Livelihood diversity and dynamism in Timor-Leste; insights for coastal resource governance and livelihood development

Coastal communities within small island developing states are typically highly dependent on fisheries and other natural resource-based livelihoods. However, specialisation as a ‘fisher’ is rare compared to diverse livelihoods that can be adapted as opportunities and challenges emerge. Understanding this dynamic “livelihood landscape” is important for improving governance and livelihood opportunities associated with natural resources. Using data from 495 households across 15 communities on Atauro Island, Timor-Leste, this study evaluates the importance of fisheries within a suite of livelihoods; the correlation of livelihoods structure with wellbeing; and the spatial and temporal variation of those livelihoods. Activities linked to primary production were nominated by 67% of households as their primary livelihood, 41% fished, and of those 54% considered fishing their primary livelihood. Almost all households (95%) owned livestock, and even respondents who considered themselves ‘fishers’ ranked livestock disease, rather than fisheries related concerns, as their most critical livelihood challenge. Engagement in fishing varied by location and time of year. Communities in more protected locales fished throughout the year, and had less diverse livelihoods. This study highlights that interventions focused on self-identified ‘fishers’ would only engage a fraction of the population that derive benefit from fisheries resources, would likely overlook the most prevalent challenges fishers face, and would focus on those with relatively high food security and income. Measures of wellbeing were better explained by geography and socio-cultural settings, rather than dominant income sources. The results emphasise the value of cross-sector development interventions informed by contextualised analysis of livelihoods and wellbeing outcomes.     

Being heard: Thinking through different versions of rationality,epistemological policing and dissonances in marine conservation

Emerging from ethnographic research conducted on the west coast of South Africa, this paper explores the ways in which fishers contrast their experience of fishing prior to the implementation of the Marine Living Resources Act, and the rise of fortress style conservation in fisheries management. Conservation as rhetoric has been used as a powerful means of supporting and justifying fisheries management objectives. The paper argues that fishers engage with their environments in ways that are different from how management understands human–nature relations. As a consequence, fortress style fisheries management and policing disallow fishers to engage with the sea in the ways that are intrinsic to their fishing practices. This results, in many instances, in curtailing the ways in which fishers are allowed to think about and interact with the sea. With the impending implementation of EAF in South Africa and the global call for working with multiple knowledges, the paper calls for relational ways of engaging in conservation.     

Economic dimension of the collapse of the ‘false cod’ Epinephelus aeneus in a context of ineffective management of the small-scale fisheries in Senegal

Small-scale fisheries are often seen as a solution for ensuring sustainability in marine exploitation. They are viewed as a suitable alternative to industrial fisheries, particularly when considering their social and economic importance in developing countries. Here, we show that the booming small-scale fishery sector in Senegal, in the context of increasing foreign demand, has induced the collapse of one of the most emblematic West African marine fish species, a large grouper Epinephelus aeneus, historically called ‘false cod’ by European fishers. The overexploitation of this species appears to be on account of the increasing effort sustained by a growing international demand and important subsidies, which resulted in a relative stability of the average economic yield per fishing trip and an incentive for continuing targeting this species to almost extinction. It is a critical time for addressing and mitigating the pressure of the small-scale fisheries to prevent declines of fish species that are highly valued by northern markets. A balance between conservation and exploitation is necessary to maintain ecological viability while considering the socio-economic importance of the small-scale fisheries. However, a new strategy is needed for conservation that will consider and articulate simultaneously the concerns regarding unmanaged and growing small-scale fisheries, rampant subsidies and increasing foreign demand.     

