Blog
Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving (PBL), Netherlands environment assessment agency
By Samaneh Heidari
I had a presentation in PBL to present my research to modelers works for Dutch government in PBL. In this agency, modelers collaborate with specialists and make models that are beneficial for both specialists and policy makers.
I presented my agent-based simulation (ABS) of a fishery village in which people born, live, grow up, go to school, fish, work in different occupations, trade, migrate, etc. Agents (people in the village) collaborate as social agent together and make a social reputation for themselves. They consider what they value more in their life and make their long term decision accordingly.
After fishing the presentation, we found some similarities between what I am doing and what they want to do. They want to have model that contains three aspects: “social and nature”, “economy and nature”, and “environment”. Our ABS contains social, economy, and ecology part.
I found out something that raise my interest. They collect social data. Alright! it is not new, I know. But, they categorize the intention of farmers (people who directly access the natural resources) into four categories. They named the categories this way: “nature finds its way”, “use environment as a tool”, “cultural view of using the environment”, and “individual driven”. We understood that these categorization is almost the same as four categorization of Schwartz value circle which are named as “self-transition”, “conservation”, “self-enhancement”, and “openness to change”.
We hope we continue our collaboration with PBL in the future.
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
Fishing, women, and historical constructions of nature
By Lia ní Aodha
“Without the fisherwife, the fisherman’s tasks could not be completed”
(Nadel Klein 2000: 367).
Today, on International Women’s Day, and in a year that marked the centenary of women’s suffrage (and election to Parliaments) in a number of countries – including the UK and Ireland – women will celebrate all over the world. They will also take to the streets and engage in strike action, demanding progress on equality. The list is long, the issues are many and intersecting- ranging from reproductive rights, pay gaps, unequal household burdens, and gender-based violence to wider demands for labour rights, environmental justice, and against racism. They are in themselves at once specific, whilst simultaneously being grounded in broader patterns, and relations of inequality, injustice, and exploitation. Certainly, they have not been inconsequential regarding women and gender relations within fishing, and no doubt women involved in all aspects of fishing will have been celebrating (?), protesting and striking today!
Invisible women
There has been much work done highlighting the manner in which societal organisation determines how nature (including human nature) is constructed and defined socially by different societies (Braun and Castree 2001). In this regard, feminist theorists have long highlighted that gender and nature constructs are deeply entangled, materially, historically and socially situated (for example, Haraway 1991; Merchant 1981). The instrumental fashion by which nature has been organised over the past centuries – one facet of which has been the manner in which gender has been constructed – manifests in the persisting inequalities that people have been out on the streets protesting against today.
Considering the role of women in fisheries, more specifically, I have blogged here before, highlighting the direct and indirect – essential, though often marginal and unseen – roles women play all along the fish value chain in capture fisheries. In that post I detailed briefly, some of the contemporary gendered implications that shifting fisheries policies and regulations (aimed at economic rationalisation) have had. These developments have, in some instances, opened up spaces for women, with women finding themselves in perhaps stronger positions (e.g. management, as quota owners and so on), whilst in others (and perhaps more commonly) they have entailed shifting familial arrangements, and altogether more precarious developments (living with the consequentiality of diminished and lost livelihoods, trans-local family life etc.).[1]
While that post detailed the positionality of women in capture fisheries today, reflecting on the positionality of women in fishing communities historically, and the relational shifts that have occurred (or not occurred) within this space, can tell us a lot with respect to how different socio-natural configurations are shaped, shaping and, indeed, resist certain politico-natural configurations.
The intention of this post is not to romanticise or generalise the lives lived by women involved in fishing historically, or today. Contextual distinctions matter here, and the examples drawn on relate to a small number of recorded experiences relating to fishing women, families and communities in Ireland and across Britain.[2] Nonetheless, these experiences do provide some insight into the manner in which specific politico-natural configurations construct natures, confine and demarcate gendered space, while simultaneously illuminating the manner in which the ‘nature’ of fishing itself has traditionally structured gender roles within these contexts, thus, providing a good vantage point for consideration as to how these may (or may not) have changed over time.
Historically visible women
Feminist theorists have long recounted how the roles of women were remade and reshaped (in much the same manner as nature has been reshaped as a passive, controllable, and productive machine) with the economic and scientific reordering of society that unfolded in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Europe (Merchant 1981:149). While there is little doubt that gendered space at this time was already hierarchical (Tsing 2012), pre-industrial capitalism, buoyed by these processes, saw women’s economic roles become more restrictive, their domestic lives more rigidly defined by their sex (rather than by class, as had been the case previously), and their marital relationships defined more as dependent rather than partner (Merchant 1981: 150). But how did this process unfold within fisheries across Britain and Ireland?
Although terms such as unseen, invisible and uncounted are often used as referents when discussing women in fisheries today, women within this space have not always been invisible (Britton 2012). On the contrary, historically (and right up until the 1950s) women played a distinctively visible role within fishing communities surrounding the coasts of Ireland and Britain (ibid), with strikingly similar levels of complementarity, equality and female autonomy having been detailed as existing within Northern Irish (Britton 2012), Scottish (Nadel-Klein 2000), English (Hall 2004), and Irish (MacLoughlin 2010) fishing communities.
Matriarchs
Historical accounts (spanning from the seventeenth into the twentieth century), detailing how gender roles were assigned, families and communities organised indicate that complementary divisions of labour, shared onshore work, alongside active involvement in paid onshore work beyond the family, a strong role in household decision making and control over finances meant that women within fisheries in Ireland and across Britain held a very visible role indeed within society, when compared with the ways in which gendered space was constructed elsewhere (e.g. see Britton 2012; Hall 2004; Nadel Klein 2010).
Necessitated by the realities of fishing and its demands regarding both onshore and offshore work (Thompson 1985), fishing families were structured in a manner that conferred a role more akin to a partnership between husband and wife, rather than dependence (that at the time was increasingly becoming the familial norm elsewhere), with authors suggesting that in some instances families displayed an altogether matriarchal organisation (Nadel-Klein 2000) that was certainly distinct. These roles were facilitated and supported by strong kinship structures – again necessitated by the nature but also vagaries of fishing[3] – that extended beyond the confines of the nuclear family that had become the norm in other communities by the turn of the twentieth century (Hall 2004), and meant that marrying within the fishing community became quite normal, being bounded if not by local geography then by fishing itself (Nadel-Klein 2000).
Extraordinary women
These detailed factors (the nature of work, alongside the family and community structures it engendered) meant that the lives of these fisherwomen involved a degree of freedom – in terms of access to the outside world – that was dissimilar from that afforded to many women at that time (Hall 2004). At a moment in history and space when women’s identities were being increasingly shaped by their sex and confined to the domestic sphere (i.e. rendered invisible and unseen), accounts of fisherwomen are suggestive of a level of autonomy (Nadel-Klein 2000), and an identity that was as much occupational (i.e. economic and thus public) as it was domestic, if not more (Hall 2004).
For example, in his social and cultural history of fishing in Ireland MacLoughlin (2010: 168-169) – with reference to The Claddagh fishing community in Galway – has highlighted that “a rough equality of the sexes was a marked feature of this and many other fishing communities throughout Ireland in the pre-famine period.” Primary accounts detail “the powerful influence exercised by the women” within that community, that to outsiders was striking and spanned beyond selling the catch when it was landed, but to divvying out the money from that catch and controlling household finances in totality, including what men “spent on such luxuries as whiskey and tobacco.” and “of which they themselves also liberally partake.” Other commentators noticed the fishing women of The Claddagh “…were always in the equal of men…maintaining the complete control of the purse.” Not without interest, I have heard strikingly similar sentiments echoed by my uncles with respect to my own Grandmother’s “control of the purse” when they were fishing with my Grandfather in the 1950s/1960s.[4]
Thus, far from the passive nature implied by terms such as unseen and invisible, work within this space details fisherwomen as being renowned for their strength, independence and outspoken manner, which in the context of shifting ideas about gender that was taking place more broadly across Britain at that time, served to set fisherwomen apart as somewhat extraordinary (Nadel-Klein 2000).
Conditions of production
As indicated, the lives lived by fisherwomen were seen as distinct at that time. In this respect, different conditions and modes of production had (and have) different relational consequences. Hall’s (2004) work in this regard is particularly interesting, highlighting how the lived experiences of women within the same space and time could differ quite dramatically, providing an excellent insight into the way that gendered spaces were (are) determined by how production was (is) organised. Comparing the lived realities of women in mining and fishing families in Northumberland[5] at the turn of the last century, Hall’s (2004) research has indicated that, for example, in comparison to their mining counterparts women within fishing communities played a more central and economic role within the family, whilst the role of women within mining communities was limited to the non-economic and domestic sphere.
Indeed, in terms of organisation by that time fishing and mining were quite distinct. Mining by the turn of the twentieth century, having developed rapidly in the sixteenth century (driven by the increasing scarcity of timber alongside the demands of fast developing copper and brass industries) and along lines that required large-scale capital investment (Merchant 1981), was highly capitalised (Hall 2004). Given this, it was structured in a manner whereby miners were employed as wage workers (Merchant 1981). Inshore fishing, in contrast, by that time remained based on shared artisanal work (Hall 2004). In short, the transition to pre-industrial and industrial capitalism occurred much earlier within mining than in fishing, with fishing’s resistance to organisation along capitalistic lines persisting well into the twentieth century, and in some respects continuing to persist today (e.g. see St Martin 2007).
