Rethinking small-scale fisheries compliance

Fisheries compliance has been identified as key to sustainable fisheries management. However, it has been widely acknowledged that the approach by many governments worldwide to achieve compliance is largely through law enforcement efforts. Although theories of normative action have expanded compliance thinking from that of rationalist approaches, this paper takes the argument further. By drawing on criminology and security discourse, and on empirical research on small-scale fisheries in South Africa, this paper argues for a new approach to our understanding of compliance. Furthermore, it argues that rather than taking law as given, the formation of law and the power dynamics influencing such processes are critical aspects that need to be acknowledged and understood in fisheries compliance theory.     

"政社分开"大背景下社会组织创新发展的思考与建议 ——以海洋社会组织为例

党的十九大以来,随着我国社会组织的不断发展和政府职能转变的逐步推进,社会组织面临着前所未有的机遇与挑战。文章以海洋社会组织为例,研究在"政社分开"过程中遇到的问题。研究表明,"政社分开"后,社会组织遇到的困难一是失去物质资源,难以正常开展活动;二是失去"主心骨",难以建立公信力;三是失去主要业务来源,发展内生动力不足。为新形势下社会组织如何更好地健康发展,提出了建立健全社会组织法律法规、加强对社会组织的扶持力度、拓展社会组织经费来源结构等对策建议。     

Sustainable development: Social outcomes of structural adjustments in a South Australian fishery

The assessment of sustainable development is a relatively recent advent in policy and the evaluation of industry structural adjustments. Although the elements of economic and environmental assessment have been relatively well developed and accepted, the effective inclusion of ‘social’ aspects in assessments of sustainable development are still being grappled with.     

Wildfire preparedness,community cohesion and social–ecological systems

The consequences of wildfires are felt in susceptible communities around the globe on an annual basis. Climate change predictions in places like the south-east of Australia and western United States suggest that wildfires may become more frequent and more intense with global climate change. Compounding this issue is progressive urban development at the peri-urban fringe (wildland–urban interface), where continued infrastructure development and demographic changes are likely to expose more people and property to this potentially disastrous natural hazard. Preparing well in advance of the wildfire season is seen as a fundamental behaviour that can both reduce community wildfire vulnerability and increase hazard resilience – it is an important element of adaptive capacity that allows people to coexist with the hazardous environment in which they live. We use household interviews and surveys to build and test a substantive model that illustrates how social cohesion influences the decision to prepare for wildfire. We demonstrate that social cohesion, particularly community characteristics like ‘sense of community’ and ‘collective problem solving’, are community-based resources that support both the adoption of mechanical preparations, and the development of cognitive abilities and capacities that reduce vulnerability and enhance resilience to wildfire. We use the results of this work to highlight opportunities to transfer techniques and approaches from natural hazards research to climate change adaptation research to explore how the impacts attributed to the social components of social–ecological systems can be mitigated more effectively.     

Living and working in urban working class communities

Much has been written on the apparent urban renaissance in UK cities and the new lifestyle arrangements, working time patterns, economic activities and the more general reordering of work and life that appears to accompany it. Certainly, recent decades have witnessed a range of economic, social and cultural changes in the lives of those living and working in cities and surrounding suburbs. Much of the attention in this work has focused on those groups for whom the changes have appeared most profound: the high-income earners returning to live in the city - the gentrifiers - or those who suffer multiple deprivations as a result of economic restructuring. Seemingly absent from many accounts of urban change are those places where, at first glance, the effects of change have been less pronounced: low-income, working class neighbourhoods where most people continue to get by, albeit in the context of a harsher, and less secure political economic context. In light of this apparent silence, this paper draws on interviews from Wythenshawe in South Manchester, to examine how low-income mothers cope, live and labour, in a rapidly changing city, as they perform paid work at the same time as ensuring the social reproduction of the household.     

Neo-liberal ruptures: Local political entities and neighbourhood networks in El Alto, Bolivia

In October 2003, hundreds of thousands of Bolivians took to the streets demanding the resignation of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. After 20 years of neo-liberal policies - and the failures to improve the living conditions of the majority - the proposal to export natural gas via Chile was taken by the population as yet another step to sustain an unjust political order. Facing a direct challenge by the population the Sánchez de Lozada administration responded with indiscriminate military force. The result was 63 dead and over 300 wounded, which deepened and extended the social rage and eventually forced the resignation of the President. The neo-liberal project - promoted and defended by Sánchez de Lozada - collapsed. The city of El Alto was the epicentre of the challenges to the legitimacy of this political order. This article focuses on the role of local political entities and neighbourhood networks from El Alto in articulating political spaces that challenged the legitimacy of the institutional infrastructure and led to the October 2003 ruptures in the neo-liberal project. Furthermore, I make the case that the particular histories and memories (of “relocalized” miners and indigenous/peasants) that converged in and defined this city were pivotal in the organization of a “political subsoil” that surged to the surface during the October 2003 events.     