Justifying non-compliance: The morality of illegalities in small scale fisheries of Lake Victoria,East Africa

The literature on compliance in small scale fisheries provides evidence of the normative foundations of fishers’ behaviour. However, the mechanisms through which normative reasoning translates into non-compliance remains unclear due to the tendency to conceive non-compliant behaviour simply as an outcome of ‘moral deficit’. This paper identifies such mechanisms by focusing on moral reasons which undermine the legitimacy of fisheries regulations. Taking the case of Lake Victoria, East Africa, the paper explores how non-compliance can be founded on diverse and competing concepts of fairness by creating a typology of the modes of justification used by respondents who engage in illegal fishing. The paper establishes four areas of justification: the principle of superfluousness, the principle of autonomy, the principle of futility, and the principle of necessity. Investigating the evidence for each, the analysis finds that the majority of fisherfolk believe that regulations are necessary and support government action in fisheries management. However, fishers expressed futility in fishing legally, given the extent of illegal fishing, and justified their non-compliant behaviour through reference to the cost of legal fishing compared to illegal and the need for better catches and income associated with illegal fishing.     

Social,economic and environmental effects of closing commercial fisheries to enhance recreational fishing

Recreational fishing mortality can have a major impact on coastal fish populations, bringing recreational fishers into conflict with commercial fisheries. This article reviews exclusion zones for commercial fishing, or ‘recreational fishing areas’ as a solution to the conflict between commercial and recreational fisheries. Recently designated recreational fishing areas in the state of Queensland, Australia are examined as a case-study. The goal of recreational fishing areas is to enhance recreational fishing and provide economic opportunities through charter fishing. However, recently designated recreational fishing areas in Queensland have not been thoroughly assessed for their social, economic and environmental impacts and they are not integrated within existing management frameworks for fisheries. The designation of recreational fishing areas is thus a shift away from evidence-based management in Queensland's fisheries and has likely occurred solely for political reasons – there are more voters in the recreational fishery than commercial fishery. In Queensland, excluding commercial fishing on its own is unlikely to result in long-term benefits to recreational fisheries because recreational harvest is a major component of fish harvest for some key species and there is no legislated limit to recreational harvest. Current political attention on recreational fishing areas provides an opportunity for fisheries managers, politicians, conservation groups and the public to discuss what is needed to manage sustainable coastal fisheries. In particular, recreational fishing areas need to be combined with efforts to enhance stewardship among recreational fishers if they are to be successful in the long-term.     

Artisanal fishing as an undesirable way of life? The implications for governance of fishers' wellbeing aspirations in coastal Uruguay and southeastern Brazil

In Piriápolis (Uruguay) and Paraty (Brazil), artisanal fishers view fishing as a way of life, rather than just a job. The freedom of fishing and an inherent satisfaction in the occupation figure large in fishers' attachment to it. There are strong indications, however, that the relationship of fishers to fishing is changing. First, while fishers from both areas wish to keep fishing in the future, they are moving into different occupations or supplementing their work in fishing with other employment. Second, artisanal fishers from Piriápolis and Paraty identified fishing as an undesirable occupation for their children because they believe that in the future fishing will no longer be a viable occupation. Nonetheless, despite the wishes of their parents, young men and women in Piriápolis and to a much lesser degree in Paraty continue to become involved in fishing and fishing-related activities. The paper uses a social wellbeing perspective to interpret fisher responses to the changing circumstances they face. Wellbeing is a lens to understand the distinctive features of artisanal fisheries and helps to understand fishers' disenchantment with fisheries governance processes, in a scenario where participation is being promoted by the state in Uruguay and Brazil. The implications of these findings for state efforts to promote fisher participation in governance are discussed.     

Lessons for fisheries management from the EU cod recovery plan

The performance of the EU long-term management plan for cod stocks, in force since 2009, is analysed focusing on the human and institutional factors. The plan operates through landings quotas (TACs) and effort restrictions following a Harvest Control Rule, and deploys a novel instrument allowing Member States to ‘buy back’ or increase fishing effort for fleet segments engaged in cod-avoidance measures. The stipulated fishing mortality reductions have not been achieved. On the positive side, the ‘buy-back’ instrument has led to increased uptake of selective gear and implementation of permanent and real-time temporary closures. On the negative side, ignoring the dimension of fishers as reactive agents in the design, the impact assessment, and the annual implementation of the measures has contributed to the failure to adequately implement the plan and achieve its objectives. The main problem is that the landings quotas taken in a mixed fishery did not limit catches because fishers were incentivised to continue fishing and discard overquota catch while quota for other species was available. The effort limitations intended to reduce this effect were insufficient to adequately limit fishing mortality in targeted fisheries, although fishers experienced them as prohibiting the full uptake of other quotas. Recommendations for future plans include (i) management through catch rather than landings quotas, (ii) the internalisation of the costs of exceeding quotas, (iii) use of more selective gear types, (iv) the development of appropriate metrics as a basis for regulatory measures and for evaluations, (v) participatory governance, (vi) fishery-based management, (vii) flexibility in fishing strategy at vessel level.     