Herring Girls
Although the “natural constraints” surrounding fishing ensured that it remained a non-state and less industrialised space for much longer than other occupations, which evidently had implications in terms of gender, resistance to organisation did not (and has not) entailed total insusceptibility. Indeed, authors have indicated that certainly by the nineteenth-century fishing was not totally immune to the shifting relations, market expansion, and technological shifts that were occurring at that time (Nadel-Klein 2000). While this was the case, the “matter of nature” (Bakker & Bridge 2006) however, continued to shape women’s roles within this space. For example, as larger catches were landed, and given the biological characteristics of fish – for instance, it’s propensity to spoil quickly – a considerable onshore effort was required in terms of gutting, salting, and packaging the fish. With respect to herring certainly, there is much evidence documenting the women and girls (married and unmarried) that were central to this work, following fleets around the coasts of Britain and Ireland to this end (Britton 2012; Hall 2004; Nadel-Klein 2000), and becoming politically active when conditions demanded (Nadel-Klein 2000).[6]
Post-1950s invisibility
Given this aforementioned account of exceptional visibility – how then has the term invisible and marginalised come to so often be coupled with the words women in fisheries? No doubt, the (ongoing) processes of rationalisation, industrialisation, and neoliberalisation of fisheries since the 1950s have been consequential for women within fisheries across Britain, Ireland (and further). Their roles have shifted. Herring girls have been displaced by machination, and trawling does not demand baiting as lines did (Britton 2012). In terms of the geographical space on which this blog has focused, entry into the then EEC most certainly has also had gendered implications (ibid).[7]
Nonetheless, women continue to be involved in all aspects of the fish value chain. Nature continues to pose physical constraints (Castree and Braun 2001) on how fishing is organised. For the majority (for example, inshore and family-based fishing operations) engaged in fishing, the nature of fishing – though the politico-natural context differs – continues to place a demand on how households and communities are organised. Someone being away at sea still requires someone onshore, and women remain involved in actively running the family business (Zhao et al 2014). Alongside this, regulatory burdens place a simultaneous demand on how these households and communities are structured (or perhaps unstructured). In these respects, onshore supportive roles remain crucial to fishing, if not even more so (for instance, given longer hours spent at sea, increased demands in terms of paperwork and regulations), whilst simultaneously they are challenged by the nature of trans-local living arrangements that have become increasingly common.
Thus, while the involvement of women in fishing has not changed, what has changed is that many aspects of this work has been rendered invisible. This is not a glitch, rather the invisibility of women’s work today is reflective of the broader manner in which society (and nature) has been organised. Within fisheries, it is part of a broader pattern of rendering some aspects visible, and others invisible, which has not been inconsequential with respect to the current shape of fisheries. In short, gender inequality is not bad economics or talentism, it is a fundamental part of our current politico-natural configuration.[8] Thankfully, configurations can always be configured otherwise.
[1] http://www.saf21.eu/2016/09/13/fisherwomen-do-we-really-consider-the-complex-and-varied-role-women-play-in-fisheries/
[2] No doubt, and very much in line with this argument gender relations in relation to fisheries (as elsewhere) around the world are diverse, and linked to ecology, local factors, history, policies, politics, economics, cultures and so on (Neiss et al 2005).Thus, the objective of this blog is not to generalise this experience far beyond the cases detailed here. In this respect, there are excellent accounts elsewhere detailing the role of women in fisheries both in the Global North and Global South. The cases I have drawn are down to the fact that this is the space in which I am situated physically, and where my research is currently focused (though not specifically gender focused).
[3] These communal structures, whilst facilitated by the cooperative nature of the work, and the peripherality of fishing communities within society more generally, was (and is) demanded of fishing given the dangers of a life at sea, and the very real possibility that someone, or indeed whole families or crews might not and don’t come home from sea (Hall 2004).
[4] This aspect – “control of the purse” – would have been quite different from the level of control over a family’s finances that women in other households exercised, and is a pattern also found in Hall’s (2004) work, whereby, women controlled the finances in a manner that went well beyond the immediate needs of the domestic sphere, but also in terms of the boat itself and her gear. Hall (2004) has further highlighted that fishing women were renowned for their frugality on these matters, whilst the term “shrewd” is used by the commentator in MacLoughlin’s (2010) account – a reasonable characteristic given that the uncertainties entailed by the very nature of fishing demanded a level of frugality, in terms of ensuring that families would have enough when fishing was poor (Hall 2004).
[5] Hall (2004) suggests that her findings were not unique to Northumberland, but were similar to what would have been similar to those found around England, and perhaps beyond.
[6] In her work, with respect to Scottish fisherwomen at that time, Nadel-Klein (2010) has suggested that “herring girls” were politically active, and took an active part in the strikes that occurred in the 1920s demanding better wages and living conditions.
[7] For example, Britton (2012) details the impact that entry into the EEC has had for women in Northern Ireland’s fisheries (and no doubt elsewhere), who for a while took up processing jobs while they lasted, but alongside the decline experienced by fleets, these too have slowly declined.
[8] For those who might be interested, details with respect to talentism may be found within the World Economic Forum’s (2017) Gender Gap Report.
References
Bakker, K., & Bridge, G. (2006). Material worlds? Resource geographies and the matter of nature’. Progress in human geography, 30(1), 5-27.
Bavington, D. (2009). Managing to endanger: Creating manageable cod fisheries in Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada. Maritime Studies, 7(2), 99-121.
Britton, E. (2012). Women as agents of wellbeing in Northern Ireland’s fishing households. Maritime Studies, 11(1), 16.
Castree, N., & Braun, B. (2001). Social nature theory, practice, and politics. Blackwell Publishing
Haraway, D. (1991). Simians, cyborgs, and women. Free Association Books.
Hall, V. G. (2004, November). Differing gender roles: women in mining and fishing communities in Northumberland, England, 1880–1914. In Women’s Studies International Forum Vol. 27, No. 5-6, pp. 521-530). Pergamon.
Johnsen, J. P., Sinclair, P., Holm, P., & Bavington, D. (2009). The cyborgization of the fisheries: on attempts to make fisheries management possible.
Mac Laughlin, J. (2010). Troubled Waters: a social and cultural history of Ireland’s sea fisheries. Four Courts Press Ltd.
Merchant, C. (1981). The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and Scientific Revolution. HarperSanFrancisco
Moore, J. W. (2015). Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital. Verso Books.
Nadel-Klein, J. (2000, May). Granny baited the lines: Perpetual crisis and the changing role of women in Scottish fishing communities. In Women’s Studies International Forum (Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 363-372). Pergamon.
Neis, B., Binkley, M., Gerrard, S., & Maneschy, M. C. (2005). Changing tides: gender, fisheries and globalization.
St Martin, K. (2007). The difference that class makes: neoliberalization and non‐capitalism in the fishing industry of New England. Antipode, 39(3), 527-549.
Thompson, P. (1985). Women in the fishing: The roots of power between the sexes. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 27(1), 3-32.
Tsing, A. (2012). Unruly Edges: Mushrooms as Companion Species: for Donna Haraway. Environmental Humanities, 1(1), 141-154.
World Economic Forum (2017) The Global Gender Gap Report, available at http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2017.pdf
Zhao, M., Tyzack, M., Anderson, R., & Onoakpovike, E. (2014). Women in English fisheries: roles, contributions, barriers and prospects. In Social issues in sustainable fisheries management (pp. 233-254). Springer, Dordrecht.
Photo source National Library of Ireland. Ardglass, Co Down, circa 1910?
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
Science is not always done at the office – Life in a South African Aquarium
By Theodora Sam
Secondment, secondment, a time to move away from the comfort of my office at The University of Tromsø, Norway to live and work in a non-academic institution, The South African Association of Marine Biological Research (SAAMBR). On 3rd November 2017, I began my travel from Tromsø to Durban, South Africa. It was quite a distance between Tromsø and Durban, a total of 15.40 hours in flights. I made stops in Oslo, Frankfurt, and Johannesburg. I arrived in Durban at 13:30 and took the local airport shuttle to an apartment called “MonteZuma” at Snell Parade, just opposite the sea. Wow, it felt just like a coastal town I grew up in Ghana. The only element missing is that I could not go directly to the fishers and buy their catch. My hair suffered from the flight humidity and tangled badly. Thus, upon arrival, I looked for a salon and booked an appointment to relax my hair on the next day since now it was already late. I then looked for a supermarket to buy grocery and went to bed; I was too tired to cook. I prepared food on the next day, went to the saloon, and relaxed my hair. I was ready and prepared for Monday to start my working life outside academia with uShaka Sea World (SAAMBR) in Durban for 30 days.
Why uShaka Sea World and Durban?
In my PhD research, I focus on eliciting people’s mental models about fisheries as social-ecological systems (SESs). Being a social scientist, interacting with people is a vital tool. Thus, the work done at SAAMBR is a good training ground for my personal development and my research needs. As part of my research objectives, I have to develop an instrument that can be used to elicit the mental models that the public has about fisheries as SESs. I had just finished developing the instrument and I needed a place to validate it. The visitors of uShaka Sea World offered a good public audience for the start of my instrument validation process. The aquarium at uShaka is among the top 10 aquaria in the world and luckily for me, the institute is a partner organization in my PhD project and has the capacity to assist with my research needs.
Why Durban? Well, uShaka Sea World is situated in Durban. I found some skeptics in South Africa, including residents from Durban, who told me Durban is not the place to do a study about fisheries. Durban is situated along the narrow shaft of the South African coastal waters and according to the Durbanites “people do not know anything about fisheries”, I was told. However, I found just at the entrance of the arrival hall of King Shaka International Airport in Durban an artwork on display with a marine resource, ´fish´.
A display at the arrival hall of King Shaka International Airport. Photo by Theodora.
I subsequently found a fish sculpture displayed on a window at the hair salon I visited. ´Fish´ is one of the elements of fisheries, so why does the Durbanites say they do not know anything about fisheries. Hmm! could my observations mean people know something about fisheries but perhaps they do not associate what they know as elements of fisheries. Out of curiosity, I would have wished to know why but luckily, this falls right in my research objective, to explore the mental models of the public about fisheries so I have the opportunity to know why people say so. At the back of my mind while going into this search, I was hoping to prove the skeptics (I will call them) wrong, but in research, the researcher can only hope because the results have the final say.
I spent a month at SAAMBR where I conducted a survey with the visitors’ aged 18+ at the aquarium. I began my elicitation journey on 9th November at about 10:15 am and I managed to successfully obtain 14 responses by 3:45 pm. Almost all items were answered, so indeed the people know something about fisheries.
With all thanks to Colette (SAAMBR staff), here is a photo from when performing the survey.
