3.1 Fisheries-management policies and practices
3.2 Instituting cooperative co-management
3.3 Conferring property rights
3.4 Protecting small-scale fishing communities from external threats
3.5 Managing conflicts between people having different cultural orientations
3.6 Safeguarding small-scale fishing communities from unfavorable differentials of power
In the previous section cultural characteristics that are mainly internal to small-scale fishing communities were described. Notes and comments were also offered concerning how fisheries officials might bring about more successful management by understanding these characteristics. In this section some additional suggestions are offered concerning how fisheries officials may bring about more successful management. For the most part, these additional suggestions entail taking into consideration the following external influences which can also help to strengthen and protect small-scale fishing communities: (1) fisheries-management policies and practices; (2) instituting cooperative co-management; (3) conferring property rights; (4) protecting small-scale fishing communities from external threats; (5) managing conflicts between people having different cultural orientations; and (6) safeguarding small-scale fishing communities from unfavorable differentials of power.
The management policies and practices of fisheries officials usually play a decisive role in strengthening and protecting small-scale fishing communities. For the most part, policies and practices that can strengthen small-scale fishing communities are those which capitalize on their traditional approaches to fishing while protecting their rights of access to traditional fishing territories and certain fish species. Learning about and describing a community's traditional approaches to fishing is not only an important first step, but also crucial if these are to be eventually codified into management policies and practices. And where such efforts are successful, the happy result can be increased management effectiveness, including smoother and more effective stock assessment, stock allocation, and enforcement, and more viable fishing livelihoods in the fishing communities.
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Box 5 Small-scale Fishing Communities Which Thrive as a Result of Government Support to Protect Their Access Rights, Versus Others Which Have Virtually Disappeared as a Result of Failing to Receive Such Support: Gulf of Mexico, United States In recent years traditional oyster-fishing communities in
Florida and Louisiana, USA, have been protected by state officials from
encroachment by new fishing competitors coming from outside the communities. As
a result these communities' subsistence economies and cultural traditions
focusing on oyster production are thriving. Their happy circumstances can be
contrasted with those among their counterparts in the neighboring states of
Alabama and Mississippi, where government officials have not made similarly
decisive efforts to protect the traditional oyster-harvesting communities. In
those states, the culturally-distinct traditional oyster-harvesting communities
have virtually disappeared (Dyer and Leard (1994)). |
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Box 6 Improved Management Resulting from Government Recognition and Support for Community-based Management Practices: Examples from the Caribbean, South and Western Pacific, and Arctic Regions A research and development project in the Dominican Republic explored a rural community's traditional practices regarding fishing at certain reef sites. Ultimately, the elucidation of these practices helped the community to get legal rights to control access to particular sites, which significantly strengthened long-standing traditional fishing practices within the community itself (Stoffle 1994). Similarly, certain "folk knowledge" in a South Pacific community provided valuable data for framing new management policies by making up for the lack of conventional scientific information that was available in this region regarding important fish stocks (Ruddle 1994). Rich traditions of community-based management have also been incorporated into contemporary fisheries-management regimes for managing small-scale fishing communities in Japan, Indonesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, and northern Australia. Again, the result has been not only increased management effectiveness, but also a significant strengthening of the cultural traditions and practices that the new regimes capitalized upon (Ruddle and Akimichi et al. 1984). Similarly successful have been development projects capitalizing on social and cultural traditions regarding fish-aggregating devices in the Philippines, Indonesia, Western Samoa, and Malaysia. These efforts have improved these traditionally-utilized devices, making them more productive, while new means of financing them have been developed and property rights have been made more explicit regarding where they can be deployed (Pollnac and Poggie et al. 1997). And in certain Indonesian small-scale fishing communities social and cultural traditions analogous to modern stock assessment were incorporated into modern management regimes, permitting considerable savings in the management effort in this region where resources for management are otherwise scarce. By giving legal recognition to the fishing people's traditional fishing practices, their communities were strengthened and management became more effective (Bailey and Zerner 1992). Furthermore, after a general moratorium was imposed on
commercial whaling activities in the early 1980s, native peoples in Arctic
Alaska, northern Canada, and Greenland struggled and eventually won recognition
for their rights to harvest certain marine mammals which had long been important