Exploring concepts of fisheries ‘dependency’ and ‘community’ in Scotland

There is a growing argument that the biological priorities of Europe's Common Fisheries Policy – to halt the depletion of commercial fish stocks – are not a straightforward solution to the problems currently facing international fisheries management and that social objectives need to be incorporated into policy. However, existing notions of fisheries ‘dependency’ and ‘community’ remain poorly understood and leave decision-makers struggling to address social and cultural issues. By investigating further concepts of ‘dependency’, ‘community’ and some of the social issues facing Fisheries Dependent Areas in Scotland, this research explores the complex shape of coastal fishing communities and the conditions of dependency on fishing that coastal areas face. In this paper preliminary findings from an in-depth case study of Fraserburgh in the north east of Scotland are presented to explore the potential meaning and justification of social objectives in fisheries policy.     

Constraints and solutions for managing Pacific Island sea cucumber fisheries with an ecosystem approach

The ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF) is a holistic paradigm that considers stocks of exploitable species, marine ecosystems and stakeholders. Management agencies must strike a balance between their capacity constraints and the requisites of management measures. Most small-scale sea cucumber fisheries of Pacific Islands have been plundered while others are being opened to commercial exploitation. Data from fishery managers and a regional workshop were used to assess the current problems, institutional constraints and solutions to the management of sea cucumber fisheries in 13 Pacific Island countries (PICs). Technical capacity was often strong for some management actions such as developing marine reserves but weak for others, such as enforcement. Using multi-disciplinary indicators, half of the fisheries were diagnosed by their managers as being overfished or depleted, despite evidence of optimistic bias. Fishery governance varied greatly among the PICs, and co-management frameworks were not typical of any cultural region. Management objectives were prioritised differently among managers but most highly ranked was to protect ecological resilience. The fishery managers proposed different sets of regulatory measures and various management actions, such as surveys to collect socio-economic and fishery-dependent data, support for local governance and strong enforcement – all widely under-practised. Pacific sea cucumber fisheries exemplify how the transition to an EAF by management institutions must involve reorganisation of their technical and human-resource capacities among management tasks. Levies on exports need to be internalised to fund improved management. Management agencies should consider a shift in resources from developing marine reserves, conducting underwater surveys and aquaculture-based restocking to strengthening enforcement capacity, stakeholder involvement and communication with fishers. In concert with these actions, short fishing seasons, shortlists of allowable species and tighter enforcement at export points may serve to turn the tide on boom-and-bust exploitation and safeguard biodiversity.     

Fishers’ knowledge indicates short-term temporal changes in the amount and composition of catches in the southwestern Atlantic

The scarcity of data on fish catches difficult management of small-scale fisheries in developing countries. This study applies fishers’ knowledge to investigate temporal changes in the amount (biomass) and composition (major ecological categories) of fishing resources exploited by small-scale coastal fisheries in the southeastern Brazilian coast. Four hypotheses were investigated: (1) The amount of fish caught reported by fishers would decrease over time. (2) Older fishers would report higher fish catches than younger fishers. (3) Recent interviews would mention large-sized predators less often. (4) Recent interviews would mention less high valued fishing resources. Interviews with 421 fishers in 36 communities in the southeastern Brazilian coast were analyzed, covering a time span of 14 years, from 1995 to 2009. The hypothesis 1 was confirmed, 3 was partially confirmed, while 2 and 4 were not confirmed. Fishers’ age was unrelated to all variables. The results from fishers’ interviews indicated the temporal trends of: (1) a decrease in the biomass of fish caught; (2) an increase in the occurrence of smaller fish and invertebrates in the catch; (3) an increase of high value fishing resources; and (4) maintenance of large predators. The first two indicators suggest excessive fishing, but the later indicators (3 and 4) suggest that the socioecological system of the southeastern Brazilian coast had not yet undergone major ecological shifts.     