In addition, I learned about the work and activities undertaken by the various departments and SAAMBR as a whole. Under the care of SAAMBR´s Conservation Strategist Judy Mann-Lang, I was offered a great opportunity to participate in numerous organizational activities. Just to list a few here, on 8th November, I participated in the monthly “muffin” meetings where almost all the staff from the different departments come together and share their various undertakings during the month and upcoming organizational activities. At this meeting, I learned more about the storm that hit the country on 10th October and resulted in a nurdles spill in South African waters and, how the staffs from SAAMBR were actively involved in the collection and cleaning of the nurdles from the shores. The issue of marine plastic pollution still at large, the meeting ended with a call from Larry for everyone to reduce and try to eliminate the use of plastics. I had the opportunity to join the organization´s 64th general annual meeting where I learned about how the organization started, the challenges, successes, and upcoming organizations changes towards an image rebranding of SAAMBR. I also joined the organization´s symposium, which was a whole day event organized for various presentations by the staff, research work from Master’s students and PhD candidates affiliated to SAAMBR. At the symposium, there were presentations on work done in all the various department of SAAMBR including studies that have been presented at conferences and other outreach events, simply because this is a day of knowledge sharing and learning. At this event, I had my own encounter, a meeting, and interaction with a creature (a rescued snake) from the Dangerous Creatures Center of SAAMBR. Thank you, Lesley, at the center, for helping me develop a new attitude towards creatures like those found in the center
All the staff from education, administration, IT, and the library were all very helpful and always willing to help me through my day-to-day activities. To the staff at Treasure Chest I appreciate that you encouraged me to learn your names and I am grateful to you all that you made the name learning process less stressful; such as Mbali said just call me flower (actually Mbali means flower). I learned about SAAMBR in a unique way that offered me the opportunity to understand the valuable work done at SAAMBR. I was introduced into the daily activities at SAAMBR from the booking section to the various amazing exhibitions.
Being in South Africa was not all about learning and working at SAAMBR I learned how to swim and snorkel and being that close to fish species was quite an experience, one that is unforgettable.
A photo from KwaZulu Natal Conservation Center taken by Judy.
Not only did Judy offer me organizational training but she went beyond and exposed me to nature conservation and how important wildlife sustainability is to South Africa as a whole.
Being in a foreign land can be lonely especially with restricted movement due to safety concerns, I, therefore, want to use this opportunity to say thank you to Judy and Bruce and their families, as well as Michelle and Andries. I have met many wonderful and kind people through this journey just to share a few names here, Colette you were always there to listen to me when I experience unpleasant encounters. Denise always checking up on me to ensure that I was OK. Shonay and Paul for trying so hard to help me find Internet signal and helping me with other IT needs. Kim and Nikita for sharing workspace with me so I did not feel lonely. Musa for being there to help. Kathy for offering me a ride at my point of need. Blessing and Michelle for making my water friendly.
Swimming at uShaka, photo by Michelle.
To Jone, Heidi, Ruru, Love, Ann, and all the staff at the Education Department for helping me with information and support towards the grade 9 textbooks and the survey. To Amanda, I would not have purchased my textbooks without your help. To all the staff and volunteers at the “Treasure Chest” just to mention a few names here: Zama, Sena, Mbali, Sue, and especially Kwanda and Jose who offered me a turtle feeding experience. To Gayle from whom I learned a quick way to say, “I am fine, thank you, and you”, a common way of greeting among the staff of SAAMBR. To my fellow PhD candidates at SAAMBR, although we did not get to spend much time together I appreciate my interactions with some of you and I wish you all the best of luck in your research and life after PhD. Thank you, Larry (CEO of SAAMBR), without your approval for my secondment none of these would have been a part of my lifetime experiences in Durban, South Africa. To all the staff of SAAMBR I say Ngiyabonga, Thank you. To all, I truly appreciate all our times together and I will be forever grateful.
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
Counting fish? What about Pulse trawling?
By Lia ní Aodha
At the very moment when we should be remaking politics, we have at our disposal only the pathetic resources of “management” and “governance.” (Latour, 2017: 107-109).
“numbers are used as ‘automatic pilots ‘ in decision-making, they transform the thing being measured – segregation, hunger, poverty – into its statistical indicator, and displace political disputes into technical disputes about method ” (Rose, 1999: 205, cited in Agrawal 2005).
Just before Christmas, with much of the usual fanfare, the annual December Councils took place in Europe, where the fishing quotas for 2018 were bargained over and divvied out among Member States. Post-Council Karmenu Vella (betraying the continued bio-economic rationale of European fisheries management) stated:
“After a long negotiation, I am happy to say that we have reached an agreement on fishing opportunities for 2018 in the Atlantic and the North Sea…We are now more than half-way to the 2020 deadline – the latest by which we have to ensure that all stocks are fished sustainably. That is, at Maximum Sustainable Yield levels…As a result of responsible decisions in the last years, the economic performance of the EU fleet has improved considerably and its profits are increasing. With the decisions adopted today, we can expect that trend to continue.”
Somewhat in the shadows, over the months prior to this, relatively quieter moves have occurred with respect to the discussion concerning the mainstreaming of pulse trawling – a type of trawl that uses an electric current to shock fish off the seabed – in European fisheries. While technically the practice of electrocuting fish is banned in the EU, the fishing method has nonetheless crept in over the past number of years under the guise of being research based – allowed on an experimental basis until now, but increasingly looking set to get the OK and threatening to become more widespread in Europe. Since 2010, due to successive experimental allowances today there are over one hundred boats, largely confined to Dutch vessels, engaged in this type of fishing, with most of these active in the North Sea.[1] Since July 2017 there have been indications from the Commission that the practice is set to get the go-ahead from the EU (Fishing News, 2017), and in November 2017 the Parliament’s Fisheries Committee voted to allow continued trials of the practice, raising fears that the practice might be rolled out across Europe (for more on this see, British Sea Fishing, 2017).
Hailed in terms of its greater fuel efficiency, thus lighter carbon footprint vis-à-vis traditional beam trawling, and also in terms of its potentialities for decreased bycatch (a hot topic in European fisheries as 2019 fast approaches and full implementation of the Landing Obligation becomes a reality), on the flip side there are significant knowledge gaps with respect to the long term impacts of Pulse trawling. What is for sure, however, is that this method most certainly seems capable of: increasing the efficiency of fishing (raising questions as to whether what we need right now is to become more efficient at catching fish than we have become with previous ‘technological advancements’),[2] expanding the areas where these boats can fish, thus (further) displacing small scale operations (O Riordan, 2017), and raises significant ethical questions as to whether we think it is reasonable to electrocute fish.[3]
While fisheries managers have allowed for the experimentation to continue, essentially facilitating the creep (to the point of no return?), those who fish for a living have been at the forefront, as has historically (though often unsuccessfully) been the case, at highlighting the dangers and destructiveness of the fishing method, and the impacts that they are already feeling. In this respect, fishermen, in particular inshore fishermen, have been exceptionally vocal with respect to their observations on the water, which suggest the very real violence of the practice, with declines in sole, cod, and seabass already apparent since the introduction of the pulse fishing, with some reporting that they are seeing large quantities of dead fish out on the water (Percy, 2017).[4]
This blog post considers the connection between the politics of counting fish, and the types of discussions it has hitherto succeeded in silencing, or in the very least relegating to the side-lines, for example, in terms of the types of fishing that are acceptable. Pulse fishing is just one of these issues.
Shifting relations and the politics of counting fish
Many of us will be all too familiar with the raft of criticisms that have been levelled at the Common Fisheries Policy since its inception. One that always strikes me as interesting is the criticism that has been levelled at the horse-trading that goes on at the Councils – seen as the political moment in the management of fisheries in Europe. Really? Is this the most political moment in this arrangement..?
In line with the character of calculability that has characterised and defined much of the politics of the twentieth century, more generally, becoming the regime of knowledge of that century (Mitchell, 2002: 86), counting fish has become central to the endeavour of fisheries management.[5] Indeed, over the past century and a half in an effort to render the seas legible and manageable (appropriable?), nothing seems to have captured the imagination – of states, scientists, managers and increasingly non-state actors – more than counting fish, and parcelling the sea into first state, and increasingly individual property. This fetishization of the quantification and propertization of everything has not come without its cost. Fisheries have collapsed while under stringent scientific management, livelihoods (and ways of life) have been lost, and coastal communities the world over struggle for existence. There is nothing natural or inevitable about this. For all intents and purposes: this was by design.[6]
Nuanced readings of this history have increasingly highlighted the relational shifts that have occurred alongside these processes that have underpinned the scientific management of fisheries, coinciding directly with the timeframe – from around the mid twentieth century – within which the real zeal for counting and parcelisng fish and the sea really took off (Bavington, 2009). Under the guise of management (deeply entangled from the start with the technological industrialisation, and capitalisation of fisheries), community based, labour intensive, and relatively low tech fishing has increasingly come under pressure (Johnson et al, 2009), as has fishing with the seasons. In contrast, very often managed fishing today involves essentially mono-harvesting the sea for often distant global markets. Fish are discarded in high quantities by fishermen and women, attempting to comply with (while also making a living) the ontological god-trick underpinning management, according to which perfect selectivity is seen as achievable and desirable.
No politics here! Scientific fisheries management and ethical issues
As indicated, these relationships did not naturally shift, but rather have – certainly in some instances – been radically displaced, altered and eroded by the quantitative advancements and understandings of the Enlightenment (so beloved of policy makers) that came to underpin traditional scientific fisheries management, and through which nature (including human nature) came to be understood as a productive economic machine with policy makers in control…withanthropocentric environmental ethics focused on instrumental industrial interests at their core (Bavington, 2011a).
Just as TACs have played a pivotal role in these developments (Johnson et al 2009), so too has the holy grail of science versus politics (Holm, 1996; Johnson et al 2009) – numbers versus values (aside from computational or exchange values). In this sense, numbers have lent themselves to a depoliticising of management, providing precise apolitical representations for managers, whilst simultaneously displacing relations (Agrawal, 2005), and erasing in one swoop signs of arbitrariness, scars, abnormalities, and traces of violence (Mitchell, 2002).
In this respect, scholars have argued that from the moment that fisheries management became centred on numerically rendering the sea legible, fishing and different types of fishing were no longer viewed as good or bad, fishing essentially just became fishing – rendered a homogenous activity in much the same manner as fishermen today are rendered homogenous agents through economics. In this sense here, it was not (is not?) fishing type but just fishing at a very general level, and the number of fish caught that mattered/matters (Bavington, 2009). In line with this thinking, one might surmise that, as long as the numbers add up, discussions with respect to, for example, the ethics of electrocuting fish, or sustaining fishing communities will remain secondary (regardless of rhetoric otherwise.)
From this angle, the post-political hue of current fisheries management makes sense. From this angle, that (despite the myriad of unknowns and knowns with respect to why we might pause to question whether pulse trawling is reasonable, not least the very raw ethical issues surrounding the electrocution of fish, and what that says about our relationship to non-human nature) there appears to be no reduction in the headlong rush by managers and beam trawl fishermen for this sort of gear (Percy, 2017) seems less puzzling. Unfortunately, within fisheries management, counting fish, technological modernisation, and economic rationality have always held sway (Johnson et al 2009), dictating who can fish, how, where and for what (Bavington 2009). There are today countless examples of the irrationality of this rationality – moving to allow pulse trawling in Europe seems set to become just another of these.
