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Micro-level explanations for emergent patterns of self-governance arrangements in small-scale fisheries-A modeling approach.

ABSTRACT: Small-scale fisheries (SSFs) in developing countries are expected to play a significant role in poverty alleviation and enhancing food security in the decades to come. To realize this expectation, a better understanding of their informal self-governance arrangements is critical for developing policies that can improve fishers' livelihoods and lead to sustainable ecosystem stewardship. The goal of this paper is to develop a more nuanced understanding of micro-level factors-such as fishers' characteristics and behavior-to explain observed differences in self-governance arrangements in Northwest Mexico. We focus on two ubiquitous forms of self-governance: hierarchical non-cooperative arrangements between fishers and fishbuyers, such as patron-client relationships (PCs), versus more cooperative arrangements amongst fishers, such as fishing cooperatives (co-ops). We developed an agent-based model of an archetypical SSF that captures key hypotheses from in-depth fieldwork in Northwest Mexico of fishers' day-to-day fishing and trading. Results from our model indicate that high diversity in fishers' reliability, and low initial trust between co-op members, makes co-ops' establishment difficult. PCs cope better with this kind of diversity because, in contrast to co-ops, they have more flexibility in choosing whom to work with. However, once co-ops establish, they cope better with seasonal variability in fish abundance and provide long-term security for the fishers. We argue that existing levels of trust and diversity among fishers matter for different self-governance arrangements to establish and persist, and should therefore be taken into account when developing better, targeted policies for improved SSFs governance.

SUBMITTER: Lindkvist E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5391074 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Micro-level explanations for emergent patterns of self-governance arrangements in small-scale fisheries-A modeling approach.

Lindkvist Emilie E Basurto Xavier X Schlüter Maja M

PloS one 20170413 4

Small-scale fisheries (SSFs) in developing countries are expected to play a significant role in poverty alleviation and enhancing food security in the decades to come. To realize this expectation, a better understanding of their informal self-governance arrangements is critical for developing policies that can improve fishers' livelihoods and lead to sustainable ecosystem stewardship. The goal of this paper is to develop a more nuanced understanding of micro-level factors-such as fishers' charac ...[more]

PMID: 28406935

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Project description:Climate change is driving shifts in the abundance and distribution of marine fish and invertebrates and is having direct and indirect impacts on seafood catches and fishing communities, exacerbating the already negative effects of unsustainably high fishing pressure that exist for some stocks. Although the majority of fisheries in the world are managed at the national or local scale, most existing approaches to assessing climate impacts on fisheries have been developed on a global scale. It is often difficult to translate from the global to regional and local settings because of limited relevant data. To address the need for fisheries management entities to identify those fisheries with the greatest potential for climate change impacts, we present an approach for estimating expected climate change-driven impacts on the productivity and spatial range of fisheries at the regional scale in a data-poor context. We use a set of representative Mexican fisheries as test cases. To assess the implications of climate impacts, we compare biomass, harvest, and profit outcomes from a bioeconomic model under contrasting management policies and with and without climate change. Overall results show that climate change is estimated to negatively affect nearly every fishery in our study. However, the results indicate that overfishing is a greater threat than climate change for these fisheries, hence fixing current management challenges has a greater upside than the projected future costs of moderate levels of climate change. Additionally, this study provides meaningful first approximations of potential effects of both climate change and management reform in Mexican fisheries. Using the climate impact estimations and model outputs, we identify high priority stocks, fleets, and regions for policy reform in Mexico in the face of climate change. This approach can be applied in other data-poor circumstances to focus future research and policy reform efforts on stocks now subject to additional stress due to climate change. Considering their growing relevance as a critical source of protein and micronutrients to nourish our growing population, it is urgent for regions to develop sound fishery management policies in the short-term as they are the most important intervention to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change on marine fisheries.

Dataset Information

Micro-level explanations for emergent patterns of self-governance arrangements in small-scale fisheries-A modeling approach.

Publications

Micro-level explanations for emergent patterns of self-governance arrangements in small-scale fisheries-A modeling approach.

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