Taiwan's response to international fisheries management after 2005 as influenced by ICCAT and fishers' perception

It is widely recognized that fishing states are obliged to exercise flag state responsibility over their vessels. In an attempt to become a responsible fishing actor, Taiwan has endeavored to manage its distant water fishing fleet in accordance with international fisheries management. However, the long-standing problems of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, fish laundering, and fishing overcapacity, which remained unsolved during the 1990s and early 2000s, brought its management capability into doubt. Failure to address these problems undermined the credibility of all management measures and ultimately resulted in a recommendation adopted by International Commission for the Conservation of the Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in 2005. This recommendation significantly affected Taiwan's distant water fishing policy. This paper examines how Taiwan assimilated this outside force into its fishing policy as a new response to international fisheries management and how fishers perceived this response. It shows that Taiwan's efforts in controlling distant water fisheries marked a big change, specifically manifest in three noticeable actions - reducing excessive bigeye-targeted efforts, deterring IUU fishing, and strengthening fisheries management. The study advises that management of small tuna vessels be effectively exercised and recommends future actions on providing subsidies for fishers to partially offset costs incurred by rule compliance, streamlining their administrative work, enhancing communication with them, putting more enforcement and meaningful penalties in place. Finally, the study indicates the existence of an interaction in the international fisheries management scheme, potentially favoring Taiwan to bargain for fishing rights and a favorable status in the participation of regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) in the future if it continues to exercise effective control of distant water fisheries.     

Responses of the fishing sector to transitional constraints: From reactive to proactive change,Yucatan fisheries in Mexico

Most fisheries management studies have concentrated on understanding resource dynamics and have paid less attention to understanding the dynamics of those who use the resources. This situation limits the knowledge about the fisheries system as a whole and specifically about the viability of management schemes. It is vital to understand how the actors within the fishing sector (fishing firm owners/managers, fishers, fisheries managers, and traders) may respond to changes in fishing resources trends, market dynamics, and fisheries policies before they are implemented. These issues are explored in this paper by applying a longitudinal analysis of the Yucatan Mexico's fishing industry. The analysis is presented within the framework of the theory of change and coping strategies. The study primarily involved interviews during 2008 with the main owners of companies in the fishing industry and with fisheries managers and other stakeholders. Time-series catch data on the main fishing resources are also reviewed to evaluate changes across three historical periods and describe how the actors have perceived and responded to those changes. Given conditions of uncertainty in resource availability, changes in market demand and changes in institutional arrangements, the viability of traditional business and resource management practices are discussed. The analysis presents different kind of triggers that have modified the conditions of the fishing sector and had had impacts on the socio-economic–ecological system in which fisheries are embedded. The need for adaptive strategies in the whole chain of the fisheries business and resource management is stressed, given the current changes and conditions of fisheries. The discussion states a series of actions that could improve the relationships between business practices and fisheries management.     

Enabling people to create change: Capacity building for Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries (EAF) implementation in Southern Africa

Recent studies report that 80% of marine resources are fully or over exploited. In an attempt to address this, countries are moving towards implementing an Ecosystems Approach (EAF) to Fisheries management. A strong component of an EAF is the involvement of fishing sector stakeholders in the making of decisions that affect them but, despite this, no formal or informal information exchange or training on this and other EAF concepts existed in South Africa prior to the development of the Responsible Fisheries Programme (RFP). The RFP training course design integrates theoretical presentations and practical exercises, deliberately involving various stakeholders with differing perspectives and roles. The RFP has trained a total of 600 individuals thus far (May 2007-January 2010) from various fisheries sectors in southern Africa. Sampling evaluation forms processed across all fisheries sectors trained, indicated that participants found the practical exercises very useful and valued the group work, which allowed for interactions between the different stakeholder groups. Numerous positive benefits derived from the training are described by means of case studies. Lessons drawn from the roll out of the training include: the forging of a common understanding through stakeholder participation; the benefits of a participatory approach and the appropriate use of local and international case studies to illustrate concepts. Results of the training carried out to date indicate that the RFP training can improve compliance of fisheries regulations, adherence to voluntary measures and uplift the skills of fishers. Such benefits will increase the likelihood of long-term sustainability of southern African fisheries.     

