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How Access to Maine's Fisheries Has Changed over a Quarter Century: The Cumulative Effects of Licensing on Resilience
... This trend mirrors many developed countries (FAO 2018) and coastal regions of the United States, where participation has been impacted by effort control and promotion of catch share and limited access privilege programs (NOAA 2017). Reasons for declining participation are likely interrelated and complex, but decreases in species availability (Limburg and Waldman 2009), loss of working waterfronts (Khakzad and Griffith 2016), increases in regulation (Andreatta and Parlier 2010;Stoll, Beitl, and Wilson 2016), and lack of new entry into the sector may be responsible (Donkersloot and Carothers 2016;Ringer et al. 2018). In Alaskan fisheries, overall participation and diversification has decreased in response to individual quota systems and limited entry programs (Carothers 2010;Beaudreau et al. 2019). ...
... In Alaskan fisheries, overall participation and diversification has decreased in response to individual quota systems and limited entry programs (Carothers 2010;Beaudreau et al. 2019). Similar declines in Maine's small-scale fisheries are thought to be due to increases in the number of required licenses that have had the unintended consequence of reducing participation and the ability of fishermen to switch between fisheries (Stoll, Beitl, and Wilson 2016). ...
... Likewise, diversification between species may differ with a narrower analysis using a disaggregated finfish category. The ability to assess individual fisherman behavior in conjunction with quantitative stock measures could reduce unintended consequences of management, including social and cultural tensions, asset losses, and inequitable distribution of benefits (Fulton et al. 2011;Bennett and Dearden 2014;Stoll, Beitl, and Wilson 2016). This study was not able to account for changes earlier than 1993 or spatial differences in participation and diversification, although there is likely varying levels of resource dependency across Virginia's coastal communities that has changed throughout time. ...
Small-scale coastal fisheries are a key feature of Virginia’s cultural heritage, account for a significant portion of the state’s annual landings, and employ thousands of individuals. Despite the value of these fisheries, the number of commercial licenses sold has declined more than 15% since 1994. Using state license and permitting data, this research investigates participation and diversification in wild fisheries and marine-related economic industries through structural change and multiple correspondence (MCA) analyses. Results indicate evidence of instability in participation and diversification since the mid-1990s. The percentage of fishermen with diverse fishing portfolios accounts for less than half of those licensed and has not varied widely. Diversification into marine-related industries, however, has increased, likely due to aquaculture expansion. While some changes can be characterized as long-term trends, others indicate that participation and diversification may change considerably over shorter periods of time. MCA indicates evidence of similarity, in terms of license and permit holdings, between participants of several wild fisheries, including fishermen with a blue crab and finfish license or permit. Participation characteristics of individuals in marine-related business has changed since 1994 with more overlap between commercial fishing and seafood sales and processing in later years. Understanding participation and diversification patterns can aid managers in assessing impacts to individuals and fishing communities during adverse events and allow for consideration of social identity in management decisions. Furthermore, understanding and contextualizing resource dependency of commercial fishers, as well as the connectivity across species and sectors, may support the long-term goals of ecosystem-based management.
... Ethnographic research techniques to parse out effects of multiple stressors (Murray et al., 2010;Stoll et al., 2016); fisheries connectivity networks and spillover effects (Addicott et al., 2018;Yletyinen et al., 2018;Kroetz et al., 2019). ...
... While fisheries diversification is historically a common strategy employed by fishermen to mitigate revenue losses from any one fishery, the increasing institution of limited entry and catch share programs throughout fisheries systems has restricted the capacity of fishermen to readily switch target fisheries. Murray et al. (2010) and Stoll et al. (2016) document the cumulative effects of lost diversification opportunities through piecemeal fisheries regulations, which have increased uncertainty and undermined the adaptive capacity of fishermen due to the coupling of institutional constraints and investments of fishers in these institutions. Both studies also relay the potential negative implications on the ecological dimensions of the system from this degraded flexibility due to increased non-compliance and continued prosecution of the target resource even in the face of declining abundance. ...
... Given the often sequential nature of perturbations that fishing participants are responding to, cumulative impacts can also be conceptualized as changes to baseline conditions inclusive of changes in the availability of adaptive strategies -represented in Figure 1 with an arrow from cumulative effects back to fisheries participation. For example, decreasing opportunities for fisheries diversification associated with the institution of limited entry and catch share programs have shifted adaptive responses in some fisheries toward pluriactivity, altered succession, and increasing value strategies like direct marketing and value added products (Murray et al., 2010;Stoll et al., 2016;Szymkowiak, 2020a). In the conceptual framework such systemic impacts of previous perturbations (in this case, management changes) would imply a new equilibrium state upon which the effects of the next perturbation would be modeled. ...
The evolution of fisheries science and management toward an ecosystem perspective necessitates the meaningful incorporation of human dimensions. Whereas great strides have been made over the last several decades at moving toward ecosystem based fisheries management (EBFM), largely through the development of integrated ecosystem assessments (IEAs), the inclusion of human dimensions into these efforts has often been fragmentary and, in juxtaposition to the biophysical dynamics, sometimes even seemingly superficial. This presents a great challenge to the accuracy and applicability of these results, as the lack of appropriate incorporation of humans can be problematic in terms of both social and biophysical consequences. This study systematically documents current social science understanding of the multiple human dimensions that should be incorporated within ecosystem assessments and the overall approach to each of these within IEAs and other EBFM efforts. These dimensions include the multi-faceted nature of human well-being, heterogeneity in human well-being derived from fisheries, adaptive behaviors, and cumulative effects. The systematic inclusion of these dimensions into IEAs is then laid out in a conceptual framework that details how a perturbation reverberates through a fisheries system and the iterative approach that should be undertaken to understand its impacts on human dimensions. This framework is supplemented with a data collection scheme that is intended to facilitate operationalization. The detailed examination of incorporating human dimensions within IEAs presented in this study should further resonate with other ecosystem assessment efforts, providing not just ample evidence of the need for moving beyond simplistic assumptions of human homogeneity but a means of systematically integrating a more realistic and representative perspective.
... Rather than existing as specialists, using specific gear types to target specific species, many fishers participate in multiple fisheries within and between years (Addicott et al., 2019). Decisions concerning how to allocate fishing effort are made in response to changes in species abundance and distribution (Cline et al., 2017;Finkbeiner, 2015), shifting regulations (Holland & Kasperski, 2016;Kroetz et al., 2019;Stoll et al., 2016) and market drivers (Kininmonth et al., 2017). A failure to acknowledge the complex SES interactions driving the dynamic, multi-species, multi-gear reality of most fisheries systems has resulted in a focus on discrete biological and economic objectives rather than sustainable development (Pascoe et al., 2014) and has limited the scope and effectiveness of many management approaches to-date (Cunningham et al., 2016;Fuller et al., 2017;Gaertner et al., 1999). ...
... Across North American fisheries, diverse harvesting portfolios are recognized as means of reducing exposure to such processes and for mitigating risk and uncertainty (Cline et al., 2017;Finkbeiner, 2015;Kasperski & Holland, 2013). However, many fishers are reliant on fewer species now than ever before (Holland & Kasperski, 2016;Stoll et al., 2016). As markets offer economic incentives to focus on particular local stocks (Anderson et al., 2017), modern management and licensing regimes have functioned to restrict resource access and limit fishing effort (Mansfield, 2004). ...
... Over the past several decades, changes in the distribution and abundance of marine resources have operated in tandem with catch shares and limited entry licensing regimes to transform Pacific Northwest fisheries. Market-based reforms have been lauded for slowing the race to fish and increasing economic efficiencies (Birkenbach et al., 2017;Costello et al., 2008), but scholars have warned that they may incentivize capitalization, consolidation and specialization (Beaudreau et al., 2019;Hentati-Sundberg et al., 2015;Mansfield, 2004;Stoll et al., 2016) and raised concerns regarding their deleterious impacts on small-scale fishers and the coastal communities they inhabit (Olson, 2011;Pinkerton & Edwards, 2009). ...
Marine fisheries around the globe are increasingly exposed to external drivers of social and ecological change. Though diversification and flexibility have historically helped marine resource users negotiate risk and adversity, much of modern fisheries management treats fishermen as specialists using specific gear types to target specific species. Here, we describe the evolution of harvest portfolios amongst Pacific Northwest fishermen over 35+ years with explicit attention to changes in the structure and function of the albacore (Thunnus alalunga, Scombridae) troll and pole-and-line fishery. Our analysis indicates that recent social-ecological changes have had heterogenous impacts upon the livelihood strategies favoured by different segments of regional fishing fleets. As ecological change and regulatory reform have restricted access to a number of fisheries, many of the regional small (<45 ft) and medium (45-60 ft) boat fishermen who continue to pursue diverse livelihood strategies have increasingly relied upon the ability to opportunistically target albacore in coastal waters while retaining more of the value generated by such catch. In contrast, large vessels (>60 ft) targeting albacore are more specialized now than previously observed, even as participation in multiple fisheries has become increasingly common for this size class. In describing divergent trajectories associated with the albacore fishery, one of the US West Coast's last open-access fisheries, we highlight the diverse strategies and mechanisms utilized to sustain fisheries livelihoods in the modern era while arguing that alternative approaches to management and licensing may be required to maintain the viability of small-scale fishing operations worldwide moving forward.
... However, landings and revenue do not capture whether licences in one or more fisheries are concentrated or dispersed, whether there are common/uncommon combinations of licence holdings, nor do they speak to opportunities that different licence portfolios open up/foreclose in the face of changing economic and environmental conditions. Following the work of Stoll, Beitl, and Wilson (2016), Stoll, Fuller, and Crona (2017), we trace licensing history in British Columbia, Canada (BC), and count licence holdings across fisheries for the year 2017. ...
... Their analysis shows a decreasing trend in the diversity of landings at the vessel scale in Alaska 'coincident with broad implementation of limited access programs [in the 1990s]' and that declines continued following catch share implementation 'for vessels that remained active in the catch share program and those that exited but continued fishing in other fisheries' (ibid, p. 454, brackets ours). Stoll et al.'s (2016Stoll et al.'s ( , 2017 work from Maine similarly finds that options for harvesters to switch among species and fisheries diminished concurrently with licence limitation. However, rather than examining landings and revenue, it examines licence holdings. ...
... However, rather than examining landings and revenue, it examines licence holdings. Stoll et al. (2016) trace the evolution of Maine's commercial fisheries licences since 1977, noting that they are now a 'dominant feature of the institutional landscape, competing with and in some cases replacing other institutions that have historically acted to constrain access' (p. 83). ...
Commercial fishing licences are central to fisheries management systems. They define and allocate harvest rights, place rules upon authorized harvesters and, in some cases, require holders to pay user fees. In this paper, we ask how licences and licensing relate to access, itself a broader concept defined as the opportunity to derive benefits from resources and that draws attention to how institutions and social structures enable and constrain different individuals and groups. Using published literature, reports and publicly available licence data for fisheries off of British Columbia, Canada, we overview licensing history and examine all major commercial licence types in the jurisdiction. Using a network approach, we also describe the diverse suite of licence portfolios held in 2017. Results show that there were 6,563 commercial fishing licences registered by 2,377 unique holders, including a handful that hold ‘access‐rich’ and a much larger number who hold ‘access‐constrained’ portfolios. The literature review and analysis support two broadly applicable conclusions. First, that licensing history shapes access and that limited entry policies continue to influence who benefits from fisheries resources well beyond implementation. Second, that analysing licence holdings suggests business strategies and fishing prospects available to different harvesters and other commercial fisheries participants in a jurisdiction. In response to demand for greater attention to human dimensions and to the perception that indicators are challenging to develop and integrate, we advance conceptual thinking and practical approaches relevant to fisheries research and evaluation.
... We focus specifically on the state of Maine and the relationship between wild-capture fisheries and aquaculture because changing ocean and coastal conditions are raising concerns about the long-term viability of fisheries in the state, and there is a perceived need for economic alternatives [26]. At the same time, aquaculture is being framed as an important economic alternative for fishermen and coastal communities, and major investments are being made in the science, technology, and infrastructure to improve husbandry practices and catalyze aquaculture-related activities [27]. ...
... These licenses must be renewed annually or fishing privileges will be revoked. The details of this licensing system are beyond the scope of this paper (see Ref. [26] for a detailed description), but, in general, licenses are issued by species or gear and individuals are required to hold a separate license for each fishery s/ he targets. Similarly, individuals who own aquaculture operations are required to obtain a license or a lease from DMR. Licenses for aquaculture are issued to individuals with small-scale operations that are no more than 400 square feet. ...
... Presently, regulatory barriers to aquaculture remain comparatively low to most wild-capture fisheries in Maine. Indeed, most wild-capture fisheries are closed to entry (e.g., shrimp), based on lottery systems with low odds (e.g., elver or scallop), or require enrolling in costly training programs and being placed on a wait list (e.g., lobster) [26]. However, the bar to enter and maintain aquaculture operations is starting to increase as the regulatory hurdles to entry creep up. ...
Aquaculture represents an increasingly significant share of the global supply of freshwater and marine resources. The distribution of benefits from aquaculture development will largely depend on who has the resources necessary to participate in the sector and how the sector is governed. We investigate the extent to which aquaculture is being utilized by commercial fishermen to expand and diversify their livelihoods in Maine, USA. Here, a network approach is used to delineate individuals' participation in aquaculture and wild-capture fisheries. Results show that while some fishermen are starting aquaculture businesses, aquaculture has had a limited effect on livelihood diversification for those engaged in the commercial fishing sector to date. These findings raise questions about who will benefit from aquaculture and how the continued growth will compete with existing marine resource sectors, including wild-capture fisheries. We argue that the extent to which aquaculture can foster livelihood diversification in the long term and fit within existing coastal economies will largely depend on the institutions that are established to govern the sector.
... Marine ecosystems are undergoing rapid shifts (Cavole et al., 2016) as unfamiliar oceanographic conditions (Bond et al., 2015) and increasing climate variability (Sydeman et al., 2013) alter patterns of marine animal abundance and distribution (Perry et al., 2005;Pinsky et al., 2013). Concurrently, marine resource licensing regimes have restricted fishing portfolios (Stoll et al., 2016) as the growth of the international seafood trade has exposed fishers to the demands of distant markets and political systems (Crona et al., 2016). As interactions operating across sectors, scales and geographies link distant populations (Liu et al., 2013), and processes of social and ecological change are rapid, intensive, and intertwined. ...
... According to existing theory, the fishing strategies developed and implemented by small-scale fishers are a product of the constraints and objectives associated with unique social, cultural, and economic contexts (Béné, 1996;Hart and Pitcher, 1998). Fishers' interactions with the marine environment are influenced by a myriad of factors including age and experience (Pauly, 1995), access rights (Stoll et al., 2016), gear usage (Ames, 2003), and capital investment (Crona, 2006). Actors that are involved in more than one fishery interact with different parts of the marine environment and have multiple perspectives that may facilitate broader knowledge about the system (Stoll, 2017). ...