in their traditional cultures. And now, in a recent development, their
traditional hunting practices have been incorporated into various co-management
regimes that rely on their participation in stock assessment and allocation
decisions. These new co-management regimes hold promise for sustaining not only
certain marine-mammal stocks, but also the social and cultural traditions of
native peoples that have traditionally harvested them (see Annex 10.3 by Freeman
in this report, discussing these events in greater detail). |
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Box 7 Strengthening Small-Scale Fishing Communities by Incorporating their Members into Fisheries-Management Planning, Implementation, and Policy Contexts If international, national, and state/province-level
organizations recruit expert fishers to work on their staffs and on various
projects, the cultural characteristics, fishing practices, and fundamental
concerns of fishing people will become more widely understood within these
organizations. Experts recruited from fishing communities can bring practical
experience and a sensitivity to human concerns that cannot be easily obtained at
a greater distance from their communities. Canada's Department of Fisheries and
Oceans, to name just one such organization, now draws on expert fishers as
participants in stock assessment efforts, as well as to help inform management
and development planning, implementation, and policy formulation. |
Several other innovative approaches to fisheries management have also been tried in recent years that incorporate small-scale fishers more actively into government-instituted management regimes. Chief among these are various participatory approaches that are generally referred as "cooperative co-management."
Cooperative co-management is different from consultative management, which merely involves the establishment of advisory boards or committees that consult with fishers and fishers' organization before establishing fisheries policies and regulations. In cooperative co-management fishers and their organizations are not only consulted, they also share power in making important decisions. At the same time, cooperative co-management requires fishers to better understand managers concerns, and to work with these on a closer and more cooperative basis (see Jentoft 1985, Jentoft and Kristoffersen 1989, and Pinkerton 1989).
An important assumption underlying cooperative co-management is that when it is instituted fishers will perceive their mutual interests in sustaining fisheries resources at healthy levels, and will be more motivated to regulate fishing effort themselves. Furthermore, by devolving many management functions to fishers themselves, conflicts between them and fisheries officials should hopefully also be reduced.
Several experiments have shown how effective cooperative co-management approaches can be. Jentoft and Kristoffersen (1989), for example, describe successful initiatives in small-scale fisheries in Iceland and Norway; McCay (1980) describes promising experiments in inshore mid-Atlantic fisheries in the USA; and Goodlad (1986) describes promising developments in cooperative co-management for fisheries around the Shetland Islands.
Instituting cooperative co-management regimes has helped to strengthen many small-scale fishing communities by bringing about more effective conservation and enhanced access to marine resources, greater community cohesion, strengthening of the local economy, and an elevation of the fishing people's pride in their cultural identity and optimism about the future. Generally speaking, it works best in culturally homogeneous small-scale fishing communities, and less well in those having diverse types of fishers. Low degrees of connection with lucrative or rapidly growing external seafood markets may also help to ensure the success of co-management regimes.
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Box 8 Enhancing Fisheries Management by Instituting Cooperative Co-management in Small-scale Fishing Communities By integrating long-standing social and cultural fishing
traditions and practices, especially those concerning rights of access and
allocation, cooperative co-management regimes in Iceland have brought about more
effective fisheries management, higher levels of social cohesion, and enhanced
economic well being within the communities (Durrenberger and Pálsson
(1987). Comparable successful developments have also been seen in small-scale
fishing communities in Norway (Jentoft 1985). Similarly, native peoples in
Alaska have gained legal recognition of important access rights based on their
traditional access to certain fisheries, resulting in more effective management
and an increase in the well being of community members (Langdon 1984). A
successful co-management regime has also been developed in British Columbia that
permits native people to participate in stock assessments, the determination of
sustainable exploitation levels, access and allocation, and enforcement of
fisheries regulations (Hilborn and Luedke 1987). And in Newfoundland, which in
the early 1990's saw the collapse of its most important fish stocks, small-scale
fishers now participate in government stock-assessment efforts. Not only has
this improved stock assessments, it has also increased awareness and
appreciation for these fishers' traditional ecological knowledge in government
management and policy contexts. |
Thus, there will always be an important role for government fisheries officials. Typically, they will still be required to serve as the arbiters of community-based management programs and the mediators of disputes arising both within and across them (readers are encouraged to explore Annex 10.1 of this report, describing promising developments of community-based co-management for small-scale fishing communities in Southwestern Japan).
