism, quality, efficiency, and the operation of the free market within the industry. However, because of the local idiosyncrasies of this multi-species fishery, the legislation over territorial waters, and the absence of alternative employment, fishers have adopted non-quota fishing techniques and entered seas under New South Wales jurisdiction. Without a social re-adjustment policy or buy-out scheme, the AFMA's objective of ecologically sustainable development cannot be attained.     

Fishing in the Amazonian Forest: A Gendered Social Network Puzzle

We employ social network analysis (SNA) to describe the structure of subsistence fishing social networks and to explore the relation between fishers’ emic perceptions of fishing expertise and their position in networks. Participant observation and quantitative methods were employed among the Tsimane’ Amerindians of the Bolivian Amazon. A multiple-regression quadratic assignment procedure was used to explore the extent to which gender, kinship, and age homophilies influence the formation of fishing networks. Logistic regressions were performed to determine the association between fishers’ expertise, their sociodemographic identities, and network centrality. We found that fishing networks are gendered and that there is a positive association between fishers’ expertise and centrality in networks, an association that is more striking for women than for men. We propose that a social network perspective broadens understanding of the relations that shape the intracultural distribution of fishing expertise, as well as natural resource access and use.     

Sustainable Utilisation of Fisheries as Governmentality: Constraining the Potential for Ecosystems‐Based Management?

This paper examines the constitution of ‘sustainable management’ within the context of the New Zealand marine environment. Firstly this paper examines the difference between ‘sustainable ecosystems’ and ‘sustainable utilisation’. The distinction is important if we are to make sense of the different ways in which various stakeholders (fishers, fisheries companies, scientists, fisheries managers and environmental groups) use ‘sustainability’ in the management of New Zealand's marine environment. We then examine how contestation results in sustainable management becoming a governmentality. We propose that such contestation transforms stakeholders into subjects whose everyday practices and relationships are influenced by seemingly incommensurable understandings of the lexicon that surrounds sustainable management. We conclude try considering how the potential revelation of new unknowns may be needed in order for disparate stakeholders to forge a unified approach to New Zealand's marine management.     

Progress in the Research on Benefit-sharing and Ecological Compensation Mechanisms for Transboundary Rivers

Transboundary rivers have important geopolitical and geo-economic connotations, but riparian states of transboundary rivers are often driven by their own rapid population growth and economic development to be-come involved in regional conflicts about the development and use of water resources. Therefore, finding a balance between the need for fair and reasonable development of water resources and the effective protection of environment from an ecological perspective has become a major problem faced by the international community. This paper begins with consideration of international water laws related to transboundary rivers and then reviews advances in the research on benefit-sharing, ecological compensation mechanisms, and adaptive management systems. We believe that existing international water laws form a complete legal system and that more attention needs to be paid to transboundary cooperation and sustainable water resource use. With respect to how transboundary water conflicts are resolved, there is a trend to move away from single water resource allocation (a zero-sum game) to benefit-sharing in order to achieve a win-win situation for riparian states, but there are still some difficulties in transboundary ecological compensation. In China, the central government has paid attention to horizontal ecological compensation between upstream and downstream, offering guidance to promote establishment of inter-province ecological compensation. Based on existing practice, horizontal ecological compensations are still in their infancy, small in scale, supported by a weak legal system, lacking market mechanisms to encourage their use and relying on fiscal transfers as the method of payment. In the future, China will need to intensify its research on legal system development, international cooperation, and benefit-sharing as these impact transboundary water resources. Because government can be seen as a management department with multiple identities (enabler, regulator and buyer), to improve adaptive transboundary ecological compensation mechanisms, government must develop as soon as possible data sharing platforms, standards of water consumption behaviors and intergovernmental policies (or ordinances).     

