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Drivers and impacts of fisheries scarcity, competition, and conflict on maritime security
Abstract
Increasingly, non-traditional threats to maritime security are linked to the issue of resource scarcity. An overriding challenge is to address the 'fish wars' cycle which influences or threatens maritime security, competition, conflict and sustainability. In the absence of effective maritime governance, state and non-state actors can engage in illicit activities. The challenges facing countries in terms of resource scarcity and maritime security, as well as the approaches being taken to address these challenges, are discussed. Recommendations are provided regarding strengthening fisheries governance, addressing the root causes of resource scarcity, addressing lack of political will, engagement with the private sector, and building capacity.
... Fisheries policy in general has important implications for maritime security [6,7]. First, fisheries policy is inherently connected to competition over fisheries resources, which is one of the factors that can shape maritime conflicts [8][9][10][11][12]. While a number of factors with "potential mediating variables such as climate variability, rapid population growth, social inequality, and the expansion of economic zones around coastal nations" drive maritime security conflicts [13, p. 803], competition over fisheries resources can become a potential driver leading to a "fish wars cycle" depicting linkages among fisheries resource scarcity, fisheries competition, and fisheries conflict through a feedback loop [12]. ...
... First, fisheries policy is inherently connected to competition over fisheries resources, which is one of the factors that can shape maritime conflicts [8][9][10][11][12]. While a number of factors with "potential mediating variables such as climate variability, rapid population growth, social inequality, and the expansion of economic zones around coastal nations" drive maritime security conflicts [13, p. 803], competition over fisheries resources can become a potential driver leading to a "fish wars cycle" depicting linkages among fisheries resource scarcity, fisheries competition, and fisheries conflict through a feedback loop [12]. In this cycle, fisheries policy with ineffective resource governance capacity plays a critical role in driving overfishing and fisheries scarcity [12]. ...
... While a number of factors with "potential mediating variables such as climate variability, rapid population growth, social inequality, and the expansion of economic zones around coastal nations" drive maritime security conflicts [13, p. 803], competition over fisheries resources can become a potential driver leading to a "fish wars cycle" depicting linkages among fisheries resource scarcity, fisheries competition, and fisheries conflict through a feedback loop [12]. In this cycle, fisheries policy with ineffective resource governance capacity plays a critical role in driving overfishing and fisheries scarcity [12]. Beyond the acute and severe maritime conflicts emerging from fisheries competition, "everyday forms of fishing activities" can also lead to distortions in the relative power held by different actors, which underlie maritime security challenges in a broad sense [9, p. 147]. ...
North Korea's fisheries policy has created a wide range of maritime security challenges within the larger Northeast Asia region. North Korea has focused on increasing fish production and bringing in income, but its political economy has resulted in fisheries exploitation that is neither monitored nor controlled directly by the state. This is further complicated by United Nations sanctions that prohibit the legal export of fisheries product, and a series of maritime boundary disputes between North Korea and other countries. Combined, these factors lead to a range of maritime security problems, including fisheries smuggling, IUU fishing in both North Korean waters and elsewhere in the region, inter-state maritime clashes, arms proliferation, and maritime piracy. This has a number of policy implications for fisheries management and engagement with North Korea on maritime issues.
... First, the 'resource scarcity' theme proceeds with an economic orientation to espouse that the physical trespassing is driven by overfishing and fish scarcity in traditional and domestic fishing grounds. The economic stress borne by fishers becomes a motivating factor to travel afar and beyond the permitted fishing boundaries to compete for remaining resources and even deliberately engage in illegal fishing (Greer 2016;Mendenhall et al. 2020;Muawanah, Pomeroy, and Marlessy 2012;Pomeroy et al. 2016). The so-called 'fish wars' that involve threats and physical altercations by opposing navies and commercial fishing fleets may ensue, fuelling violence and insecurity and engendering further scarcity and conflict, while deteriorating the social, economic, and political conditions of the fishing-dependent people. ...
... Here, (contestations over) redefined political boundaries end up restricting fishing movement. Because the new boundaries driven by sovereignty claims or geopolitics rarely take into account traditional fishing grounds, fishers are forced to give up customary fishing practice by accepting new spatial ranges or venture into foreign (or contested) territories and risk severe penalties if caught (Manoharan and Deshpande 2018;Pomeroy et al. 2016;Raju 2009;Tagliacozzo 2007). Although intruding upon maritime boundaries can indeed be viewed as an anarchic disruption to the maritime security objectives of the state, when approached from the perspective of fishers, a sense of injustice and helplessness may prevail due to their fishing activities being displaced, invalidated, or made riskier, as well as due to suddenly gaining the label of an illegal and unsanctioned operator (Balint 1999;Song et al. 2020). ...
... The direct and indirect impact of cross-border confrontations and predation on fishing boats have elicited important coping strategies by fishers and civil society groups who support them. There are reports of fishers in both Indonesia and the Philippines who share self-defence tips, at-sea intelligence and safe navigational routes among themselves as part of being members to a fisher association (Pomeroy et al. 2016). In the Strait of Malacca, fishers and fish traders belonging to Hutan Melintang community devised a monthly pool of money to help pay for the ransom to support those that fall prey to kidnappings (Mak 2006). ...
Fishing in coastal waters can significantly intersect with state efforts to secure maritime borders. Recent cases of illegal fishing, maritime militia operation and piracy, especially in regions such as the South China Sea, have exposed the unpredictable and elusive nature of the ways in which fisheries and the mobility of fishing boats can complicate border security agenda. The current discussions of these topics are, however, largely episodic, scattered, and state-centric, risking poorly-informed policy/naval responses based on a partial understanding of security dynamics involving fishers and fishing boats. This paper identifies the multiple, and at times simultaneous, makeup of fishing entanglement with maritime border security by synthesising and organising its diverse forms into a typology. Supported by the practice theory and the civilian focus in critical border studies scholarship, this review examines eight types under three broad categories, namely: (1) fishing to pose security threat – ‘resource scarcity’, ‘redrawn boundaries’, ‘Trojan horse’; (2) fishing to aid security objectives – ‘civilian scout’, ‘peace broker’; and (3) security of fishers under threat – ‘direct preying’, ‘coping response’, ‘alert system’. The results provide further substance to the understanding that civilian movement has functions and meanings that can significantly shape the security trajectories of borders. It is suggested that a widened purview of fishing involvement is engaged in security analyses to enhance the comprehension and handling of this widespread but under-studied maritime border phenomenon.
... In contrast to this narrative, research in Southeast Asia has revealed complex and diverse drivers of conflict related to fisheries. Drivers such as education level, food security, crime, perceptions of resource health, and existing levels of other conflict were linked to fisheries conflicts that ranged from social tensions to piracy and violence within fishing villages [8,9]. Pomeroy et al. found that conflict over fisheries is perpetuated by three top-level components: competition over fisheries, existing levels of conflict, and fisheries scarcity. ...
... Existing conflict may include user-group violence and crime against fishers. Fisheries scarcity is affected by poor resource governance [6,9]. Devlin et al. explored fisheries conflict in six case study nations around the Horn of Africa and East Africa region, finding that access to fishing grounds, illegal fishing, and the presence of foreign fishers were the three highest drivers of conflict in the region. ...
... For these instances, the researchers define Fisheries Conflict or Cooperation Aggregate (FCCA) as an incident in which a news report contains information about a fisheries conflict or fisheries cooperation over a temporal range that may span multiple months or years and can occur throughout a larger region or in multiple locations. The protocol used to collect the fisheries conflict and cooperation data was adapted from the Fisheries Conflict Database Codebook, which draws largely from the Fish Wars Cycle [6,9,37]. ...
This study aimed to answer the calls to understand where, when, and how fisheries conflict and fisheries cooperation trends emerge in the small-scale fisheries systems for the small-island U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. Exploration of the dynamics between the date, location, drivers, and actors involved in conflict and cooperation interactions related to fisheries resources was achieved by creating a database via media content analysis and a qualitative social network analysis approach. During the timeframe of 2010–2019, a total of 35 fisheries conflicts and 133 fisheries cooperation events were identified. The primary drivers of all fisheries conflict events in Puerto Rico were maritime crime, an actual or perceived decline in fish populations, ecosystem change, cross national actors, poverty, marginalization, and strategic location of fisheries. The primary drivers of all fisheries cooperation events were an actual or perceived decline in fish populations and ecosystem change. Of all the cooperation events coded, nearly three quarters fell under meetings, third-party support, or negotiation requests. While half of the fisheries conflict events fell under fines, permit denials, or negotiations halted. Social network analysis revealed a gap in direct cooperation networks between regional environmental managers and fishers, suggesting an opportunity for stronger co-management agreements; there is potential for these agreements to be incentivized by existing links between fishers and university actors and NGOs.
... This makes traps more complex compared with other social dilemmas (Cumming, 2017). Even though some smallscale fishery systems are currently considered ecologically unsustainable and socially dysfunctional, they remain an important source of food security and livelihoods of fishing families and coastal communities (Pomeroy et al., 2016). The small-scale fishery literature has emphasised that apart from material benefits, the fishery provides other non-monetary values such as identity, culture and wellbeing of coastal communities (Jentoft and Eide, 2011;Weeratunge et al., 2014;Cleland, 2017), which explains why despite losses most fishers still opt not to completely exit the fishery (Muallil et al., 2011;Cleland, 2017). ...
... This is evident in global and national fisheries policies and programs that aim to improve income and the livelihoods of small-scale fishers, while at the same time relieving pressure on coastal resources of the fishery industry (Purcell and Pomeroy, 2015;Davila, 2018;Stacey et al., 2019). These fisheries policies and programs support technology development, production subsidies and extension support FAO, 2016;Pomeroy et al., 2016;Davila, 2018;Davila et al., 2018). Commodities play a significant role in the economic growth and development of a country. ...
... A reinforcing yet weak link. Fish farming, in theory, has the potential to reduce pressure off capture fishery and stop fishers overexploiting the reef (Bennett et al., 2015;Pomeroy et al., 2016), reinforcing the value to produce more from aquaculture. Nevertheless, change in environmental health is a weak link to change the 'productionist' paradigm as most fish farming practices focus on 'control' of inputs. ...