Fisheries management can often be made more successful and small-scale fishing communities strengthened by government actions which confer property rights to certain fisheries resources. Some members of the larger society may oppose the institution of property rights in small-scale fisheries on the grounds that they will reduce participation, competition, and the distribution of benefits. But this should not be seen as a fatal flaw, since property rights are the main means used to limit access to natural resources around the world.
Regulating fisheries by granting property rights holds great potentials for managing small-scale fishers, whose large and dispersed populations are often difficult to manage by other means. Hopefully, when small-scale fishers consider certain fish stocks or fishing grounds to be their property, they may voluntarily restrain their efforts and develop greater concerns for conservation and management. If so, their voluntary restraint should reduce government expenditures for management and enforcement, since few fishers are likely to oppose management regimes which give them decisive power over management decisions.
Voluntary restraint has usually come about in communities where property rights have been conferred on small-scale fishers, with over-exploitation of important stocks seldom seen. For the most part, fishers who enjoy property rights and who can control access are not forced to compete so intensely and may maintain their fishing effort at levels that afford them reasonable profits and reasonably sustained yields (Bell 1978: 137-38). This has been the case even in some small-scale fisheries which are faced with high demand and high prices for their catches--market forces which many critics have insisted would inevitably lead to overexploitation.
Unfortunately voluntarily restraint is not guaranteed by conferring property rights, and in some cases small-scale fishers receiving such rights have tended to fish more and to eventually over-fish. Hence, while conferring property rights will devolve many management functions to the property holders themselves, there will still be a role for government to make sure the rights are not abused.
Social equity considerations are also a critical concern when instituting property rights in fisheries, since to confer these rights is also to deny them to others who may have legitimate interests in the fisheries. This problem can often be addressed by requiring the recipients of the rights to pay for them, such as by purchasing them at auction, or paying rents or royalties to defray the government's administrative and other costs.
There are several common ways that property rights can be instituted in small-scale fishing communities. One is to confer rights to harvest a certain species; another is to confer rights to definite fishing spaces. Less commonly seen is conferring rights to a total allowable catch (TAC), or rights to an individually-owned and transferable quota (ITQ). These latter means are uncommon in small-scale fisheries, especially those in developing countries, mainly because of the high costs of administering and enforcing them.
In theory fishers having certain property rights should feel less pressure to intensify their efforts and over-exploit fish stocks. Cycles in employment, as well as in fish supplies in markets, should also be evened out, and there should be less incentive to adopt more effective gear or larger and more powerful fishing vessels. Safety should also be promoted, since fishers should not feel as compelled to fish in bad weather. But whatever the benefits of conferring property rights on fishers may be, social-equity concerns will always figure importantly, making their institution a complex and arduous task indeed.
Another means of establishing property rights is granting fishers in particular communities territorial use rights in fisheries, or TURFS (see Christy 1982, and Panayotou 1984). Instituting TURFS may significantly strengthen small-scale fishing communities that are having difficulties defending their fisheries from encroachments by other fishers. In essence, they help to counteract problems arising from the common- property open-access system under which so many fisheries are instituted.
Close work with community members to map their important territories, and determining where boundaries should be established with neighboring communities, are often the first steps that need to be taken to establish such rights. Seeking recognition for them at higher governmental and political levels will often require even more effort. In general, for TURF-management regimes to work effectively their boundaries must be capable of precise definition, enforcement must feasible, the affected fishing communities must support them, and they must also enjoy committed support at higher governmental levels (Christy 1982, and Beddington and Rettig 1984: 23).
As with cooperative co-management regimes, the beneficiaries of TURFS-management regimes can be expected to voluntarily restrain their efforts and develop greater concerns for conservation and management. They may also be more likely to make expenditures for stock enhancement and to support community projects which improve other fisheries resources (Beddington and Rettig 1984: 22).