A faux depoliticising project
Over the past decades, in light of, for example, hard-to-ignore stock collapses, fisheries science has become more attuned to the uncertainties surrounding counting fish, and there has, by some accounts, been a paradigm shift within this space.[7] While this may be so, it is not clear whether ongoing theoretical shifts have manifested more practically (Bavington, 2011a; 2011b), nor that these would be good enough anyway (Hubbard, 2017). Certainly within fisheries management practice the naturalisation of TACs, and quotas remains, and it seems almost impossible to imagine a scenario whereby counting fish might not remain a focal point of management.
Returning to the December Councils of 2017 – great, the amount of fish being caught in Europe is increasingly being brought into line with what has been shown to be essentially a political construct as much as anything scientific, and has proved instrumental in allowing powerful fishing nations to enclose fisheries where it suited them, and access them where they remained (for an excellent account of MSY as a concept see Finley, 2011). The struggle thus remains centred on who gets to catch these fish, and though there have been some minor successes in perhaps thinking in terms of allocation, as long as accounting and economism remains central for managers, it is not convincing that fish, fishermen or women, or fishing communities will survive, without sustained and committed discussions of how we fish, and how we live with each other, including non-human others. These are not questions that (faux depoliticising) numbers can answer, but rather require contestation and, by some accounts the remaking of politics entirely.
In short, unfortunately, so long as fisheries management remains obsessed with calculating, and allocating portions of fish as if they were terrestrial resources, as if there was no other way, the chances of this shift seem slim, and it looks unlikely that we will move beyond the failings of the past, and the inequitable relations that such a strategy has propagated and continues to propagate between people and fish….and that probably means the mainstreaming of electrocuting fish.
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
References:
Agrawal, A. (2005). Environmentality: technologies of government and political subjects.
Bavington, D. (2009). Managing to endanger: Creating manageable cod fisheries in Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada. Maritime Studies, 7(2), 99-121.
Bavington, D. (2011a). Environmental History during the Anthropocene: Critical Reflections on the Pursuit of Policy-Orientated History in the Man-Age.
Bavington, D. (2011b). Managed annihilation: an unnatural history of the Newfoundland cod collapse. UBC press.
Branch, T. A., & Kleiber, D. (2015). Should we call them fishers or fishermen? Fish and Fisheries, 18(1), 114-127.
British Sea Fishing (2017) Pulse Trawling, available at http://britishseafishing.co.uk/pulse-trawling/
Campling, L. (2012). The tuna ‘commodity frontier’: business strategies and environment in the industrial tuna fisheries of the Western Indian Ocean. Journal of Agrarian Change, 12(2‐3), 252-278.
de Haan, J., Fosseidengen, J.E., Fjelldal, P. G., Burggraaf, D., Rijnsdorp, A. D. (2016) Pulse trawl fishing: characteristics of the electrical stimulation and the effect on behaviour and injuries of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua). ICES Journal of Marine Science (73) 6.
Finley, C. (2011). All the fish in the sea: maximum sustainable yield and the failure of fisheries management. University of Chicago Press.
Fishing News (2017) Pulse Trawling set to get green light, available at http://fishingnews.co.uk/news/pulse-trawling-set-to-get-green-light/
Hubbard, J. (2017). Fisheries Science and Its Environmental Consequences. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental Science. Retrieved 8 Jan. 2018, from http://environmentalscience.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.001.0001/acrefore-9780199389414-e-370.
Johnsen, J. P., Sinclair, P., Holm, P., & Bavington, D. (2009). The cyborgization of the fisheries: on attempts to make fisheries management possible.
Latour, B. (2017). Facing Gaia: eight lectures on the new climatic regime. John Wiley & Sons.
Mitchell, T. (2002). Rule of experts: Egypt, techno-politics, modernity. Univ of California Press.
Moore, J.W., 2012. ‘Cheap Food & Bad Money: Food, Frontiers, and Financialization in the Rise and Demise of Neoliberalism’. Review: A Journal of the Fernand Braudel Center, 33 (2–3).
O Riordan, B (2017) Electric Pulse Trawling: A highly charged issue, available at http://lifeplatform.eu/electric-pulse-trawling-highly-charged-issue/
Percy, J (2017) Concerns rise over electric pulse fishing, available at http://lifeplatform.eu/concerns-rise-electric-pulse-fishing/
Vella, Karmenu (2017) AGRIFISH Council Press Statement by Commissioner for the Environment, available at https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2014-2019/vella/announcements/agrifish-council-12-december-2017-press-statement-commissioner-environment-maritime-affairs-and_en
Footnotes
[1] One might reasonably consider here that in terms of the requirements of experimental gear testing that over 100 seems like a lot of boats engaged in a fishing method where basically our knowledge as to its impacts are pretty thin on the ground.
[2] In this sense, pulse trawling surely represents a commodity deepening strategy; that is the intensification of production strategies in a mature frontier through, for example, enhanced socio-technical innovation (for a discussion on this concept see Campling 2012; Moore, 2012).
[3] In this respect, for example, studies have indicated that while information about the wider ecosystem effects of the practice or the impacts on all species within these ecosystems remains somewhat limited, in terms of gadoids (cod, haddock, whiting etc.), there is evidence to suggest that pulse trawling can lead to haemorrhages and muscular contractions which cause breakages of the spine (for example, see de Haan et al, 2016). Fishermen have reported catching damaged fish with broken backs and burn marks (Fishing News, 2017).
[4] The use of the term fisherman here is not to denote any gendered bias, or exclusion, but rather is used to denote anyone who fishes for a living. At other times in the post the term fisherwomen is used – the same premise applies. For a discussion on this see Branch and Kleiber (2015).
[5] It should be qualified here that fisheries management has a rather short history, if one considers the much longer history of humans and fish (Bavington, 2011b).
[6] Further, it is also worth considering that while, to date, community based (often small scale, and family based) fisheries have persisted in the face of this onslaught, this reorganisation (read homogenisation, consolidation, rupture, extinction…) of fisheries is an ongoing, if sometimes creeping, process, perhaps most fundamentally evident in countries with explicitly privatised management regimes, but also evident in different degrees in regimes that have hitherto resisted privatisation.
[7] Nonetheless fish remain understood – certainly by managers – as commodities, a resource (Bavington, 2009), in some instances highly financialised assets. People who fish are increasingly deemed objects of scientific management (Bavington, 2011). In short, the assumption that nature (including human nature) remains subservient to human control (Holm, 1996; Bavington, 2011b) shows little sign of abating.
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
Computer Scientist visiting the ICES ASC
By Shaheen Syed
“Wait, what, Florida?”. Indeed, the ICES Annual Science Conference (ASC) 2017 was happening in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. As a Ph.D. candidate in computer science, and being part of SAF21, a Horizon2020 funded fisheries project, I needed to go to the biggest fisheries conference according to my Ph.D. colleagues. What to expect? I don’t know. Let’s find out.
Harvey, Irma, Jose, no, these are not the names of my colleagues. They are the names of the hurricanes sweeping over the Caribbean and Florida. We are not sure the ASC will happen, let’s wait for ICES to update us. Captivated by all the news and social media, finally, we have a “go” from ICES. The ASC 17 is happening!
Flying to Fort Lauderdale from a little place up in Northern Norway called Tromso took a total of 20 hours. We arrived at our hotel, way too early, too bad, check-in opens around 15:00. Let’s wait in the lobby and work on my presentation. I was traveling with my colleague Charlotte Weber and we both had an accepted abstract for presentation. “Let’s work on our presentation, and ask for an update if the room is ready every now and then”. “Not ready”, “Not ready”. They must have felt sorry for me, they upgraded me to an available room, perhaps to get rid of me. Anyway, I wasn’t complaining.
The next day was the first day of the conference. I must have stayed at the hotel where everyone visiting the conference was staying, large groups of people left the hotel to cross the street to the convention center where the conference was happening. Just a 7 min walk, but quite harsh with high temperatures and humidity. Remember, I came from Tromso in the Arctic circle.
Me presenting.
Charlotte interned at ICES for a couple of months and knew almost all the ICES staff members, a nice way for me to be introduced to the wonderful people behind ICES and the ICES community (Terhi, Dorothy, Mark, Simon). I also remember some of the faces from the night before, and during breakfast in the morning. Indeed, everyone was staying at the same hotel.
Still being a bit nervous, what to expect, so many people. I must have read articles from the people being here today. “Can I walk up to them and talk to them?” Well, Shaheen, try to enjoy and see what happens, I thought. Ahh, I see my colleague Rannva Danielsen, and Michaela Aschan who is the scientific advisor of my project (SAF21). Nice, I know someone, I’m not alone, you can do this!
The “beer” game. Me, Michaela, Rannva, Charlotte and Petter
I have tried to take in as much as possible, the open sessions, the science communication workshop, the theme sessions, the plenary lectures. “I’m going to learn so many new things”. Partly yes, although I couldn’t really follow most of the presentations. Was it because I’m a computer scientist? Having read fisheries papers, being part of a fisheries project, I admittedly have some basic knowledge on various aspects of fisheries. Perhaps the presentations could be more understandable for an “outsider” like me. Perhaps having six graphs on one slide and explaining the formulas was a bit too much for me.
My presentation was on the second day. Together with my colleague Melania Borit (SAF21 project coordinator), I’ve researched machine learning methods in fisheries, and specifically, applying topic models to uncover hidden topics in fisheries publications. There are so many graphs that we made, so many formulas to show, so much of the hard work that we want to present. “Everyone had formulas or complicated graphs in their presentation, maybe I should add them to my presentation too”, I said to Charlotte. “Well, could you follow them?”, she replied. “Actually, no”. “Make it so everyone can follow and enjoy your talk”. Good advice. She was right
I’ve gotten compliments for presenting a complicated subject like machine learning and topic models in an easy to understand manner. The presentation went fine. The audience was great. I’ve gotten nice feedback. During the remaining days of the conference, people walked up to me to talk about my work, or to give me a small compliment on my presentation. The presentation really was a nice way of letting others know what you’ve been working on. I felt part of the community already.