This thesis is focused on understanding human-environment interactions that drive a system into a social-ecological trap, a persistently unsustainable and undesirable social-ecological system. Recent research on social-ecological traps points to some gaps in the conceptualisation and analysis of these resilient yet pathological social-ecological systems. A more social-ecological conceptualisation of a social-ecological trap, which includes path dependence, human agency and external factors apart from the basic normative dimensions commonly invoked of social-ecological traps, was integrated in this research. This thesis is informed by the literature of social-ecological resilience, human ecology and systems thinking. Using complementary frameworks and approaches from each literature provides a more holistic and integrative analysis of social-ecological traps. The thesis aimed to investigate the links between and among ecosystem health, cultural paradigms, human wellbeing and institutions that keep a social-ecological system in an unsustainable and undesirable development path. The specific research questions are as follows: (1) Can the small-scale fisheries in the Philippines be characterised as being caught in a social-ecological trap? (2) What are the characteristics and structure of the social-ecological trap in these fisheries? (3) What are the factors that drive small-scale fishery systems in the Philippines into a social-ecological trap? (4) What are the interventions that could help move the small-scale fishery systems from a social-ecological trap into a sustainable and desirable system? This is a place-based research of selected small-scale fisheries in the Philippines. These critically valuable fishery areas include small-scale fish farming in an inland riverine system, north of Manila; small-scale capture fisheries in Northern Mindanao; and mariculture parks, also in Northern Mindanao, Philippines. Small-scale fisheries in the Philippines contribute to the domestic as well as regional fish production important for food security, sustainable livelihoods and wellbeing of these smallholder fishers and fish farmers. To the best of my knowledge, this research is also the first time that the concept of a social-ecological trap is applied in the Philippines small-scale fisheries. The research followed a case study and integrative research approaches utilising participatory mixed research methods. Data collection included 76 semi-structured interviews, 3 focus groups and 217 household surveys. Research participants included the small-scale fishers and fish farmers, government representatives from various levels, and civil society members concerned with fisheries in the areas. The thesis is divided into four (4) sections. The first section focuses on context setting, followed by the results section, which focuses on the case studies. The third section highlights the current and proposed recommendations to escape the net of social-ecological traps. The last section highlights the research synthesis; key findings; and recommendations in terms of research, practice and policy. This thesis provides theoretical and practical contributions to the literature on social-ecological traps. In spite of the burgeoning research on social-ecological traps, integrating a more social-ecological description of traps also highlights the roles of the temporal, scalar (external and endogenous) and human agentic responses in reinforcing or dampening trap dynamics. The dominant 'productionist' paradigm of modern agro-food systems was found to be a critical reinforcing force in the social-ecological trap process. Aside from unpacking these critical dynamics and factors of social-ecological traps, this thesis moves forward and proposes potential leverage points to break free from the trap's dynamics.
... Conflicts and social unrest on sea and ocean have increased in the recent past (Aswani, 2022;Yeasmin and Tkach, 2022;Williams, 1996). The absence of maritime governance creates possibilities for illicit activities (Pomeroy et al., 2016), including poaching and destructive fishing in sea-based territories (Yeasmin and Tkach, 2022). Multiple negative socioeconomic impacts have been brought forth by economic stress, social hardships, and complex competition for resources (Pomeroy et al., 2007). ...
... This paper examines sea insecurity and illegitimacy prevailing in northern Sri Lanka, especially in the Mannar islet. "Poorly governed or ungoverned maritime spaces also invite undue influence from predatory states that seek to exploit a country's offshore fisheries…or natural resources" (Pomeroy et al., 2016). Proving the same, sea insecurity in Sri Lanka has underpinned two main problems; Indian trawlers trespass the IMBL and extensive use of illegal fishing techniques. ...
International maritime boundary lines and legitimate fishing techniques safeguard the marine environment from poaching and over-exploitation of resources while ensuring sustainable fisheries-based livelihoods. Indian trawler trespass and illegal fishing have been extensively practiced along the Northwestern coast of the country, especially in Mannar. This paper examines the impacts of sea insecurity on small-scale fisheries living in Mannar. A mixed method approach was adopted employing both quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques, including a questionnaire survey (n=138), focus group discussions, in-depth interviews (n=15), participatory rural appraisal techniques, and key informant interviews (n=8). Fishing sites: Silavathurai, Vankalai, Pesalai, and SouthBar, which host both small-scale migrants and local fishers, were selected for the study. Individuals for the qualitative data collection were selected purposively, yet a simple random sampling technique was adopted for the questionnaire survey. A three-dimensional well-being approach- material, relational and subjective was used to assess the well-being of small-scale fishers. The Indian trawler poaching has reduced fishers’ harvest by more than 60 percent, thereby changing the income by 90 percent, making almost all debtors. Loss of material well-being due to increased cost of production, lower catch per unit effort, debt, and prolonged deprivation has led to illegal fishing such as dynamiting, ring seine, log fishing, and brush piles in the near-shore area. Mushrooming social conflicts among multiple user groups have jeopardized inter and intra-community relationships and networks. Illegitimacy negatively affects on the subjective well-being of fisher folk, both men and women, due to loss of self-esteem, frustration, and fear. Respondents claim interactive and communicative governance mechanisms for better implementation of rules and regulations. Frequent boat patrols and reconnaissance are requested to ensure sea security. Two main conclusions are drawn. First, sea security is needed to ensure the well-being of fisher folk over material, relational, and subjective aspects. Second, the lack of sea security encourages illegitimacy; the marine ecosystem’s health is damaged and jeopardized. Thus, an interactive and inclusive governing regime is suggested, which would replace the present inefficient and fragmented governing structure.
... Studies of the interactions of industrial and small-scale fisheries include, among others, environmental security perspectives (Homer--Dixon, 2010;Turner, 2004) and common property approaches (Ostrom, 1990), with both recognising resource scarcity as a central driver of fisheries conflict. This body of literature argues that in many cases of resource scarcity, different user groups compete over scarce fishing resources and, in the process, create conflict (Charles 1992;Doumbouya et al., 2017;Kolding et al., 2014;Pomeroy et al., 2016). Using the analytical framework of 'powers of exclusion' by Hall et al. (2011), this study expands on the resource-scarcity scholarship by exploring active exclusionary practices in fisheries as another source of conflict. ...
... The interactions between industrial fishing trawlers and small-scale fishers is well documented (see Bennett et al., 2001;Kolding et al., 2014;Overå, 2011;Penney et al., 2017;Pomeroy et al., 2016). Historically, there has been a conflictual relationship between them, with industrial trawl fishing stakeholders often exerting their influence and power over small-scale fishers (DuBois and Zografos, 2012;Nolan, 2019). ...
... We are particularly concerned with the possibility that conflict-prone regions experience large catches towards the end of the year, so that the impact of fisheries on conflict is overestimated. Although this is improbable in practice since conflicts can adversely influence fish catches (Pomeroy, Parks, Mrakovcich, & LaMonica, 2016), further analysis is warranted to ensure that our baseline results are not driven by the asynchronous occurrence of conflict and fish catches within the sample year. ...
... It is important to note that Indonesia's unique geography, as an archipelago with an extensive coastline and a significant coastal population, can play a crucial role in the relationship between fisheries and conflicts through a wide range of channels, including socio-economic, environmental, and political factors (Andrews et al., 2021;Hendrix & Glaser, 2011;Pomeroy et al., 2016). In addition to this, there are other potential reasons that our study found a robust fisheries-conflict linkage in Indonesia, including the scale of fisheries production (the world's 2nd largest producer), high reliance on fish as a source of animal protein intake (>50%), and the co-existence of both industrial and non-industrial fishing vessels (FAO, 2018;Muawanah et al., 2018). ...
To what extent do marine-based economic activities influence the onset of violent conflict? Despite ongoing debate over several decades around the relationship between natural resources and violent conflict, little of the relevant research has addressed the marine environment. Based on satellite data in Indonesia, this paper exploited geographical variations in ocean productivity to provide new evidence on the relationship between fisheries and violent conflict. Using a search-by-radius approach, we compiled a sample of 757 cells to represent spatial interactions and spillovers between land-based conflicts and catch landings on the sea. We found that both industrial and non-industrial catches exhibit a statistically significant positive influence on the occurrence of conflict events. Additionally, increased illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) catches are more likely than legal catches to cause violent conflict. An increase in fish catches in Indonesian waters fuels conflict of every kind, among which protests and riots are most sensitive to fisheries while fighting and terrorism are least sensitive. Overall, these empirical findings support the hypothesis that increased competition for common-pool resources contributes to the onset of violent conflict.
... The World Bank Group (2015) confirms that decline in fisheries have continued to occur partly because of the open access canoe fishery. This sense of fish scarcity and resource competition among fishers, results in different types of conflicts in marine ecosystems (Pomeroy et al., 2016). ...
... Relevant international fisheries literature on conflicts in fisheries (Charles, 1992;Williams, 1996;FAO, 1998;Bennett et al., 2001;Johnson and Bavinck, 2004;Pomeroy et al., 2007;Murshed-e-Jahana et al., 2009;Stevenson and Tissot, 2013) were reviewed in Ameyaw (2017) as a context to the study of conflict in Ghana. Inadequate governance and management of fisheries in developing countries can lead to overfishing, exposing fisheries to higher degrees of conflict which threatens their long-term sustainability (Pauly, 1990;Williams, 1996;Mills et al., 2012;Pomeroy et al., 2016). ...
Marine fisheries play important socio-economic roles in Ghana including the provision of food, livelihoods, employment, income generation and poverty reduction. Small-scale fisheries in Ghana face many management challenges such as overfished stocks, and user conflicts which can threaten resource sustainability and social stability. Previous research on conflict management in Ghanaian fisheries in 2001, gave a view of conflicts at that time. Since then, the institutional arrangements for fisheries management have developed, but there have also been other pressures from overfishing, population growth and the development of a national oil industry. This paper identifies previous studies and conducts participatory research interviews with a range of stakeholders to determine current fishery conflicts, their causes, consequences and their management. Different types of conflicts were identified which include, spatial, fishing gear, resource competition, and a range of governance and inter-agency conflicts. Conflicts among fishers have negative impacts on economic and social development. Unfortunately, the decline in fish production due to overfishing precipitates some of the conflict issues. It is concluded that fisheries governance of the small-scale fisheries sector can be enhanced, if fish production declines are addressed, open access canoe fisheries are restricted, management of pre-mix fuel administration and distribution improved, with the subsidy on the commodity being gradually removed. Fishery regulations can be enhanced, fisheries arbitration systems strengthened and fishers made more aware of fisheries laws through education via co-management. However, given the extensive changes envisaged and the time required to reduce levels of fishing effort, it is essential that co-management governance structures and relations among small-scale fishers keep improving, so as to contain the level of conflict in Ghana's fisheries in the transition to more sustainable fishing and food security.
... We first tested the demand-induced-scarcity hypothesis (H1) by looking at the relationship between demand and conflict (see Brashares et al., 2014;Choukri & North, 1975;Pomeroy et al., 2016;Seter et al., 2016;Yoffe et al., 2003). Specifically, we tested whether increased demand for fish was linked to fisheries conflict through three different aspects of demand for fishery products. ...
... Second, we tested the supply-induced-scarcity hypothesis (H2) by looking at the relationship between supply and conflict (see Brashares et al., 2014;Choukri & North, 1975;Homer-Dixon, 1991, 1994Pomeroy et al., 2016;Seter et al., 2016) through the variable "domestic supply quantity" (Table 1). If H2 is supported, we would expect to see that as the domestic supply of fishery products decreases, the number of conflicts over fishery resources a country engages in with another country increases. ...