Similar to cooperative co-management regimes, TURFS are also generally easier to institute in culturally homogeneous small-scale fishing communities. On the other hand, they may not work well in communities that are experiencing rapid population growth, or in which there are high degrees of social discord and economic competition. So, while instituting TURFS may give certain community members exclusive rights to fish in certain territories, while also devolving many management functions to them, there will still be a role for government to make sure the TURF regime is not abused.
Government authorities will usually be required to ensure orderly transfers of these rights, while safeguarding them against the development of monopolistic ownership. Thus, whatever the objectives underlying a proposed TURFS-management regime may be, implementing it and assessing its effectiveness will usually remain a very complicated matter (see Pollnac 1984, discussing complexities involved in assessing the effectiveness of TURFS management regimes).
In the future, the successful management of small-scale fishing communities may require fisheries officials to take on expanded roles. In particular, these new roles may entail helping to protect small-scale fishing communities from the following external threats: marine pollution and the degradation of marine ecosystems; aquaculture development; connection with wider marketing spheres; developing tourism industries; and the worldwide animal-protection movement.
Marine pollution and the degradation of marine ecosystems
Cases where marine pollution and the degradation of marine ecosystems have strengthened small-scale fishing communities are few. In a few regions, sewerage released into the sea has enhanced marine ecosystems by increasing their nutrient load, although this practice more often produces undesirable and damaging pollution. Similarly, warm-water releases from power plants and cold-water releases from dams may enhance marine productivity, even if they otherwise radically alter natural marine ecosystems. But for the most part, marine pollution and the degradation of marine ecosystems have weakened small-scale fishing communities.
Episodic pollution and degradation of marine ecosystems can require small-scale fishing communities to temporarily cease fishing and find new means for sustaining their livelihoods. Persisting pollution and degradation, on the other hand, can prompt radical culture change, and even eventual cultural extinction. Indeed, after over-fishing perhaps nothing threatens the future sustainability of marine stocks and fishing livelihoods more than marine pollution and the corresponding degradation of marine ecosystems.
Decreases in the health and fitness of the members of small-scale fishing communities is also sometimes prompted by marine pollution, with corresponding consequences for their abilities to maintain productivity in subsistence activities, as well as increased stress and strain in their households, families, and wider social and economic spheres. The pollution of traditionally-utilized marine ecosystems may also prompt among them demoralization, alienation, and pessimistic feelings about the future, as well as a corresponding loss of pride and identification with the community and its surrounding natural environment (readers are encouraged to review Gill 1994, and Dyer, Gill, and Picou 1992, describing the impacts on traditional small-scale fishing communities in Alaska following the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989).
In many countries--both developed and developing-fisheries management and environmental protection come under the authority of separate government agencies. Problematically, coordination and collaboration of effort is often lacking among such agencies, to the detriment of small-scale fishing communities. Indeed in many countries a lack of connection and coordination is even seen among different government agencies that have authority in realms having importance for the fisheries. Thus, in the future, if fisheries management is to be more successful, government officials working in various agencies will be required to collaborate and cooperate with one another to a greater degree than that which has been seen heretofore
Aquaculture development
Aquaculture has long held significant potentials for increasing fish production around the world and its overall contribution to total seafood production has increased remarkably over the past four or five decades. However, in many developing countries its ascendancy has been a mixed blessing for small-scale fishing communities. Only rarely has it been developed internally within small-scale fishing communities, and for various reasons.
Mainly, while both capture fishing and aquaculture aim to produce marine organisms, their organization, main activities, and character are fundamentally different. Small-scale aquaculture enterprise, it has often been observed, has more in common with farming than it does with capture fishing, while large-scale aquaculture shares much in common with technologically sophisticated and highly capitalized modern industry. Thus, while having as its aim the production of marine organisms, most aquaculture development has taken place externally to small-scale fishing communities. Moreover, as Pollnac (1990) notes, it has often had negative impacts on capture fisheries, especially by increasing marine pollution and the incidence of marine pathogens, while at the same time negatively impacting other socioeconomic sectors such as navigation, agriculture, forestry, and tourism.