In a way, I think the ICES ASC is all about the people. Putting the faces to the names. Networking. At the end of the day, we’re all people. Yes, you can walk up to some of the seniors and talk about their or your research. I’ve noticed they appreciate that. Everyone was so friendly. I realized I’ve been nervous for no reason. Feeling welcomed is what the conference taught me, even for an “outsider” like me. Thanks everyone for such a great time. And the beer game was awesome.
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
MARE, the always-Amsterdam conference: The meeting place for interdisciplinary social scientists in marine resource management
By Theodora Sam
This year I joined the 9th MARE conference, which is a conference held bi-annually always in the city of Amsterdam, at the University of Amsterdam, Roeterseiland campus. The conference provides a platform for researchers, policymakers, organizations, and others interested in the management of marine resources to meet and discuss interdisciplinary social science research and approaches to addressing societal challenges. The Maritime Studies (MAST) Journal is a product from the MARE conference. This is an international, open access, peer-reviewed open journal on social dimensions of coastal and marine issues throughout the world.
As part of the conference, there is usually a day devoted to policy named “the policy day” This year the policy day was held on the 04.07.2017 with the theme “stakeholder participation in marine management: connecting practice with theory”. The discussions focused on the fact that stakeholder participation is an attitude towards making and taking decisions. One key point presented was expectations from the new Common Fisheries Policy Reform for 2022, as the discussions for its development starts in 2018.
The conference officially started on 05.07.2017, the theme was “Maritime mobilities: opening people and the sea”. The most intriguing presentation for me was a keynote presentation (by Christina Stringer) on the topic “Turbulent waters: Modern slavery in the fishing industry”. This was a presentation on a research conducted in New Zealand fishing industry. The issue of the lack of consumer’s knowledge on fisheries was clearly highlighted as one of the conclusions of the research and a contributing factor to slavery existing in fisheries. This conclusion connects to my own PhD research, where I am developing a framework to explore the mental models the public have about fisheries as social-ecological systems (SESs).
The MARE conference is indeed the meeting place for interdisciplinary marine resource management scientists. I had the opportunity to meet top scientists, such as Dr. Anthony Charles, whose framework fishery system framework is my inspiration in the elicitation of the mental models about fisheries. I had a fruitful time in Amsterdam!
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
Learning About Fisheries
By Luz Molina,
I found myself travelling back to Tromsø to fulfill my first secondment and learn more about fisheries. As soon as I was in Scandinavia and handed my passport to immigration, I was asked where I was going and why. I told the immigration officer I was going to UiT (University of Tromsø), to learn about fisheries. She said oh, you are going to the right place. That was a good start!
Views from UiT
Yes, I wanted to see Northern Lights, and yes, I wanted to see lots of snow. I also had in mind what I wanted to accomplish and why I was going to Tromsø. I wanted to go back to my roots in Biology and Marine Science. Lately, I have focused my time learning about visualization. I have done this from cosmopolitan and industrial Manchester, at the Center for Policy Modeling in Manchester Metropolitan University. During my secondment, I wanted to catch up on what is going on in Fisheries and learn more about fisheries in Northern Europe.
I was given my own office in the College of Fisheries at UiT. I had a great view of Tromsdalstinden, and Tromsø Sound. I had the same view in the nearby student housing. I was glad that sometimes, I could even hear the boats sounding their horns at the harbor.
Reindeer race
So far, my experience has only been reading articles about fisheries and its current state in Europe. Through this secondment, I finally I had the chance to learn more about the fascinating history of cod and how it is intertwined with Norwegian history. Vikings would use dry cod as a means of instant meal for their travels. Dry cod may last 40 years and still be edible. So, cod was basically a form of currency. Due to “cod economics” I was fascinated to find out that Tromsø was the Paris of the North. The reason for this was not its architecture, but the tight commercial relationship between Italy and Tromsø. Cod was shipped to Italy and Italy would send the latest fashion back to Tromsø!
I was eager to learn about fish species distribution. It finally made sense why quota sharing agreements in the North Atlantic is a reoccurring topic for deliberation. I have always known that species distribution is not static. Fish tend to move around due to different factors such as food and temperature. However, if you add to this climate change, shared fishing grounds and politics, you find all the interested parties trying to “predict” and adjust to what is going to happen, and where different fish stocks are going to move. Now that is real interdisciplinary work in action. Fisheries, Political Science, Law, Climate Science, trying to make sense of the data on where and how much can be fished. All this information made me think about how much I do not know about fisheries in my own country, Colombia. How much Colombia has tried to industrialize and not depend on natural resources. And how well Norway seems to be managing its own natural resources.
Theo in front of Hurtigruten
I could say it was all about working or taking courses, but fortunately I had plenty of weekends to explore my surroundings. I was lucky to have the company of Charlie, a friend and fellow PhD colleague from SAF21 who is based at UiT. Shaheen who is also a fellow PhD from SAF21 also doing his secondment at UiT, and Ellie the Intern at UiT’s research group. Each one made my stay much easier and interesting. With Ellie, another newcomer, we could be tourists. We went on random walks to see Tromsø and its surroundings. We even saw a reindeer race! It was very exciting. It was also an opportunity to see and interact with the Sami people. Later, I learned about their struggles as an indigenous group. Charlie, Shaheen, and I, joined the UiT PhD group for a night of Bowling. I met and talked to them and we exchanged ideas and experiences as doctoral students. Finally, the SAF21 group went to Prestvannet Lake in the middle of the island! It was a beautiful and fun walk. I managed to make snow angels, and see the locals going for a stroll/ski.
Views from Mount Storsteinen
I am glad to say, I enjoyed walking back home at night and seeing northern lights several times. One night, leaving the light pollution from UiT behind, we went to Telegrafbukta beach. It was a beautiful experience. On a different night, I also joined a Northern light tour, as I believe, I can never get enough of Northern lights.
Tromsø surprised me in several ways: Primarily, I could interact with almost everyone, as everyone spoke English. At the Norwegian College of Fisheries Science, I was surprised when I mentioned I came from Colombia, several people spoke back to me in perfect Spanish. This surprised me because we were so far from a Spanish speaking country.
On the last week of my secondment I took a course on Marine Sustainability. I met 23 PhD students with Theodora, a SAF21 colleague. It was a great group of interdisciplinary research. We came from different backgrounds and different geographic origins, but we managed to get along very well. These backgrounds included, Biology, Political Science, Shipping Commerce, and Geography. We came from different corners of the world such as Iran, Canada, Argentina, and Germany. We learned about Climate, Fisheries, Aquaculture, Coastal Communities and Governing the Ocean. We started our journey in Bodø, where we took the Hurtigruten. The Hurtigruten is a cruise that travels the Norwegian coastline. We made a couple of stops and enjoyed the views of the fjords. We kept taking classes on the vessel until we arrived back to Tromsø. On my last day, I took the Cable Car to Mount Storsteinen. There, I enjoyed some of the most breathtaking views in my life.
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
Oh, sweet summer school: sweat, science, and surprises!
By Charlotte Weber
It is summer, and in a PhD student’s life this only means one thing – no, not holidays – but time to go for a summer school! That sounds fun, doesn’t it? But what is a summer school and why should I go there?
First of all, summer schools usually provide intense courses running over a week or two with some hands-on experience. Second, summer schools are generally open to everyone, so you don’t have to be enrolled at the host university, which makes it a great networking opportunity because the participants often come from all over the world.
So during my summer, I went to the University of Oslo, where I attended the “Oslo Summer School in Comparative Social Science Studies 2017” and took this year’s course in “Collecting and Analyzing Big Data” for a full week.
The course was mostly methodological, meaning we were taught how to use the programming language Python in order to analyze data or Big Data in particular. In our case, this meant more something like loads of data. For example, imagine an excel file where it would take you something like an hour to scroll to the bottom. Then you don’t want to extract or transform this type of data manually, right? Because you wouldn’t only mess up your data and introduce some sort of error by copy, pasting, and cutting, but you might also go a little nuts when trying to find that exact piece of information you are looking for in there. It just wouldn’t be cool (nor fun) to go in there and fiddle with the data if there is just too much of it. Yet, if you need to analyze that type of thing, then there are smart and cool ways to do so – with one of them being Python! Python lets you write some code, so that all the data extraction, manipulation, and analysis can be done without you actually having to botch around in that file. You can simply apply your commands to the file, to several rows, columns, extract only the data with certain properties, or anything else you can imagine. There really are no limits. It’s so wonderful, I’m still in awe!
Class room views: Laptops, python, code, projector slides, and coffee (essential, obviously).
Besides data analysis, we also got to learn how to scrape the web. Just think of the internet and the amount of information available, just floating out there, all the sites, all the data! Collecting that kind of information on a larger scale by hand, however, would take you a very, very long time. Your hand would probably sooner fall off before you manage to copy and paste all the information that you might want or need. So here again, you want to automate some of these processes by writing some pretty code and scraping the info with Python. You just run your code and – whoop – all the info is there, saved and stored on your computer! Easy as that! Beautiful!
So after all, what did I take from this summer school? As so often, it is not only the things I was taught but also the people I met and the experiences I made. It felt great to let my inner nerd out and find like-minded around me who would want to spend lunch breaks over screens trying to ‘crack a problem’ or try to ‘finally scrape this website. Also, it is always such a pleasure to meet PhDs from all over the place, with many stories to tell and PhD experiences to share.
Maybe the most fascinating thing for me was that in this course, we were all interested in learning the same thing. No matter the discipline we came from, we still wanted to learn the same method. This is something I hardly see, even though I work in a very multi-/inter-disciplinary environment. One of the bigger struggles working with other disciplines is often the methods and the different ways to tackle a problem. But at the summer school, the anthropologists, economists, sociologists, and biologists all sat in the same room and everyone was writing the same code, using the same program, to do the same thing: collect and analyze data.
“The world is one big data problem.”- Andrew McAfee, MIT scientist
That made me realize at the end of the week, that data is really what connects us. We might have our own methods within each of our disciplines, but data is growing every day and will probably increase rather than decrease in the next years. So while we need to try and stay up to date to tackle tomorrows (data) problems, it is great to know that we can, after all, bond over data!
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
Iceland? Why are you going to ICELAND?