... Though diversification is considered an important adaptation strategy, giving fishers the ability to shift species based on what is most convenient, valuable or abundant (Finkbeiner, 2015;Stoll et al., 2016), many fishers are reliant on fewer species now than ever before. As global markets offer economic incentives to focus on particular local stocks (Kittinger et al., 2013;Kininmonth et al., 2017), external regimes of management and regulation have restricted fishing portfolios (Hilborn et al., 2001;Stoll et al., 2016). ...
As changes in climate, governance, and organization reshape the dynamics of small-scale fisheries around the globe, the persistence of many local livelihoods appears contingent upon the ability of resource users to respond and adapt. Though significant scholarship has considered the limiting roles of resources and infrastructure, recent research has highlighted the importance of local learning and knowledge. Rather than being driven by forces exogenous to local communities, it is increasingly recognized that adaptation may be limited by perceptions and processes within them. Here, we explore knowledge production and adaptive response within a small-scale fishery in the central Gulf of California following system perturbation. Using mixed methods from the natural and social sciences, we (1) identify local drivers of social-ecological change, (2) document knowledge concerning their causes and consequences across a diverse group of small-scale fishermen, and (3) identify patterns of intracultural agreement and disagreement associated with divergent adaptive response. Results indicate that perceptions of social-ecological change were heterogeneous and that gear ownership and target species diversification were critical factors in determining the cultural models through which fishermen understood and responded to changes in the resource system. Unlike other user groups, owner-operator fishermen pursuing generalist livelihood strategies held consensus beliefs regarding changes to system structure and function and demonstrated increased ability to modify fishing tactics with the best practices for sustainable use. Our findings highlight how local knowledge can be used to assess the proximate impacts of external drivers of change and provide insight into the cultural models influencing in situ decision-making and adaptive response within modern fishery systems.
... There is a common theme of distrust for science and management within Virginia's small-scale commercial fishing industry that becomes evident through mentioning of regulation. Distrust of scientific advice and management is not unique to Virginia and is considered an unintended consequence of management that can exacerbate socio-cultural tensions, asset losses, and marginalization [5,22,102,12,48]. The mentioning of regulation in a negative context was consistent in all interviews with fishermen noting that regulation had either altered their fishing behavior or made it difficult to participate in existing fisheries. ...
... The ability to diversify, however, can be constrained by the cost and difficulty of obtaining licenses and permits, management, knowledge, and personal preferences [7,96]. Constraints on the ability to switch between species, gears, and locations in response to changes in economic and environmental conditions can result in increased vulnerability of fishermen and fishing communities [97,102,55]. Management strategies, such as ITQs or limited entry fisheries, can overlook the socio-cultural aspects (i.e., social identities) tied to commercial fishing that can influence the participation decisions of fishermen, including whether to diversify or specialize [32]. ...
Small-scale commercial fishing communities around the world are facing a number of social, ecological, and economic challenges that are likely to persist or increase in prevalence with ongoing environmental changes and competing uses of marine resources. This research uses semi-structured interviews to assess the impacts of varying economic, ecological and social changes on individual decision-making and resilience in Virginia’s small-scale commercial fishing industry. Similar to nationwide trends, Virginia’s small-scale commercial fishing industry has shifted in response to changes in management, species abundance, and participation with impacts on social identities and cultural norms, job satisfaction, resource dependence, and the future of the commercial fishing industry. As a means of coping with the inherent volatility of commercial fishing, fishermen have implemented adaptation strategies, including diversification within and outside of commercial fishing, that enable continued participation in the commercial fishing industry. Interviews reveal that Virginia’s small-scale commercial fisheries are deeply embedded within the social identities of fishermen and fishing communities in the state. Therefore, it is valuable to managers and researchers to consider the economic and societal consequences associated with declines in small-scale commercial fisheries and more importantly, to understand why these declines are occurring. Managers can expand on these results to create workforce development strategies that ensure the long-term sustainability of Virginia’s commercial fishing industry and preserve the commercial fishing livelihood for the future.
... The individual decision-making processes related to participation and diversification in SSF are not well understood and represent a data need for fishery managers and regulatory entities. Although the drivers of entry (exit) decisions have been studied in some depth, a better understanding of how small-scale fishers are choosing to diversify (within and outside commercial fishing) on varying temporal scales would help reduce unintended consequences from management actions, including disruption of social and cultural norms, access issues, and non-compliance, as well as allowing for adaptation to changing environmental conditions (Degnbol and McCay 2007, Bennett and Dearden 2014, Stoll et al. 2016, Chambers and Carothers 2017. Utilizing Virginia's SSF as a case study, this research explored diversification levels and behaviors of small-scale commercial fishers through (i) assessing individual and fleet diversification using Herfindahl-Hirschman Indices (HHIs) and (ii) examining factors influencing individual diversification decision-making. ...
... As more fisheries require additional licenses and management trends toward private property regimes, the ability to diversify may become increasingly constrained (Holland and Kasperski 2016, Stoll et al. 2016, Silver and Stoll 2019. Although a viable tool to reduce overfishing (Parslow 2010 ), limited entry and individual fishing quotas have been found to negatively impact revenues and job security of individuals without sufficient quota in the US West Coast (Carothers 2013 , Holland andKasperski 2016 ). ...
Diversification within and outside of small-scale fisheries (SSF) is a common strategy to stabilize revenues and increase resilience following disturbances. Using SSF in Virginia, USA as a case study, Herfindahl–Hirschman Indices (HHIs) were used to characterize individual and fleet levels of income diversification, while generalized linear mixed models were used to examine drivers of diversification behavior. HHI income values indicate that fishers tended to exhibit specialized behavior. More diversified fishers tended to have less interannual revenue variability and higher annual incomes. Decisions to increase or decrease diversification were associated with various factors, including total years of participation, annual income, the type of licenses held, landings levels, participation in marine-related business outside of SSF, and market prices. An understanding of diversification levels and associated drivers of behavior can help fishery managers and governing entities predict how fishers will react to perturbations. Environmental changes that alter species distributions and increase the potential for invasive species, as well as shifting sociodemographics within the fishing industry, will likely continue to influence diversification behavior in the future. Developing strategies to reduce the impact of these events on fishers and fishing communities will help to increase resilience and reduce vulnerability in SSF. .
... Among some of the people we interviewed, memories of cod abundance in the 1970s and 1980s were coupled with memories of a diversified and accessible fishery, but fishers doubted that the recovery of cod would result in their restored access to cod fisheries. These perceptions are based on experience and observations of statewide licence consolidation that has occurred over the past four decades (Stoll et al., 2016). In particular, the consolidation of groundfish licences has helped to concentrate wealth into the hands of fewer and larger vessel owners and marginalized small-scale fishers. ...
... Across New England, the number of ports with active fishers declined by at least 30% between 1997 and 2009, with small, rural ports losing the most access (Bradley, 2011). In Maine, fishers' access to licences has decreased by 50% between 1990 and 2014 (Stoll et al., 2016). The responses we heard from fishers demon- Maine has a strong tradition of employing fishers' knowledge (e.g. ...
Perceptions of past ecological change affect views of current ecosystem state, but how do baselines help to shape stakeholders' visions of an idealized future?
Here, we investigate links between perceptions of natural baselines and visions for the nearshore Gulf of Maine among a key stakeholder group, active lobster fishers. We ask three related questions: (1) What do fishers perceive as a ‘natural’ Gulf of Maine? (2) How do perceptions of the past predict individual and collective visions of an ideal future? and (3) How is existing management perceived as supporting these visions?
We found that fishers perceived the ecosystem to be ‘natural’ an average of one decade before they started fishing. Three species dominated views of natural systems: cod Gadus morhua, lobster Homarus americanus, and herring Clupea harengus, but while long‐time fishers associated abundant cod with a natural nearshore Gulf of Maine, memories of a historically cod‐rich Gulf of Maine were fading among some younger fishers who began their careers after the cod crash in the 1990s. Perceptions of ‘natural’ ecosystems dictated future visions for the majority of taxa; on average, fishers remembered and desired abundant cod and herring, but perceived halibut Hippoglossus hippoglossus and endangered right whales Eubalaena glacialis to have always been rare.
Fishers described a vision for the future based on views of past ecological and social baselines, including fisheries deconsolidation and diversification, but expressed a lack of shared vision with and trust in federal management institutions to achieve these goals. In particular, memories of cod abundance in the 1970s and 1980s were coupled with memories of a diversified and accessible fishery, but fishers doubted that the recovery of cod would result in their restored access to cod fisheries.
Together our results demonstrate that past personal experiences limit perceptions of what is possible, highlighting both the value and limitations of local ecological knowledge in places that have experienced ecological change over centuries. They also demonstrate how stakeholder perceptions of both social and ecological baselines shape visions for future ecosystems but are mediated by contemporary issues like trust in institutions and fisheries access.
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... The lucrative nature of the current market, combined with high barriers to entry, ongoing territorial disputes, and conflicts with state and federal policy makers have led to prolonged regulatory and social battles in many coastal areas (Levinson-King, 2020). In recent decades, a myriad of reasons, including overfishing of other lucrative species and climate change driven population shifts, have led to the siloing of Maine's lobster fishers, with many families and communities depending primarily on lobster for income (Steneck et al., 2011;Stoll et al., 2016). In Southern New England, where lobster abundance declined by around 70% in recent years, state managers suggested a complete closure of the fishery (Steneck et al., 2011). ...
... In Southern New England, where lobster abundance declined by around 70% in recent years, state managers suggested a complete closure of the fishery (Steneck et al., 2011). In Maine, where rural communities tie their cultural identity to the lobster fishery and have little flexibility to pursue other opportunities (Stoll et al., 2016), a similar collapse of the industry would have significant and widespread social and economic impacts, in addition to the ecological impacts. ...
Despite decades of research on lobster species’ biology, ecology, and microbiology, there are still unresolved questions about the microbial communities which associate in or on lobsters under healthy or diseased states, microbial acquisition, as well as microbial transmission between lobsters and between lobsters and their environment. There is an untapped opportunity for metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and metabolomics to be added to the existing wealth of knowledge to more precisely track disease transmission, etiology, and host-microbe dynamics. Moreover, we need to gain this knowledge of wild lobster microbiomes before climate change alters environmental and host-microbial communities more than it likely already has, throwing a socioeconomically critical industry into disarray. As with so many animal species, the effects of climate change often manifest as changes in movement, and in this perspective piece, we consider the movement of the American lobster (Homarus americanus), Atlantic Ocean currents, and the microorganisms associated with either.
... The history of the licensing system for commercial fisheries and aquaculture in Maine, USA similarly points to the stickiness of institutions and the challenge they pose in bringing about transformative shifts. For the last several decades, policymakers have routinely changed the licensing system to address specific problems in specific fisheries (Stoll et al. 2016). These efforts were meant to support the fishing sector; however, an unintended consequence of these legislative changes was that they contributed to the overall decline in the number of fisheries that fishers were participating in. ...
... For a description of the licensing system in Maine, see(Stoll et al. 2016).6 In some cases, fish carcasses called ''racks'' are used. ...
Climate change, overfishing, and other anthropogenic drivers are forcing marine resource users and decision makers to adapt—often rapidly. In this article we introduce the concept of pathways to rapid adaptation to crisis events to bring attention to the double-edged role that institutions play in simultaneously enabling and constraining swift responses to emerging crises. To develop this concept, we draw on empirical evidence from a case study of the iconic Maine lobster (Homarus americanus) industry. In the Gulf of Maine, the availability of Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) stock, a key source of bait in the Maine lobster industry, declined sharply. We investigate the patterns of bait use in the fishery over an 18-year period (2002–2019) and how the lobster industry was able to abruptly adapt to the decline of locally-sourced herring in 2019 that came to be called the bait crisis. We found that adaptation strategies to the crisis were diverse, largely uncoordinated, and imperfectly aligned, but ultimately led to a system-level shift towards a more diverse and globalized bait supply. This shift was enabled by existing institutions and hastened an evolution in the bait system that was already underway, as opposed to leading to system transformation. We suggest that further attention to raceways may be useful in understanding how and, in particular, why marine resource users and coastal communities adapt in particular ways in the face of shocks and crises.
... i.e. recession, shifts in market demand (Kashem et al., 2016 ;Stoll et al., 2016 ). Resilience planning emphasizes building capacity to anticipate and prepare for crises under uncertainty ; and reducing both individuals and communities' vulnerability to potential disturbances, thereby increasing adaptive capacity (Beatley, 2009). ...
... The capacity for fishers to employ one or more of these strategies to cope with or mitigate income variability is dependent on a variety of influences. Adaptability is constrained by individual factors (e.g., personal income, local knowledge, proximity to fisheries), as well as exogenous historical, cultural, political, and economic forces (e.g., environmental conditions, physical access to the waterfront, constricting local governance rules and limited entry systems) (Adger et al., 2009;Sethi, 2010;Stoll et al. 2016;Frawley et al., 2019). ...
Fisheries are complex social-ecological systems comprised of fish, humans, the institutions they create, and the broader ecological and social systems within which they are embedded. Changing ocean conditions, declines and shifts in key species, and loss of working waterfront infrastructure are among the many threats to the longevity of fisheries and fishing communities worldwide. A resilience approach to fisheries governance is increasingly recognized as key to sustaining coastal systems and the human communities that depend on them in the face of mounting socioeconomic and environmental challenges. Here I define resilience as the capacity of a system to withstand disturbances without altering its essential functions, structures, feedbacks, or identity (after Walker et al., 2004). Resilient species, individuals, communities, and systems are desirable, however, the factors related to resilience at multiple scales is understudied. Building resilient social-ecological systems and climate-ready fisheries management requires governance approaches that are adaptive and robust to uncertainty. By identifying the factors that enable resilience, we are better able to understand the capacity of fisheries systems to be maintained long-term. Resilience theory provides a holistic paradigm to understand complex system dynamics and governance of social-ecological systems. This thesis explores associations between key attributes of governance in managing resilience in fisheries systems at three nested scales. At the national scale, I evaluate the integration of two prominent fisheries management approaches in order to provide enriched fisheries management and conservation outcomes. At the community scale, I explore the role that municipal comprehensive plans play as tools to build adaptive capacity in coastal communities in Maine. Finally, I explore latency in Maine’s commercial fisheries to understand individual fisher’s risk management behavior in response to changing socioeconomic and environmental conditions. Although each of the cases are distinct in scale and scope, key elements of participation, adaptation, and innovation in governance stand out; all are integral in enabling overall system resilience. By critically evaluating factors that contribute to adaptation in social-ecological systems, this work aims to inform governance approaches that strengthen the capacity of fisheries systems to manage for resilience in a changing world.