Where small-scale aquaculture developments have made significant contributions to feeding local and regional populations in developing countries, they have usually been integrated into communities practicing small-scale farming and animal-husbandry, rather than into small-scale fishing communities (e.g. in China, Indonesia, Philippines, and Southeast Asia). These mostly freshwater aquaculture approaches have a long history of sustained productivity while utilizing rudimentary technologies, and these days their production continues to steadily increase. But otherwise, cases in which they have strengthened small-scale fishing communities are few. Therefore while small-scale aquaculture may seem to bear a close relation to small-scale fishing, in most cases it does not.
On the other hand, more capital-intensive and technologically sophisticated modes of aquaculture development in coastal regions have sometimes helped to sustain employment in fish processing and distribution in small-scale fishing communities. This seems the case, for example, in small-scale fishing communities along Scotland's west coast, which are described by Thomson in Annex 10.6 of this report. But otherwise, capital-intensive aquaculture has seldom provided significant other employment opportunities for members of small-scale fishing communities living in the regions where it has been developed.
Capital-intensive aquaculture development in coastal regions can also bring about the degradation of marine ecosystems, with negative consequences for small-scale fishing communities that depend on capture fisheries. Commonly seen alterations include dredging projects and canalization, capturing juvenile members of wild stocks so they can be raised artificially, and releasing toxic effluents and biological pathogens into natural marine ecosystems. All of the foregoing alterations can potentially weaken small-scale fishing communities while bringing about a general decline in local and regional seafood supplies (see Bailey 1988, Larsson, Folke, and Kautsky 1994, McGoodwin 1991 and 1994, and Wille 1993).
Aquaculture operations in coastal regions sometimes also strive to eliminate other wildlife-such as various reptiles and sea birds--which might prey on the artificially-raised marine stocks. Hence, local people living in these regions may not only experience declines or collapses in the fisheries they rely upon, but also declines in environmental and aesthetic values which have long been important in their cultures as well.
And similar to the aforementioned problem regarding marine pollution, various government agencies do not always coordinate their efforts well regarding the management and development of aquaculture and the fisheries. Therefore, in the future fisheries officials will often need to play a more vigilant role in mitigating for small-scale fishing people the costs of aquaculture development, while maximizing their participation in its benefits.
Connection with new markets
When small-scale fishing communities that have been producing seafood for community and regional markets are connected with new markets, they can be strengthened. This is especially true when these markets pose high demands for their production at high prices, and when there is a widespread distribution of these benefits throughout the community. Export-oriented seafood markets, as well as those distributing seafood that confers prestige on its ultimate consumers may be especially lucrative for small-scale fishing communities.
However, for these new connections to be generally beneficial the production they prompt must also be sustainable. Moreover, new connections of this kind will almost always prompt radical culture change in the affected communities, and may also bring about a decrease in locally- available seafood supplies. Most community members may nevertheless regard these changes as desirable if their overall standards of living increase, and if the loss of their former cultural traditions does not prompt undue stress and strain among them.
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Box 9 Problems for Small-scale Fishing Communities Resulting from Government Agencies That Do Not Work Together Well: Louisiana, USA Long-resident and ethnically distinct fishers living in
small-scale fishing communities along the Louisiana coast in the USA have for
several decades been in conflict with more recent arrivals, who are interested
in developing aquaculture along that state's marshy coastline. Still other
parties have confounded this conflict, particularly various state agencies that
have different jurisdictions and aims. Hence, while one agency is charged with
safeguarding coastal ecosystems, another with managing the fisheries, and
another with aquaculture development in coastal regions, these do not work
together well in a joint, cooperative, and integrated fashion. The result has
been heightened uncertainty concerning present and future fishing activities in
the traditional small-scale fishing communities (Herke 1995). And this situation
is not an isolated case, but rather is seen in many other regions around the
world-in both developed and developing countries. |
By the time the foregoing changes have run their course, the export-oriented communities may have seen the demise of the traditional subsistence systems that formerly sustained them. Important traditional fishing skills and ecological knowledge may not have been transmitted to younger community members, while formerly important fishing gear may have long since been sold or depreciated. Moreover, having been accustomed to higher incomes and more modern lifestyles, few community members may wish to return to their former traditional lifestyles. In essence, they have experienced significant culture loss that may prove impossible to recoup.