Negotiating changing livelihoods: The sampan dwellers of Tam Giang Lagoon, Vi?t Nam

Central Vi?t Nam is one of the most vulnerable areas in the country to natural disasters. In 1985 a major typhoon hit the Tam Giang Lagoon coastal area in the province of Th?a Tiên-Hu?, Central Vi?t Nam, with severe impacts on the sampan dwellers who lived there on boats and fished for their livelihoods. Since then, the government has attempted to resettle them on land in order to decrease their vulnerability to such events. Consequently, this process has changed the livelihood options as well as the social networks of the sampan dwellers. This study of the resettlement village of Th?y ?i?n analyses the social networks and different forms of social capital being utilised by the resettled sampan dwellers as part of their changing livelihoods and questions whether the social capital formed will indeed lead to a long term decrease in vulnerability. It is found that while bonding and linking social capital have been newly formed, the trust required for bridging social capital formation is still missing, and this in turn is hindering the possibilities of sustainable livelihood formation.     

The role of social norms in climate adaptation: Mediating risk perception and flood insurance purchase

Flood insurance plays an important role in climate adaptation by recovering insured losses in the event of catastrophic flooding. Voluntary adoption of flood insurance has been seen as a function of risk perception that is shaped by social norms. This paper attempts to clarify the relationship between these factors. It is based on a household survey conducted in the eastern cities of Australia and involving a total of 501 randomly selected residents. Results of a path analysis show that the likelihood of having flood insurance cover was associated with perceived social norms, but not perceived flood risk. In addition, perceived norms and risk were statistically related to each other. It is concluded that social norms played a mediating role between insuring decision and risk perception. Risk perception might influence the insuring decision indirectly through shaping perception of social norms. This implies that adaptive behaviour is not necessarily a function of risk perception, but an outcome of its impacts upon the ways in which the individuals situate themselves in their social circles or the society. There is a feedback process in which individual perceptions of risk manifest as both a cause and effect, shaping and being shaped by the socio-cultural context.     

Climate change in news media across the globe: An automated analysis of issue attention and themes in climate change coverage in 10 countries (2006–2018)

Climate change poses a challenge to countries across the world, with news media being an important source of information on the issue. To understand how and how much news media cover climate change, this study compares coverage in ten countries from the Global North and the Global South between 2006 and 2018 (N = 71,674). Based on a panel analysis, we illustrate that news media attention varies across countries and is often associated with political, scientific, and (partly) societal focusing events. Based on an automated content analysis, we also find that news media do not only cover ecological changes or climate science, but that they focus predominantly on the societal dimension of climate change: They emphasize how humans are aware of, affected by, battle, or cause climate change. Overall, the study illustrates important differences between the Global North and the Global South. While countries from the Global North cover climate change more frequently, countries from the Global South focus more on its challenges and implications for society at large, i.e., the societal dimension of climate change.     

Selecting and assessing social objectives for Australian fisheries management

This paper details Australian research that developed tools to assist fisheries managers and government agencies in engaging with the social dimension of industry and community welfare in fisheries management. These tools are in the form of objectives and indicators. These highlight the social dimensions and the effects of management plans and policy implementation on fishing industries and associated communities, while also taking into account the primacy of ecological imperatives. The deployment of these objectives and indicators initially provides a benchmark and, over the life of a management plan, can subsequently be used to identify trends in effects on a variety of social and economic elements that may be objectives in the management of a fishery. It is acknowledged that the degree to which factors can be monitored will be dependent upon resources of management agencies, however these frameworks provide a method for effectively monitoring and measuring change in the social dimension of fisheries management.Essentially, the work discussed in this paper provides fisheries management with the means to both track and begin to understand the effects of government policy and management plans on the social dimension of the fishing industry and its associated communities. Such tools allow the consideration of these elements, within an evidence base, into policy arrangements, and consequently provide an invaluable contribution to the ability to address resilience and sustainability of fishing industries and associated communities.