Assessing the significance of the economic impact of Marine Conservation Zones in the Irish Sea upon the fisheries sector and regional economy in Northern Ireland

This paper highlights the tension between advocacy for ‘Blue growth’ in maritime policy and efforts to safeguard future economic growth via the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. In 2015, policy-makers withdrew three of four proposed Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) in the Irish Sea from consideration for designation, due to concerns that they could significantly impact on the fisheries sector in Northern Ireland because they overlap with prawn fishing grounds in the Irish Sea. Although research has quantified the potential impact upon fishing vessels, none has quantified the impact upon the fisheries sector nor assessed the significance of this impact. Arguably, MCZ designations (or lack thereof) based on the ‘significance’ of an impact require robust underpinning evidence. This paper reports the findings of an Economic Impact Assessment, which has quantified the impact of a decline in landings upon the Northern Ireland fisheries sector and regional economy (data which is currently absent from the evidence base for the MCZ designation process in England). It finds that this will incur job losses in three fishing ports in Northern Ireland, but is unlikely to have a significant impact upon Northern Ireland's fisheries sector and regional economy in terms of jobs and Gross Value Added (GVA). In the worst case, the resulting economic impact is a decrease of £1.05–1.12 m/year GVA in Northern Ireland, which is 1.1% of the contribution of fishing and fish processing to the regional economy. Economic significance assessments, using this methodology, may be useful in supporting the evidence base underpinning MCZ designation and other aspects of marine planning.     

EAF implementation in Southern Africa: Lessons learnt

The practical implementation of an ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF) management has proved difficult to achieve. Without simple and structured guidelines for implementing an EAF, managers are grappling with the complexity of implementation and the need to prioritise resources and management actions. Ecological risk assessment has been put forward as a structured procedure. There is a need to review regularly whether progress is being made in addressing the issues and priorities identified through ecological risk assessment. Such reviews require a framework providing clear objectives for the respective fishery and delineating the steps required towards their achievement. This paper proposes a generic framework for reviewing ecological risk assessments through stakeholder workshops. This framework is aided by a fuzzy logic tool to track EAF implementation and informs the development of proactive work plans which incorporate EAF objectives. The advantages and disadvantages of a generic and participatory approach are discussed and compared with other related methods for evaluating progress in implementing an EAF.     

Incorporating economics into fisheries management frameworks in Australia

A large gap has been identified between the current and optimal economic performance of wild-capture commercial fisheries in Australia. Economic approaches have the potential to assist fisheries to bridge this gap, such as bio-economic models that combine biology with fishing costs to evaluate the economic performance of a broad range of management measures. Economic objectives are prevalent in overarching Australian fisheries legislation, however economic data is often not collected and economic analyses or instruments not broadly applied. This paper reviews selected Australian fisheries to demonstrate the accrued economic benefits from applying formal bio-economic models and conducting empirical analyses of the impact of supply on product value. Challenges to the implementation and continued use of economic analyses and instruments are discussed including: (i) short-term transition costs and associated trade-offs between ecological, economic, social and political objectives; (ii) scarce logistical and financial capacity to collect and analyse economic data; (iii) a lack of desire among industry to change and transition to economic targets such as maximum economic yield (MEY), particularly when it is associated with lower catches; and (iv) a lack of economic literacy among fisheries managers and industry. It is contended that many of these challenges initially arise from an absence of clearly identified and prioritised objectives within overarching legislation and management plans. Once objectives are prioritised, limited resources can be allocated more efficiently to improve data collection, economic analysis and increase awareness as well as education of managers and industry.     