Developing tourism industries
Tourism-industry development is another factor that can significantly influence the management of small-scale fishing communities, and over the past four decades countless coastal regions have seen the rapid development tourist-oriented enterprises. Where small-scale fishing communities have initiated such developments themselves, and where such initiatives have arisen from a widespread consensus among community members for doing so, and where community members have been the owners or main beneficiaries of the new developments, the results have often been beneficial.
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Box 10 Cultural Breakdown in a Nicaraguan Small-scale Fishing Community Following its Connection with Export Markets In a well known case, the Miskito Indians of Nicaragua
decimated the local sea turtle population-what had long been their primary
source of protein-in return for cash payments from turtle-packing companies.
Before their entry into the turtle-exporting trade, the Miskito had an
egalitarian social and economic ethos prescribing that any sea turtles they
captured should be distributed throughout the local community to honor kinship
and other social obligations, and especially to uphold important norms
emphasizing ongoing reciprocity. In essence, the sea turtles were the
cornerstone of their local subsistence systems prior to the arrival of the
turtle-packing companies. However, once they began to catch turtles in order to
generate cash incomes by selling them into export channels, the Miskito's
egalitarian ethos emphasizing community-wide sharing and reciprocity broke down,
giving way to competitive individualism. In that new situation, few captured
turtles were consumed locally and nearly all were sold and shipped away. But
eventually, as the heightened levels of production continued unchecked, the
turtle resource collapsed, leaving the Miskito without this important source of
food and income. In the meantime their cultural ethos had changed, and rather
than revitalizing their former egalitarian society and economy they instead cast
about furtively, looking for new ways to participate in the individualistic,
highly competitive, and cash-based national economy they had become connected
with (Nietschmann 1974). |
But in most cases the economic benefits stemming from externally-initiated tourism developments in small-scale fishing communities have not been widespread, and have usually benefited only a minority of community members. More commonly, externally-initiated tourism development has prompted social and economic disruption, increased living costs, reduced access to fish stocks and other fisheries resources, and in a few extreme cases the total cultural breakdown of small-scale fishing communities.
For the most part, tourism-development's impact on small-scale fishers has entailed loss of formerly important spaces, such as beach landing sites, mooring sites for fishing boats, or fishing sites which have been taken over by recreational diving enterprises. Moreover, where such developments have entailed the development of a strong recreational fishing sector, local fishers have often found themselves in an increasingly competitive struggle for fish resources they have traditionally depended upon.
Indeed, in some regions-the South Florida coast, USA, for example--where recreational fishing has become preeminent in the regional economy, small-scale fishers have been driven out of existence by fisheries-management policies favoring recreational fishing interests. Paradoxically, in regions where this transformation has taken place the hotels and restaurants that cater to tourists still pose great demands for seafood, which after the local small-scale fishing communities have disappeared can only be satisfied by importing seafood from more distant regions.
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Box 11 Tourism Industry Developments in Spanish Small-scale Fishing Communities: At First Negative, Eventually Beneficial Along Spain's Costa Brava, Pi-Sunyer (1976) describes how
local small-scale fishers had traditionally utilized certain beach sites for
landing, processing, and distributing their catches, as well as for securing
their fishing boats and as social-meeting places where they might discuss
fisheries-related activities. But after widespread tourism-industry development
began in this part of Spain in the 1960's, local small-scale fishers were
quickly displaced from these traditionally-important sites and their traditional
social organization and accustomed patterns of social and economic relations
were thrown into disarray. However, after organizing and pressing their claims
to the national government, they secured rights to certain sites along these
beaches, which not only enabled them to continue fishing as they had before, but
which also increased their solidarity by underscoring traditional aspects of
their fishing societies and cultures. Eventually, sustaining the small-scale
fishing communities became an important concern of the tourism-industry sector
itself, as it began to realize the importance of the small-scale fishers as
visible attractions for the tourists, as well as their importance for supplying
seafood to the new hotels and restaurants. |
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Box 12 Cultural Disruption in Small-scale Fishing Communities Prompted by Tourism Development: Pacific Mexico McGoodwin (1986) describes how tourism development in a rural
Mexican fishing community prompted the following stresses, strains, and changes
in the community's local culture: abandonment of traditional festivals and a
loss of interest in traditional religion and folklore; lost interest and
disaffection with traditional means of subsistence; increased conflict within
families and households; increased alcoholism, drug abuse, and theft;
displacement of small-scale fishers from traditionally important beach landing
and distribution sites; and longings to participate in the lifestyles the
tourists supposedly represented, with few opportunities for actually doing so.
