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15 - Challenges and Concerns Revisited
- Edited by Jan Kooiman, Svein Jentoft, Roger Pullin, Maarten Bavinck
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- Book:
- Fish for Life
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 10 February 2021
- Print publication:
- 30 June 2005, pp 303-324
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Summary
Introduction
In chapter 2, the challenges facing fisheries and aquaculture were briefly described. The crucial issue pointed out is that the drivers for increasing fish production are ubiquitous, multifarious, and strong and that they surpass the capacity of available management systems. The result is a consistent over-demand on natural and social systems and a crisis in fisheries as well as in fisheries governance.
We connected the drivers in fisheries to the globalisation that has been accelerating since 1950.With the sharp rise in the international demand for fish products and the growing connection between local producers and global markets, the pressure to increase production has also grown and new market players have emerged in response. This has resulted in investments and industrialisation in capture fisheries in the North and South alike, and in the growth of aquaculture.
We then identified four concerns that have emerged from the societal debate on fisheries across the globe. Concerns differ from principles in that they do not materialise from systematic top-to-bottom analyses but from political discussions from the bottom up – they constitute fields of attention as well as measuring devices for the results of governance effort. The concerns we presented are 1) ecosystem health, 2) social justice, 3) livelihood and employment, and 4) food security and safety. Each is important to large categories of people now and in the future. Significantly, most of the people affected by the failure to address these concerns live in the South. It is important to note that concerns are related to different population categories in time as well as in space. Ecosystem health is of special importance to future generations, but livelihood and employment and food security are relevant to present ones. Livelihood and employment pertain to people who work in and obtain their income from the fish chain, and food security and safety to the much broader category of the rural and urban poor. Social justice has implications for people at all scale levels, both present and future alike.
We have examined fisheries governance in this volume from many perspectives, dividing the analysis into three parts. The first addresses the constitution and workings of the fish chain, the second the regulatory institutions at various levels from local to international, and the third the principles that actually and those that should underlie fisheries governance.
11 - Institutional Linkages
- Edited by Jan Kooiman, Svein Jentoft, Roger Pullin, Maarten Bavinck
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- Book:
- Fish for Life
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 10 February 2021
- Print publication:
- 30 June 2005, pp 217-238
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Summary
Introduction
In this chapter we address a variety of issues related to vertical and horizontal relationships and conflicts within the chain of fisheries governance related to fish distribution, fisheries policymaking and resource management. Diversity constitutes a central issue in this scenario, due to the multiple activities and uses developed in many coastal areas like tourism, artisanal or industrial fishing, aquaculture, or even housing. However, a typical consequence of this multiplicity of activities is a reduction in the diversity of affected ecosystems (see chap. 4). Furthermore, the relationships between these activities have originated, in the last decades, a system of increasing complexity, as pressures on the shoreline and the marine ecosystems intensify and intermix in a changing situation. In this sense, the dynamics of these processes may be completely different in Northern or Southern countries, or in areas where tourism, aquaculture, or industrial fishing have developed rapidly. The dependency on natural resources that are affected by global processes, such as climate change, only increases this dynamic, further augmented as a consequence of trade liberalisation and globalisation. All these specifics need to be taken into account in the design of institutions and governance policies.
What follows is a presentation of some of the key ideas and challenges concerning institutional linkages. Interdependence in dynamic and complex situations causes vulnerabilities that the actors involved need to somehow address. The institutional and organisational options available must, however, be fine-tuned to the particularities of the diverse circumstances in fisheries. There are hardly any standard institutional responses to the needs of co-ordination that exist in fisheries regardless of the context. With that in mind, we shall start by attempting to conceptualise these linkages, and how they tend to be addressed institutionally in fisheries.
Conceptualising Institutional Linkages
Industrial Organisation and Institutional Linkages
As described in Part II, the ‘chain’ of distribution from capture to consumption is a highly institutionalised interactive system, where relations are structured and governed according to various modes and principles, with markets and hierarchies as the two extremes of the continuum. Sometimes we are dealing with independent, self-employed, small-scale entrepreneurs who specialise in one activity such as fishing or fish processing and buy and sell their produce in the open market.
8 - Local Institutions
- Edited by Jan Kooiman, Svein Jentoft, Roger Pullin, Maarten Bavinck
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- Book:
- Fish for Life
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 10 February 2021
- Print publication:
- 30 June 2005, pp 153-172
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Summary
Fishers and Communities
There are many definitions of a community. Community studies have played an important role in the social sciences, such as anthropology, since the early twentieth century. In this sense, functionalist studies by Malinowski and Radcliffe Brown served as models for studying communities as a strategy for analysing culture as a whole. Even precursors like Tönnies with his concept of Gemeinschaft and his positivist organicism can be quoted. Culture was conceptualised as consisting of functionally interrelated parts, creating a model of analysis that was to pattern the standard in social anthropology (Redfield 1971 [1955-6]). The studies depended on a community concept characterised by isolation, homogeneity and shared values or culture. Redfield identified four essential characteristics in communities: a small or reduced social scale, homogeneity regarding their members’ activities and state of mind, a consciousness of distinctiveness and a certain self-sufficiency over time (Redfield 1971; Rapport 1996).
In the 1950s, Hillery found 94 alternative definitions of this concept and the features most commonly shared were ‘interaction’ and ‘ties of interest’ followed by ‘geographical proximity’, with the only substantive overlap being ‘all dealt with people’ (Hillery 1955: 117). In the same decade, a generally critical tendency of the models in community studies led to the partial demise of this concept in anthropology. It was replaced by alternative notions (such as population) with fewer connotations. However, in recent years the role of communities in conservation has been rediscovered as the locus of conservationist thinking. After a long history of failed top-down development programmes, international agencies from the World Bank or USAID to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) have turned to programmes that implement or reinforce community-based conservation policies (Agrawal and Gibson 2001: 4). This process is linked to the emphasis on the participation of local populations after the recognition of state policy limitations in designing and enforcing adequate measures to achieve the sustainable use of natural resources.
Communities are more diverse, heterogeneous and unstable than Redfield and other authors assume. To summarise, we use a definition formulated by Agrawal and Gibson (2001: 1): ‘Communities are complex entities containing individuals differentiated by status, political and economic power, religion and social prestige, and intentions.
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