Marine capture fishery resources are declining, and demand for them is rising. These trends are suspected to incite conflict, but their effects have not been quantitatively examined. We applied a multi‐model ensemble approach to a global database of international fishery conflicts between 1974 and 2016 to test the supply‐induced scarcity hypothesis (diminishing supplies of fishery resources increase fisheries conflict), the demand‐induced scarcity hypothesis (rising demand for fishery resources increases fisheries conflict), and three alternative political and economic hypotheses. While no single indicator was able to fully explain international conflict over fishery resources, we found a positive relationship between increased conflict over fishery resources and higher levels of per capita GDP for the period 1975–1996. For the period 1997–2016, we found evidence supporting the demand‐induced scarcity hypothesis, and the notion that an increase in supply of fishery resources is linked to an increase in conflict occurrence. By identifying significant predictors of international fisheries conflict, our analysis provides useful information for policy approaches for conflict anticipation and management.
... On the Amazon coast, most fisheries are unreported and unregulated or poorly managed, and management measures are often oriented towards industrial fisheries , with S. parkeri representing the only fish caught by small-scale fisheries that have catch regulations (e.g., minimum catch size and periodic closure). However, monitoring, enforcement, and surveillance are weak due to staff, logistical, and financial constraints of government institutions, which is common in small-scale fisheries worldwide (Andrew et al., 2007;Pomeroy et al., 2016;Purcell and Pomeroy, 2015). Moreover, government agencies are frequently unprepared to deal with the diffuse and multispecies nature of fisheries, and the large number of people involved and their distribution over large and often isolated areas (Berkes et al., 2001;Kolding et al., 2014). ...
... At the study site, this scenario is compounded by the growing number of migrant fishers from Pará and Maranhão, intensifying conflicts over fishing grounds and limited resources (Jimenez et al., 2019). Globally, a growing competition between commercial fisheries has occurred due to decline in the fish population and the consequent migration of fleets to places that are still productive (Pauly, 2006;Pomeroy et al., 2016Pomeroy et al., , 2007. This is the case with snapper and lobster fishers from Northeast Brazil that migrated to Pará and Maranhão (Almeida et al., 2011;Isaac et al., 2009), and is possibly the reason for the migration of fishers to Amapá (Jimenez et al., 2019). ...
A multidisciplinary assessment of the sustainability status of 11 coastal small-scale fishery systems in the Brazilian Amazon was performed using the Rapfish method with 31 indicators representing six evaluation fields (ecological, economic, ethical, institutional, social, and technological). The method employs a constrained multidimensional scaling ordination technique; uncertainty is expressed through Monte Carlo simulation and sensitivity by leverage analysis. Results showed that most fishery systems were ecologically, economically, and socially 'less satisfactory' and institutionally and ethically 'not sustainable'. Fishers have low levels of education and are highly reliant on fishing. They face low income, scarcity of alternative livelihoods, isolation from markets, weak political representation, and lack of regulatory measures and decision-making power. Fisheries target fishes with long life cycles and moderate to high vulnerability. Declining catches, increasing fishing effort and catching power, and competition with other fleets threatens the sustainability of fisheries. Recommendations include moving towards participatory management and governance, supporting the building of cohesive social organizations, and strengthening of human rights. New research and monitoring data and investments in capacity-building in research institutes and management agencies are required. The Rapfish method was employed with revised and new attributes, and the results demonstrate its applicability in data-poor scenarios in developing countries.
... faced with a high level of poverty, food insecurity and insufficient livelihood alternatives (Silva 2006;Béné et al. 2007;Wallner-Hahn et al. 2016). Additionally, the growing population around fisheries resources has influenced environmental stresses and overfishing due to the fishing pressure exerted in the nearshore fisheries (Pomeroy et al. 2016). ...
... Other studies employed SLA to understand the impact of fishers mobility, climate change and poverty on fishers livelihood (Badjeck et al. 2010;Nunan 2010). Some of the methodologies that have been used to assess the livelihood strategies of artisanal fishers includes, ecosystem approach to fisheries, management for resilience, social-ecological systems and a meta-analysis methodology (FAO 2003;Garcia et al. 2003;Carpenter et al. 2001;Carpenter et al. 2005;Walker et al. 2004;Berkes et al. 2003;Evans et al. 2011;Pomeroy et al. 2016). ...
Abstract Sustainable livelihood has been a focal point in many development initiatives by private and public sectors in most African countries. However artisanal fishers in the main lakes of Africa are faced with several alternative decisions to improve their livelihood sustainably. Several studies which have been conducted in Africa offered various options using different models such as sustainable livelihood approach/framework (SLA). This study provides different decision-making alternatives using multi-criteria decision model known as analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to assess the most economical and sustainable livelihood options for Nile perch fishers in Lake Victoria Tanzania. Using structured questionnaires and key informant interviews, different strategic criteria such as environment, economic, social and technology were analyzed and the study found that, important factor in the strategic criteria is environment. Moreover, different livelihood alternatives which include livelihood diversification, fisheries co-management and promotion of aquaculture were analyzed. The study found that livelihood diversification which implies diversifying income-generating activities was identified as the best alternative model for sustainable livelihood development. The study recommends proper income diversification interventions and environment management for the sustainability of Nile perch fishers’ livelihood and fishery resources in Lake Victoria.
... Our case studies illustrate that a likely driver of conflict is stock migration into high seas waters where artisanal and small-scale fishers lose access and DWFNs gain access [78]. The presence of foreign fishing vessels in or near the EEZs of countries that are losing stocks has high potential for conflict at a variety of scales and intensities. ...
... There are two popular explanations for fishers' cross-border mobility and movement: resource scarcity theory and structural force theory (Song 2021). The resource scarcity argument takes an economic orientation, attributing fishers' physical trespassing to fish scarcity in their traditional and domestic fishing grounds (e.g., Mendenhall et al. 2020;Pomeroy et al. 2016). To relieve economic pressure and maximise fish gains, fishers are motivated to venture beyond their permitted fishing zones, competing for remaining resources and even engaging in illegal fishing practices. ...
This research focuses on the under-studied phenomenon of maritime borders by providing a civilian perspective on how fishers live, negotiate, contest, and transcend state borders and surveillance at sea. It explores the everyday transboundary practices of Chinese fishers in the geopolitically sensitive South China Sea (SCS), examining their cross-border tactics to sustain fishing livelihoods and the mechanisms underpinning these tactics. Based on long-term, continuous ethnographic investigations, we unravel four tactics employed by Chinese fishers to elude the constraints of territorial borders: contract production, trans-territorial production, paying for the sea, and the appropriation of marine physicality. These transboundary strategies are supported by three mechanisms, including common fisher identity, historical transnational networks, and regional development structures. This research shows the agency and creativity of fishers in challenging and punctuating maritime territoriality in the context of increasing militarisation and securitisation of borderlands. It illustrates how the distinct materiality, mobility, and temporality of the ocean can be weaponised by fishers to undermine state-bordering processes. By exposing the extensive, dynamic, and complex civilian interactions and collaborations in the region, we demonstrate that the SCS is more than a geopolitical space but at the same time a social site of cooperation and solidarity. In doing so, this research contributes to studies of maritime borders and civilian geopolitical subjectivity by illuminating the flexibility of fishers in exercising 2 powers on borders at sea. It also advances the existing SCS area studies by 'peopling' the political geography of the region.
... In conclusion, ports are vital for economic growth, yet their development, expansion, and operations can negatively affect access to crucial fishing resources and livelihoods, as demonstrated in this study of coastal fishing in Ghana. As coastal small-scale fishing actors lose their only source of livelihood in the face of securitisation and displacement, there is potential for resistance, which may lead to different forms of maritime conflict (Pomeroy et al., 2016;Spijkers et al., 2019). Therefore, the study recommends that Ghana's government address these exclusions to ensure that smallscale fishing actors are not marginalised by its adoption of the blue economy. ...
The blue economy concept has drawn global attention to the maritime economy, recognising expanding maritime industries such as shipping as crucial drivers of economic growth. In recent decades, seaports have correspondingly witnessed significant expansion, allowing them to play a substantial role in achieving blue growth. This study examines the challenges faced by small-scale fishing actors in gaining access to fishing livelihoods in coastal fishing communities close to Ghanaian ports. Drawing on political ecology, the study demonstrates how securitisation in port areas and dispossession has resulted in unstable fishing livelihoods in port communities. The study shows that the growth-oriented goals of port expansions and port security measures have restricted fishing communities’ access to coastal fishing spaces and caused congestion in the canoe bays of Ghana’s fishing harbours. In addition, the urbanisation around the ports has impacted fishers’ ability to meet the rising cost of living in fishing communities with fishing incomes. Furthermore, the study discusses how the new Jamestown fishing harbour complex project has displaced small-scale fishing actors and become a site of contestation between a coastal fishing community and local government authorities. In conclusion, as coastal fishing actors lose their only source of livelihood, resistance may escalate into different forms of maritime conflicts in the blue economy. The study recommends addressing the marginalisation and exclusion of traditional coastal fishing livelihoods to ensure a more equitable blue economy.
... Degradasi ekosistem lautan dan kondisi chaotic yang disebabkan oleh pengelolaan sumber daya perikanan yang buruk menimbulkan ancaman kepunahan berbagai spesies (Longo & Clausen, 2011;Pomeroy et al., 2016). Dalam merespon kondisi ini, ilmu sosiologi mengkaji persoalan relasi masyarakat dan pemanfaataan sumber daya perikanan yang berlebih dan berdampak pada kelangkaan (Schnaiberg, 1980;Foster, 1999;Octavian & Yulianto, 2014), dikenal dengan sebutan ocean metabolic rift. ...
Book Chapter ini terdiri atas tujuh bab, meliputi: (1) Essay Identitas Suku Laut di Kepulauan Riau, (2) Masyarakat Adat Pesisir dalam Lingkar Kekerasan Kultural, (3) Pengarusutamaan Gender (PUG) dalam Pembangunan Kepulauan, (4) Sistem Medis Pada Masyarakat Kepulauan, (5) Media Sosial dan Pembangunan Masyarakat Pesisir: Upaya Mengembangkan Peluang Riset, (6) Sinergi Pengembangan Pariwisata dan Konservasi Sumber Daya Lautan Berbasis Kolaborasi dan (7) Kebijakan Pembangunan Kepulauan Nusantara Berkelanjutan. Ketujuh tulisan mengenai kepulauan sebagai penting bagi negeri ini besertamasyarakat tersebut merupakan hasil penelitian dan hasil konseptual review, sehingga beberapa topik tidak hanya bersifat konseptual, namun telah diuji secara empiris.
... Yet, we also detected multiple inter-regional differences, indicating that risk was not uniformly distributed within geographic regions. Regions with a high diversity of risk patterns, such as North America, Oceania and Africa could see an increase in fishery conflicts as regional differences in vulnerability have been found to be a potential source of conflicts over resources [44]. Regional differences also point to the need for country specific actions to respond to specific types of risks or even multiple risks. ...