By Ixai Salvo Borda
Iceland, land of mystery. Iceland, land of “fire, ice and cod” (as my colleague Rannvá says in her blog post. For Basque people, Iceland also supposes a land of conquer, risk and richness, as we used to sail into those cold waters of the North to hunt whales. That, and some other “issues”, are maybe why until no long ago, in some northern regions of the island, was legal to kill Basque people (ups!). However, lots of thing has changed in this country founded by Norwegian convicts (Is maybe Iceland the Australia of Norway? Or… Australia is the Iceland of the UK?). Nowadays, Iceland is the result of a country of survivors. People that was forced to struggle and win against the elements (wind mostly), natural forces (water, fire, lava…. you know, the common stuff when you live near volcanoes) and the fear of being eaten by…. No, at least, being eaten was not an issue. All those fights, produced a very special kind of people. People that even they look Scandinavians, and they behave like ones, in their inside, host a melting pot of Celtic bravery (result of the Viking activities of travelling and….bringing things home) and Basque and Mediterranean warmness (as we tend to visit them sometimes). All these ingredients had mix up, being lately spiced with United States toppings (as they host a big military base and population of the States) and after cooling down with glacial water, produce a unique kind of people: Icelanders. Welcoming, polite but noisy and, I must say I was very surprised by this, calm and relax people. As said, Iceland, land of mystery. And there, I was travelling the morning of past 17th of April (2017).
The author thinking about fisheries and Iceland at one of the magical black beaches of Iceland (Picture by Cezara Pastrav)
Why? May you ask. Why were you traveling to Iceland when your research is based in the Northwester region of Spain, Galicia? The solution is simple. To compare. As my project was being developed, I considered it very important to develop a governance frame useful for any situations and systems. Once reasoned, I concluded that the best way to achieve my variety was to find the most remote and different fisheries system in Europe (but outside the European Union). In the end, my choices were Norway and Iceland. And… what is more different than anything known? Iceland of course.
As I was saying, last 17th of April I leave the temperate Atlantic coast of Spain (Temperature: 16ºC at 8 am) to land in Keflavik that same night (Temperature: 2ºC at 22:30). My destination, our partner organisation Matís. The plan, to work there for 5 weeks. The objectives, to finish the development of my governance frame and to make contacts with the Icelandic fishing sector. And thanks to Jónas Rúnar Viðarsson I complete my objectives.
I will not talk about my governance frame here. First, because is still under development, is a secret, and second, because as the main theoretical core of my thesis is not my intention to kill anyone of boredom. So, let’s talk about making contacts, stakeholder interactions and knowing the Icelandic fisheries system.
During my first weeks in Matís, and after few meetings with Jónas to agree on the strategy (few because sadly he was very busy travelling) I contacted with the Ocean Cluster’s CEO Berta Daníelsdóttir. She opened the doors to the Icelandic trawling companies and help me contacting with the fishers association “Fisheries Iceland” (Samtök Fyrirtækja í Sjávarútvegi). There, one of their fisheries managers, Hrefna Karlsdóttir, welcomed me and my research and guided me to establish relationships with Icelandic Trawling Stakeholders. Although many companies were contacted, only 3 of them are now willing to collaborate with the rest of the project. Those companies are: Thorfish ltd (located in Grindavik, south of Reykjavik), Vinnslustöðin (in Vestmannaeyjar, on the island of Heimaey) and Frosti (HG Hraðfrystihúsið Gunnvör) (in Hnifsdal, in the Westjfords region).
Map of Iceland with the locations and the logos of the companies that are going to work with us in the project.
As can be seen in the map, Frosti and Vinnslustöðin are located in remote areas a bit far away from Reykjavik. Nevertheless, and thanks to modern technology (aka Skype) I was able to talk with them. In the case of Thorfish, I travelled until Grindavik, and that is something worthy of tell.
Grindavik is a small fishing village south of Reykjavik. To arrive there, we will have to take the direction to the international airport of Keflavik and turn left (south) in the same diversion that takes us to the Blue Lagoon (that belongs to the town). The land around the road is a remark of the most part of the island. Large areas with no trees (there are not many of those in Iceland) full of lava rocks and covered in moss (either green or yellow). When arriving in the town, it is clear that the main activity is fisheries. In the harbour, is easy to find people landing fish, repairing boats or just looking the boats come and go. Around the harbour, more than 7 fishing companies have their offices and around them, the activity is intense as many also have their fish processing plants there. The people of Thorfish showed me around and I was able to see lots of small longliners, some trawlers and a big purse-seiner landed there. Catch of the day, cod, mostly cod. In the visit, I also share experiences with them and thanks them much time for collaborating with us. And their answer was one of biggest cultural shocks of Iceland: “Off course we are going to collaborate, fisheries research is very important” (Eiríkur Óli Dagbjartsson, Share owner of Thorfish). I really hope sometimes Galician fishermen will think in the same way.
Harbour of Grindavik (picture from www.landogsaga.is)
I have only spoken about big trawling companies, and one could ask… where are the small boats? The vertebrate system of the Icelandic fisheries? No, I do not forget about them, and that’s is why I contacted with NASBO, the National Small Boat Owners Association (Landssaband smábátaeigenda). There, I talk with Axel Helgason (Chairman) and Oddbjorg Fridriksdottir (Office manager) about quotas, fishing rights and the situation of the small scale boats in Iceland. I have also to thank them for the willingness to participate in the project.
During my time in Iceland, I also had time for fun and to visit some places of this extraordinary land. With the invaluable help of my project fellows Kristinn Edvardsson and Cezara Păstrăv and the Marie-Curie postdoc Gregory K. Farrant, I discovered caves, lava fields, waterfalls, and more of the wonders (the Blue Lagoon for example) that Iceland hides. I also had fun, taste new foods (Rooten shark was a hit), went out and enjoyed the vibrant life of Reykjavik.
As a conclusion, I just want to thank all the people that have helped me during this trip. This secondment in Iceland has been a unique experience that has boosted my research and thanks to that I sail with new energies.
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
Writing, reading, visualizing – a story about SAF21 collaboration and how a team can make you stronger
By Charlotte Weber
This last spring, during April 2017 I spent my days at the Center for Policy Modelling at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) in the UK. A collaboration with my fellow SAF21 colleague Shaheen Syed is what had brought me there in the first place. He had been working on some interesting research, where he looked into the hidden topics of fisheries publications over the last 26 years with a very advanced computer science method called Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). LDA is a sophisticated machine-learning algorithm that helps you find these hidden topics in the text, which is the underlying idea of an article. While Shaheen was working with that, he came across some topics on modelling, which made him contact me because he knew I was working on models for my PhD. That made us both decide to look a bit further into these models and take a closer look at the topics within these modelling publications. In addition, to make the best use of this research we decided to write a paper together in order to be able to present our results to the scientific community. However, paper writing can be a rather difficult task for some of us. A great paper is about so much more than just the science behind it. It is about how you present it, if you are able to fascinate your reader enough to read it to the end, and if you can make a point of why your research matters. That makes scientific writing an art that is hard to teach and is very unlikely to come naturally to you (unless you are among those few lucky ones). It, therefore, takes a good amount of practice, meaning learning by doing. This is where a little support from your friends can also be of great help: so, off to Manchester I was…
Arrived at MMU, Shaheen and I started drafting and writing our paper together. Luckily, our fellow SAF21ers Luz and Lia happened to just sit across the room. And like I said, there is nothing better than having a team of colleagues around you, who might teach you a thing or two. We all have different strengths and different skills. So I approached Lia, who loves the writing and would prefer to do nothing but that! She was more than happy to read our paper drafts and to give feedback on the text. That helped us majorly to improve our writing, especially if a native English speaker proofreads it for you!
Now, the text is not everything in a scientific paper. You also want to use some graphs and other visualizations to display your results, to make it nicer for the reader and because a picture can say more than 1000 words. That was when our SAF21 colleague Luz came in very handy! Luz is doing her PhD on visualizations, so who better to ask how to best display your results? Luz could help us out with graphics related questions and therefore contributed to improve the figures in our paper.
This paper has now been submitted to a journal and is currently under review. How exciting! Therefore, I want to give a big shout out and say: thank you team MMU, thank you SAF21 and thank you for the privilege of being part of a network that lets you know that you are not alone!
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
Plotting Seas with Python and ICES Shape File
By Shaheen Syed and Charlotte Weber
This example shows how to plot and color European seas with Python, Basemap and the ICES shape file. It serves as a basic example from which more elements such as annotations and other plotting elements can be added.
It might be the case that during your research you found some fancy numbers that relate to the different seas within Europe. Let’s say you have data on stocks, landings, vessels or some other valuable number that you would like to visually represent. The basemap toolkit is one way of visually representing your data onto a map. It’s part of Matplotlib, the de facto standard when creating plots with Python. To use basemap we need something that indicates the countries, regions, states etc so we can use them within our plots. That’s where shapefiles come in. Without going into too much detail, the shapefile makes sure we can pinpoint these countries, regions, states within our map. But what about the seas? We’ll have to thank ICES here.
Shapefile for ecoregions (European seas) are provided by ICES and can be viewed and downloaded here.
How to use them? We’ve created a simple example with some dummy data to color the regions based on some arbitrary frequency. Of course, you can easily load data from a CSV file and have the map say something meaningful. Hope this helps.