... Both these strains of literature have an important thing in common: a tendency to disregard the fact that most natural resources and ecosystems are today governed by political and administrative institutions rather than by selforganizing users. Although it is true that collective action problems underlie many cases of natural resources overexploitation, overlooking the pivotal role of state actors and agencies often generates an incomplete model of real-world social-ecological systems (Finley 2011, Duit 2014, Stoll et al. 2016. ...
... Another important role of the government is to regulate fisheries through laws and regulations, such as quotas and other technical measures. The laws and regulations could be analyzed to offer a complementary perspective on the policy directions during the study period (Hentati-Sundberg and Hjelm 2014, Stoll et al. 2016). We anticipate that a long-term analysis of Swedish fisheries regulations would pick up a similar trend as the subsidy analysis, with initially very few regulations, and in the most recent few years a greening trend representing the rising sustainability awareness. ...
Many natural resources have degraded and collapsed despite being managed under rigorous institutional frameworks set up to ensure rational exploitation. Path dependency of dysfunction institutions has been suggested as an explanation for such undesired outcomes. We explore the role of path dependency in natural resource management by studying a 100-year evolution of Swedish fisheries. We rely on three main types of original longitudinal data collected for the period 1914-2016: (A) policy documents, (B) government spending on management and subsidies, and (C) catch and fleet data. Our analysis contrasts the periods before and after the Swedish entrance into the European Union (1995) because this marks the year when fisheries policy became beyond the direct influence of the Swedish government. We uncover four pieces of evidence suggesting the existence of a path dependent dynamic in the pre-EU period: (1) despite increasing insights on the vulnerability of fish stocks to overexploitation, national policy goals in relation to fisheries continuously promoted incompatible goals of social and economic growth but without any reference to the sustainability of the biological resources; (2) the same policy instruments were used over long periods; (3) actor constellations within the fisheries policy subsystem were stable over time; (4) neither political regime nor macroeconomic variables and fisheries performance (industry production, oil price, landing values) could explain observed temporal variation in subsidies. We conclude that key policy actors in the pre-EU period formed an "iron triangle" and thereby prevented necessary policy changes. These national reinforcing feedbacks have been weakened since EU entrance, and the indicators for path dependency show broader involvement of stakeholders, a shift in spending, and policy goals that now explicitly address ecological sustainability.
... More specifically, when actors derive benefits from two or more resources, the use of one or both of which has an impact on the other, then they have at least some economic incentive to invest in strategies to address the broader impacts of their actions. This has led some to recommend diversification of fishing portfolios to foster knowledge and incentives to address the ecosystem impacts of fishing [5,25,86,85], while also increasing the resilience of fishers to social and environmental change [53,20]. For example, a shrimp fisher that also fishes for crab might be opposed to opening closed areas because they have a more holistic understanding of the relationship between shrimp trawling and crab populations and enjoy some of the economic benefits of that closure while fishing for crab. ...
... These results are also consistent with research suggesting that species portfolio diversification can enhance the well-being of fishers by increasing their resilience to social and environmental change [53,20]. Indeed, although the twentieth century corresponds to a period of increasingly specialized fisheries, there has been a growing chorus of scholars highlighting the broad benefits of diversification, including internalizing costs and benefits, increased resilience to changes in the abundance of resources, and a better understanding of the structure and function of an ecosystem [7,59,86]. While there was unanimous support among survey participants for diversifying species portfolios, questions about access to resources are often highly contentious [16,19], particularly in Newfoundland where rapid shifts in the abundance of species have led to political battles between large-scale and smaller-scale fleets over allocations to changing quotas [84]. ...
Fisheries can have significant impacts on the structure and function of marine ecosystems, including impacts on habitats and non-target species. As a result, management agencies face growing calls to account for the ecosystem impacts of fishing, while navigating the political and economic interests of diverse stakeholders. This paper assesses the impacts of two specific factors on the attitudes and well-being of shrimp fishers in the context of a selective fisheries closure designed to protect crabs in the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada: (1) the species portfolios of fishers; and (2) democratic rulemaking. The results of this analysis suggest that shrimp fishers were more likely to support selective closures for the shrimp fishery if they also fished for crab, and felt they had an influence on the management of the fishery. The results further indicate that species portfolio diversification had a positive and statistically significant impact on the subjective economic well-being of fishers. This study contributes to an emerging literature on the human dimensions of ecosystem based fisheries management, highlighting opportunities to address trade-offs in fisheries through species diversification and by enhancing the role and influence of fishers in management processes.
... It is possible that fishermen not currently in possession of limited entry permits may be less supportive of limited entry restrictions given the high cost of entry for these fisheries, and the substantial institutional and financial barriers now in place for new fishery entrants [46]. Previous research has shown that even fishermen who acknowledge the importance of restricted access to reduce pressure on the fishery are concerned that limited entry restrictions will eventually favor wealthier individuals and corporations, thus limiting opportunities for younger, new entrants [47,48], and that these restrictions reduce fishermen's flexibility in the face of climate change [11,49,50]. ...
... For example, switching to aquaculture, as some lobstermen are doing, may require field visits and on-farm opportunities to learn about establishing an aquaculture business (Cleaver et al. 2018). Enabling lobstermen to access and participate in alternative fisheries should also be a key priority ( Johnson et al. 2014;Stoll et al. 2016). Given existing limited-entry and licensing systems, it is important to facilitate access to alternative fisheries as a way to build social resilience and increase diversification options for lobstermen. ...
... The fishermen will convey information related to the location and whereabouts of the fish and this becomes an integral part of the lives of fishermen who rely on each other to make a living without having to worry about losing their catch. However, this is different from the opinion of [29,30,31] which stated that management policies involving catch allocation and access restrictions. to fish catch locations could result in reduced diversification of fish catches and would make it difficult to change fishing grounds. ...
Sustainable livelihood assets in coastal areas have become part of climate change. Coastal communities as actors and users of assets for the sustainability of these sustainable livelihood assets, for example, the Harapan Baru Village, the majority of whom work as fishermen depend on marine resources. To climate balance and changes in sustainable livelihood assets due to natural, social, economic, human resource, and infrastructure factors. The focus of this research is to find the performance of sustainable livelihood assets of coastal communities facing climate extremes. The research method is a mixed method quantitative with accidental sampling and qualitative by exploring people’s perceptions through semi-structured interviews and observation on sustainable livelihood and climate change. The results show that the performance of sustainable livelihood assets of coastal communities is strongly influenced by climate change and its impacts. Social justice aspects are influenced by ecosystems, human resources, and infrastructure related to the difficulties of time, distance, and natural resource instability. In short, climate extremes bring change to impact aspects of sustainable livelihoods, especially the economy, which causes people to find it difficult to make ends meet. This condition, within a certain period, affects the ability and performance of sustainable livelihood assets for coastal communities.
... The assessment shows that the quality of the body of evidence is relatively high (Table 3 cluster 2), essentially due to the rigor that usually characterises this type of research. There are many findings under the cluster that stress that social taboos are highly adaptive from an ecological perspective and contribute to the biodiversity conservation of small-scale fisheries from Global South countries (Wondolleck and Yaffee 2017;Mafimisebi et al. 2016;Stoll et al. 2016;Shilabukha 2015;Jimoh et al. 2012;Saka et al. 2012;Etiendem et al. 2011;Akindele 2010;Tsingalia et al. 2009;Kobina and Kofi 2009;Obasohan 2008;Gyampoh et al. 2008;Cinner and Aswani 2007;Sarfo-Mensah and Oduro 2007;Saj et al. 2006;Colding and Folke 2001). ...
In the Global South, small-scale fisheries may be highly influenced by taboos and traditional beliefs that are believed to maintain fishing pressure within sustainable limits, maintain ecosystem balance and mitigate risks associated with work at sea. However, despite their potentially significant role in mediating human-resource interactions, limited attention has been given to taboos in the context of small-scale fisheries. Among the socio-cultural taboos shaping participation in and benefits from fisheries activities, gender-specific taboos are particularly significant. Thus, this paper explores the role of gender taboos in sustainable and equitable small-scale fisheries management in the Global South. It also identifies and assesses the quality and scientific rigor of the key themes from the literature. A systematic literature review was conducted to assess the state of knowledge on taboos and small-scale fisheries and situate the role of gender-specific taboos within small-scale fisheries governance. Over 100 relevant publications were obtained and categorised using scanning and selection methods. The main emerging themes from the literature review included traditional ecological knowledge and taboos, conservation and management taboos, and gender taboos. The findings highlight the significance of taboos in shaping gender dynamics, livelihoods, and food security within small-scale fisheries; however, there remain many gaps in understanding the role of taboos in mediating fishing activities and in maintaining gender inequalities in the fisheries sector. Without this knowledge, gender inequalities could be further exacerbated where taboos are used as a management tool without considering the gender dimensions. This study, therefore, seeks to fill this gap by providing insights for fisheries managers and practitioners for managing fisheries in a way that considers these socio-cultural factors that shape access to, control over and the benefits derived from fisheries.
... Maine's evolution to become a fisheries monoculture has occurred due to the confluence of: (1) The splitting of commercial fisheries licensing from only six licenses prior to 1977 (lobster, shellfish, marine worms, scallops, and a general category for other species) to now 23 license types across 16 fisheries, and (2) The collapse or decline of non-lobster fisheries, resulting in restricted access to commercial licenses. The rate of additional new lobster licenses over the past 25 years for example, is only 0.6/year (Stoll et al., 2016). With the changing climate placing uncertainty on species recovery (e.g., cod; Pershing et al., 2015) fishermen are "stuck" in their respective fisheries, unable to diversify by harvesting multiple species as in the past. ...
For over 50 years, government fishery agencies have recognized the need to transition excess fishing capacity in coastal waters to aquaculture. For the most part, investment strategies to move wild capture and harvest efforts into aquaculture have failed since the technology and capital expense for entry, such as large fish pens, was not conducive for acceptance. In contrast, low trophic level aquaculture of shellfish and seaweeds is suitable as an addition to the livelihoods of seasonal fishing communities and to those displaced by fishery closures, especially if vessels and gear can be designed around existing fishing infrastructures, thus allowing fishers to maintain engagement with their primary fishery, while augmenting income via aquaculture. In this study, an inexpensive, lightweight, and highly mobile gear for kelp seaweed farming was developed and tested over a 3-year period in southern Maine, USA. The system was different from existing kelp farming operations used in nearshore waters that use low-scope mooring lines, and heavy, deadweight anchors. Instead, a highly mobile, easy to deploy system using lightweight gear was designed for exposed conditions. The entire system fit into fish tote boxes and was loadable onto a standard pickup truck. The seaweed system had small but efficient horizontal drag embedment anchors connected to a chain catenary and pretensioned with simple subsurface flotation. The system was able to be deployed and removed in less than 4 h by a crew of three using a 10 m vessel and produced a harvest of 12.7 kg/m over an 8-month fall-winter growth period. The target group for this seaweed research and development effort were coastal fishing communities who move seasonally into non-fishing occupations in service industries, such as construction, retail, etc. An economic assessment suggests farmers would realize an 8% return on investment after3 years and $13.50/h greater income as compared to a non-farming St-Gelais et al. Engineering Community-Scale Kelp Aquaculture off season job at minimum wage. This low-cost seaweed farming system for fall-winter operations fits well into a "livelihood" strategy for fishing families who must work multiple jobs in the offseason when their main fishery is unavailable.
... Le Bris et al. 2018;Goode et al. 2019;Mazur et al. 2020). Additionally, limited entry to the GoM lobster fishery has shifted the age of license holders to 50-65 years old(Stoll et al. 2016;Stoll 2017), few younger potential lobster fishers are replacing those that exit the fishery (Appendix 2-9), and state requirements fornumber of licenses sold per existing licenses retired (MDMR 2020) are reducing the number of fishers and total fishing effort (MDMR 2019b). Declines in young-of-year lobster suggest uncertainty in future landings (Le Bris et al. 2018; Oppenheim et al. 2019), potentially affecting the size and distribution of the GoM lobster fishery. ...
The Gulf of Maine has been fundamentally altered by anthropogenic forcings for decades and offers an ideal study system to monitor response to change. Through complex interactions between ocean warming, altered demographic bottlenecks, and reduced top-down controls, the American lobster (Homarus americanus Milne Edwards) capitalized on favorable conditions and proliferated within the Gulf of Maine. These changes catalyzed the expansion of the lobster fishery, elevated its status as North America’s most valuable marine resource, and shifted coastal communities towards a virtual lobster monoculture. The same processes that facilitated lobster to capitalize on favorable conditions may come with unintended consequences and have implications for sustainability in a continually changing ocean environment. As such, evaluating the anthropogenic impacts by the American lobster fishery and to lobster demographic processes is critical for effective fisheries management. This dissertation research developed, and implemented, several modeling frameworks to assess how anthropogenic impacts have fundamentally altered the American lobster fishery, how ocean change affects the demographic processes of larval and postlarval lobster, and the implications of these relationships to the sustainability of this species under climate change.
... Le Bris et al. 2018;Goode et al. 2019;Mazur et al. 2020). Additionally, limited entry to the GoM lobster fishery has shifted the age of license holders to 50-65 years old(Stoll et al. 2016;Stoll 2017), few younger potential lobster fishers are replacing those that exit the fishery (Appendix 2-9), and state requirements fornumber of licenses sold per existing licenses retired (MDMR 2020) are reducing the number of fishers and total fishing effort (MDMR 2019b). Declines in young-of-year lobster suggest uncertainty in future landings (Le Bris et al. 2018; Oppenheim et al. 2019), potentially affecting the size and distribution of the GoM lobster fishery. ...
The Gulf of Maine has been fundamentally altered by anthropogenic forcings for decades and offers an ideal study system to monitor response to change. Through complex interactions between ocean warming, altered demographic bottlenecks, and reduced top-down controls, the American lobster (Homarus americanus Milne Edwards) capitalized on favorable conditions and proliferated within the Gulf of Maine. These changes catalyzed the expansion of the lobster fishery, elevated its status as North America’s most valuable marine resource, and shifted coastal communities towards a virtual lobster monoculture. The same processes that facilitated lobster to capitalize on favorable conditions may come with unintended consequences and have implications for sustainability in a continually changing ocean environment. As such, evaluating the anthropogenic impacts by the American lobster fishery and to lobster demographic processes is critical for effective fisheries management. This dissertation research developed, and implemented, several modeling frameworks to assess how anthropogenic impacts have fundamentally altered the American lobster fishery, how ocean change affects the demographic processes of larval and postlarval lobster, and the implications of these relationships to the sustainability of this species under climate change.
... This was the case for both days per week policy changes and the decreased daily bag limit scenario, whereby fishers that fished more, caught more fish, or targeted Striped Bass more than other fishers were increasingly likely to change behavior. It is evident that aspects of activity specialization can influence decisions among recreational fishers, while species portfolio diversification (i.e., having licenses for many species) can aid in the adaptability of commercial fishers as well (e.g., Sutton and Ditton 2001;Stoll et al. 2016). This hypothesis is supported in our findings; fishers demonstrating a relatively high degree of participation in the Striped Bass commercial fishery were more likely to incur negative impacts as a result of increasingly restrictive policy controls. ...