Our study explores variations in the risk of fishery-dependent coastal nations to ocean acidification, sea surface temperature change, sea level rise, and storms. Our findings reveal differences in risk based on geographical location and the development status of a country. Our findings indicate significant geographical differences for three of the four risk indicators including sea level rise, sea surface temperature changes, and storms. Strategies for reducing risk globally thus need to be adapted to regional differences in risks. We further detected multiple inter-regional differences, indicating that risk was not uniformly distributed within geographic regions suggesting that some regions could see an increase in conflicts over fish resources due to uneven impacts of climate change on fisheries. In addition, we found that a number of countries are at medium to very high risk to multiple climate-related impacts, indicating the need for strategies that increase adaptive capacity in general in these countries to cope with any kind of impact in addition to specific risk reduction strategies. We also found that overall small island developing states were most at risk. Yet, further analysis showed that grouping of countries in pre-defined groups fails to detect variations in risk among countries within these groups. More specific national indicators provide more nuanced insights into risk patterns.
... Overfishing and collapse of fish stocks also has severe socioeconomic consequences including impacts on livelihoods, food security and social stability (e.g. Pomeroy et al., 2016). ...
We review the current knowledge of the biodiversity of the ocean as well as the levels of decline and threat for species and habitats. The lack of understanding of the distribution of life in the ocean is identified as a significant barrier to restoring its biodiversity and health. We explore why the science of taxonomy has failed to deliver knowledge of what species are present in the ocean, how they are distributed and how they are responding to global and regional to local anthropogenic pressures. This failure prevents nations from meeting their international commitments to conserve marine biodiversity with the results that investment in taxonomy has declined in many countries. We explore a range of new technologies and approaches for discovery of marine species and their detection and monitoring. These include: imaging methods, molecular approaches, active and passive acoustics, the use of interconnected databases and citizen science. Whilst no one method is suitable for discovering or detecting all groups of organisms many are complementary and have been combined to give a more complete picture of biodiversity in marine ecosystems. We conclude that integrated approaches represent the best way forwards for accelerating species discovery, description and biodiversity assessment. Examples of integrated taxonomic approaches are identified from terrestrial ecosystems. Such integrated taxonomic approaches require the adoption of cybertaxonomy approaches and will be boosted by new autonomous sampling platforms and development of machine-speed exchange of digital information between databases.
... generated by small-scale fisheries, 104 benefits only a limited number of fisheries managers, contributing to social conflicts and unfair competition. 105 As a consequence of the capital concentration in the hands of few and the 'race to fish', costs are cut from investments in occupational health, decent labour and safety, often creating deplorable and even slave-like working conditions for fishworkers. 106 The inequitable distribution of capital and benefits arising from the exploitation of fish poses a greater burden on small-scale fishing communities, for whom fish and fishing are part of their social and cultural identity and cultural heritage. ...
This article seeks to clarify the extent of international legal requirements for environmental impact assessments (EIAs) and strategic environmental assessments (SEAs) for large-scale industrial fisheries, including whether these requirements entail the assessments of potential social and cultural impacts of the sector's activities. We discuss the current practices of impact assessments more generally and explain the potential and actual environmental and social impacts caused by large-scale industrial fisheries. Based on this analysis, we revisit the international legal foundations for a duty to carry out EIAs, arguing that such a duty applies to large-scale industrial fisheries. We also argue that EIAs for large-scale industrial fisheries, as well as SEAs for related policies and programmes, should integrate the assessment of social and cultural impacts, based on a mutually supportive interpretation of international law regimes dedicated to the sea, fisheries, biodiversity and human rights.
... If the Blue Economy cannot provide coastal populations with sufficient opportunities to support their livelihoods or even increases poverty by causing environmental degradation, there is a high risk that marginalized peoples turn to illicit maritime activities as alternative sources of employment (Bueger, 2017, p. 118). Indeed, the causal mechanism between fisheries scarcity and conflicts (Pomeroy, Parks, Mrakovcich and LaMonica, 2016), and overfishing and piracy (Biziouras, 2013;Denton and Harris, 2019) is welldocumented. ...
The Blue Economy, a concept broadly describing a sustainable use of the oceans, is increasingly invoked by a variety of stakeholders in the maritime domain. As there is no unambiguous definition of the Blue Economy, this chapter investigates different understandings of the Blue Economy concept and shows how the maritime security and the Blue Economy agendas are co-dependent. By introducing Blue Economy strategies of selected states and organizations, and scrutinizing the way they relate to the maritime security agenda, the importance of the Blue Economy for maritime security governance is discussed. As maritime security and the Blue Economy mutually enable each other, an integrated perspective is necessary to realize the potential of the Blue Economy for securing the maritime domain.
... More humans mean more farmed land, which means more human-wildlife interaction. The world population is expected to increase by more than half in the next fifty years, from six billion in 2000 to more than nine billion in 2050, and the increase in both wildlife and human population creates competition for limited natural resources, resulting in conflict [48]. ...
... Therefore, unmanaged fisheries experience competitive "race-to-fish" issues that affect sustainability outcomes. For decades, the blind pursuit of high fishing yields has resulted in problems such as excess input, declining fishery resources, declining quality of catches, poverty of fishermen, and ecological damage, which has severely constrained the process of sustainable development (Pomeroy et al., 2016;Spijkers et al., 2018;Tsilimigkas and Rempis, 2018;Chen and Zhou, 2020). However, it is difficult for resource users to maintain public resources through self-control, which by necessity must be regulated by the government (Ostrom, 2009). ...
The sustainable development of marine capture fisheries (MCFs) plays a significant role in food security, economic development, and employment stability. The lack of information on the sustainability of MCFs, along with the inadequate management of fisheries output controls, has weakened China’s efforts towards a national catch limit target of no more than 10 million tons from capture fisheries until 2020. Furthermore, overfishing and fishery conflicts still exist. In order to try and resolve the above problems and achieve the sustainable use of fishery resources, an evaluation of the development status of these fisheries based on the coupling coordination model has been undertaken. The results show that the social, economic, and biological systems of MCFs in coastal areas of China interact with each other while their development is not coordinated, and regional differences exist. This study integrates the socioeconomic indicators using the catch-share program as a breakthrough methodology to resolve inconsistencies. The results under different allocation schemes suggest that the multifactor scheme is more equitable than the single-factor scheme, which enhances the fairness of the initial distribution.
... Identifying the drivers of problematic environmental change requires attention to scale: specifically, identifying and addressing the true drivers of the observed problem rather than assigning blame to proximal populations' behaviors by default. This is being done in some circlesby targeting key intermediaries in wild species value chains (Pascual-Fernández et al., 2019), or addressing civil conflict that may drive poaching and illegal fishing (Pomeroy et al., 2016), for example. Yet many applied behavioral interventions target resource-reliant, less wealthy, and less powerful populations (Finkbeiner et al., 2018;Jones et al., 2019;Simmons et al., 2020). ...
In recent decades, interest in and application of behavioral insights to conservation theory and practice have expanded significantly. Yet the growth of integrated strategies to adapt and guide human behavior in service of conservation outcomes has included limited engagement with questions of equity and power. Here we examine the use of behavioral approaches in conservation efforts, emphasizing potential misapplications that may result from omitting equity and power considerations. Such omission may lead to an overemphasis on the role of individual behaviors relative to system‐level drivers of biodiversity loss, result in misalignment between behavioral interventions and the actual drivers of behavior in situ, and incur unanticipated negative social welfare and distributional costs, all of which may undermine conservation success. We offer recommendations for centering equity when applying behavioral insights to conservation, including strategies for high‐level agenda setters (scholars, advocates, funders and programmatic leaders) as well as conservation practitioners. The urgent need for biodiversity conservation is insufficient reason to side‐step equity and power considerations; we contend that centering equity is consistent with this urgency and key for developing sustainable conservation theory and practice.
... Thus, the main goal of this study is to evaluate the recovery of the La Restinga community, the most important fishing village on El Hierro, with a special focus on small-scale fishing activities along the affected coastlines. It also aims to examine the diversity of La Restinga villagers' livelihoods and coping strategies (Pomeroy et al., 2016) from a broader perspective during the economic lockdown of the entire island that took place the year following the eruption. Notably, it analyzes the role of the informal economy and traditional exchanges based on reciprocity among villagers in the coping process after the volcanic eruption. ...
Small-scale coastal fishing communities are facing many new challenges, such as rapid ecological changes created by anthropogenic and natural events like earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. This paper explores how a coastal population has responded to such an event and highlights the diverse coping strategies used to tackle it. This research was conducted on the island of El Hierro (Spain), where a submarine volcanic eruption occurred in 2011, affecting a multiple-use Marine Protected Area (MPA) and the nearby fishing community of La Restinga. Our study illustrates how the local population coped with this situation by combining multiple monetary and non-monetary activities (e.g., informal exchanges) as well as the role of institutions in increasing local resilience by supporting fishers' demands and allowing their participation in the decision-making process in the immediate wake of a catastrophic event. Local families also exploited various natural resources in and near the MPA, thus ensuring access to crucial marine resources and continued recreational/cultural services. The results suggest that collective action played a key role in the recovery process after the eruption, creating some advantages for different local groups despite the hazardous nature of the event.
... Building on studies categorizing fishing-related offenses (30,32,38,39,54,73) (see Table 1 and tables S2 to S4), our study covers three main categories of offenses, a term that we use rather than "crime" since not all offenses fall into the legal category of "criminal offenses" in all jurisdictions, and a total of 18 subcategories (see Table 4). Each offense data point (n = 7962) within the Criminal Record of Fishing is associated with an incident (n = 6853), an offense subcategory (n = 18), the EEZs and regions where the offense took place (n = 155), and the year it took place (n = 21), as well as the sector (artisanal and industrial), the flag state (n = 114), the company or individual (n = 1050), and the fishing vessel (n = 2034) associated with the offense. ...
This study provides a global assessment of the linkages between observed fisheries-related offenses across the world's oceans between 2000 and 2020. We analyze data from the largest existing repository with 6853 events reporting offenses across 18 fishing-related categories, including illegal fishing, human rights abuses, and smuggling. We find that at least 33% of all recorded offenses are associated with 450 industrial vessels and 20 companies originating from China, the EU, and tax haven jurisdictions. We observe links between various types of offenses for 779 vessels, with such "transversal criminality" involving 2000 offenses and crimes globally. This study demonstrates the ability to identify offenders and patterns of behaviors threatening fisheries sustainability at a global level and countries most vulnerable to transversal criminality. In light of concerns for widespread underreporting and impunity, we call for greater information sharing, interagency cooperation, and stringent enforcement to bring to account major offenders.
... The global costs of IUU fishing, in terms of the volume and value of fish caught are relatively well established. However, IUU fishing is linked to a range of other social and economic consequences, including loss of taxation income [25,61]; undermining of social cohesion [26,65]; human rights abuses, enforced labour and modern slavery [24,64]; maritime conflict [4,52,56]; and transnational organised crime including drugs, firearms and sex-trafficking [6,10]. On the issue of links between IUU fishing and organised crime there is some disagreement in the literature, with a recent review demonstrating limited evidence of overlap between the two [31]. ...
Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing is a global phenomenon occurring across all fishery types, sectors and geographies. In order to successfully address IUU fishing, fisheries policies, regulations, and management strategies, as well as subsequent monitoring, control and surveillance activities, must be supported by an appropriate evidence base at relevant spatial-temporal scales. Here we present a systematic review of IUU fishing and its impacts at global, and case study regional (Europe and the North East Atlantic) and national (UK) levels in order to determine the extent to which IUU fishing is understood and to identify priority information gaps which undermine current management efforts. The economic and environmental impacts of IUU fishing are well established, as are a wide range of implicit but more difficult to quantify social impacts. However, the amount of public money being spent on combatting IUU fishing is likely at least an order of magnitude lower than the cost of the activities themselves. Data at regional and particularly national levels are often at too low a resolution to provide sufficient evidence capable of supporting effective policy and regulatory actions to address IUU fishing. A contemporary and more granular understanding of IUU fishing is therefore required. We propose a four-step research agenda to improve the understanding of IUU at relevant national spatial-temporal scales and from which to make effective, evidence-based actions: (1) defining intent and goal-setting, (2) risk assessment and prioritisation, (3) estimation of volume, costs and impacts, and (4) economic appraisal of policy and regulatory reform.
... The impacts of a securitized 1 response to combating IUU fishing, based on physical deterrence and sanctions, have shown to be punitive and demoralizing to fishers in many cases (Balint, 1999;Song et al., 2020). The negative 'fish wars' rhetoric is also likely to obstruct collaborative management approaches that require resource users and governments to work together (see Pomeroy et al., 2016). There is an urgent need to understand and address the root causes (and concepts) of IUU fishing that leads to overexploitation and develop greater clarity around the disaggregation of SSF with regards to IUU fishing. ...
Adaptive, inclusive and effective management of fisheries resources is dependent on knowledge from multiple quantitative and qualitative sources. As technology advances, there is an increasing interest in digital and automated solutions for gathering fisheries data. Small-scale fisheries (SSF) have presented a persistent challenge to many centralized quantitative data collection systems, and frequently maintain the status of 'unreported'. This unreported nature often implicates SSF in the definition and discussions of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Monitoring, control and surveillance are seen as a vital part of the solution to IUU fishing, with substantial investment being put into increasingly sophisticated technology for tracking fishing vessels. For the past few years, India has been attempting to pass legislation to require all vessels, from small-scale to industrial, to install vessel monitoring systems on the grounds of national security and combating IUU fishing. However, there are concerns that a securitized and top-down approach to implement vessel tracking is not only wasteful but risks further marginalization of small-scale fishers from the resource, and fisheries groups from governance processes. India should seek to solve the underlying causes of IUU fishing while also developing collaborative monitoring and community-based management models. In this paper, we review evidence of emerging information and communication technologies and approaches in SSF and discuss how, if introduced and managed through collaborative processes, they could be used as a platform to strengthen inclusive governance, increase sustainability and improve wellbeing in coastal fisheries in India. (
... The global costs of IUU fishing, in terms of the volume and value of fish caught are relatively well established. However, IUU fishing is linked with a wide range of other social and economic consequences, including loss of taxation income (Konar et al., 2019;Sumaila et al., 2020), undermining of social cohesion (Gallic and Cox, 2006;Tinch et al., 2008), transnational organised crime including drugs, firearms and sex-trafficking (Bueger and Edmunds, 2020;De Coning, 2011), human rights abuses, enforced labour and modern slavery (Kittinger et al., 2017;Tickler et al., 2018), and maritime conflict (Belhabib et al., 2019;Pomeroy et al., 2016;Spijkers et al., 2019). These broader concerns, although vitally important in understanding the costs of IUU activities, are well discussed in the literature but by their very nature are difficult to quantify and so few empirical estimates are available. ...
As of 1st January 2021, the UK is no longer subject to the legislative powers of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). Previously, the UK’s governance of IUU fishing was covered by the EU’s IUU fishing regulations (1005/2008). Whilst retained within UK law, there is now an opportunity to reform these regulations and the policies which guide them in order to better counteract the costs of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) activities to the UK. This study reviews the existing literature and assessments of IUU activities and their impacts on the UK in order to determine the extent to which IUU impacts are understood and identifies priority research gaps to be addressed in order to strengthen this understanding.
A systematic literature review was conducted. Searches used Boolean logic to combine terms relating to IUU and the associated environmental, economic, social and financial costs were conducted in Google Scholar and constrained between the years 2000 and 2020. Searches identified 456 unique documents, which were subjected to a series of screening processes resulting in 69 articles of direct relevance that were reviewed and analysed. The literature review was supplemented by data from two existing global datasets compiled and updated by the University of British Columbia alongside figures on the cost on fisheries enforcement from the Marine Management Organisation (MMO). Annual estimates of the level of IUU fishing were sourced from the Sea Around Us database, while estimates of the costs to the taxpayer of combatting IUU activities were sourced from the global subsidies database compiled by the Fisheries Economic Research Unit.
The information collated clearly demonstrates that IUU activities are substantial at the global, regional, and national scales. Large economic and environmental costs are apparent, as are a wide range of implicit but difficult to quantify social costs which result from IUU activities. Further, the amount of taxpayer’s money being spent on combatting IUU activities is at least an order of magnitude lower than the value of the activities themselves. Given that the benefits of undertaking IUU activities substantially outweigh the costs of detection and capture to operators, it is no surprise that IUU activity appears pervasive.
While a number of publications have sought to improve our understanding of the scale of IUU, most are restricted in scope and are aimed at wide geographic scales. These restrictions are in part unavoidable, with the secretive nature of IUU activity necessitating the use of broad, low-resolution assumptions around IUU behaviour. To better understand the costs and impacts to the UK of IUU activities within its EEZ, a deeper and more granular understanding of IUU activities is required. Understanding contemporary IUU activities in particular is likely to be pivotal, with the impacts of both global (COVID-19 pandemic) and local (EU Exit) changes already resulting in substantial and potentially long-term changes in the patterns of fishing activities within the UK’s EEZ. An improved understanding will ultimately facilitate better estimates of the scale and distribution of both impacts and costs of IUU, and facilitate more targeted measures to address these activities.
This report identifies three key research streams which encompass IUU activities impacting the UK: a) fish products derived from IUU activities which enter the UK seafood supply chain, b) fish products derived from IUU catches in the UK EEZ which enter the seafood supply chains of other States, and c) IUU catches originating from the UK EEZ which do not enter the seafood supply chain of any State (i.e. unreported catches such as discards). We recommend a step wise approach, (i) identifying assessment units (e.g., fisheries / fleets / species / regions) at high risk of IUU activities, (ii) improved data collection, (iii) improved and participatory estimation of IUU volume and associated costs, and (iv) facilitating a well-informed economical appraisal of IUU activities impacting the UK and the policy options to counteract them.
... Fishing in times of armed conflict is often framed as illegal resource extraction made possible through the breakdown of law and order in times of war. A range of actors seize the opportunity to economically enrich themselves which increases competition and sometimes leads to 'fish wars' (Glaser et al., 2019;Pomeroy et al., 2016). However, this framing neglects the broader historical socio-political landscapes the fishing takes place in. ...
Lakes are rarely considered to be political spaces in the literature on the inter-linkages between landscapes, authority, and armed conflict. Scholars mainly focussed on the role of mountains, forests, and mud fields, in war and resistance, and examine how a variety of state(-like) actors try to make these ́unrulý spaces legible. This article discusses the frictions that emerge when the management of Virunga National Park in eastern DR Congo tries to retake control of Lake Edward through infrastructural and military interventions. These interventions not only encounter resistance from multiple rebel groups that hold various fishing villages along the shores of Lake Edward, but also from other state authorities present in the area—‘fishing rebels’ and ‘fishy state officials’. Drawing on a longue durée perspective to understand contemporary contestations allows us to move beyond focussing on practices of illegal fishing in conflict areas and, instead, embed such issues within the broader historically shaped political and social landscapes of power. Park authorities aim to carve the lake into ‘enclaves’—to counter subversion and render fishing sustainable—neglecting the ways in which the lake is interconnected. This article argues that we should abandon the dichotomy of landscapes as either producing subversive politics/rebellion or as controlled by ‘the state’. Instead of approaching landscapes in conflict areas —in this case lakes— as ‘rebel landscapes’ they should be approached as ‘rebellious landscapes’, as they are controlled fluidly amongst different de facto authorities.
... Bindoff et al. (2019) explain that individuals can lose sites of significance, affecting their cultures and identity directly(Adger et al. 2012). Also, a decrease in fish stock will contribute to future conflicts(Belhabib et al. 2016;Pomeroy et al. 2016; Blasiak et al. 2017). Hence, governances without proper adaptation responses will increase potential conflicts in management and resource distribution(Belhabib et al. 2018;Pinsky et al. 2018). ...
... In this way, SSF requires planned actions supported in predictive models that fit the disposition of existing information, which is usually insufficient, or low quality; but in the end, it is the only data generated in most developing countries (Salas et al. 2007, Hilborn & Ovando 2014, Pomeroy et al. 2016, de la Barra et al. 2019. Besides, this sector generally lacks economic resources for research, data collection, management, and surveillance. ...
Small-scale fishing (SSF) is a relevant economic activity worldwide, so sustainable development will be essential to assure its contributions to food security, poverty alleviation, and healthy ecosystems. However, the wide diversity of fisheries, their complexity, and the lack of information limit the ability to propose/evaluate management measures and plans and their effects on communities and other productive activities. The state of Baja California Sur, Mexico, our study case, ranks as the third place in national fisheries production, possesses SSF fleets, has a wide variety of fisheries that share fishing areas, fishing seasons, and operating units. In this work, assuming SSF as a complex system were proposed deep learning models (DLM) to forecast the catch volumes, evaluate each input variable's importance, and find interactions. Environmental variables and catch fisheries were tested in the DLM to estimate their predictive power. Different DLM structures and parameters to find the optimal model was used. The variables that presented higher predictive power are the environmental variables with R = 0.90. Moreover, when used in combination with the catches from other areas, the performance of R = 0.95 is obtained. Using only the catches, the model has an R = 0.81. This model allows the use of variables that indirectly affect the system and demonstrates a useful tool to assess a complex system's state in the face of disturbances in its variables.
... Examples of conflict have long existed: between fishers and fishing managers regarding new regulations, such as over the establishment of marine protected areas [25,[35][36][37]; between small-scale and large-scale fleets [38][39][40][41]; between countries on the use of the high seas [42,43]; and between the fisheries sector and other sectors, such as agriculture [44], oil exploitation [45,46], or tourism [32]. Additional drivers of fishery conflicts include: a lack of stakeholder education; changes in fish abundance and spatial distribution [47][48][49]; climate change [50][51][52]; illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing; people and drug trafficking; and bad labor conditions [53][54][55]. ...
Fisheries social-ecological systems regularly experience conflicts. In many regions of the world, the way conflicts are dealt with may lead to social transformation resulting from changes in tenure rights. This analysis is focused on the many types of fisheries tenure, access and user rights and reveals that some sort of conflict is present in the majority of them. In the fisheries sector, the primary institutions tasked with conflict resolution are public fisheries management authorities and/or the legal system. We argue that the type of conflict and the chosen conflict resolution strategy have an important role in determining how the fishery and its participants evolve in the future. We highlight the importance of conflicts as triggers of social transformation and discuss the role of institutions in this transition. We present a conflict transformation approach that helps frame the path for transformations that are democratic and entail the balanced representation and participation of all stakeholders.