中国内陆河流域尺度的水资源利用率提高研究--黑河流域水-生态-经济管理试验示范

水资源是人类生存和社会发展中最重要的成分，中国内陆河的可持续发展所面临的生态问题源自有限的水资源和高的人口压力这两个方面的不协调。通过总结“黑河流域水-生态-经济系统试验示范研究”项目近几年在涵养水源、绿洲尺度的水利用率提高和流域水-生态-经济系统中的水资源配置的部分试验成果和研究进展，以实际事例展示了在流域尺度上提高水资源利用率的可行性和潜力。加强基础研究、引入“虚拟水”等创新意识、通过专家和管理层的结合可进一步提高流域水资源利用率。     

Sustainability Through an Alternative Property‐Rights Regime for Bangladesh's Mangrove Forest

This study examines the challenges of achieving sustainable management of the world's largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, in Bangladesh. The Sundarbans is currently managed by the Bangladesh Department of Forest, under a state property‐rights regime, while our study explores an alternative property‐rights regime. We employed a mixed‐method approach to examine the prospects of alternative management and livelihood strategies to achieve sustainability. Both focus groups and household surveying were used to assess the opportunities for, and barriers to, achieving sustainability. It was found that two conflicting groups—forest‐dependent communities and foresters—are responsible for policy failures due to the absence of power‐sharing arrangements, nor is it likely a common property‐rights regime will be enough to cap degradation and achieve sustainability, while supply‐and‐demand policy interventions may well could help achieve sustainable management of the Sundarbans.     

‘Where there is fish,is where I put my head’: Challenges of mobile fishers in Elmina fishing community in Ghana

Small-scale fisheries are crucial for improving livelihoods by providing fisher employment, and food security. As part of their work, fishers frequently move to different fishing communities to catch and trade in fish. This paper analyses the living circumstances of artisanal fishers and discusses their mobility patterns, lodging arrangements, and the difficulties they encounter as they carry out their work. This paper is based on a study that involved 385 artisanal fishers in the fishing community of Elmina in the Komenda Edina Equafo Abirem (KEEA) Municipality in the Central Region of Ghana. The results show that there are not many suitable places to stay for fishers when they travel from home to other fishing locations, and the few places that do offer affordable lodging also lack toilets, bathrooms and drinkable water. The paper also reflects on the gendered dynamics of these and related issues of insecurity for women in this case study. District authorities whose economies are heavily dependent on fishing ought to collaborate with private housing developers and the state to build affordable lodging facilities with standard household amenities like water, toilets and baths in fishing destinations to address the housing issues faced by fishers while travelling.     

城镇化与地方性中的水资源：可持续视角的水环境保护利用与水空间规划设计

近年来,由于水资源不合理利用引发的水资源污染、短缺以及自然灾害的加剧,制约着城镇、区域和国家的社会经济发展,对生态环境安全及人类的可持续发展造成威胁。如何保证在环境演变、城镇发展的过程中,水资源得到可持续开发利用,水文化的地方性得以保持和丰富,成为当下生态环境保护、城市规划设计的一大挑战。2018年9月25-29日在北京召开的中德双边研讨会聚焦环境变化,以“可持续视角的水环境保护利用与水空间规划设计”为主题,在规划、地理、景观、建筑、旅游、生态、水利、历史等多学科领域,就中德双方在不同的城镇化发展阶段面临的水资源保护与可持续开发问题及其相关经验和解决对策。中德两国的29位专家学者,就城镇化过程中水环境保护与利用的挑战、水资源的可持续利用、水空间的规划设计策略等三个主题展开交流与讨论,并就双边学术研究、人才培养和成果交流方面的合作渠道和模式进行探讨。     

南通海岸带滩涂开发类型选择与空间功能配置研究

海岸带滩涂开发类型选择与空间布局是海岸带综合管理研究的重要内容,对于促进海岸带可持续发展具有重要意义。以海岸带资源环境-社会经济条件与滩涂开发类型对应关系透视为基础,结合南通海岸带滩涂条件、开发类型演变和区域发展背景分析,提出该地区生态旅游、农业和港口–工业–城镇多元化的滩涂综合利用模式,集成适宜性评价与分区、多部门规划冲突与协调等方法,探讨了南通海岸带滩涂地区生态与旅游、农业和港工城等功能区的空间配置路径。南通海岸带地区三类空间适宜比例分别23.5%,32.7%和43.8%,可以作为海岸带综合管理政策制定的参考。     

Actor-Based Design of a Management System for the Elephant Marsh Fishery in Malawi

In Malawi, fishing community user groups known as beach village committees, traditional chiefs, government officers, and fishers are the key players in fisheries management. Fish catch trends at the Elephant Marsh Fishery in southern Malawi are declining. Based on interviews and participant observation, this article uses an actor-based framework (known as Action-in-Context) to unveil the issues that are crucial in devising a sustainable governance system for the fishery. We establish and propose that the key social variables for the design of a three-pillared (locally based, weak, and amorphous) resilient institution for sustainability of the Elephant Marsh Fishery are (i) the social reputation of the leaders of local fishery institutions (beach village committee leaders), and (ii) the power dynamics between traditional chiefs and these local fishery leaders. We end the article by exploring the implications of the findings on the sustainability of the fishery under rising resource pressure.     