It is evident that fishery stakeholder groups are not homogenous, and that inter‐ and intra‐group variation can exist in the form of unique perspectives, motivations for fishery participation, and receptiveness to management measures. However, management agencies often allocate quota and design regulatory plans around distinct groups, such as recreational versus commercial sectors. Our study used the commercial fishery for Striped Bass Morone saxatilis as a case study to explore the motivations and behaviors of commercial fishers in Massachusetts. Results of an online and mail survey suggest that many commercial fishers maintain several motivations for fishing, including both monetary and non‐monetary, like the desire to be outdoors. Intended behavior differences emerged in response to several hypothetical regulatory scenarios, and these disparate behaviors could be partly explained by heterogeneity in fisher motivations and other fishing and non‐fishing attributes. Additionally, we uncovered spillover effects, whereby effort controls could impact other commercial and recreational fisheries. We recommend a relaxation of the assumption that commercial fishers are solely motivated by monetary outcomes, and that holistic approaches to management include information on fisher behavior and motivations.
... Better understanding of local scale watershed hydrology and estuarine hydrodynamics could result in less restrictive and more targeted closures (Evans et al. 2016). However, the nature of small-scale fisheries spread over an extensive coastline can make management and process-level studies at these scales difficult to manage (Stoll et al. 2016). Closure delineations are often contested by harvesters because these systems tend to be data-poor and are based on specific stations that may not accurately capture the variability of the hydrodynamics within a system. ...
Small-scale fisheries, which are often distributed over large spatial scales and occur in rural settings, tend to lack financial resources and capacity to conduct research on local issues. One approach to overcome this challenge is to use relatively inexpensive environmental monitoring methods with stakeholder engaged science and participatory modeling. Here, we present a case study focused on water pollution impacts and tidal circulation in a mid-coast Maine (USA) estuary to develop a simulation model and a partnership approach that can support soft-shell clamming communities to effectively address water quality, namely bacteriological closures of mudflats. We deployed multiple low-cost drifter buckets, Lagrangian flotation devices that measured surface current speeds and provided validation data for a hydrodynamic model based on finite volume community ocean model (FVCOM). The drifter buckets resolved the influence of wind, tidal currents, and bathymetry on surface water circulation patterns between the main channel and adjacent mudflats, highlighting the impact of cross-estuary winds during slack tides on potential bacterial transport. We calculated residence time using the validated FVCOM model: in the prohibited area (~ 2.5 days), and the conditional area (~ 0.5 days). This information has already influenced local management decisions and helped shape new conservation projects. In addition to contributing new understanding about tidal patterns in this coastal region, our novel methodology of combining field techniques, FVCOM modeling, and stakeholder engagement helps show how engaged research approaches can improve regulatory outcomes for small-scale fisheries while also protecting public health.
... Policy goals may ultimately be more effectively achieved through the use of more integrated, ecosystem-based regulations than currently exist in Maine. However, such discussions take time and are contingent on social and political path dependencies [72][73][74][75][76][77]. Many demands are being placed on Maine's coastal waters, both for blue growth development as well as for recreation, residential, and tourism uses. ...
As aquaculture production continues to increase worldwide, important questions are emerging about the motivations of growth and who stands to benefit. We use Q method to identify perspectives associated with marine aquaculture development in Maine, where aquaculture expansion in the United States has become a central focus. We used newspaper articles about aquaculture in Maine covering a 25-year period to inform the development of the Q study and participants included industry members, researchers, mangers, and other local experts. We identify four perspectives on aquaculture development based on the values individuals ascribe to the growth of the sector. We label these perspectives as: (1) aquaculture optimists, (2) aquaculture anchors, (3) aquaculture historians, and (4) aquaculture agnostics. Although the aquaculture sector is poised to expand in Maine, our findings suggest that there are material differences in the values associated with aquaculture growth, which may not be entirely compatible. By understanding the heterogeneity of perspectives surrounding aquaculture development in Maine, we aim to contribute to ongoing discussions about the future of aquaculture and encourage a more explicit articulation of the intended outcomes of aquaculture development and who it will serve.
... Because many fishermen, especially those who operate at small to medium scales, engage in traditional "annual rounds," 19 they may be less likely to qualify for limited entry/access than vessels exclusively targeting the species in question, when entry is based (as is frequent) on historical landings. This can, in turn, disrupt annual rounds and push such fishermen into a smaller number of fisheries, leading to less ecosystem-based patterns of fishing (Stoll et al. 2016). The heavier dependence on fewer species also means greater economic risk in the event that one of those species undergoes a poor recruitment year. ...
As United States fisheries managers develop and modify fisheries management plans that set catch limits for the Nation’s commercially important fish stocks, the importance of including and weighing the social impacts associated with changes in management has gained increasing attention. In recognition of the potential for social impacts, social impact assessments have been made a requirement of the overall environmental impact assessment process under the National Environmental Policy Act. To date, there has not been a standardized way of conducting and presenting a fisheries social impact assessment (SIA). In addition, there is a need for a template that incorporates existing data streams and identifies potential new sources of information while being applicable to a wide range of fisheries management decisions. The objective of this Handbook is to provide technical advice for NOAA Fisheries and fishery management councils to streamline the SIA process while fully capturing relevant social impacts. The Handbook provides a primer on SIA in fisheries, the purpose of an SIA, key elements that should be included in SIAs, and common types of social impacts associated with particular management measures. It also reviews the legal requirements for conducting SIAs and provides a set of best practices and analytical tools for conducting SIAs. In addition, it describes the relationship of this Handbook to NMFS Guidance for Social Impact Assessment.
... We found that, in all but two of our focal communities, catch diversity declined between the two time periods examined (Figure 8 top). This aligns with the region-wide trend toward vessels catching fewer species and/or becoming more specialized (Seara, 2014;Stoll et al., 2016;McClenachan et al., 2019), and it suggests higher levels of vulnerability for many communities, especially when compounded by declines in numbers of vessels and fisher-days (Supplementary Table B1) even as catch per trip increases in, for example, the large trawl communities of Gloucester, New Bedford, and Montauk (Supplementary Table B1). ...
As species respond to warming water temperatures, fishers dependent upon such species are being compelled to make choices concerning harvest strategies. Should they “follow fish” to new fishing grounds? Should they change their mix of target species? Should they relocate their operations to new ports? We examined how fishing communities in the Northeast United States —a hotspot of recent warming—have already responded to documented shifts in the distribution and abundance of fluke, red and silver hake. We focused on groundfish trawl communities that historically targeted these species and examined their “at-sea” responses by combining qualitative interviews with quantitative analysis of fishing records and ecological surveys. Three distinct responses emerged: shifting fishing grounds, shifting target species, and shifting port of landing. Our research finds that following the fish is rare and only occurred in one of the assessed communities, the large trawler community of Beaufort, North Carolina. The more common response was a shift in target species and a change in catch composition. However, regulations and markets often constrained the ability to take advantage of a changing mix of species within fishing grounds. Indeed, the overall species diversity in catch has declined among all of our focal communities suggesting that communities have lost the ability to be flexible when it may be most needed as a response to climate change. Additionally, the high value of fluke and the need to land in southern states with higher quota allocations is likely a driver of the changing nature of “community” with increasing vessels landing outside their home port, especially when landing fluke. Our findings suggest that fidelity to historical fishing grounds combined with perceiving environmental change as non-permanent, predispose many fishers to trust in “cyclicality” and return of species over time. However, this strategy may make those communities unable or unwilling to “follow fish” more vulnerable to changes in distribution and abundance due to climate change. Our findings have the potential to directly inform resource management policies as well as more deliberate adaptations by communities themselves as they strive to address the imminent risks of climate change.
... Policy goals may ultimately be more effectively achieved through the use of more integrated, ecosystem-based regulations than currently exist in Maine. However, such discussions take time and are contingent on social and political path dependencies (Kelly et al., 2018;McCay, 2002;NOAA, 2016;Pew Oceans Commission, 2003;Stoll et al., 2016;U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, 2004). Many demands are being placed on Maine's coastal waters, both for blue growth development as well as for recreation, residential, and tourism uses. ...
Coastal oceans are changing and experiencing increased use. The social and ecological benefits of healthy coastal oceans are well documented and include habitats for marine species, storm protection, and recreational opportunities (MEA, 2005). As the impacts of human activities are recognized, questions about how ocean spaces should be used are becoming more common. These questions are complex and involve many tradeoffs. Understanding the values people hold about uses, and how activities and ecosystems overlap, is critical for weighing tradeoffs and improving future management. I use the northeastern U.S. state of Maine to study human interactions with coastal oceans. Maine is biologically productive and hosts commercial fishing, aquaculture, tourism, and renewable energy industries. I explore perspectives about aquaculture development at a statewide scale (Chapter 1), and intersections among scientific literature, human activities, and ecosystems in two estuaries in midcoast Maine (Chapter 2). Understanding these small-scale interactions is important for improving local management and can also provide information for larger-scale conversations. In Chapter 1, I focus on Maine’s aquaculture industry. I use the Q method to describe perspectives about aquaculture held by people who are familiar with the industry, and areas of consensus and disagreement among them. I identified four perspectives: the Aquaculture Optimists, the Aquaculture Anchors, the Aquaculture Historian, and the Aquaculture Agnostics. These groups valued Maine’s marine economy and felt aquaculture could play a role, but disagreed about the scope of the industry and the distribution of benefits. They also had different perspectives about the role of local communities in siting aquaculture farms. Understanding perspectives can contribute to dialogue about the future of the aquaculture industry in Maine and globally. In Chapter 2, I review literature about the Damariscotta River Estuary (DRE) in midcoast Maine. The DRE hosts three research institutions and is heavily studied on diverse marine science-related topics. This literature review supports a participatory mapping project using local ecological knowledge to map the spatial overlaps of shellfish and human use activities in the DRE, as well as observed changes and their causes. Preliminary results from the mapping study are in Appendix E. In the literature review, I describe the publications, their themes, locations, and the years in which they were published. I discuss missing themes and compare our literature review themes to a preliminary analysis of the participatory mapping project interview data. This identifies knowledge gaps about the estuary and highlights areas for future research. The large amount of data provides a valuable baseline for documenting change over time and shows the value of examining literature at an estuary-wide scale.
... However, the ability to build diverse fishing portfolios has declined as limited access programs that restrict the number of fishers permitted to harvest particular species have increasingly constrained access to fisheries. This is particularly the case for younger fishers who were not gifted fishing permits when limited access programs were first enacted (Kasperski and Holland 2013, Himes-Cornell and Hoelting 2015, Holland and Kasperski 2016, Stoll et al. 2016. ...
Natural resources often exhibit large interannual fluctuations in productivity driven by shifting environmental conditions, and this translates to high variability in the revenue resource users earn. However, users can dampen this variability by harvesting a portfolio of resources. In the context of fisheries, this means targeting multiple populations, though the ability to actually build diverse fishing portfolios is often constrained by the costs and availability of fishing permits. These constraints are generally intended to prevent overcapitalization of the fleet and ensure populations are fished sustainably. As linked human‐natural systems, both ecological and fishing dynamics influence the specific advantages and disadvantages of increasing the diversity of fishing portfolios. Specifically, a portfolio of synchronous populations with similar responses to environmental drivers should reduce revenue variability less than a portfolio of asynchronous populations with opposite responses. We built a bioeconomic model based on the Dungeness crab (Metacarcinus magister), Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), and groundfish fisheries in the California Current, and used it to explore the influence of population synchrony and permit access on income patterns. As expected, synchronous populations reduced revenue variability less than asynchronous populations, but only for portfolios including crab and salmon. Synchrony with the longer‐lived groundfish population was not important because environmentally driven changes in groundfish recruitment were mediated by growth and natural mortality over the full population age structure, and overall biomass was relatively stable across years. Thus, building a portfolio of diverse life histories can buffer against the impacts of poor environmental conditions over short time scales. Increasing access to all permits generally led to increased revenue stability and decreased inequality of the fleet, but also resulted in less revenue earned by an individual from a given portfolio because more vessels shared the available biomass. This means managers are faced with a trade‐off between the average revenue individuals earn and the risk those individuals accept. These results illustrate the importance of considering connections between social and ecological dynamics when evaluating management options that constrain or facilitate fishers’ ability to diversify their fishing.
... For example, lobster fishing effort has tracked abundance shifts northeastward (Steneck and Wilson 2001;Kleisner et al. 2017), attributable to rapid warming (Pershing et al. 2015;Friedland et al. 2020) and increased habitat suitability (Tanaka and Chen 2016;LeBris et al. 2018;Goode et al. 2019;Mazur et al. 2020). Additionally, limited entry to the GoM lobster fishery has shifted the age of license holders to 50-65 years old (Stoll et al. 2016;Stoll 2017), few younger potential lobster fishers are replacing those that exit the fishery (Supplemental Fig. S6 1 ), and state requirements for number of licenses sold per existing licenses retired (MDMR 2020) are reducing the number of fishers and total fishing effort (MDMR 2019b). Declines in young-of-year lobster suggest uncertainty in future landings (LeBris et al. 2018;Oppenheim et al. 2019), potentially affecting the size and distribution of the GoM lobster fishery. ...
The Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act mandates US fisheries minimize adverse effects of fishing on essential fish habitat (EFH). The Gulf of Maine (GoM) American lobster (Homarus americanus) fishery is the most valuable US fishery and can deploy more than three million traps annually. To date, the impact of this fishery on benthic EFH has not been addressed quantitatively. To evaluate the impact of the GoM lobster fishery on EFH, we incorporated lobster fishing effort into a model linking habitat susceptibility and recovery to area impacted by fishing gear: the Swept Area Seabed Impact model. Impact to EFH was localized along the coast and highest along midcoast Maine. Upwards of 13% of the benthos is in the process of recovery, but between 99.92% and 99.96% of initially affected habitat fully recovers. These estimates suggest that lobster fishing negligibly contributes to accumulation of EFH damage in the GoM due to the expansive area fished and the small footprint of each trap. Identifying areas of persistent impact is crucial in developing effective fisheries management for critical marine habitats.
... In this context, regulations that associate access rights with geographically defined boundaries have been proposed as solutions to the overexploitation problem, but these management approaches do not necessarily account for spatial diversification as an adaptation mechanism, nor do they address underlying socioeconomic, political and environmental drivers (Finkbeiner et al., 2017). Such policies may lead to unintended consequences such as inducing effort displacement (Abbott and Haynie, 2012;Kroetz et al., 2019) or reducing diversification capacities (Kasperski and Holland, 2013) while increasing individual vulnerability and rule-breaking (Stoll et al., 2016). A better understanding of spatial diversification patterns and how they have changed over time is of critical importance for improved fishery management that better accounts for actors' diversification across large scales (e.g., Cudney-Bueno and Basurto, 2009;Nunan et al., 2012). ...