... While the extent of climate-driven range shifts in Antarctic marine ecosystems are less well described, there is increasing evidence that such shifts are occurring for multiple species (Melbourne-Thomas 2020). Changes in the distribution of key fisheries species are already exacerbating existing or creating new conflicts within and between countries (Belhabib et al. 2016;Pomeroy et al. 2016;Spijkers et al. 2018). Moreover, the impacts of climate-driven changes in species distribution are further compounded by the human-driven spread of invasive species (Mustonen et al. 2018). ...
One of the most pronounced effects of climate change on the world's oceans is the (generally) poleward movement of species and fishery stocks in response to increasing water temperatures. In some regions, such redistributions are already causing dramatic shifts in marine socioecological systems, profoundly altering ecosystem structure and function, challenging domestic and international fisheries, and impacting on human communities. Such effects are expected to become increasingly widespread as waters continue to warm and species ranges continue to shift. Actions taken over the coming decade (2021-2030) can help us adapt to species redistributions and minimise negative impacts on ecosystems and human communities, achieving a more sustainable future in the face of ecosystem change. We describe key drivers related to climate-driven species redistributions that are likely to have a high impact and influence on whether a sustainable future is achievable by 2030. We posit two different futures-a 'business as usual' future and a technically achievable and more sustainable future, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals. We then identify concrete actions that provide a pathway towards the more sustainable 2030 and that acknowledge and include Indigenous perspectives. Achieving this sustainable future will depend on improved monitoring and detection, and on adaptive, cooperative management to proactively respond to the challenge of species redistribution. We synthesise examples of such actions as the basis of a strategic approach to tackle this global-scale challenge for the benefit of humanity and ecosystems.
Supplementary information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11160-021-09641-3.
... Bindoff et al. (2019) explain that individuals can lose sites of significance, affecting their cultures and identity directly(Adger et al. 2012). Also, a decrease in fish stock will contribute to future conflicts(Belhabib et al. 2016;Pomeroy et al. 2016; Blasiak et al. 2017). Hence, governances without proper adaptation responses will increase potential conflicts in management and resource distribution(Belhabib et al. 2018;Pinsky et al. 2018). ...
... While the extent of climate-driven range shifts in Antarctic marine ecosystems are less well described, there is increasing evidence that such shifts are occurring for multiple species (Melbourne-Thomas 2020). Changes in the distribution of key fisheries species are already exacerbating existing or creating new conflicts within and between countries (Belhabib et al. 2016;Pomeroy et al. 2016;Spijkers et al. 2018). Moreover, the impacts of climate-driven changes in species distribution are further compounded by the human-driven spread of invasive species (Mustonen et al. 2018). ...
... Subsequently, the demand for cheap labor increases and the chance of labor exploitation increases as does the susceptibility of fishers to engage in illicit activity (Okafor-Yarwood, 2020 Crane, 2013). More so, if the regulatory context is one which has government complicity, political instability, high levels of corruption, limited regulations, regulatory failures, poor fisheries management, a lack of effective regulatory infrastructure, and much less enforcement (Crane, 2013;Pomeroy et al., 2016). Finally, cultural contexts can also exacerbate the vulnerability of certain groups, for example, if there are deep-rooted social inequalities (Crane, 2013;Decker Sparks and Hasche, 2019). ...
Illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing is a major contributor to global overfishing, threatening food security, maritime livelihoods, and fisheries sustainability. An emerging narrative in the literature posits that IUU fishing is associated with additional organized criminal activities, such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, slavery, and arms smuggling. We explored this narrative through a systematic literature review to identify the empirical evidence of the association between illegal fisheries activities and organized crimes. Here we show that there is minimal evidence of organized crimes being linked to IUU fishing. Due to the covert nature of both organized crime and IUU fishing, we supplemented the literature review with analysis of media reports on illegal fishing from 2015 to 2019. We reviewed more than 330 individual media reports from 21 countries. From this database, < 2% reported crimes associated with illegal fishing. The predominantly associated crime mentioned were violations of worker's rights, forced labor and/or modern slavery. We resolve the contradiction between the common narrative that fisheries and other crimes are linked by presenting three distinct business models for maritime criminal activities. These models explain why certain crimes such as forced labor are associated with illegal fishing, while other crimes such as trafficking or smuggling are less likely to be linked to fishing activities. By disentangling these crimes from one another we can better focus on solutions to reduce illegal behavior on the sea, protect those vulnerable to fisheries exploitation, and enhance livelihoods and social well-being.
... Stakeholder participation and engagement is thought to help alleviate conflict that may result from implementation of MPAs (Chang et al., 2012, Muawanah et al., 2012Pomeroy et al. 2007, 2016bib_Pomer-oy_et_al_2016, Ramirez, 2016bib_Pomeroy_et_al_2007, Stamieszkin et al., 2009. Such engagement by necessity involves meaningful communication between local stakeholders and higher-up officials and managers to facilitate a more decentralized decision-making process (Pomeroy et al., 2016). Relational coordination may thus support conditions that are conducive to conflict alleviation and prevention. ...
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a conservation tool that are increasingly commonplace around the world. MPAs have the potential to benefit both ecosystems and human communities if well-designed and implemented. Achieving effective implementation and governance of MPAs, however, is complicated because they deal with systems that overlap with both non-human environments and human economies and societies. As a result, MPA success is thought to be primarily dependent on socioeconomic factors, particularly the behavior of stakeholder groups involved in the MPAs. Using the theory of relational coordination, we designed surveys that we delivered to members of four stakeholder groups implicated in five MPAs in the Spanish Mediterranean to investigate their habits of inter- and intra-group communication and relations. Relational coordination posits that high-quality communication and relations results in positive stakeholder behaviors and an effective system, which makes it a useful tool to investigate the effectiveness of the MPAs involved in this study. Our results demonstrate that a high degree of relational coordination leads to higher satisfaction on the part of the participants in the system. The exploratory model constructed here also supports the notion that each stakeholder group adopts particular beliefs and behaves in particular ways in terms of relational coordination and satisfaction. We found patterns that indicated poor communication and relations amongst the four stakeholder groups, which in turn has grave implications for management outcomes of these MPAs. Cumulatively, these conditions could precipitate management failure. To remedy these concerns, we recommend establishing channels of communication between the four stakeholder groups, and investigating means to cultivate good relations amongst these groups. Doing so will help assure management success.
The purpose of our study is to examine the Fishery-based Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for a sample of 48 African countries between 1970–2019. We estimate cubic EKC-type models using quantile regression to account for distributional asymmetries existing in the time series data, and our empirical analysis is conducted at continental, regional and country-specific levels. Methodologically, our findings indicate that most EKC relationships are found at the tail-end of the quantile regressions, hence demonstrating their usefulness in capturing “hidden relationships” amongst the variables. Empirically, our findings reveal that Southern African countries along the Atlantic Ocean, as well as West African countries which lie along the Gulf of Guinea, tend to have exploitable Fishery-EKC. Conversely, conflict-prone countries found along the Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean and landlocked nations either have inverse or non-existent Fisheries EKC. We provide a novel theoretical explanation for our findings and offer policy recommendations for different stakeholders in African Fisheries markets.
21. yüzyılın küresel siyasi ve ekonomik gündem döngüsünde denizlere yönelik ilgi hızla yaygınlaşmıştır. Ulaşım, küresel ticaret, doğal kaynak rezervleri ve transferi gibi konularda merkezi konumda yer alan deniz alanlarının güvenliği de özellikle 2000’li yılların başından itibaren ulusal ve uluslararası güvenlik stratejilerinin önemli bir parçasını oluşturmaktadır. Ancak “deniz güvenliği” kavramına yönelik farklı bakış açıları, kavramın tek bir tanımının olmamasına dolayısıyla söz konusu güvenliği tehdit eden unsurların da farklı anılmasına yol açmaktadır. Geniş kapsamda ve üzerinde uzlaşılmış deniz güvenliği tehditlerinin bulunmaması ise hem deniz güvenliği konusunda küresel iş birliğini zorlaştırmakta hem de bu tehditlerle mücadeleyi zayıflatmaktadır. Deniz güvenliğini tehdit eden en güçlü ortak tehdit unsurlarının belirlenmesi, bu tehditlerle mücadelede ortak hareket edilmesi açısından önemlidir. Bu çalışmanın amacı; deniz güvenliği kavramının tanımlanmasında kapsamlı bir analiz gerçekleştirmek ve 21. yüzyılda deniz güvenliğini tehdit eden en güçlü unsurları belirlemektir. Bu amaç doğrultusunda 21. yüzyıl deniz güvenliği tehditleri; akademik çalışmalar, devletler ve uluslararası örgütler tarafından yayınlanan strateji belgeleri, askeri dokümanlar ve raporlar kapsamında belirlenmiştir. Daha sonra AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) Yöntemi aracılığıyla bu tehditlerin önem dereceleri tespit edilmiştir. Çalışma sonucunda 21. yüzyılda deniz güvenliğini tehdit eden en önemli ilk üç unsur sırasıyla; 0,2571 önem derecesiyle ile İklim Değişikliği, 0,2360 önem derecesiyle Devletlerarasındaki Deniz Sınırı Anlaşmazlıkları ve 0,1786 önem derecesiyle Deniz Kirliliği ve Çevre Sorunları olarak tespit edilmiştir.
Accounts of fishing conflicts have been rising globally, particularly between small-scale and industrial vessels. These conflicts involve verbal or physical altercations, and may include destruction of boats, assault, kidnapping, and murder. Current scholarship around industrial/small-scale fishing conflicts theorizes them as a form of resource conflict, where fish scarcity is the dominant contributor to conflict and competition. Alternatively, conflicts may be driven by spatial competition, concentrating where there are increased encounters, unrelated to resource status. Current policies to address these conflicts focus on enforcing the separation of small-scale and industrial vessels; however, this broad spatial separation has yet to be evaluated for deterring conflicts. Here we employ a novel spatial analysis to estimate the locations of industrial/small-scale conflicts at sea in Ghana, West Africa. Using data from narrative reports over the period of 1985 to 2014, we combine qualitative information on depth and shoreline indicators to analyze conflict locations. We find virtually all expected conflict locations (98%) occurred within the zone meant to exclude industrial vessels, and conflicts concentrated primarily around major ports. Our results suggest conflicts are likely more related to spatial patterns of vessel presence than patterns of resource use. These findings suggest a critical need for evidence-based and contextual information on the drivers of fisheries conflicts, rather than continued reliance on assumptions of resource scarcity. They also suggest that nuanced policies that reduce vessel encounter and clarify exclusive spatial rights may be more important in responding to these conflicts than approaches designed to broadly separate fleets or increase fish stocks.
