Do we really understand?

Some 200 million small-scale fishermen land more than half of the globe's fish catch accounting for some two thirds of captured fish for food. Of course, there's a great difference between a 12-metre vessel in northern Europe with hundreds of horsepower from its inboard diesel and bristling with all the mechanical, electronic and hydro-acoustic equipment one can think of boat and an Indian "kattumaram" log-raft. Nevertheless, owners face stiff competition from the large-scale fishing fleets, whether through introduction of tradable individual quotas (ITQ) in the North, or outright invasion of large-scale fleets into small-scale fishermen's traditional grounds in the South.

Contemporary fisheries management, science and training systems are focused on large-scale fisheries and on "fish stocks", rather than on fishing people. The overwhelming majority of government officers, scientists, economists, administrators, politicians and NGO activists are not born and bred in fishing communities so it is difficult for them to have a really profound understanding of how to deal with them, whether in terms of the impact of legislation, enforcement development and social problems.

A decade and a half ago, a groundbreaking book "Crisis in the World Fisheries: people, problems, and policies" was published by Stanford University Press. It was a clear and vocal demand to involve social scientists in the management of U.S. fisheries and a criticism of the then prevailing fishery science used for assessing-managing fish stocks yet ignoring human and environmental factors.

The author, prominent fishery anthropologist, Professor James Russell McGoodwin wrote that book. I would now like to bring to your attention another, more recent work of his in which he tells us:

"Fishing is a human phenomenon -- says McGoodwin -- and its management is all about fishing people". ..."since all we can manage is people, for any measure of success management must integrate social and cultural concerns...".

He has effectively married a research exercise with a practical guide for people trying to reach an understanding of the cultural aspects of fisherfolk's lives and activities. "Understanding peoples' cultures," he says "requires training, common sense, practical experience and sensitivity for human values, behaviour patterns, and idiosyncrasies."

"While they perceive fishing as a way of life... small-scale fishermen are less implicated in stocks' depletion than large-scale fishermen, invest less capital and [fuel] but more labour for the same catch, and as a rule, possess an intimate and functionally oriented knowledge of fishery ecosystems."

Disappearing communities

Generally, fishing people will not comply with rules that they perceive as unfair, or that hurt them materially to a degree which they cannot bear and which are contrary to their traditional and personally acquired ecological knowledge, experience, and commonsense. "Since marine fishing is an extremely risky trade, both physically and economically ...an integral part of a fishery's management policy should aim to reduce these risks to the extent possible."

This view is a refreshing addition to management by profit-maximisation bio-economics.

He goes on to say: "Where fishing is a major source of income in a community, it would pervade most of its cultural and political components." Some small-scale fishing communities have virtually disappeared and others have been strengthened as a result of, respectively, lack of official support, or appropriate management."

It appears that the best ways to assure sustainability of fishing communities are: (a) recognition of community-based management, (b) co-management, (c) conferring on communities fishing rights, such as territorial user rights (TURF), and (d) protecting small-scale fishermen from external threats. These could include the invasion of their traditional fishing grounds and competition over their target species by large fishing vessels. Others could be marine pollution and habitat degradation, environmental and pro-animal extremists, bureaucracy and intra-governmental muddle, external market pressures and, in some cases, coastal aquaculture development and extra-community tourist industry. McGoodwin's work also represents a guide for fisheries officials on how "to obtain trustworthy and reliable information about the culture of small-scale fishing communities." He says this can lead to their rapid assessment, and he also offers a set of practical recommendations to all those who may be involved in small-scale fisheries management. Here we get the Professor at his best. McGoodwin introduces functional methods applied by social scientists during field studies and which are normally the preserve of university lecture theatres. Fishery officials who seriously read this text would not become social scientists, but they would certainly gain some efficient tools. McGoodwin is blunt in promoting the idea that people who set out to study small-scale fishing communities, with the avowed aim of making management rules compatible with the fisherfolk's culture, need to prioritise the well being of the fisherfolk themselves. They have to show those people that they are on their side in theory and in practice. He also offers detailed recommendations for "higher-up government officials" on each of his subject areas. The question is of course, how many of those at the top of the foodchain will spend time reading them, never mind implementing them?

The merit of his book is that he picks out what needs to be done by extension workers. He puts that in the context existing community institutions and the importance of recognising their legitimacy. Where those elements are absent he spells out how the extension workers can help the community build them up. At the same he draws a clear line of action for the higher ups to complement the efforts of the community and the extension workers. In essence, he has shown how to combine the old with the new, and how to incorporate fisherfolk's traditional systems into the new management and development schemes... or in some cases how the new can learn from the old. The book also has six case histories on fisherfolk on five continents and the other authors include David Thomson, Tomoya Akimichi, Milton Freeman, John Kurien, Richard Stoffle, and your own columnist. He is jargon-free, and all that remains is to ensure that it does not join other (worthy) volumes attracting dust on the shelves of the FAO. Though I modestly say so myself, it deserves a wide readership. ("Understanding the Cultures of Fishing Communities -- A key to fisheries management and food security").