Development without Intervention: A Successful Self‐Reliance Initiative of Rural Development and Urban Growth in The Sudan

We investigate the complex relationship between small‐scale farming, urban‐rural remittances and rural development. We highlight a successful, innovative self‐reliance approach in which traditional farmers changed their mode of production, improved their income, and enhanced rural development, including urbanization, in Shubbola village of western Sudan. The major initial driver was investment from remittances by family members who had migrated to urban centers, thus overcoming the problem of access to credit/capital. Consequently, the increased use of tractor technology helped farmers overcome agricultural labor shortages, and increase their farm size and productivity. Increased income from remittances and farming broadened economic and social improvements, including lifestyle and the built environment. In the process, Shubbola has grown into a viable and vibrant town, providing its residents with diverse socioeconomic services and modern infrastructure. This case illustrates the potential of development from within with minimal direct input from the government, nongovernmental organizations, and international donors.     

“Losing at Sea,Winning on Land”: A Case Study of Philippine Small-Scale and Industrial Fisher Resource Competition

In Southeast Asia, resource competition causes conflicts between small-scale and industrial fishers. This article focuses on interactions between small-scale and industrial fishers and the power dynamics that are expressed through their behaviors. Taking a Philippine fishing village as a case, this article shows that even under conditions of severe resource competition and in a context of antagonistic relationships, small-scale fishers may choose, as a survival strategy, to collaborate with illegal industrial fishers. It demonstrates that accounting for power differentiations and dynamics among actors is key to understanding this seemingly contradictory collaboration, one that will likely result, over the long run, in negative consequences for the sustainability of small-scale fishers’ livelihoods. In order to effectively control industrial fishers and mitigate conflict with small-scale fishers, better understanding of social–economic and sociopolitical relations is required.     

Existing Territories and Formalization of Territorial Use Rights for Moored Fish Aggregating Devices: The Case of Small-Scale Fisheries in the La Désirade Island (France)

Moored fish aggregating devices (MFADs) are used by small-scale fishers to access fish species difficult to harvest in large numbers. In the case of Guadeloupe (Caribbean area), the use of MFADs has increased considerably and this is causing congestion in these fishing areas and creating conflict between fishers. The aim of this article is to understand how informal fishing territories around the La Desirade Island were established and examine these territories through the lens of economic defendability theory. Results of semistructured interviews show that MFAD fishers display territoriality along MFAD tract lines forming quasi-privatized areas. Territoriality in this article is based on the following factors: the type of targeted resources, the cost of harvesting, the defending of territories, and the acknowledgment of territories by the fishing community. Conflicts and utilization of MFADs (overcapacity) have raised an opportunity to create co-managed legalized territorial use rights for fisheries.     

Conjoint analysis of small‐boat recreational fishers in New Zealand

Conjoint analysis is a useful technique to assist recreational managers formulate policy, and develop strategies to efficiently and effectively distribute resources. Accurate estimates of the value of natural resources remain challenging, despite the development of a number of decision analysis techniques. This recreation geography study uses conjoint analysis to examine the relative importance of attributes associated with small‐boat recreational fishing experiences and demonstrates the value of conjoint analysis as a non‐market valuation tool. We found that the choices associated with companionship are the most important factors of recreational fishing and more tangible attributes such as the quality of launch facilities and catch probability are the least important factors.     

Winners and Losers in Marine Conservation: Fishers' Displacement and Livelihood Benefits from Marine Reserves

Marine reserves can create both benefits and costs to fishers. This article explores the perceptions of fishers in Kenya and Seychelles about displacement, spillover, and overall impacts of local marine reserves on their livelihoods. We test whether these perceptions are different among fishers from different geographic and socioeconomic conditions. Sixty-six percent of fishers had been displaced from marine reserves or coastal development and 90% believed they had caught fishes that spilled over from marine reserves. Poorer fishers in Kenya were both displaced from, and also felt like they benefited from, marine reserves. This highlights how people's experiences with marine reserves, both positive and negative, are affected by a range of social considerations that may not be incorporated in typical evaluations of ecological and economic marine reserve success.     