Fishing is carried out along the coastline and major rivers, lakes and reservoirs of Ghana providing a major source of employment, income and food for millions of people in the country. This paper discusses issues central to marine fisheries governance in Ghana, with emphasis on the efforts and challenges towards achieving sustainable fishing practices, and consequently sustainable development. Some factors constrain current strategies for the management of Ghana’s marine fisheries resources, which have led to a stagnation in total capture fisheries production in recent times. High fishing pressure leading to overexploitation and high incidences of illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing are the key challenges confronting the marine fisheries sub-sector. The paper concludes that effective co-management structures and an increase in multisectoral and inter-ministerial engagements are needed to advance efforts towards the effective governance of marine fisheries in Ghana. The fisheries systems of Ghana are diverse, and the management of some fisheries would require decentralisation. Existing laws and regulations need amendments to achieve adequate implementation for the co-management of Ghana’s marine fisheries resources as key pillar of sustainable fisheries management. Efforts of regional bodies and national institutions in enhancing the fisheries legislative framework and removing weaknesses in the monitoring, control and surveillance framework need to be supported to achieve effective marine fisheries governing systems in Ghana.KeywordsCapture fisheries productionCo-managementGhanaIllegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU)MultisectoralSustainable fisheries development
Globally, there is a need for additional high-quality protein to meet the needs of those who do not have adequate protein and to meet future dietary needs based on population growth projections. Cellular mariculture has received a great deal of attention from investors who see the promises of the technology to create protein that mitigates pressures on wild sources, avoids problems of marine pollution, and alleviates concerns over exploited labor. Comparing existing life cycle analyses for marine capture fish, aquaculture harvested fish, and cell-based meat, this article highlights challenges for the cellular mariculture industry that will need to be addressed before the technology can be considered anything more than a small-scale boutique technology for high income countries. While the industry has expressed concerns over regulatory approvals, the bigger challenges for the industry will be addressing energy usage, feedstock and culture medium sourcing, and general equity concerns. Cellular mariculture may be part of a multi-part solution for future protein but is not a panacea for poor fisheries or aquaculture management.
Cheilinus undulatus, or Napoleon wrasse – though severely vulnerable to extinction - has become a highly sought-after luxury food for certain societies and has intensified its continuous market demand. Overfishing has been the key factor driving the collapse of its populations. Therefore, conservation and management have never been more urgent. This study explores Napoleon wrasse farming in Anambas, Indonesia. Data gathering was conducted through interviews, exploring the farming practices and export trade. The findings are showing the history of overfishing of adult fish, leading to larval capture as the tragedy of the commons in the nursery grounds. Farming practices causing no stocks replenishment. The government supports the promotion of sustainable activities such as spatial protection. LMMA shows the success of community based coral reef rehabilitation, and this bring opportunity to local communities to utilize Napoleon fish other than farming. However, even though spatial protection leads to institutional arrangement to control unsustainable practices, it needs an integration with calculation based on science to determine the sustainable export quota. Unfortunately, the Non Detriment Findings on Napoleon fish trade was not based on biological assessment, so even though the recent export practice is legal, but it cannot be considered as sustainable. It is also important to allocate the benefit of the farming to broader group so the power of the dominant becomes uncentralized. The more benefit earned by the farmers from sustainable fishery, the more easier it is to institutionalize social norms to avoid overfishing and achieve the conservation goals.
For multi‐species fisheries, identifying the distribution of different species could help fishers prioritise fishing grounds and avoid catching unwanted species. In this study, we identified the most cost‐beneficial fishing grounds by considering four major taxa caught in the torchlight fishery of Taiwan. We used logbook data of 56 vessels during 2009–2020 to predict the distribution for each taxon using maximum entropy models. We determined optimal fishing areas by considering overlap among taxa, each taxon's economic value and traveling costs. Sea surface height was a critical factor in determining occurrence for all taxa. Fishing at these optimal areas varied across vessel sizes. Small vessels could not access the most profitable areas because of mobility constraints and larger vessels fished in areas with relatively lower benefit‐per‐cost. Our findings could help fishers enhance their spatial selectivity, given increasing catch restrictions on some species in the fishery.
Container shipping makes significant contribution to the global economy and is confronted with various hazards and risks especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. These risks can disrupt resilient container shipping service, leading to further deterioration of the global economy. Hence, it is vital to develop resilient container shipping service, which is associated with being on-time, safe, and hassle-free. Theoretically, this research identifies 28 root risks using the PESTLE framework, conducts risk assessment using a hybrid method comprising failure modes and effects analysis, evidential reasoning, and rule-based Bayesian network. A three-hierarchy Bayesian network model is established. The results reveal that economic, political, and technical risks are the most threatening risks affecting resilient container shipping service. Moreover, the holistic container shipping risk is most sensitive to environmental risks. Managerially, this research provides container shipping companies with guidance of drafting risk mitigation plans with economic risks and political risks as priorities.
Fisheries conflict is an underappreciated threat to the stability and health of communities. Declining fish populations, rising demand for seafood, and efforts to reduce illegal fishing are increasing the risk that conflict over fisheries resources will undermine stability and peace. Here, we investigate the frequency, causes, and consequences of fisheries conflict in six countries around the Horn of Africa and East Africa (Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Yemen) between 1990 and 2017. Fisheries conflict events were cataloged from news reports, and events were characterized by the date, location, actors, consequences, and drivers of the conflict. We found the rate of fisheries conflict is gradually increasing in the region, with spikes in conflict driven by the arrival of foreign fishing boats or international naval vessels. Conflict was caused primarily by illegal fishing, foreign fishing, weak governance, limits on access to fishing grounds, and criminal activities including piracy. Two-thirds of all conflict events occurred in Kenyan and Somali waters, with areas of high conflict intensity in the Lake Victoria region, near the Somali coastline, and in the southern Red Sea. During this period, 684 fisheries conflict events in the region resulted in over 400 fatalities, nearly 500 injuries, and over 4,000 arrests.
Seaborne trade is an important component of world trade by which, Indonesia’s water becomes very important and vital in contributing to the world economy. Notwithstanding the strategic meaning of Indonesian water to the World, Indonesian water is still the full responsibility of Indonesia. Indonesia has made substantial and sustained efforts to maintain the safety and security of its sea lanes of communication by updating paper charts, installing navigational aids, broadcasting maritime hazards and weather forecasts, and patrolling certain areas. These efforts show that Indonesia, somewhat, has undertaken its obligations in taking care of the international community interests. Nevertheless, user states and other ships which use chokepoints within Indonesia’ water and derive significant benefits within sometimes do not realize as such. Therefore, this article on the results of normative research aims to explain the need to increase maritime security cooperation as a precondition for achieving the common goals of countries that utilize Indonesian waters and surrounding countries as a route of transportation, trade, cultural exchange, science and civilization.
The authors discuss how the fisher community and the government shared responsibility over time for regenerating and conserving fishery resources in San Salvador Island, Philippines, and rose above the obstacles associated with a de facto open access fishery. The article highlights the creation, management, and impact on ecosystem health, both natural and human, of a marine reserve and sanctuary. It examines key events and arrangements during three distinct phases: pre-project (before 1989), project phase (1989-1993), and postproject (1994-1998).
This article discusses the geopolitical dimension of maritime security, which has been neglected by scholars despite the growing number of studies devoted to a variety of aspects related to maritime security. The first step consists in clarifying the definitions of the two concepts; ‘geopolitics’ and ‘maritime security’. Then the article introduces the geopolitical dimension of maritime security from a conceptual perspective, and then analyses three practical examples of maritime security geo-strategies released in 2014. The results demonstrate that states’ and international institutions’ maritime security objectives and interests are indirectly and directly influenced by geographical and geopolitical considerations, although this link is only tacitly acknowledged in official documents. Scholars and practitioners interested in maritime security are encouraged to further engage with this dimension.
Is the decade of large scale piracy off the coast of Somali over? What are the lessons from Somali piracy for maritime security governance? This article revisits the triggers of piracy and argues for the need of being cautious since the current success in curbing piracy might not be sustainable. I identify six factors that trigger piracy: (1) geography, (2) weak law enforcement and corruption, (3) maritime insecurity, (4) economic dislocation, (5) cultural acceptability and skills and (6) the prevalence of criminal minded entrepreneurs. An analysis of the rise and decline of piracy provides an explanation of why the international measures show success, but document that it is questionable if these will contain piracy in the long run. The measures address two of the factors (law enforcement and cultural acceptability) primarily. Studying the decline of Somali piracy reveals the importance of learning some major lessons for reevaluating the importance and character of maritime security. Future efforts will be necessary to increase the quality and efficiency of maritime security governance.
How can policies for governing marine fisheries become more effective? How can we engage in developing a new science of fisheries governance that promotes knowledge accumulation and collective learning? We look into these issues by reviewing the current social-ecological status of marine fisheries, common policy approaches in place to govern them, and key learned lessons and shortcomings. While great efforts have been made towards understanding marine governance in the last 50 years, if we are to meet the current and upcoming challenges facing global fisheries, we need to engage with systematic knowledge accumulation about governance performance. To this end we report on a novel classificatory framework which, while nascent, could offer the potential to help us move in that direction.
Illegal cross-border fishing is an important maritime security issue in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asian states, along with other states with interests in the region, have created three new multilateral fisheriesrelevant arrangements of agencies with overlapping but different memberships: the Regional Program of Action on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing; the ASEAN–Southeast Asia Fisheries Development Center Strategic Partnership; and the Coral Triangle Initiative. Each of these multilateral arrangements has the potential to help Southeast Asian states deal with fisheries-based security issues more effectively by building polycentric coalitions and capacity. So far, however, they have had a limited impact. This is partly because they are still principally technical support bodies rather than management organizations. In addition, states need to make greater strides towards settling outstanding border disputes and address fisheries overcapacity and overfishing in waters under their jurisdiction. States are unable to address these problems adequately because the fishery sector is typically low in national priority. Moreover, national interest in fisheries remains concentrated on immediate food and economic needs, and, in international relations, on jurisdictional rights.
The result of overfishing in Indonesia, as in other Southeast Asian nations, is lower productivity of fisheries, high levels of conflict among different users, increasing impoverishment of fishers, and erosion of food security in coastal communities that are highly dependent on fish supplies for protein and income. It is becoming clear that the challenge for resource managers and national decision makers is to choose more appropriate governance and management approaches for the fishery resources in Indonesia in order to address overfishing and increasing conflict. This article examines the performance of co-management in managing fisheries conflicts in Indonesia over time. Utilizing survey data from 2004 and 2009, this study confirms the hypothesis that co-management can serve to deter fisheries resources conflicts.
The dominant approach to counter-piracy strategy off Somalia is astonishingly narrow-minded. Deterrence, surveillance and military operations do not provide sustainable or efficient solutions; better strategic alternatives must draw on the lessons of 21st-century peace operations. This perspective leads to an understanding of counterpiracy as a problem of peacebuilding. This allows restructuring and reframing of the problem to permit a much wider repertoire of policy solutions than is currently conceived. This repertoire may include development and security assistance programmes as well as state-building programmes. The approach also permits integration of lessons learned in the frame of international peacebuilding operations, including avoiding technocratic solutions, focusing on power constellations, integrating local knowledge and incrementalism. If the international community wishes to take piracy seriously and respond to its complexities, it would be well advised to adopt a policy in which such alternatives are considered.