Small-scale fisheries’ actors increasingly face new challenges, including climate driven shifts in marine resource distribution and productivity. Diversification of target species and fishing locations is a key mechanism to adapt to such changes and maintain fisheries livelihoods. Here we explore environmental and institutional factors mediating how patterns of spatial diversification (i.e., utilization of alternative fishing grounds) and target species diversification change over time. Using small-scale fisheries in Baja California Sur (Mexico) as a case study, we adopt a social-ecological network approach to conduct a spatially explicit analysis of fisheries landings data (2008–2016). This approach quantifies relative patterns of diversification, and when combined with a qualitative analysis of existing literature, enables us to illuminate institutional and environmental factors that may influence diversification strategies. Our results indicate that interannual changes in spatial diversification are correlated with regional oceanographic change, while illustrating the heterogeneity and dynamism of diversification strategies. Rather than acting in isolation, we hypothesize that environmental drivers likely operate in combination with existing fisheries regulations and local socioeconomic context to mediate spatial diversification. We argue that small-scale fisheries policies need to better account such linkages as we move towards an increasingly variable environment. Overall, our results highlight spatial diversification as a dynamic process and constitute an important step towards understanding and managing the complex mechanisms through which environmental changes affect small-scale fisheries.
... As described earlier, Maine's fishing portfolio has shrunk over the years. What is more, a study argues that fisheries management that requires a license to operate is limiting fishers from diversifying their portfolio (Stoll et al. 2016). Economic theory suggests specialization leads to increased productivity; economic theory also suggests a less-diverse portfolio leads to higher risk. ...
The rapid spread of COVID-19 took place while planning this book on the
status of Japanese small-scale fisheries (JSSF). More than ever, they are
at risk of folding under the pressures of an increasingly changing world.
Despite this, various initiatives from coast to coast are being organized by
fishers to help JSSF survive these circumstances. Given the uncertainty of
the current climate, this book provides timely insights into JSSF and their
significant roles. The opening section begins by providing necessary
commentary on how JSSF is defined in this book. Next, significant
challenges currently facing JSSF are explained, coined as the “triple
pains” and “triple changes.” The governance system of Japan’s fisheries
is then analyzed, shedding light on the far-reaching and little-known
influence of JSSF. Finally, in addition to outlining the book’s structure,
the chapter closes by detailing the book’s objectives and messages.
... As described earlier, Maine's fishing portfolio has shrunk over the years. What is more, a study argues that fisheries management that requires a license to operate is limiting fishers from diversifying their portfolio (Stoll et al. 2016). Economic theory suggests specialization leads to increased productivity; economic theory also suggests a less-diverse portfolio leads to higher risk. ...
The problems facing Japanese small-scale fisheries (JSSF), which are
exposed to both societal and institutional changes, in addition to global
environmental changes and recurrent disasters, are “too big to ignore”.
Amidst such circumstances, the ship of Too Big To Ignore (TBTI) Japan
research network is out into the ocean and expected to play a significant
role in JSSF research towards solving these problems. This chapter firstly
introduces the TBTI project, which is a global partnership on small-scale
fisheries research, and the World Small Scale Fisheries Congress being
organized by TBTI every four years. Then it takes a look at JSSF through
the TBTI lens and lastly describes the vision of the TBTI Japan research
network.
... As described earlier, Maine's fishing portfolio has shrunk over the years. What is more, a study argues that fisheries management that requires a license to operate is limiting fishers from diversifying their portfolio (Stoll et al. 2016). Economic theory suggests specialization leads to increased productivity; economic theory also suggests a less-diverse portfolio leads to higher risk. ...
As neighboring countries, Japan and South Korea have many things in
common. Similarities also exist in their fisheries, which are analyzed
in this chapter. After highlighting the history and structure of fishery
rights in both countries, this text will present a discussion on how
these rights frequently interfere with the activities of other coastal area
users. With current examples, this chapter[1] will explain how the
rights systems, which grant high use priority and resource management
responsibilities, have a significant influence on coastal governance.
Their impact will be explored through a comparative lens, outlining
the respective characteristics of Japanese and Korean fisheries. Lastly, in
light of these, challenges facing effective and efficient coastal governance
are considered.
... As described earlier, Maine's fishing portfolio has shrunk over the years. What is more, a study argues that fisheries management that requires a license to operate is limiting fishers from diversifying their portfolio (Stoll et al. 2016). Economic theory suggests specialization leads to increased productivity; economic theory also suggests a less-diverse portfolio leads to higher risk. ...
Blue Justice is a concept that calls for a critical examination of how small- scale sheries (SSF) and their communities may be a ected by ocean development initiatives such as those promoted under Blue Economy and Blue Growth agenda. The relationship between the “seichosangyoka” (growth industrialization), which is the main aim of the sheries policy reform, and SSF in Japan is an example of tension between development and SSF livelihoods, which may lead to social injustice. Because of the lack of su cient discussion and communication between shers and government authority, it is unknown how many and what types of justice issues will SSF face under the new Fishery Act. From the justice perspective, there are many aspects about SSF that need to be considered before realizing “seichosangyoka.”
... As described earlier, Maine's fishing portfolio has shrunk over the years. What is more, a study argues that fisheries management that requires a license to operate is limiting fishers from diversifying their portfolio (Stoll et al. 2016). Economic theory suggests specialization leads to increased productivity; economic theory also suggests a less-diverse portfolio leads to higher risk. ...
This chapter discusses required governance transformation in Japan and Canada in moving towards the holistic health of small-scale sheries and communities. After highlighting the de nitions and numbers of the small-scale sheries in both countries, we will present the governance structures from the national level and a prefecture (provincial) level, Shizuoka Prefecture of Japan, Newfoundland and Labrador of Canada. Lastly, a comparative lens will be applied to explore the respective characteristics of Japan and Canada’s small-scale sheries, comparing and contrasting the situations in both places, especially about how sheries are governed.
... In this context, resilience can be understood as the ability of coastal communities to withstand disturbances without fundamentally altering their essential identity, structure, and functions (after Berkes and Folke 1998;Leslie and Kinzig 2009). Examples of disturbances include environmental stressors, i.e., flooding, storm surge, sea level rise (Horton et al. 2014;de Coninck et al., 2018;Fu et al. 2017;Wuebbles et al. 2017), as well as socioeconomic stressors, i.e. recession, shifts in market demand (Kashem, Wilson, and Van Zandt 2016;Stoll, Beitl, and Wilson 2016). Resilience planning emphasizes building capacity to anticipate and prepare for crises under uncertainty (Walker and Salt 2012); and reducing both individuals and communities' vulnerability to potential disturbances, thereby increasing adaptive capacity (Beatley 2009). ...
Planning for change is critical to ensuring resilient coastal communities. In Maine, USA, the comprehensive planning process provides a platform for communities to articulate policies that address social, economic, and environmental issues. While comprehensive plans were initially required of municipalities to address urban sprawl over thirty years ago, a broad range of challenges face coastal communities today. Here, we report on an assessment of 30 comprehensive plans from coastal communities across the state. We analyzed the degree to which plans incorporate principles of social-ecological resilience. Our results reveal significant variability across comprehensive plans, with some communities addressing key indicators of resilience and others engaging with them in a limited way. By more explicitly incorporating principles of social-ecological resilience, the next-generation of comprehensive plans can be repurposed to serve as tools for communities to implement strategies that build adaptive capacity as they face unprecedented challenges and plan for a changing world.
... Fisheries management systems can have many unexpected and often unwelcome impacts, influencing power dynamics, resilience, and overall fisheries success (Foley et al. 2015, Hentati-Sundberg et al. 2015, Stoll et al. 2016. Individual transferable quotas (ITQs) are permits that allow the holder of the ITQ to catch or transfer a share of a total allowable catch (TAC). ...
The economically and culturally important Pacific halibut fishery in British Columbia, Canada, managed as an individual transferable quota fishery since 1993, has frequently been held up as an example of management best practices. This narrative of success has continued despite repeated warnings that there are serious problems with the fishery, including processors exerting ever greater control over the fishery, contrary to stated fisheries objectives. Administrative data from federal and provincial data sets were used to consider ownership and control in the halibut fishery, with a focus on processor quota ownership, leasing, and brokerage of leases. The analysis indicated that direct processor ownership of halibut quota, while more than doubling between 1996 and 2016, remains relatively low at less than 10% of the available quota. Processor control through the leasing of halibut, however, is much higher, accounting for more than half of all halibut quota transfers in 2016. Through strategies such as "holding licences," processors increasingly act as hubs for leasing activity, which has shifted the balance of power in the fishery. This analysis (a) reveals that there is much more processor control than is obvious from a cursory review of ownership, (b) highlights approaches for assessing the level of processor control, and (c) recommends alternative government procedures for improving transparency and evaluating full spectrum outcomes of fisheries management such as equitable distribution of benefits.
... As an example, Stoll et al. (2015) point out that spiny dogfish landings dropped precipitously after the European Union stopped importing the product in 2013. In addition, management strategies such as catch shares and limiting access to fisheries can result in reduced diversification or make it difficult for harvesters to switch between species (Kasperski and Holland, 2013;Stoll et al., 2016;Holland et al., 2017). Any conversation about diversification in fisheries necessitates taking these multiple factors into consideration. ...
In this period of environmental change, understanding how resource users respond to such changes is critical for effective resource management and adaptation planning. Extensive work has focused on natural resource responses to environmental changes, but less has examined the response of resource users to such changes. We used an interdisciplinary approach to analyse changes in resource use among commercial trawl fishing communities in the northwest Atlantic, a region that has shown poleward shifts in harvested fish species. We found substantial community-level changes in fishing patterns since 1996: southern trawl fleets of larger vessels with low catch diversity fished up to 400 km further north, while trawl fleets of smaller vessels with low catch diversity shrank or disappeared from the data set over time. In contrast, trawl fleets (of both large and small vessels) with higher catch diversity neither changed fishing location dramatically or nor disappeared as often from the data set. This analysis suggests that catch diversity and high mobility may buffer fishing communities from effects of environmental change. Particularly in times of rapid and uncertain change, constructing diverse portfolios and allowing for fleet mobility may represent effective adaptation strategies.
... Small-scale fisheries worldwide are increasingly embedded within the international seafood trade and the political and economic structures that facilitate it. Marine resource licensing and allocation regimes have restricted fishing portfolios (Hilborn et al. 2001, Stoll et al. 2016 as demand from global markets has accelerated the depletion of particular local stocks (Berkes et al. 2006). With many fishers becoming reliant on fewer and fewer species, emergent forms of social-ecological organization are functioning to decouple them from the marine ecosystems upon which they depend (Farr et al. 2018) and the coastal communities of which they are a part . ...
External drivers increasingly impact small-scale fisheries worldwide. As globalization accelerates the flow of information, commodities, and capital across geographic space, neoliberal reforms have fueled the development of the international seafood trade. Small-scale fisheries traditionally driven by local forces and market demands are increasingly nested within the broader structures of global markets and international institutions. Building on existing work that integrates social-ecological systems thinking and critical social science theory, we address how globalization has transformed the social fabric of coastal fishing communities and consider the implications for institutional and environmental integrity. Using small-scale fisheries across the Gulf of California as an empirical example, we extend a theory of small-scale fisheries interactions proposed by development scholars to incorporate global market forces, considering how drivers operating at multiple temporal and geographic scales have influenced outcomes in one of the world’s most diverse and productive marine ecosystems. We suggest that neoliberal reforms promoting the growth and development of an export-oriented seafood industry have restructured the relationships between small-scale fishermen, coastal communities, and the marine environment. As the benefits of trade liberalization have been captured by local elites, small-scale fishermen have been left increasingly vulnerable to the shocks and uncertainties associated with political, economic, and environmental change. By situating our findings within an emerging body of scholarship documenting parallel dynamics across diverse geographies, we argue that efforts to avoid and/ or mitigate the tragedy of the commons within small-scale fishery systems must address the relationships between global markets, social and economic inequality, and local capacities for self-organization and collective action.
Access to West Coast and Alaskan fisheries has been progressively tightened for more than four decades with limited license programs, buybacks, and catch share programs. We document the implementation of a series of limited access and catch share programs in federally and state managed fisheries of the West Coast and Alaska, and evaluate trends in participation, diversification, vessel revenue, and variation of revenue between 1981 and 2022 for this large interconnected system of fisheries. Over time, progressive tightening through further input controls, buybacks, and catch shares led to substantial consolidation and greater specialization coinciding with increased temporal diversification, maintained or increased revenue per vessel, and reduced variation in inter-annual revenue. However, low levels of fishery diversification for many fishers, and high dependency on a few key fisheries, may have left fishers vulnerable to ecological and economic shocks that impacted key fisheries leading to increased income variation and further declines in participation in recent years.
To ensure sustainable seafood production for future generations, seafood businesses must be resilient in the face of future shocks and stresses. Recent research suggests that by increasing alignment with principles of circular economy such as eliminating waste and regenerating natural environments, seafood companies may be able to improve their general resilience (i.e. resilience to unforeseen disruptions). Research presented here empirically explores potential links between circular economy, risk mitigation and resilience through a survey and workshops with seafood businesses in the United Kingdom. We found that many of the seafood companies participating in our research are actively implementing a range of circular economy actions such as recycling materials and minimising the use of single-use plastics. When identifying specific risks, businesses tended to adopt short-term mitigation measures that were less likely than longer-term measures to be aligned with circular economy principles. While businesses felt confident about their ability to adapt to and survive future risks, a focus on short-term risk mitigation might reduce their capacity to plan for longer term risks. An inability to identify and prepare for longer-term risks may also impede businesses’ ability to increase their resilience to unforeseen disruptions and lock companies into a reactive, rather than a capacity-building cycle of risk mitigation.
Small-scale fisheries make important socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental contributions to society, yet are often poorly characterized. In the United States, there is not a formal definition of the term “small-scale” in fisheries, making it difficult to monitor the status of the sector, discern drivers of change, or design and implement targeted policies that ensure its long-term viability. In this paper, we aim to bring attention to the sector by: (1) developing a set of preliminary definitions of small-scale fisheries; (2) describing the diversity, catch composition, and economic value of landings harvested by the sector; and (3) summarizing key drivers of change. We identify 1019 small-scale fishing “units” in the United States, which can be understood as semi-discrete fisheries based on five characteristics. Those who participate in these fisheries collectively harvest 350 commercially reported taxa. We estimate that these fisheries represented between 1 % and 25 % of the total commercial landings in the United States by weight and as much as 68 % of total value. Climate change and loss of social capital are viewed as key threats to small-scale fisheries, as is the decline of working waterfront infrastructure, nearshore habitat loss and degradation, and the privatization of access privileges. We identify a range of impediments to studying the sector in the United States and offer recommendations for improving data collection, monitoring, evaluation long-term. To support small-scale fisheries through improved decision-making, systematic changes to the ways in which data are collected and archived are critically needed.