|
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
|
# importsfrommpl_toolkits.basemap importBasemapimportmatplotlib.pyplot as pltfrommatplotlib.collections importLineCollectionfrommatplotlib importcmimportmatplotlibimportnumpy as npimportshapefile######################################### FUNCTIONS ##########################################defget_color(count):cmap =matplotlib.cm.get_cmap('Blues')# we normalize the scale here, adjust values accordinglynorm =matplotlib.colors.Normalize(vmin=0.0, vmax=300.0)returncmap(norm(count))######################################### MAIN ########################################## define figure and axesfig, axs =plt.subplots(1, 1, figsize=(10,10))# define coordinates for map# llcrnrlon longitude of lower left hand corner of the desired map domain (degrees).# llcrnrlat latitude of lower left hand corner of the desired map domain (degrees).# urcrnrlon longitude of upper right hand corner of the desired map domain (degrees).# urcrnrlat latitude of upper right hand corner of the desired map domain (degrees).x1 =-30.x2 =50.y1 =32.y2 =70.# create mapm =Basemap(resolution='i', projection='merc', llcrnrlat=y1, urcrnrlat=y2, llcrnrlon=x1, urcrnrlon=x2)# draw bounderies on mapm.drawcountries(linewidth=0.5)m.drawcoastlines(linewidth=0.5)# data of seas [0]=label (not used within map), [1]=frequency of some value, [2]=id for sea within shape file # this list of list is part of the code but can easily be loaded from e.g a csv file# note that we are not using all shape idsdata_seas_rows =[['Greenland Sea', 28, 1],['Bay of Biscay & Iberian Peninsula', 90, 2],['Azores', 200, 3],['western Mediterranean', 200, 4],['Ionian Sea', 104, 5],['Black Sea', 100, 6],['Adriatic', 120, 7],['Aegean Sea', 300, 8],['Celtic Sea', 10, 9],['Baltic Sea', 170, 10],['North Sea', 58, 11],['Iceland Sea', 20, 13],['Faroe Islands', 23, 15],['Norwegian Sea', 190, 16],['North East Atlantic', 79, 17]]# Load shapefile from file r =shapefile.Reader(r"ICES-Shape/ICES_ecoregions_20150113_no_land")# plot every row from data_seas_rowsforrow indata_seas_rows:# get the shape id from our list, which is listed in position 2 (note the zero-based counting)i =row[2]# now point to the right shape and record from the ICES shape file# note that we start with position i-1 to ishapes =r.shapes()[i-1:i]records =r.records()[i-1:i]# use records and shapesforrecord, shape inzip(records,shapes):lons,lats =zip(*shape.points)data =np.array(m(lons, lats)).Tiflen(shape.parts) ==1:segs =[data,]else:segs =[]fori inrange(1,len(shape.parts)):index =shape.parts[i-1]index2 =shape.parts[i]segs.append(data[index:index2])segs.append(data[index2:])lines =LineCollection(segs,antialiaseds=(1,))lines.set_edgecolors('black')lines.set_linewidth(0.1)# color the shape of the sea# we call function get_color here and have as argument the 2nd item from our data_seas_rows list# basically this can be anything that you study e.g. frequency of catch, vessels etc.lines.set_facecolors(get_color(row[1]))# add to axesaxs.add_collection(lines)# save the plotplt.tight_layout()plt.savefig('map.png', dpi=300) |
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
The land of fire, ice and cod
By Rannva Danielsen
On a cold, windy November day last year I got on a plane and fastened my seat belt securely in anticipation of a bumpy flight from the Faroe Islands over the Atlantic. Next stop: my beloved Reykjavík.
I first came to Iceland in the fall of 2011. I had just finished my bachelor’s degree and had landed an internship at the Faroese Representation to Reykjavík. I had no desire to leave Iceland when my internship ended so I enrolled in a master’s programme at the University of Iceland, and what was supposed to be a six-month stint in the original Land of Fire and Ice turned into three years.
Matís
This time around I was here for a secondment at Matís. If you’re reading this blog, you already know that I am doing a PhD as part of the SAF21 programme and you might also know that secondments are part of the programme. Matís is a R&D institute and a partner to the project, and I was there to work with them on a report on coastal fisheries.
Supervising me during my stay was the seemingly all-knowing and super-down-to-earth Jónas Viðarsson who is also the main SAF21 person at Matís. I was to write the Faroese section of the before-mentioned report and had seen drafts of the report prior to arriving in Iceland so I had some ideas as to which direction to take it. I discussed the report with Jónas and Ragnhildur Friðriksdóttir, who also worked on the report, and got great feedback from them. It made writing the report a breeze.
Fieldwork
But you don’t go to Iceland to sit in an office all day (although the view was great). I teamed up with the Icelandic SAF21 team members, Cezara Pastrav and Kris Edvardsson, and planned a field trip to the Snæfellsnes peninsula, which is a few hours driving distance from Reykjavík.
Jónas used his extensive network and arranged for appointments with two fish processing plants, a fish auction, and a municipal representative in Snæfellsnes. We learned about the simple challenges of living outside the capital, e.g. how some small places don’t have stable internet; we learned how fish auctions work; we learned how a big processing plant operates and its importance for the well-being of the community.
The SAF21 team dressed to impress at Sjávariðjan. Photo: Rannvá Danielsen
For me, the highlight of the day was seeing the inside of a highly advanced, small-scale processing plant in Rif. Sjávariðjan is a family-owned business composed of a small-scale processing plant and two coastal vessels, which provides the plant with cod, the only fish they process.
Sjávariðjan is the definition of a smooth operation. The vessels go out at the crack of dawn so the plant is filled with freshly caught fish every morning. The exact order of what happens next is unclear to me but at some point the fillet goes through a machine that has an x-ray machine and a water laser. By x-raying the fish, the machine determines where the bones are located and the water laser then removes the bones – and only the bones! This means very little of the fish is wasted and allows the plant to utilise almost 100% of the resource that comes in. At the end of the day, the fish is loaded on to a truck, driven to the airport and 12 hours after it is caught, the fish is sold in supermarkets in continental Europe. How amazing is that?
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
Networking & northern lights
By Rannva Danielsen
One of the many benefits of being part of a European training network is that we get to go on secondments. For those not familiar with EU jargon, a secondment is basically the same as a work placement. I am doing my PhD with Syntesa, a private company in the Faroe Islands, so for my first secondment I wanted to experience being a PhD student in an academic environment. The Arctic University of Norway, also called UiT, is part of the SAF21 network, does excellent research on fisheries and a few colleagues from SAF21 are also based there so choosing UiT was easy.
UiT’s College of Fishery Science is based in Tromsø, which is known for one thing: the northern lights. Tourists flock here and I see why. Not only do the Auroras regularly dance across the starry sky but the landscape is some of the most beautiful I have seen. I arrived in Tromsø on a dark Sunday evening in January, and I couldn’t quite believe my luck when I saw the breath taking view from my temporary bedroom window.
Naturally, I did not travel all the way to northern Norway for the northern lights, the views, or to have a go at being a ‘regular’ PhD student for a few weeks. I wanted to take courses, which I am unable to do in the Faroe Islands. More specifically I wanted to take statistics. I have somehow managed to get through five years of university without statistics and now it was time.
Brie, a beautiful husky I met in Tromsø.
The introductory course in statistics was specifically for PhD students and it was chock-full, so I wasn’t the only who managed to avoid statistics for so long. I had taught myself a bit of statistics before the course and read the course book, and after a few days I concluded that statistics isn’t as difficult as popular culture will have you believe. I actually found it quite fun because it allowed me to do a lot of new things, and now, a few months later, I have been able to use the knowledge I gained in Tromsø and perform statistical analyses. That was my main objective with a secondment at UiT.
Of course, I gained a lot more than that from my time in Tromsø. I took other courses too, e.g. in communicating science. I made new friends and new memories. I went bowling with UiT’s PhD student organisation and drank coffee with the other PhDs at 10 every morning. I saw resting humpback whales in the bay. I experienced the wonder of the first sunrise after months of hiding under the horizon. I went downhill skiing. I tried cross-country skiing to work but failed and ended up taking the bus, skis in hand (skiing is second nature to Norwegians and they found it hilarious when I recounted my morning’s adventure to them). I saw a reindeer race, petted huskies and tried (more successfully) to steer a dogsled. I even ate their famous oven pizza and cream cheese, and learned to accept that beer costs a fortune. I basically had a good go at being Norwegian (minus the sweaters, they are prohibitively expensive).
In hindsight, the most important thing I took home is a considerably bigger network. This fact only dawned on me a few weeks ago when I found myself at dinner with about 30 scientists in connection with the ICES ASC conference. I looked around and realised that a lot of the people around the table I had met in Tromsø or through people in Tromsø. That is because during my time at UiT, I had the opportunity to informally discuss my research with scientists who work in the same field as me, and now I know that if I ever need their advice or have ideas for collaborative projects, I can just pop them an email. You can’t quantify the value of that (but if you know a study, do send it my way). To me, the whole point of the ‘European Project’ and H2020 is to connect people from different countries and build bridges between nations, and in that sense my secondment at UiT couldn’t have been more successful.
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
Fisherwomen: Do we really consider the complex and varied role women play in fisheries?
By Lia Ni Aodha
Women play a complex and varied role in fisheries. All over the world many women rely on fisheries for their livelihoods. Alongside this, many fisheries around the world rely on the roles of women for their survival. Given this, all policies in relation to fisheries concern, and impact women.
But do we really consider these roles? And do we REALLY consider the gendered implications of fisheries policies?
The FAO estimates that globally over 50% of the total fisheries workforce is comprised of women. But I’m not going to list you any more figures. They just wouldn’t be accurate. Still today, the data we have in relation to women in fisheries is poor (to say the least). In some countries fisheries employment remains aggregated with agriculture. In most countries fisheries employment is not gender disaggregated – particularly, in capture fisheries. I’m not sure if there is any country that collects data on women’s more indirect contributions to fisheries.
Why is this?
All over the world women are active in all aspects of fisheries, and along the entire spectrum of the fish value chain. They are directly involved in fishing, harvesting, capturing, farming, processing, selling, and management. They also make up the vast majority of consumers.
Along with these direct roles, women also contribute in many more indirect, or unseen ways to sustaining fisheries all over the world – particularly smaller scale operations. Indeed, there’s little doubt that many small and medium scale fishing operations wouldn’t succeed without a woman who is responsible for book keeping, paying wages, buying food for the boat, helping to mend nets, picking up spare parts, finding crews, bailing out the boat, keeping the house running, rearing children (and having them), and often working outside the home also. More generally, we know that in most/almost all countries women spend an additional 1-4 hours per day, in comparison with males, on household ‘duties’ – when you consider all of the other roles I have just listed I would suggest that for the wife/partner of a fisherman this is much more.
Mending nets (Source CETMAR, gracias Ixai)
Given these complex roles, of course fisheries management policies directly (and indirectly) impact on women. Strategies that aim at the economic rationalisation of fleets, or lead to a loss of place based fishing impact on women. Agreements, and ventures that divert local fish supplies to alternative or export markets impact on women, and in developing countries certainly, on household food security also.
In Iceland the introduction of the ITQ system and the resulting shift of quota away from rural communities, has led to a direct loss of women’s livelihoods, to increased economic insecurity at the household level, and to husbands and partners being away at sea for much longer. Indeed, policies such as these, often leaving wives or partners, and entire families at home, in one way or another, and in some cases for weeks at a time (which I suspect is no joke if you have a young family) – certainly have gendered implications. ITQ’S and Iceland is just one example – I could have used Denmark, or any country in the EU, and any policy that seeks the same objective, to highlight the gendered implications that policies aimed at the economic rationalisation of fleets can have.