Similar cultural strains associated with tourism-industry development occurred
in other small-scale fishing communities in Mexico: around Puerto Vallarta, for
example, as described by Evans (1979), as well as in the region around
Zihuatanejo, as described by Reynoso y Valle and de Regt (1979). |
The worldwide animal-protection movement
In a few instances the worldwide animal-protection movement has strengthened fisheries management and small-scale fishing communities by calling attention to destructive fishing practices: for example, when worldwide attention was focused on large-scale fishers deploying huge drift gill nets in waters that were also plied by small-scale fishers. Other components of this movement have strengthened fisheries management and small-scale fishing communities by raising concerns about marine pollution and other types of marine-environmental degradation.
More often, however, components of this movement have confounded fisheries management and threatened the economies of small-scale fishers by pressing for the withdrawal of certain species that fishers have traditionally harvested. In essence, conflicts between various components of the animal-protection movement and certain small-scale fishing communities entails a clash between two very different cultures, each having radically different and often opposed values concerning humans' relationships to animals. And nowhere has this clash been more acrimonious than it has been regarding small-scale fishing people who have traditionally harvested marine mammals.
Native peoples inhabiting Arctic and sub-Arctic regions have been impacted especially severely. Among such people, the lives of marine mammals are often believed to parallel or be intertwined with those of humans. Putative marine-mammal "societies" are often portrayed in myths and songs as metaphorical of, or mirroring, human societies, while the origin myths of some cultures stress that the first humans evolved from marine mammals. Good examples of cultures having such beliefs are the Nootka Indians of the northwest coast of British Columbia, Canada (Arima 1988), Eskimo walrus hunters living around the Bering Strait (Ellanna 1988), the widely dispersed Inupiat Eskimo of Alaska's North Slope (Chance 1990), and the similarly dispersed Inuit living in Eastern Canada and Greenland (Einarsson 1990, Reeves 1992, and Sweeney 1992).
At the same time that such animals have figured importantly in such peoples' mythology, they have also long been essential in their subsistence economies, providing important foods as well as various products for sale or barter. Indeed, marine mammals remain as important today in many Arctic people's "mixed economies" as they were in antiquity (Nowak 1988). Thus, where Arctic and other people have lost rights to harvest these animals this has weakened their subsistence economies and undermined core aspects of their cultures as well.3
Furthermore, in some regions where animal-protection groups have succeeded in bringing about the protection of certain marine mammals, this has inadvertently brought about ecological imbalances that have weakened the economies of small-scale fishing communities. One good example involves the enhanced protection of the sea otter along the coast of California, USA, which led to reductions of abalone stocks and thereby weakened small-scale fishing communities that had long harvested them. Another example concerns the demise of sealing around Newfoundland, which has prompted unusually high seal populations, which in turn has slowed the recovery of this region's formerly-abundant cod stocks.
In recent decades conflicts between small-scale fishing people and members of the animal-protection movement have often been highly charged and very contentious, with seemingly little middle ground for compromise solutions. Thus, as many animal-protection groups clamor for an absolute cessation of killing or harvesting certain marine animals on essentially moral and philosophical grounds, many small-scale fishing communities point to healthy stock levels of these same animals and petition for rights to harvest them at sustainable and increased levels.
As a result, fisheries managers may find themselves confronted with problems for which there are no easy solutions. In essence they must strive to balance concerns for the fishing communities they manage, ensure the health of the marine ecosystems under their purview, and at the same time remain sensitive to the often conflicting demands made on them by animal-protection interests. Potentially they may play a very positive and constructive role in these conflicts, since by elucidating concerns for the fishing communities, the marine ecosystems they manage, and the concerns of the animal-rights interests, they may also promote the need for compromise solutions.