Diversification within fisheries operations can serve as an important form of self‐insurance against natural, regulatory and market risks to fishers' livelihoods. Diversification can take many forms, and yet the literature has primarily emphasised diversification across species to the exclusion of spatial and temporal dimensions of diversification. We analyse trends in diversification across species, space and time for all fishers along the entire continental West Coast of the United States from 1990 to 2015. Our findings reveal the importance of untangling both compositional (i.e. driven by changes in fleet composition) and individual (i.e. driven by within‐owner changes in diversification strategies) dimensions of diversification by showing how these effects have moved in contrary directions for all three forms of diversification. We also demonstrate how increases in temporal diversification have overwhelmed the overall stability of species and spatial diversification to leave the current fleet less exposed to financial variability compared to in the early 1990s.
Transformations in the ways we relate to the ocean are long overdue given the myriad of anthropogenic problems that exist – from overfishing to plastic pollution and acidification to ‘slavery-at-sea ’ and loss of access and fishing rights. Yet alongside the hegemonic modes of ocean exploitation exist diverse alternative economies, including those associated with alternative seafood networks, that aim to create different and more-than-economic relationships with marine systems. To situate my research within the broader literature, I interpret the widely used Brundtland Report definition of sustainability, “meet[ing] the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987, p. 43), as intra- and inter-generational justice, in line wit h Gottschlich and Bellina (2016), Fredericks (2012), and Baumgartner and Quaas (2010). My thesis begins in Chapter 1with an examination of food security through a sustainability-as-justice lens, incorporating an analysis of seafood production compared to undernourishment by country, a literature review of the transformative potential of alternative seafood networks, and policy and market-based recommendations for U.S. practitioners. For Blue Transformation, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation’s plan foraquatic food systems from 2022-2030 (FAO 222), t o meaningfully contribute to food security as intended, a sustainability-as-justice lens is necessary to ensure procedural, distributive, and recognitive forms of justice important to the pillars of food security. This justice lens ultimately calls into question afundamental normative assumption of sustainable development –economic growth. In Chapter 2, I present results from participatory action researchas a participatory and emancipatorymethod–a way of enacting sustainability-as-justice. Questioning the extent of justice enacted through existing seafood sustainability certifications and motivated by the desire of seafood enterprise operators to hold themselves accountable and apart from a seafood system they seek to transform, this research lays the groundwork for an alternative to existing third-party seafood certifications. This research was inspired by Participatory Guarantee Systems, a peer-reviewed alternative to Organic certification for small-scale and alternative agricultural producers. Through this collaborative project, I worked with members of the Local Catch Network, a community-of-practice made up of alternative seafood networks from across the United States and Canada. Together, wecreateda self-evaluationtool to help seafood enterprise operatorsevaluate their practices in relationship to the Local Catch Network’snine core values, which encompass social, economic, and environmental sustainability. The output from this tool includes a set of103 accountability indicators that encompass multiple facets of justice and have the potential to form the basis for a seafood specific Participatory Guarantee System. By incorporating indicators both related to individual business practices and levels of collaboration in advocacy, this research sets up a system for future analysis of the capability of alternative seafood networks to both self-transform as well as to create change in the wider seafood system.
This paper proposes a novel framework to conceptualize and investigate license and quota holdings within fisheries jurisdictions and regions. We motivate and develop the framework by drawing together two bodies of literature that have been relatively disparate: one on fisheries industrialization and the other, from food studies and food systems scholars, on consolidation and concentration in farming and agrifood value chains. An important observation from food studies and food systems research is that a spectrum of logics -- from productive through to speculative -- motivate farmland accumulation and shape patterns of ownership, investment, and power in farming regions. We apply the framework to investigate license holding portfolios within the federally-managed fisheries jurisdiction off of Canada’s western-most province, British Columbia (BC). We calculate the market value of a selection of large portfolios. We also begin to explore power dynamics, finding that those with large and valuable portfolios are uniquely positioned to exercise and expand control within the jurisdiction. Fisheries and marine policy researchers should assume that hedge funds, private investment and equity firms, and other publicly traded businesses now regularly assess the investment potential of licenses and quota; case-based, comparative, and policy-oriented research are all urgently needed.
The concept of resilience gained increased attention in sustainability science, with a notable spike from 2014 onwards. However, resilience is a multifaceted concept with no unanimous definition, making applications in the context of sustainability, a similarly multifarious term, a challenge. Here, we examine the use of resilience in well-cited sustainability literature in the period from 2014 to 2018. Based on our analysis, resilience as a concept proves its analytical strength through a diverse set of frameworks, indicators, and models, while its usefulness as boundary object is less clear. Most of the examined publications do not cite one of the well-established resilience definitions as a conceptual basis. The normativity of resilience is often implicit and rarely critically questioned, and strong participatory approaches are lacking. A multivariate statistical full-text bibliographic analysis of 112 publications reveals four distinct research clusters with partial conceptual proximity but hardly any overlap. While the majority of publications consider human well-being as an integral factor in their research, some research marginalizes this concept. Resilience to climate change dominates the discourse in the literature investigated, which signifies a need to broaden research efforts to other equally pressing—but in terms of the concept, widely neglected—sustainability challenges.
Natural resources often exhibit large interannual fluctuations in productivity driven by shifting environmental conditions, and this translates to high variability in the revenue resource users can earn. However, users can dampen this variability by harvesting a portfolio of resources. In the context of fisheries, this means targeting multiple populations, though the ability to actually build diverse fishing portfolios is often constrained by the costs and availability of fishing permits. These constraints are generally intended to prevent overcapitalization of the fleet and ensure populations are fished sustainably. As linked human-natural systems, both ecological and fishing dynamics influence the specific advantages and disadvantages of increasing the diversity of fishing portfolios. Specifically, a portfolio of synchronous populations with similar responses to environmental drivers should reduce revenue variability less than a portfolio of asynchronous populations with opposite responses. We built a bioeconomic model characterized by the Dungeness crab (Metacarcinus magister), Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), and groundfish fisheries in the California Current, and used it to explore the influence of population synchrony and permit access on revenue patterns. As expected, synchronous populations reduced revenue variability less than asynchronous populations, but only for portfolios including crab and salmon. Synchrony with longer-lived groundfish populations was not important because environmentally-driven changes in groundfish early life survival were mediated by growth and natural mortality over the full population age structure, and overall biomass was relatively stable across years. Thus, building a portfolio of diverse life histories can buffer against the impacts of extremely poor environmental conditions over short time scales, though not for long-term declines. Increasing access to all permits generally led to increased revenue stability and decreased inequality of the fleet, but also resulted in less revenue earned by an individual from a given portfolio because more vessels shared the available biomass. This means managers are faced with a tradeoff between the average revenue individuals earn and the risk those individuals accept. These results illustrate the importance of considering connections between social and ecological dynamics when evaluating management options that constrain or facilitate fishers’ ability to diversify their fishing.
Many global fisheries have transitioned to rights-based management to improve bioeconomic outcomes, but several fishing communities have experienced negative social impacts. Negative social impacts are often attributed to a focus on economic efficiency and resource sustainability, with less focus on the distributional equity among fishery participants. Among rights-based systems, limited entry has been used for over a century to reduce excess fleet capacity. In 1991, a limited entry permit system was initiated in the Hawai‘i longline fleet, following years of rapid growth. The Hawai‘i system did not set an ownership cap, which presented a natural experiment to examine distributional equity in the fleet over time. We examined permit ownership changes in the Hawai‘i longline fishery using 27 years of permit transactions, then linked it to logbook landings and commercial dealer data to examine revenue inequality using the gini coefficient. We also analyzed property rights components to better understand how institutional factors affected ownership changes. We found that three distinct permit ownership groups emerged and permits, landings, and revenue became increasingly consolidated among multiple permit owners. The gini coefficient indicated that how the fishery was analyzed significantly affected measures of revenue inequality. One measure indicated that revenue inequality in the Hawai‘i limited entry system was similar to other U.S. fisheries managed by catch shares. Without an ownership cap, distributional equity in the Hawai‘i longline fleet changed significantly over time. Our findings indicate that distributional equity should be considered prior to initiating rights-based transitions in other global fisheries
All benefits provided by natural systems are embedded within coupled social-ecological systems (SESs). Fisheries are clear examples of SESs: through fishing, humans affect ecosystem structure and functioning, and in turn, receive benefits, including sustenance, employment, and cultural value. Resilience, the ability to maintain structure and function in the face of change, is key to sustaining the social and ecological components of fisheries-related SESs and their interactions. Many factors contribute to resilience, including heterogeneity. By identifying heterogeneity in these complex systems, we are better able to understand the capacity of fishery-related SESs to adapt to change, and contribute to management that protects valuable services. In this dissertation, I ask: 1) How are SESs associated with marine fisheries shaped by environmental, social, and institutional heterogeneity, and 2) what are the implications of this variation for resilience and adaptive capacity of fishers and the SES, in the face of changing environmental and socioeconomic conditions? To answer these questions, I employ an interdisciplinary approach focused on the chocolate clam (Megapitaria squalida) fishery in Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico. I conducted biological field studies, household surveys, interviews, ethnographic conversations, and developed fisheries models from my empirical work. Together, my results illustrate that management aligned with the biology of target populations and stakeholders’ goals is critical to sustainable fisheries. Heterogeneity among fishers affects their individual capacities to adapt to change. Maintaining a diversity of adaptive strategies is essential for individual adaptive capacity. Likewise, maintaining fishery heterogeneity, by ensuring all fishers are equipped to adapt, will strengthen community adaptive capacity. The chocolate clam provides diverse cultural and provisioning values to communities, and management that considers all benefits will be better equipped to account for the needs and knowledge of diverse stakeholders. Both formal and informal institutions shape fishing practices, and integrating them, via collaborative governance, would increase community participation in management and enhance fishery resilience. My interdisciplinary approach acknowledges the intricate web of human-resource interactions shaping fisheries and reveals how heterogeneity shapes SES resilience. Management that supports diversity in all forms will be better equipped to contribute to the resilience of these highly valuable and dynamic systems.
Working waterfront industries are reliant upon water access and encompass everything from wild harvest and cultured seafood to towboats, shipping, and marine research. Many of the industries along Oregon’s working waterfronts are inaccessible to the public or hard to see, even though they play critical social and economic roles in the local community. Working waterfront industries thrive when there is local understanding of, and support for, the work and the people doing this work. This chapter explores the connection between working waterfront industries and coastal community resilience and vitality using examples of infrastructure, family and gender, education, and changing demographics.
Faced with strict regulations, rising operational costs, depleted stocks, and competition from less expensive foreign imports, many fishers are pursuing new ways to market and sell their catch. Direct marketing arrangements can increase the ex-vessel value of seafood and profitability of operations for fishers by circumventing dominant wholesale chains of custody and capturing the premium that customers are willing to pay for local seafood. Our analysis goes beyond a paradigm that understands direct marketing arrangements as solely economic tools to consider how these emerging business configurations create a set of conditions that can result in increased bonding and bridging capital among fishers by incentivizing cooperation, communication, and information production and organization. To build our case, we report on the economic value being generated for fishers in a cooperatively owned and operated direct marketing arrangement in eastern North Carolina. Over the course of 2 years, fishers participating in the Walking Fish community-supported fishery received 33% more revenue for their catch compared to the average monthly ex-vessel price of finfish and shellfish landed in the surrounding region, and an additional 14% to 18% more per dollar by way of year-end profit sharing. We argue that these economic benefits create an incentive to participate, resulting in cooperation among fishers and increased communication skills that foster bonding and bridging capital that put fishers in a position to identify and respond to challenges that threaten the social-ecological resilience of the systems within which they operate. We suggest that “institutional starters” like these can play a critical role in increasing the resilience of social-ecological systems, including fisheries.
We present a conceptual framework that explores some of the forces creating innovation and novelty in complex systems. Understanding the sources of variability and novelty may help us better understand complex systems. Understanding complex phenomena such as invasions, migration, and nomadism may provide insight into the structure of ecosystems and other complex systems, and aid our attempts to cope with and mitigate these phenomena, in the case of invasions, and better understand and or predict them. Our model is broadly applicable to ecological theory, including community ecology, resilience, restoration, and policy. Characterizing the link between landscape change and the composition of species communities may help policymakers in their decision-making processes. Understanding how variability is related to system structure, and how that generates novelty, may help us understand how resilience is generated. We suggest that there are three primary opportunities for the generation of novelty into complex systems. These sources of novelty are inherent in the cross-scale structure of complex systems, and are critical for creating adaptive capacity. Novelty originates from the inherent variability present in cross scale structures, within scale reorganization associated with adaptive cycles, and whole-scale transformations resulting from regime shifts. Although speculative, our ideas are grounded in research and observation, and they may provide insight into the evolution of complex systems.
Social adaptation is often touted as a desirable and necessary response to continued decline in the fisheries sector, however little is currently understood about the impacts of adaptive strategies on people's broader sense of ‘wellbeing’, or how the spread of impacts affect people in different ways. This article draws from research in Northern Ireland to explore the types of adaptation strategising that takes place within fishing households, and to specifically address how such strategies interplay with the wellbeing of people affected. We demonstrate some of the hard choices that arise through becoming adaptive, and discuss how the costs of adaptation are sometimes disproportionality born by particular individuals, especially women. We argue that greater consideration of the impacts of adaptation on wellbeing can give useful insights into why some people thrive, whilst others struggle, and can point to opportunities to strengthen both resilient and wellbeing outcomes.
The Maine lobster Homarus americanus fishery is considered one of the most successful fisheries in the world due in part to its unique comanagement system, the conservation ethic of the harvesters, and the ability of the industry to respond to crises and solve collective‐action problems. However, recent threats raise the question whether the industry will be able to respond to future threats as successfully as it has to ones in the past or whether it is now less resilient and can no longer adequately respond to threats. Through ethnographic research and oral histories with fishermen, we examined the current level of social resilience in the lobster fishery. We concentrated on recent threats to the industry and the ways in which it has responded to them, focusing on three situations: a price drop beginning in 2008, a recovery in 2010–2011, and a second collapse of prices in 2012. In addition, we considered other environmental and regulatory concerns identified by fishermen. We found that the industry is not responding effectively to recent threats and identified factors that might explain the level of social resilience in the fishery.
Received August 20, 2013; accepted October 29, 2014
This paper compares two case studies in Alaska, one on commercial fishers of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands region and the other on moose hunters of Interior Alaska, to identify how governance arrangements and management strategies enhance or limit people's ability to respond effectively to changing climatic and environmental conditions. The two groups face similar challenges regarding the impacts of a changing climate on wild fish and game, but they tell very different stories regarding how and under what conditions these impacts challenge their harvest activities. In both regions, people describe dramatic changes in weather, land, and seascape conditions, and distributions of fish and game. A key finding is that the "command-and-control" model of governance in the Alaska Interior, as implemented through state and federal management tools such as registration hunts and short open seasons, limits effective local responses to environmental conditions, while the more decentralized model of governance created by the Limited Access Privilege systems of the Bering Sea allows fishers great flexibility to respond. We discuss ways to implement aspects of a decentralized decision-making model in the Interior that would benefit hunters by increasing their adaptability and success, while also improving conservation outcomes. Our findings also demonstrate the usefulness of the diagnostic framework employed here for facilitating comparative crossregional analyses of natural resource use and management.