Fifty years after the launching of a blue revolution in the capture fisheries of developing countries, conflicts between small-scale and industrialized fishers continue to be vehement. Our understanding of backgrounds, however, lags behind. This article seeks to give content to the issue of conflict in the context of marine capture fisheries. By connecting the conflicts that are taking place to the livelihoods of smallscale and industrialized fishers and to their varied social and legal systems, a deeper understanding of the problem is achieved. According to the legal pluralist perspective, conflicts of the kind considered are related to the fact that participants adhere to different sea tenure systems, the tenets of which vary substantially. The perspective is illustrated by means of an example ftom the Coromandel Coast, India.
Anthropogenic global warming has significantly influenced physical and biological processes at global and regional scales. The observed and anticipated changes in global climate present significant opportunities and challenges for societies and economies. We compare the vulnerability of 132 national economies to potential climate change impacts on their capture fisheries using an indicator-based approach. Countries in Central and Western Africa (e.g. Malawi, Guinea, Senegal, and Uganda), Peru and Colombia in north-western South America, and four tropical Asian countries (Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan, and Yemen) were identified as most vulnerable. This vulnerability was due to the combined effect of predicted warming, the relative importance of fisheries to national economies and diets, and limited societal capacity to adapt to potential impacts and opportunities. Many vulnerable countries were also among the world’s least developed countries whose inhabitants are among the world’s poorest and twice as reliant on fish, which provides 27% of dietary protein compared to 13% in less vulnerable countries. These countries also produce 20% of the world’s fish exports and are in greatest need of adaptation planning to maintain or enhance the contribution that fisheries can make to poverty reduction. Although the precise impacts and direction of climate-driven change for particular fish stocks and fisheries are uncertain, our analysis suggests they are likely to lead to either increased economic hardship or missed opportunities for development in countries that depend upon fisheries but lack the capacity to adapt.
"The concept of resilience has evolved considerably since Holling's (1973) seminal paper. Different interpretations of what is meant by resilience, however, cause confusion. Resilience of a system needs to be considered in terms of the attributes that govern the system's dynamics. Three related attributes of social-ecological systems (SESs) determine their future trajectories: resilience, adaptability, and transformability. Resilience(the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks) has four components-latitude, resistance, precariousness, and panarchy-most readily portrayed using the metaphor of a stability landscape. Adaptability is the capacity of actors in the system to influence resilience (in a SES, essentially to manage it). There are four general ways in which this can be done, corresponding to the four aspects of resilience. Transformability is the capacity to create a fundamentally new system when ecological, economic, or social structures make the existing system untenable. "The implications of this interpretation of SES dynamics for sustainability science include changing the focus from seeking optimal states and the determinants of maximum sustainable yield (the MSY paradigm), to resilience analysis, adaptive resource management, and adaptive governance."
The mean trophic level of the species groups reported in Food and Agricultural Organization global fisheries statistics declined
from 1950 to 1994. This reflects a gradual transition in landings from long-lived, high trophic level, piscivorous bottom
fish toward short-lived, low trophic level invertebrates and planktivorous pelagic fish. This effect, also found to be occurring
in inland fisheries, is most pronounced in the Northern Hemisphere. Fishing down food webs (that is, at lower trophic levels)
leads at first to increasing catches, then to a phase transition associated with stagnating or declining catches. These results
indicate that present exploitation patterns are unsustainable.
Fisheries have rarely been 'sustainable'. Rather, fishing has induced serial depletions, long masked by improved technology, geographic expansion and exploitation of previously spurned species lower in the food web. With global catches declining since the late 1980s, continuation of present trends will lead to supply shortfall, for which aquaculture cannot be expected to compensate, and may well exacerbate. Reducing fishing capacity to appropriate levels will require strong reductions of subsidies. Zoning the oceans into unfished marine reserves and areas with limited levels of fishing effort would allow sustainable fisheries, based on resources embedded in functional, diverse ecosystems.
Serious concerns have been raised about the ecological effects of industrialized fishing, spurring a United Nations resolution on restoring fisheries and marine ecosystems to healthy levels. However, a prerequisite for restoration is a general understanding of the composition and abundance of unexploited fish communities, relative to contemporary ones. We constructed trajectories of community biomass and composition of large predatory fishes in four continental shelf and nine oceanic systems, using all available data from the beginning of exploitation. Industrialized fisheries typically reduced community biomass by 80% within 15 years of exploitation. Compensatory increases in fast-growing species were observed, but often reversed within a decade. Using a meta-analytic approach, we estimate that large predatory fish biomass today is only about 10% of pre-industrial levels. We conclude that declines of large predators in coastal regions have extended throughout the global ocean, with potentially serious consequences for ecosystems. Our analysis suggests that management based on recent data alone may be misleading, and provides minimum estimates for unexploited communities, which could serve as the 'missing baseline' needed for future restoration efforts.
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The countries of Southeast Asia, ie Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, have a current population of over 510 million, of whom approximately 35 percent live below the poverty line. The population of these nine countries is expected to reach 650 million by the year 2020. The average fish consumption for the region is relatively high at 22 kg per capita per year and is higher in coastal communities. In some countries and coastal communities, such as in the Philippines and Indonesia, fish provides the main source of animal protein. Fishing and the extraction of coastal resources provide the main livelihood for millions of families. It is estimated that the demand for food fish in the year 2010, calculated at a constant per capita consumption rate of 22 kg/year, would be 18 to 19 million metric tons. Production from marine capture fisheries is not expected to keep up with the demand, causing concerns for food security in the region. The increasing demand for fish from the expanding population will create more stress on the already depleted coastal and inshore fishery resources in the region.
Contemporary maritime security threats such as piracy, smuggling and illegal fishing are major concerns in Southeast Asia. responding to these threats have long been seen as the responsibility of governments. This article demonstrates how new actors have become involved in addressing national and regional maritime security threats in Southeast Asia. Focussing on three distinct types of new actors — for-profit actors, not-for-profit actors and multilateral institutions — the article provides an understanding of the (sometimes controversial) nature of their responses to threats and the relationships between these new actors and the state. By revealing the contribution made by new actors in Southeast Asia — a region where governments are particularly protective of their sovereignty — this article shows how and why established patterns of security governance in Southeast Asia are changing and offers new insights into alternative methods for tackling maritime security threats.
Asia is an important region in terms of fish trade supplying nearly 60% of global fish production. The region's coastal fisheries play a critical role in ensuring food security and providing livelihoods, particularly for poorer sections of the community. This paper introduces a regional initiative in which eight Asian countries (Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam) undertook simultaneous, multi-disciplinary assessments of their coastal fisheries. The outputs of this initiative are presented in the next four papers of this volume of Fisheries Research. The assessments have highlighted two disturbing regional trends: coastal fisheries resources are severely depleted, biological and economic overfishing is occurring throughout the region. These are symptoms of the lack of effective management of fishing capacity in the region.This overview paper highlights the urgent need to reduce fishing capacity in the region. Only through such capacity reduction strategies can fish stocks be rebuilt to more productive and sustainable levels so that potential economic and social benefits from fisheries can be realized. Strategies need to be country- and fishery-specific and should focus on the development of effective access and property-rights regimes. For instance, countries need to explicitly allocate rights between small-scale and industrial fisheries, where resources are shared. This will require an understanding of the overlap between the sectors in terms of resource use and also the relative economic and social benefits from each sector.
This report is based on the author's extensive experience in the Niger Delta, where she has worked with Nigerian governments at the federal, state, and local levels; the oil and gas companies; the local communities; and members of the armed groups of the Niger Delta. It is also based on interviews with U.S., British, Dutch, and UN officials. Judith Burdin Asuni is the founder and executive director of Academic Associates PeaceWorks. She is currently a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and will be a 2009-10 Jennings Randolph fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. 1200 17th Street NWWashington, DC 20036 • 202.457.1700 • fax 202.429.6063
Fisheries are complex human-in-nature systems. The conventional approach to fisheries systems has been to treat them as predictable and controllable. As complex systems they are neither of the two and have to be approached differently. Complex systems often exhibit the capacity to self-organize or adapt, even without outside influence. If this is true of fisheries, it should lead to a radically different approach to management of fisheries systems that places much emphasis on enabling self-organization, learning and adaptation. Conceptual and practical frameworks for enabling activities are needed.
This paper explores the nature of conflict and how institutional failure may be a primary cause of conflict over natural resources. Typologies for studying conflicts are reviewed and a typology specific to tropical fishery conflicts is proposed. Using data from three tropical fisheries, it shows how conflicts emerge and how they are managed.1 The paper concludes that local level management of conflict can be successful, but, without proactive support from higher levels of government the underlying causes of conflict are unlikely to be removed in the long term.
The study of fisheries governance has made considerable progress in recent years largely as a result of the concerted actions of the social sciences. A particular focus for this work has been the concept of participative governance and the co-management systems in which responsibility for management is shared between the state and user groups, usually at the local level. With the publication of two books – a scholarly treatise and a practitioners’ guide – drawing upon the same international project, our understanding of the complexities of governance in the context of fisheries takes a major step forward. We need to recognise three distinct but interconnected levels of governance: the first dealing with day to day issues of management; the second concerned with institutional arrangements; the third focusing on the construction of images, values, principles and criteria to guide fisheries policy making along a consistent path. The authors’ contention is that too much attention has been paid to the end stages of the policy process and too little to refining the principles that underlie sound decision making in the face of often difficult choices. Much of the progress in this field is due to an increasingly multidisciplinary approach followed by the social sciences.
As a result of declining and overfished small-scale nearshore fisheries in Southeast Asia, there are increasing conflicts and social tensions between and among different user groups, leading to coastal “fish wars”. A challenge facing fishers, resource managers and national decision makers in the region is to identify more appropriate governance and public policy mechanisms to manage conflicts over fishery resources and to resolve them productively in the interests of both long-term sustainability and short-term economic feasibility. A quantitative analysis undertaken in selected coastal communities in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam with and without co-management indicate that co-management does lead to reduced resource conflict levels. The analysis has also shown that when resource conflicts are reduced, food security improves.
Sea piracy: some inconvenient truths
- Bateman
Managing scarcity: the institutional dimensions
- A Evans
Maritime Security Sector Reform
- J Sandoz
Pirates in Southeast Asia: The world’s most dangerous waters, Time Magazine. Time.com/piracy-southeast-asia-thailand-singapore-indonesia-malacca-strait-orapin-4
- A Mccauley
African, and Global Interests: Security and Stability in the West African Maritime Domain
- Atlantic Council
- U S Advancing
Southeast Asia Regional Fisheries Stakeholder Analysis: a Study Undertaken for USAID/RDMA, United States Agency for International Development - Regional Development Mission for Asia
- R Pomeroy
- J Parks
- K Courtney
- P Collier
- N Mattich
Sustainable fisheries and aquaculture for food security and nutrition
- Hlpe
Together Against Pirates: Sea Piracy and Armed Sea Robbery are Major Constraints to Capture Fisheries in the Waters of Nigeria
- B B Solarin
- O A Ayinla
Regional environmental security: pursuing a non-traditional approach
- Elliot
Harvesting clams and data: involving local communities in monitoring: a case in Fiji
- Tawake