Who benefits from fisheries co-management? A case study in Lake Chiuta,Malawi

The fisheries management policy shift towards resource user participation in Malawi in the early 1990s resulted in mixed benefits among small-scale fishers, with many applauding the changes. This paper considers the impacts of these policy changes on government and within the fishing communities around Lake Chiuta whose fisheries co-management experience is considered successful. Benefits to the communities range from gaining government support in excluding non-local fishers using destructive fishing gear to increased household incomes and improved livelihoods, while benefits to government range from taking credit for establishing a sustainable fishery and co-management arrangements to reduced resource management costs. Community costs include financial resources and time spent by resource user representative organisations in enforcing fishing regulations. These findings enable a more balanced assessment of neoliberal claims about the benefits of delegating management responsibilities and downloading costs of management onto fishing communities and organisations.     

Assessing the social wellbeing of Northern Ireland's fishing society using a three-dimensional approach

The concept of ‘wellbeing’ has received growing interest in policy domains in the UK, and internationally, as a multi-dimensional approach to understanding and measuring social progress and development. Policy makers and scientists alike are debating the potential of wellbeing to deliver a people-centred, and holistic, analysis of what matters to people in terms of the quality of life people pursue and are able to achieve. There is also growing interest in how the concept of wellbeing might be applied to fisheries, especially in terms of deepening assessment of the ways in which decline in the fisheries sector is affecting fishing-dependent families, and the wider community. This paper applies a three-dimensional wellbeing framework and methodology to gain insight into the wellbeing of fishing society in Northern Ireland, a region that has faced substantial decline in its fisheries over the past 100 years. A three-dimensional approach considers material, relational and cognitive dimensions; putting resources, relationships and subjective reflections on life satisfaction together as a whole assessment. All three dimensions are important for a full assessment of wellbeing. Following an overview of the methodology used and data collected, the paper then assesses the extent to which a three-dimensional well-being approach can provide useful insights for sustainable fisheries policy in Northern Ireland.     

Patterns of species composition of beach seine fisheries off North-Western coast of Sri Lanka,fishers’ perceptions and implications for co-management

As in many developing countries, small-scale fisheries including beach seining contribute significantly livelihoods and food security of coastal communities. Beach seining in Sri Lanka is seasonal mainly during calm season deprived of strong monsoonal winds, and essentially a multi-species fishery. Knowledge about the seasonal occurrence of pelagic species is important to be known for proper planning of the fishing activity, especially due to the reason that beach seine fishers in many parts of Sri Lanka make decisions to attach the cod-end of correct type depending on the target species. The possibility of identifying pattern of seasonal occurrence of target fish species in beach seine fishing sites off the southern region of north-western coast of Sri Lanka was therefore investigated using Self Organizing Maps (SOM). The analysis indicated that beach seine fishers’ local knowledge to predict the occurrence of certain species in the fishing sites to adjust their fishing strategies to target desirable species was consistent with the findings of SOM approach. Consequently, it was concluded that as beach seine fishers use indirect indicators such as colour of sea water and behaviour sea birds predict the species occurrence fairly accurately, their local knowledge can be incorporated in the management planning of beach seine fisheries in the North Western coastal area of Sri Lanka.     

Transdisciplinary co-operation for an ecosystem approach to fisheries: A case study from the South African sardine fishery

Integrative approaches that involve natural and social scientists are needed to manage fisheries, but these are difficult to achieve. The process of developing a prototype, knowledge-based, electronic decision support tool for the South African sardine Sardinops sagax fishery provided a platform for fostering collaboration and achieving active participation of many stakeholders. The aim of the decision support tool is to assist managers in evaluating how effectively an ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF) has been implemented for this fishery. The collaborative process involved a series of meetings during which knowledge was elicited from fisheries scientists, social scientists, resource managers and fishing industry representatives. Conceptualisations of the different stakeholder perspectives were developed in terms of objectives and indicators following the hierarchical tree approach recommended by FAO. This paper describes the collaborative process. Hierarchies of objectives, indicators and data sets for the human dimension of an EAF in the South African sardine fishery are introduced. The value of a transdisciplinary approach towards an EAF in South Africa is discussed.