A great deal of research to inform environmental conservation and management takes a predict-and-prescribe strategy in which improving forecasts about future states of ecosystems is the primary goal. But sufficiently thorough understanding of ecosystems needed to reduce deep uncertainties is probably not achievable, seriously limiting the potential effectiveness of the predict-and-prescribe approach. Instead, research should integrate more closely with policy development to identify the range of alternative plausible futures and develop strategies that are robust across these scenarios and responsive to unpredictable ecosystem dynamics.
Sea urchin barrens are benthic communities on rocky subtidal reefs that are dominated by urchins and coralline algae; in the absence of intense herbivory by urchins, these barrens support luxuriant seaweed communities such as kelp beds (or forests). Barrens can extend over 1000s of km of coastline or occur in small patches (10s to 100s of m) within a kelp bed. They are characterized by low primary productivity and low food-web complexity relative to kelp communities and are generally considered a collapsed state of the kelp ecosystem. To assess the stability of sea urchin barrens and potential for return to a kelp-dominated state, we document temporal and spatial patterns of occurrence of barrens along temperate and polar coasts. We examine the various drivers of phase (or regime) shifts in these areas, the threshold levels of urchin abundance that trigger abrupt changes in ecosystem state, and the feedback mechanisms that stabilize each state. Although longitudinal (decadal) studies are limited, we find evidence in several regions that transitions between barrens and kelp beds are characterized by discontinuous phase shifts, with different thresholds for forward (to barrens) and reverse (to kelp beds) shifts, in accordance with alternative stable-state dynamics. In other areas, barrens may reflect regime shifts associated with large-scale oceanographic changes. Accelerating climate change and increasing anthropogenic impacts play important roles in altering alternative stable-state dynamics and triggering phase shifts. Recovery of the kelp state may be possible through management or remediation measures, but this necessitates a clear understanding of the thresholds and stabilizing factors for a given system.
Scale mismatches result in incomplete or ambiguous feedback that impairs the ability to learn and adapt and, ultimately, to sustain natural resources. Our aim is to examine the sea urchin fishery in Maine, USA to better understand the multiscale, social, and biophysical conditions that are important for the design of institutions that might be able to sustain the resource. During the late 1980s and 1990s, the Maine sea urchin fishery was a classic gold rush fishery. In the beginning, the fishery was characterized by an abundant resource with little to no harvesting activity, followed by a period of rapid increase in landings and effort that led to a subsequent and persistent decline in the sea urchin population and a significant reduction in effort. We conducted semistructured interviews with scientists and experienced fishermen to understand the multiscale, social, and biophysical conditions that influence fishermen's harvesting strategies, and the implications of this for the design of institutions for successful resource management. The current co-management system includes an advisory body made up of industry members and scientists it also includes limited entry, and additional input control mechanisms. Many of these measures are implemented at a very broad scale; however, we find that the ecological conditions relevant to the sustainable processes occur at the scale of individual fishing sites or ledges, which is a much finer scale than current management. Therefore, the co-management system maintains an open access system and leaves few incentives for the development of sustainable harvesting strategies among fishermen. The clear suggestion is that the appropriate management system would be one that directly addresses the fine scale ecological and social dynamics within this fishery and gives fishermen property rights over individual ledges (for example, leases). After having briefly reviewed experiences in Canada and Chile, we found that knowledge of the coupled natural and human system at the fine scale is necessary if we are to assess the feasibility of area management in this fishery, because what works in one fishery does not necessarily work in another.
Fisheries are increasingly understood as complex adaptive systems; but the cultural, behavioral, and cognitive factors that explain spatial and temporal dynamics of fishing effort allocation remain poorly understood. Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a visualization tool, this paper combines catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) and ethnographic data on the Ecuadorian mangrove cockle fishery to explore patterns in fishing effort and the social production of fishing space. I argue that individual decisions about where, when, and how to fish result in spatial and temporal patterns in effort allocation, ultimately regulating open-access fisheries that typically operate on a first-come, first-served basis. These emergent patterns in the fishing effort are explained by individual-level preferences and adaptations; the development of knowledge and customary norms through the habitual use of resource space by individuals and groups; ecological conditions; and access. New adaptive challenges threaten to undermine such self-organization of open-access systems on larger spatial and temporal scales prompting a likely re-allocation of the fishing effort in the future.
Change is a defining characteristic of coastal social-ecological systems, yet the magnitude and speed of contemporary change is challenging the adaptive capacity of even the most robust coastal communities. In the context of multiple drivers of change, it has become increasingly important to identify how threatened communities adapt to livelihood stressors. We investigate how adaptation is negotiated in two coastal fishing communities by documenting livelihood stressors, household assets, adaptive strategies, and factors that facilitate or inhibit adaptation. Declining catch is the most common stressor being experienced in both communities, however, socioeconomic, e.g., disease or theft, and ecological, e.g., severe storms and drought, changes are also creating livelihood stress. We find that specialized fishers' with higher investment in fishing gear and government support are adapting by intensifying their fishing efforts, whereas poorer fishers with more livelihood options are adapting through diversification. Adaptation is facilitated by fishers' groups, occupational pride, and family networks. It is inhibited by limited assets, competition over declining resources, and pervasive poverty. Our data suggest that adaptation is a heterogeneous process that is influenced by multiple factors. Understanding the complexity of fishers' responses to livelihood stressors is critical for fostering adaptive capacity in coastal communities, for strengthening fisheries management, and for improving the livelihoods of fishing dependent communities.
Production ecosystems typically have a high dependence on supporting and regulating ecosystem services and while they have thus far managed to sustain production, this has often been at the cost of externalities imposed on other systems and locations. Thus one of the largest challenges facing humanity is to secure the production of food and fibre while avoiding long-term negative impacts on ecosystems and the range of services that they provide. Resilience has been used as a framework for understanding sustainability challenges in a range of ecosystem types, but has not been systematically applied across the range of systems specifically used for the production of food and fibre in terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments. This paper applied a resilience lens to production ecosystems in which anthropogenic inputs play varying roles in determining system dynamics and outputs. We argue that the traditional resilience framework requires important additions when applied to production systems. We show how sustained anthropogenic inputs of external resources can lead to a "coercion" of resilience and describe how the global interconnectedness of many production systems can camouflage signals indicating resilience loss.
Spatial management measures are currently being used to manage bycatch and discards, given the spatial heterogeneity of fish distributions. However, permanent fishing closures are often poorly implemented, unresponsive to stock dynamics and do not achieve their management objectives. Recently, real-time spatial management tools for managing bycatch and discards implemented under either a comanagement or self-governance approach have been introduced in Europe and the US. Real-time catch and discard information is shared among fishers to incentivise and encourage vessels to leave areas of high bycatch. Here, the similarities and differences, in governance, implementation and management of ten real-time spatial management systems from across Europe and the US are reviewed. A framework is developed to characterize the attributes associated with voluntary, private and regulatory real-time spatial management tools. Challenges and management practices in the different case studies are reviewed providing insights for designing these spatial management tools. The results illustrate that real-time spatial management approaches can create incentives for fishers to develop, use and share information and technology to avoid undesired catch. Compared with Europe, the US has developed spatial management tools with more truly real-time mechanisms and with greater involvement of the fishing industry in designing and operating the tools.
In the midst of a global fisheries crisis, there has been great interest in the fostering of adaptation and resilience in fisheries, as a means to reduce vulnerability and improve the capacity of fishing society to adapt to change. However, enhanced resilience does not automatically result in improved well-being of people, and adaptation strategies are riddled with difficult choices, or trade-offs, that people must negotiate. This paper uses the context of fisheries to explore some apparent tensions between adapting to change on the one hand, and the pursuit of well-being on the other, and illustrates that trade-offs can operate at different levels of scale. It argues that policies that seek to support fisheries resilience need to be built on a better understanding of the wide range of consequences that adaptation has on fisher well-being, the agency people exert in negotiating their adaptation strategies, and how this feeds back into the resilience of fisheries as a social-ecological system. The paper draws from theories on agency and adaptive preferences to illustrate how agency might be better incorporated into the resilience debate.
Resilience thinking addresses the dynamics and development of complex social–ecological systems (SES). Three aspects are central: resilience, adaptability and transformability. These aspects interrelate across multiple scales. Resilience in this context is the capacity of a SES to continually change and adapt yet remain within critical thresholds. Adaptability is part of resilience. It represents the capacity to adjust responses to changing external drivers and internal processes and thereby allow for development along the current trajectory (stability domain). Transformability is the capacity to cross thresholds into new development trajectories. Transformational change at smaller scales enables resilience at larger scales. The capacity to transform at smaller scales draws on resilience from multiple scales, making use of crises as windows of opportunity for novelty and innovation, and recombining sources of experience and knowledge to navigate social–ecological transitions. Society must seriously consider ways to foster resilience of smaller more manageable SESs that contribute to Earth System resilience and to explore options for deliberate transformation of SESs that threaten Earth System resilience.
Stressors associated with human activities interact in complex ways to affect marine ecosystems, yet we lack spatially explicit assessments of cumulative impacts on ecologically and economically key components such as marine predators. Here we develop a metric of cumulative utilization and impact (CUI) on marine predators by combining electronic tracking data of eight protected predator species (n=685 individuals) in the California Current Ecosystem with data on 24 anthropogenic stressors. We show significant variation in CUI with some of the highest impacts within US National Marine Sanctuaries. High variation in underlying species and cumulative impact distributions means that neither alone is sufficient for effective spatial management. Instead, comprehensive management approaches accounting for both cumulative human impacts and trade-offs among multiple stressors must be applied in planning the use of marine resources.
The transition from one system to another as a mechanism of adaptation to an external disturbance is widely discussed in terms of ‘regime shifts’ in resilience research. But occupational transitions by communities due to coastal hazards such as coastal erosion and strong waves have not been studied in depth from a systems perspective. Such a perspective can contribute towards a better understanding of the process and pattern behind transformation among coastal societies. The present case study of coastal occupational communities in Central Java province, Indonesia, includes fishers, brackish pond farmers and labourers. It investigates the historical occupational transitions and the factors that drive them. The study draws on Participatory Rural Appraisal exercises such as historical timeline analysis and participatory discussions along with a socio-economic survey to study the factors and processes that led these communities to transitional pathways. Historical narratives of the community reveal the significance and influence of livelihood capitals such as social, human, financial, physical and natural capital in the transitions. Through the ‘Marble and Cup’ conceptual framework of the systems transitions, the irreversibility of occupational transitions due to the destruction of natural assets is outlined. This depicts a multi-locale and one-dimensional transition to a singular occupational mode (essentially labourers) in the face of a disturbance like sea level rise, necessitating transformation and building of the livelihood capitals across geographical scales.
We review the evidence of regime shifts in terrestrial and aquatic environments in relation to resilience of complex adaptive ecosystems and the functional roles of biological diversity in this context. The evidence reveals that the likelihood of regime shifts may increase when humans reduce resilience by such actions as removing response diversity, removing whole functional groups of species, or removing whole trophic levels; impacting on ecosystems via emissions of waste and pollutants and climate change; and altering the magnitude, frequency, and duration of disturbance regimes. The combined and often synergistic effects of those pressures can make ecosystems more vulnerable to changes that previously could be absorbed. As a consequence, ecosystems may suddenly shift from desired to less desired states in their capacity to generate ecosystem services. Active adaptive management and governance of resilience will be required to sustain desired ecosystem states and transform degraded ecosystems into fundamentally new and more desirable configurations.
The concept of resilience in ecology has been expanded into a framework to analyse human-environment dynamics. The extension of resilience notions to society has important limits, particularly its conceptualization of social change. The paper argues that this stems from the lack of attention to normative and epistemological issues underlying the notion of ‘social resilience’. We suggest that critically examining the role of knowledge at the intersections between social and environmental dynamics helps to address normative questions and to capture how power and competing value systems are not external to, but rather integral to the development and functioning of SES.
The core idea of evolution is that order in living systems emerges from a simple process of variation and selection. In biological systems we usually understand the source of variation as best described by the mechanisms of genetics. If human social systems are evolutionary systems, however, it would seem the variation that most explains the sources of change in these systems, occurs not from a genetic mechanism, but from individual learning. We use an evolutionary computational methodology to explore the way individual learning and adaptation lead to the evolution of persistent, self-organized social and economic activity. The basic idea behind these explorations is that the character and extent of self-organizing social and economic activity depends upon the way the environment frames the costs of individual learning and adaptation. We consider three different kinds of costs affecting learning and adaptation: the costs of autonomous searching, of communicating, and of deciding. Individuals respond to these costs by carefully, i.e., economically, choosing to learn about and interact with familiar agents in familiar arenas in which they have relatively secure expectations about the outcome of their actions. Emerging from these choices are persistent relationships among agents that lead to social and economic structure and to the imperfect coordination of aggregate production. The character and the extent of each are a function of the way the costs of information change with changing natural and human system conditions.
Biological diversity appears to enhance the resilience of desirable ecosystem states, which is required to secure the production of essential ecosystem services. The diversity of responses to environmental change among species contributing to the same ecosystem function, which we call response diversity, is critical to resilience. Response diversity is particularly important for ecosystem renewal and reorganization following change. Here we present examples of response diversity from both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and across temporal and spatial scales. Response diversity provides adaptive capacity in a world of complex systems, uncertainty, and human-dominated environments. We should pay special attention to response diversity when planning ecosystem management and restoration, since it may contribute considerably to the resilience of desired ecosystem states against disturbance, mismanagement, and degradation.
This article defines social resilience as the ability of groups or communities to cope with external stresses and disturbances as a result of social, political and environmental change. This definition highlights social resilience in relation to the concept of ecological resilience which is a characteristic of ecosystems to maintain themselves in the face of disturbance. There is a clear link between social and ecological resilience, particularly for social groups or communities that are dependent on ecological and environmental resources for their livelihoods. But it is not clear whether resilient ecosystems enable resilient communities in such situations. This article examines whether resilience is a useful characteristic for describing the social and economic situation of social groups and explores potential links between social resilience and ecological resilience. The origins of this interdisciplinary study in human ecology, ecological economics and rural sociology are reviewed, and a study of the impacts of ecological change on a resourcedependent community in contemporary coastal Vietnam in terms of the resilience of its institutions is outlined.
Ianelli, J. N., Hollowed, A. B., Haynie, A. C., Mueter, F. J., and Bond, N. A. 2011. Evaluating management strategies for eastern Bering Sea walleye pollock (Theragra chalcogramma) in a changing environment. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 68: 1297–1304.