Few of the responsibilities that fisheries officials have may be more daunting than developing fair and workable policies and practices for managing competing fishing communities that have very different cultures and fishing practices. In these situations they may be required, for example, to mediate severe conflicts between long-resident fishers and new arrivals who have different cultural orientations and who place heightened competitive pressures on fisheries resources.
This is precisely what happened in the years following the United States' withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975, after which Vietnamese immigrants poured into the United States, with many taking up fishing along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The cultural orientations and customary fishing practices of the Vietnamese-immigrant fishers were radically different from those of the region's long-established fishing people, and as they made significant inroads into Gulf of Mexico fisheries serious conflicts arose (see Arden 1981).
For several years this conflict remained highly charged, at times erupting in serious violence. But eventually it abated, mitigated in large degree by efforts on the part of fisheries officials to help the competing groups to understand more about one another's cultures, as well as to help the recently-arrived Vietnamese to understand the laws, policies, and traditions that had long guided fisheries management policies. Thanks to these efforts, the Vietnamese-immigrant fishers eventually became economically and politically integrated in the region, and peace was restored.
Another instance of culture clash that has brought severe stress in small-scale fishing communities has been observed along the Pacific coasts of British Columbia, Canada, and Alaska, United States. Along much of that coast, timber and fishing industries constitute economically important and yet quite distinct subcultures, with each having distinct traditions and identities going back many years. They have long been in conflict as well, because the ecosystems they exploit are interconnected. Thus, many of this region's important salmon stocks have been seriously diminished by the timber industry's degradation of stream habitats that are crucial for salmon reproduction. So while fishers seek to prevent logging operations that degrade marine ecosystems, loggers strongly resist such efforts which they feel may constrain or threaten their livelihoods.
As Gatewood (1989) describes this region, fishing and logging represent core "occupational cultures." But, he further notes, because fishing activity is considerably more seasonal and its participants are more mobile and transient, they are relatively less visible than are the loggers. Therefore, townspeople and tourists rarely see exhibitions of fishers' skills, whereas contests demonstrating traditional loggers' skills have long been commonplace. As a result, he says, "Townspeople, if they take sides at all, tend to favor loggers over seiners." Moreover, unlike the region's fishers, its loggers are backed by powerful multi-national corporations and local and regional politicians.
Fisheries officials in these regions now increasingly work with forestry officials in an attempt to balance the interests of these two competing subcultures. And while the timber industry in these regions has historically enjoyed greater political clout, its fishers are now enjoying new support from not only fisheries officials, but also from environmental and recreational-fishing groups. By joining with these groups, which heretofore they had often regarded as antagonistic, fishing communities are pressing not only for a revitalization of fish stocks, but also for more sustainable uses of timber and other important natural resources in this region.
Where fisheries officials must strive to balance the management needs of competing interests, promoting cooperative co-management may be a fruitful course-even where this may entail balancing the competing interests of fishing and non-fishing peoples. Indeed, both of the foregoing examples, the first regarding the Gulf of Mexico Coast in the USA, and the other regarding the Pacific coast of Canada and the USA, suggest the necessity for expanding the scope of fisheries officials' authority and responsibilities. To a greater degree than seen heretofore, fisheries officials in many regions may not only be required to balance competing interests representing different subcultures, but also to work more closely with officials in other, non-fishing sectors of government.
Many of the external influences that can weaken small-scale fishing communities entail conflicts to which small-scale fishing communities bring a decidedly inferior amount of political and economic power. Indeed, because small-scale political and economic power is a defining attribute of most small-scale fishing communities, they are especially vulnerable to powerful external influences.
Therefore, fisheries officials, on whom certain authority and power is presumably conferred, may be required to expand their role to help protect small-scale fishing communities from powerful external influences. In the future they may have to exert greater efforts to ensure that governmental legislation for strengthening small-scale fisheries is more faithfully implemented, and to be successful at this they may themselves have to be more greatly empowered. And in a more general sense, it will be important that countries having extensive small-scale fisheries, particularly developing countries, more explicitly make sustaining healthy small-scale fishing communities a cornerstone of their overall fisheries policy.