SMALL‐SCALE INDUSTRY AS A SPONGE? EMPIRICAL SURVEY IN THE CENTRAL REGION,GHANA

It has been posited that small‐scale industry – businesses with less than 30 workers – provides a large share of employment and income in Ghana. This paper examines the proposition that while such enterprises in the informal sector are said to act as a sponge to soak up surplus labour in marginal activities, they are unprofitable. Using data from a survey in 1998 of 175 micro and small‐scale enterprises in the Central Region of Ghana, the paper also confirms problematic aspects of employment in this sector including the lack of formal contracts, irregular pay, low remuneration, non‐existent social protection and only marginal employment growth. The implication is that the small‐scale industry sector is not economically sustainable in its present form in Ghana.     

西北干旱区生态重建与人地系统优化的宏观背景及理论基础

本文在系统分析全球干旱区生态重建与人地系统优化宏观环境的基础上,分析了我国西北干旱区生态环境恶化形势和面临的生态重建机遇及挑战。认为生态威胁已上升为全球最大的安全威胁,生物多样性退化速度惊人,许多物种频频告急,诸多脆弱生态区域先后沦为生态灾难区,国家与地区之间的跨国生态掠夺仍在继续,惊人的生态破坏加剧着生态贫困与经济贫困,生态重建引起国际社会关注,生态安全战略成为全球战略重要组成部分。进而把区域可持续发展理论、恢复生态学理论、社会生态学与地生态学理论作为西北干旱区生态重建与经济可持续发展的理论基础。     

‘Here,we don't just trade goods,we also “sell” people's lives’: Sari‐sari stores as nodes of partial surveillance in a Philippine fishing community

Home‐based neighbourhood stores (locally known in the Philippines as sari‐sari stores) are a ubiquitous feature of most Philippine communities. They are small to medium‐size trade stores not unlike convenience stores in the West where people buy goods in small quantities. In the Philippines, these stores play a vital role in providing everyday economic sustenance to low‐income communities. But more than an economic hub, sari‐sari stores also function as a social hub that connects people and acts as eyes and ears of the community through the people who make use of their services. In a sense, sari‐sari stores are the community's ‘myopticon’ where people's day‐to‐day dealings with everyone in the community and its environs are reported and discursively brought under the gaze of the ‘entire community’. Being myopticon as opposed to Foucault's panopticon, surveillance in sari‐sari stores is partial, non‐hierarchicalized and could be resisted by people in the community. Nonetheless, regardless of the ‘myoptic’ features of sari‐sari stores, their presence in the community ‘interpellates’ everyone's daily existence and instantiates a discursive space from which a structure of informal social control is enacted among community members. Sari‐sari stores then are an important reminder of how our built environment is also about contestation and negotiation of everyday life as we make use of space and as the architectonics of space both constrain and empower our manoeuvring in places.     

2001-2010年洞庭湖区经济、社会和环境变化及其生态承载力响应

不同时空尺度下,生态承载力对区域经济、社会和环境变化会作出不同程度的响应。利用可持续发展指数测度模型和生态承载力响应模型,对洞庭湖区2001-2010 年经济、社会和环境变化及其生态承载力响应进行分析。结果表明：① 2001 年以来洞庭湖区经济发展度和社会协调度一直呈上升趋势;生态系统的安全性和可持续性向良性转变;环境可持续度则呈波动性下降态势。② 洞庭湖区17 个县域的经济发展度和社会协调度均呈上升态势,可持续性呈现差异性地向弱可持续转变;岳阳市区、常德市区和益阳市区的经济发展度和社会协调度高于其他14 个县域,环境可持续度则下降最明显。③ 洞庭湖区生态承载力的响应状态分为强超载、超载、弱低载和低载4 类,不同时段县域生态承载力的响应状态差异明显;岳阳市区、常德市区和益阳市区社会经济发展水平较高,而其生态承载力响应状态则处于强超载,在区域发展水平上反映出湖区县域经济发展、社会进步、资源利用和环境质量的协调性较差。④ 环境可持续度在一定程度上成为提高生态承载力的重要基础,现行的“掠夺式”县域经济发展模式成为提高生态承载力的阻碍因子,由于社会经济发展过于依赖资源开发以及生态环境干扰,使得环境可持续度对于生态承载力与可持续发展指数的影响相对较弱,其实质往往是以牺牲生态环境为代价。