The impacts of climate change on fish and fisheries is expected to increase the demand for more accurate stock projections and harvest strategies that are robust to shifting production regimes. To address these concerns, we evaluate the performance of fishery management control rules for eastern Bering Sea walleye pollock stock under climate change. We compared the status quo policy with six alternative management strategies under two types of recruitment pattern simulations: one that follows temperature-induced trends and the other that follows a stationary recruitment pattern similar to historical observations. A subset of 82 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change climate models provided temperature inputs from which an additional 100 stochastic simulated recruitments were generated to obtain the same overall recruitment variability as observed for the stationary recruitment simulations. Results indicate that status quo management with static reference points and current ecosystem considerations will result in much lower average catches and an increased likelihood of fishery closures, should reduced recruitment because of warming conditions hold. Alternative reference point calculations and control rules have similar performance under stationary recruitment relative to status quo, but may offer significant gains under the changing environmental conditions.
Catches and prices from many fisheries exhibit high interannual variability, leading to variability in the income derived by fishery participants. The economic risk posed by this may be mitigated in some cases if individuals participate in several different fisheries, particularly if revenues from those fisheries are uncorrelated or vary asynchronously. We construct indices of gross income diversification from fisheries at the level of individual vessels and find that the income of the current fleet of vessels on the US West Coast and in Alaska is less diverse than at any point in the past 30 y. We also find a dome-shaped relationship between the variability of individuals' income and income diversification, which implies that a small amount of diversification does not reduce income risk but that higher levels of diversification can substantially reduce the variability of income from fishing. Moving from a single fishery strategy to a 50-25-25 split in revenues reduces the expected coefficient of variation of gross revenues between 24% and 65% for the vessels included in this study. The increasing access restrictions in many marine fisheries through license reductions and moratoriums have the potential to limit fishermen's ability to diversify their income risk across multiple fisheries. Catch share programs often result in consolidation initially and may reduce diversification. However, catch share programs also make it feasible for fishermen to build a portfolio of harvest privileges and potentially reduce their income risk. Therefore, catch share programs create both threats and opportunities for fishermen wishing to maintain diversified fishing strategies.
Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) in the Gulf of Maine provide an important but depleted fishery that needs to be made sustainable. However, restoring and maintaining robust population components to achieve sustainability is made difficult when their distribution and character is unknown. This study clarifies the structure of the Gulf of Maine cod grouping by deriving the distribution, movements, and behavior of population components from 1920s data and surveys of retired fishermen. These derivations are consistent with current cod populations and with the existence of localized spawning components. Nearly half the coastal spawning grounds of 50 to 70 years ago are abandoned today and their spawning components have disappeared, suggesting depletion, undetected by system-wide assessments, may have been well advanced by the 1980s.
Tipping points in complex systems may imply risks of unwanted collapse, but also opportunities for positive change. Our capacity
to navigate such risks and opportunities can be boosted by combining emerging insights from two unconnected fields of research.
One line of work is revealing fundamental architectural features that may cause ecological networks, financial markets, and
other complex systems to have tipping points. Another field of research is uncovering generic empirical indicators of the
proximity to such critical thresholds. Although sudden shifts in complex systems will inevitably continue to surprise us,
work at the crossroads of these emerging fields offers new approaches for anticipating critical transitions.
We explore the social dimension that enables adaptive ecosystem-based management. The review concentrates on experiences of adaptive governance of social-ecological systems during periods of abrupt change (crisis) and investigates social sources of renewal and reorganization. Such governance connects individuals, organi-zations, agencies, and institutions at multiple organizational levels. Key persons provide leadership, trust, vision, meaning, and they help transform management organizations toward a learning environment. Adaptive governance systems often self-organize as social networks with teams and actor groups that draw on various knowledge systems and experiences for the development of a common understanding and policies. The emergence of "bridging organizations" seem to lower the costs of collaboration and conflict resolution, and enabling legislation and governmental policies can support self-organization while framing creativity for adaptive comanagement efforts. A re-silient social-ecological system may make use of crisis as an opportunity to transform into a more desired state.
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.
This article studies law in action as it relates to organized lobster poaching in Canada. It examines the distinct pattern of relationships that constitutes poaching as a business enterprise and analyzes how "living law" operates as an ironic facilitative form for that which it tries to control. We argue that business poachers evade, avoid, and neutralize fishery laws and regulations by creatively using and manipulating the legal boundaries and organizational resources at their disposal. In effect, the law is an enabling structure for blue water illegality. We analyze business poaching activities as a type of workplace crime, and we account for regulatory failure in the lobster fishery.
With the publication of his best-selling books "Competitive Strategy (1980) and "Competitive Advantage (1985), Michael E. Porter of the Harvard Business School established himself as the world's leading authority on competitive advantage. Now, at a time when economic performance rather than military might will be the index of national strength, Porter builds on the seminal ideas of his earlier works to explore what makes a nation's firms and industries competitive in global markets and propels a whole nation's economy. In so doing, he presents a brilliant new paradigm which, in addition to its practical applications, may well supplant the 200-year-old concept of "comparative advantage" in economic analysis of international competitiveness. To write this important new work, Porter and his associates conducted in-country research in ten leading nations, closely studying the patterns of industry success as well as the company strategies and national policies that achieved it. The nations are Britain, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. The three leading industrial powers are included, as well as other nations intentionally varied in size, government policy toward industry, social philosophy, and geography. Porter's research identifies the fundamental determinants of national competitive advantage in an industry, and how they work together as a system. He explains the important phenomenon of "clustering," in which related groups of successful firms and industries emerge in one nation to gain leading positions in the world market. Among the over 100 industries examined are the German chemical and printing industries, Swisstextile equipment and pharmaceuticals, Swedish mining equipment and truck manufacturing, Italian fabric and home appliances, and American computer software and movies. Building on his theory of national advantage in industries and clusters, Porter identifies the stages of competitive development through which entire national economies advance and decline. Porter's finding are rich in implications for both firms and governments. He describes how a company can tap and extend its nation's advantages in international competition. He provides a blueprint for government policy to enhance national competitive advantage and also outlines the agendas in the years ahead for the nations studied. This is a work which will become the standard for all further discussions of global competition and the sources of the new wealth of nations.
Ecosystems can "flip" and, as a result of reinforcing feedback mechanisms, "lock" into alternative stable states. We studied this process in a kelp-forest ecosystem in Maine, USA, for nearly four decades and found two stable states: one dominated by green sea urchins and crustose coralline
algae and the other by erect fleshy macroalgae. Herbivory by urchins drives algal deforestation, but declined after fishing for sea urchins began in 1987. As the fishery expanded northeastward, so did phase shifts to macroalgae. By 2000, macroalgae dominated nearly all of coastal Maine. Monitoring
newly settled sea urchins between 1996 and 2002 revealed sites with thousands of settlers per square meter per year, but virtually none survived to become adults. Algal succession to densely branched morphologies may create nursery habitat for settling crabs that prey on settling sea urchins.
Experiments intended to restore herbivory to prefishing levels, through translocation of 51,000 adult sea urchins over two consecutive years at multiple release sites (with controls), resulted in complete urchin mortality both years as a result of predation by large migratory Cancer borealis
Stimpson, 1859 crabs. Population densities of this crab increased fivefold coastwide soon after the macroalgal phase shift. Persistent absence of urchins (even in no-take reserves) probably resulted from predation on newly settled and/or adult urchins. Fisheries-induced declines in herbivory
may therefore have improved recruitment potential for predatory crabs that then became the region's new apex predator. Cascading sequential processes of herbivory, recruitment, and predation create reinforcing feedback, effectively locking this ecosystem into alternative stable states.
Researchers studying the role institutions play in causing and confronting environmental change use a variety of concepts and methods that make it difficult to compare their findings. Seeking to remedy this problem, Oran Young takes the analytic themes identified in the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC) Science Plan as cutting-edge research concerns and develops them into a common structure for conducting research. He illustrates his arguments with examples of environmental change ranging in scale from the depletion of local fish stocks to the disruption of Earth's climate system.Young not only explores theoretical concerns such as the relative merits of collective-action and social-practice models of institutions but also addresses the IDGEC-identified problems of institutional fit, interplay, and scale. He shows how institutions interact both with one another and with the biophysical environment and assesses the extent to which we can apply lessons drawn from the study of local institutions to the study of global institutions and vice versa. He examines how research on institutions can help us to solve global problems of environmental governance. Substantive topics discussed include the institutional dimensions of carbon management, the performance of exclusive economic zones, and the political economy of boreal and tropical forests.
ab Abstract. This paper presents the results of a research project, which has focused on Danish fishers' acceptance of imposed fisheries regulations and their respect for the management system. The analytical framework developed by Raakjær Nielsen (1998) and Raakjær Nielsen and Vedsmand (1999) has been used. The research has focused on three Danish fisheries: the cod fishery in the Baltic Sea, the demersal and Nephrops fishery in Kattegat and the fishery for non-human consumption species in the North Sea. The research is based on interviews with 56 fishers and a mail survey covering all vessels in the three selected fisheries. The following factors are concluded to have a major impact on rule compliance in fisheries: 1) the economic gains to be obtained; 2) the risk of being detected and the severity of the sanction; 3) the compatibility between the content of the regul ation and the fishing patterns and practise; 4) regulation leads towards stock conservation; 5) norms, in particular the behaviour of other fishers and the moral of the individual fisher. In addition there are some indication, that co-management is important fo r rule compliance.
Responding to the need for management of California's nearshore fisheries mandated in state law by the Marine Life Management and Marine Life Protection acts, the San Diego Watermen's Association (SDWA), which includes divers that target local red sea urchins Strongylocentrotus franciscanus, initiated a community-based data collection program in 2001. In collaboration with independent scientists and biologists from the California Department of Fish and Game, the SDWA developed an ongoing program to gather, organize, and analyze both fishery-dependent and fishery-independent data on the local red sea urchin fishery. The goal of the program is to collect data that will support periodical stock assessments needed for sustainable management of existing nearshore fisheries (including red sea urchins) as well as the kelp forest ecosystem on which these fisheries depend. Here, we discuss sampling designs, methods for determining data quality (bias and precision), and methods for detecting change, and we provide some examples of results from the ongoing community-based data collection program. We also report on (1) the design and implementation of scientifically valid sampling protocols; (2) data quality assurance and control collaboratively conducted with scientists and resource agency biologists; (3) calibration studies to determine accuracy and precision and the magnitude of detectable changes in red sea urchin populations; and (4) visualization and dissemination of data and results and incremental changes in protocols that would facilitate the monitoring of associated biological communities. Finally, we discuss keys for success in this cooperative-based data collection program and its implications for stock assessment and management of the red sea urchin fishery in California.
The publisher regrets that this article is an accidental duplication of an article that has already been published in Global Environ. Change 16 (2006) 253–267, doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2006.04.002 . The duplicate article has therefore been withdrawn.
Multiple activities affect the marine environment in concert, yet current management primarily considers activities in isolation. A shift towards a more comprehensive management of these activities, as with recent emphasis on ecosystem-based approaches to management, requires a means for evaluating their interactive and cumulative impacts. Here we develop a framework for this evaluation, focusing on five core concepts: (1) activities have interactive and cumulative impacts, (2) management decisions require consideration of, and tradeoffs among, all ecosystem services, (3) not all stressors are equal or have impacts that increase linearly, (4) management must account for the different scales of activities and impacts, and (5) some externalities cannot be controlled locally but must be accounted for in marine spatial planning. Comprehensive ocean zoning provides a powerful tool with which these key concepts are collectively addressed.
This book is about ways of dealing with uncertainty in the management of renewable resources, such as fisheries and wildlife. The author's basic theme is that management should be viewed as an adaptive process: one learns about the potentials of natural populations to sustain harvesting mainly through experience with management itself, rather than through basic research or the development of general ecological theory. The need for an adaptive view of management has become increasingly obvious over the last two decades, as management has turned more often to quantitative model building as a tool for prediction of responses to alternative harvesting policies. The model building has not been particularly successful, and it keeps drawing attention to key uncertainties that are not being resolved through normal techniques of scientific investigation. The author's major conclusion is that actively adaptive, probing, deliberately experimental policies should indeed be a basic part of renewable resource management.
Four criticisms of ecological anthropology are considered here: its over- emphasis on energy, its inability to explain cultural phenomena, its pre-occupation with static equilibria, and its lack of clarity about the appropriate units of analysis. Recognizing that some of these criticisms may not be justified, we nevertheless point to parallel concerns in ecology. Further, we ask whether new directions indicated by some ecologists might be appropriate paths for future work in ecological anthropology. A central theme is the desirability of focusing on environmental problems and how people respond to them. The kind of environmental problems we are especially concerned with are those constituting hazards to the lives of the organisms experiencing them. In other words, we are particularly concerned with problems that carry the risk of morbidity or mortality, the risk of losing an "existential game" in which success consists simply in staying in the game.
A growing body of evidence highlights the importance of biodiversity for ecosystem stability and the maintenance of optimal ecosystem functionality. Conservation measures are thus essential to safeguard the ecosystem services that biodiversity provides and human society needs. Current anthropogenic threats may lead to detrimental (and perhaps irreversible) ecosystem degradation, providing strong motivation to evaluate the response of ecological communities to various anthropogenic pressures. In particular, ecosystem functions that sustain key ecosystem services should be identified and prioritized for conservation action. Traditional diversity measures (e.g. 'species richness') may not adequately capture the aspects of biodiversity most relevant to ecosystem stability and functionality, but several new concepts may be more appropriate. These include 'response diversity', describing the variation of responses to environmental change among species of a particular community. Response diversity may also be a key determinant of ecosystem resilience in the face of anthropogenic pressures and environmental uncertainty. However, current understanding of response diversity is poor, and we see an urgent need to disentangle the conceptual strands that pervade studies of the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Our review clarifies the links between response diversity and the maintenance of ecosystem functionality by focusing on the insurance hypothesis of biodiversity and the concept of functional redundancy. We provide a conceptual model to describe how loss of response diversity may cause ecosystem degradation through decreased ecosystem resilience. We explicitly explain how response diversity contributes to functional compensation and to spatio-temporal complementarity among species, leading to long-term maintenance of ecosystem multifunctionality. Recent quantitative studies suggest that traditional diversity measures may often be uncoupled from measures (such as response diversity) that may be more effective proxies for ecosystem stability and resilience. Certain conclusions and recommendations of earlier studies using these traditional measures as indicators of ecosystem resilience thus may be suspect. We believe that functional ecology perspectives incorporating the effects and responses of diversity are essential for development of management strategies to safeguard (and restore) optimal ecosystem functionality (especially multifunctionality). Our review highlights these issues and we envision our work generating debate around the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functionality, and leading to improved conservation priorities and biodiversity management practices that maximize ecosystem resilience in the face of uncertain environmental change.