In developing countries the gendered impacts of fisheries policies can be altogether more complex. In Senegal, the activities of foreign fleets in operation along the West African coast, alongside foreign processing plants within the country, has resulted in diverting the supply of fish (physically, and through increased prices), from artisanal fish processors (predominantly women), with a knock on effect on the livelihoods of these women, and subsequently on their families. Often these activities are grounded in previous colonial ties, existing trade structures and so on. I could insert many West African countries in that sentence instead of Senegal, and the reality would be broadly similar.
While their roles are complex and varied, and they face both the very general challenges that go with a life at sea, alongside an array of specifically gendered challenges – arising from their ‘gendered space’ – women in fisheries have also shown themselves to be very adaptable. (Who can survive in fishing if they’re not adaptable?). In response to policy shifts (among other factors), their roles are evolving. For some women this has meant becoming boat or quota owners, for others becoming innovators, and for others still becoming more politically active.
Despite this, unfortunately, it seems that women and their needs are still fairly marginalised in fisheries (as elsewhere). The reality is that it remains that case today, as it seems to have for most of the past decades, in spite of the multitude of roles they undertake, and the essential contribution to the functioning of a fishery they make, that the roles of women within this industry, are still not adequately considered, and in capture fisheries specifically, women remain, in many respects, especially unseen. Furthermore, despite the very real implications that fisheries policies have for women, I’m not sure if they are adequately considered by policy makers, or by researchers of fisheries policy generally. (Speaking less generally there has been some really good, targeted research done on the roles of women in fisheries, and their challenges).
Indeed, some of the biggest pieces of fisheries legislation, until recently, failed to mention women at all – for example the 1995 Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries. Fortunately, this is getting better and The Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small Scale fisheries, and The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure explicitly lay out commitments to gender equality.
Turning to the European context specifically, and considering the main body of the CFP – there is no such explicit commitment made. In this context we have to consider not only women in European fisheries, but also the women involved in fisheries in many developing countries, with whom the EU signs third part agreements with, as part of the external dimension of the CFP, and from where a sizeable proportion of the fish that we here in Europe eat comes from (and which I have touched on above).
Recently, I had a colleague (thanks Shaheen!) run some basic text analytics for me on the legal documents pertaining to the most recent CFP. I also had him run the same analysis on the 2012 Commission’s Green Paper on the Reform of the CFP, along with the protocols pertaining to two fairly recently agreed Fisheries Partnership Agreements signed with developing countries, in one of the poorest regions of the world – Mauritania and Senegal, in West Africa. We searched these legal documents for the terms ‘gender’, women’ and ‘woman’. Each of the documents yielded 0 results for these keywords – they do not come up once. Of course, this is not simply an issue at the EU level, we also searched Ireland’s Response to the Commission’s Green paper and got the same results (Figure 1).
Figure 1: (Absence of) Women in CFP documents
While women and gender are included in the documents pertaining to the EFF, and EMFF (women: 32, gender: 34), it is still baffling that there is no mention in the primary document that dictates how European fisheries are managed. Sure, maybe now we are mainstreaming gender through all European policies – but I still feel, that given the particular challenges faced by women, and that have been highlighted time and again to policy makers, that it’s a bit mad that women are not explicitly mentioned in the CFP document.
And, of course, this isn’t just a policy issue. This trend is also visible in academic publications (Figure 2). As I said earlier – there has been some really good, and fairly solid work done on women in fisheries within academia. However, in total, this work is still fairly marginal.
Figure 2: Key Word Search in Science Direct
Quickly searching Science Direct using the search terms: ‘marine policy’, ‘fisheries’, ‘fisheries management’, and ‘fisheries policy’ returns 133,932 results. Analysing the text of the first twenty of these hits shows that gender/women only comes up in three of them. If I further include the term ‘gender’ in my search, the returns diminish to 7307 texts, or instead the term women – 4134 results. When I change this to man the figure jumps again to 27627 results. (Yes. I am aware – not very scientific, but still it is telling).
Why, so often, are words like invisible, discounted and ignored still highlighted/applicable in relation to the roles of women within fisheries?
I suppose, fairly generally (and as has been stated by a couple of authors on this blog), we don’t seem to prioritise the social aspects of fisheries – the focus is very much on the biological and economic aspects of this activity (sigh)!
Certainly, part of is it grounded in the fact that, despite all of these roles – we tend to take a rather dichotomous view of fishing activities, and then fail to also consider the relatedness of this activity, and all of its components. Very often the role of fisherMAN is seen as just that – a role played by a man, in isolation. Which doesn’t really make sense does it?
Aside from the very real fact that women in many places do fish – go look in Galicia at the women who carry out the backbreaking work of harvesting shellfish from the shore, or go out to sea on their own boats, or go to Iceland, and meet the women that work on boats there – even on huge factory trawlers (these are just two examples I could go on) – the reality is that the non-economic roles that enable a boat to go to sea, and other aspects of the value chain are fairly crucial aspects of fisheries, and both certainly required to having fish land on your plate. And yes, many women are concentrated in these spaces. They are still very much involved in fisheries!
A further contributing factor arises from the fact that many of the non-economic roles that are essential to the operation of a fishery are carried out by women. Unfortunately, we live in a society where non-economic roles count for little – they are neither recognised nor valued.
Further still, maybe their concentration in smaller scale operations is where the problem lies? A lot of women are positioned in a subsector that very often the policies we follow seem to discount or ignore. In this respect, you could argue that women (yes, still today) are a group suffering from a fairly poor ‘power positioning’, and further many of them are concentrated in a subsector that itself suffers from a poor ‘power positioning’.
In reality, and in the very least, it is a culmination of all of the above. However, discounting the roles of women is probably not the best way to 1. Achieving gender equality 2. Meeting any real sustainability goals in relation to fisheries, food security and so on.
But then again, and in the words of somebody else entirely – maybe ‘…there’s an agenda here lads.’
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
Who am I? Confessions of an interdisciplinary researcher
By Rannva Danielsen
Nothing beats a good conference. A good conference will inspire your research, pose questions you hadn’t thought of before, and, if you’re still a young scientist, teach you a few things. It’s amazing and I love conferences.
The ICES Annual Science Conference 2016 is one of my favourite conferences and of course did all of the above things for me. But then there’s the networking and this part I don’t love so much. Some people find it easy and fun. I’m not one of those people and a big conference like the ASC therefore becomes a bit of a challenge for me. The massive amount of people is one thing. The other thing is that the ICES community is quite a close knit community. It feels like everyone has known each other forever, and here I am, only one year into my PhD, and I don’t feel part of this community. Not only because I’m a young scientist but also because I’m not a biologist. I was an imposter at a biology conference, or at least that’s how I felt.
The thing is, I don’t know what I am. I have a BA in Journalism and a MS in Environment and Natural Resources with a specialty in economics. I get looks when I explain this to people (scientists and laymen alike) and I understand why. Even to me this is a weird combination and all I have to say about it is that life happens and interests change. But being surrounded by so many people who firmly identify as biologists and who are curious about “what I am” sparked a full-blown identity crisis for me because I don’t know what I am. That’s something I did not expect to take home from the ASC.
This particular identity crisis (I may or may not have had a few in the last year) started during a round of introductions after we had been put into groups for game night at the ASC. For most people introducing themselves is an easy task but not so much for me, for reasons which should be clear to you by now, dear reader. I stumbled a bit and said something like “it’s complicated”, as if I am a relationship status on Facebook, and confessed that I didn’t know what to call myself because I’m a bit of everything. “Well, that was pathetic, Rannvá,” I said to myself when I was done rambling.
And then it happened. It was just a single comment. Someone in the group (who I know but shall remain anonymous) turned to me and said: “Commit,” in a I’m-giving-you-solid-advice-right-now voice. And this person is totally right. I do need to commit to a title and for a lot of different reasons but most importantly, I think it will make my thesis work more focused if I know what I plan to call myself when I am done, even if I still identify as interdisciplinary.
At the same time, interdisciplinary is the future, as my wise boss Ólavur Gregersen once told me, and I think he is right. I recently had a discussion with my fellow SAFer Charlotte Weber about what we want to do after we have completed our PhDs. The seniors in SAF21 keep telling us it is important that we know, and for this purpose, we had both been looking at job adverts to see which skills are in demand. And guess what? Interdisciplinary doesn’t even begin to cover it. You basically need to be an octopus with an area of expertise attached to each arm and the ability to blend in to any environment you’re thrown into!
So yes, perhaps I do need to commit – “Hi, I’m Rannvá, I’m an environmental economist” (just trying it on for size) – but at the same time, I am interdisciplinary and that’s pretty cool.
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
A little trip to Manchester
By Kristinn Edvardsson
Having started my journey into ABM at the wrong end so to speak, I felt it was time for me to start learning ABM like a normal person, at the beginning.
I registered for a beginners course on ABM in Brescia Italy that was held between the 20th and 24th of June. My network was meeting at the Manchester Metropolitan University between the 5th and 10th of the same month. Between the two events I had a one-week gap which I thought to myself would be good to fill with a mini secondment at the Centre of Policy modelling at MMU and learn about ABM from the experts there. It seems to be a pattern for me not be able to follow the guidelines: I either do an extended secondment or a mini secondment. I have heard jokes about how Icelanders consider rules more as general suggestions, perhaps there is some truth to that.
On the one hand, as a beginner at ABM, there is hardly a better place to start learning the trade than the Centre for Policy Modelling in the hands of Bruce Edmonds and Ruth Meyer. On the other hand, it can be quite intimidating when you realise just how little it is that you actually know about the subject. This fear of my inadequacies subsided really fast because I was surrounded by my fellow students who are at various stages in their work and really helpful.
Having already laid down the foundations for mine and Cezara´s ABM, which has had many working titles ranging from thefairy fish project to theIcelandic costal community model, we were glad to be getting some professional feedback. Bruce arranged for a discussion session where we presented our work to his team, and then discussions followed. Our plan is quite grandiose (or so I believed at first) as we are attempting to model the fishing industry of a whole country. Don´t worry, dear reader, it is a very small country of 320.000 souls, give or take, that looks bigger than it actually is (depending on the map projections of course). The fear I had was that this would be impossible, but still I pushed on because I liked the idea and put faith in Cezara´s endless confidence in the idea, and now I felt judgement was upon us. The modelling experts were not disturbed in the slightest and showed little negative (as I expected) or positive (as I had hoped for) emotions. I fact they seemed to think this would quite doable and the only thing they commented on in passing was that this might require more time than we were planning for.
Puzzled by this open mindedness and general optimism on behalf of our supervisors and peers, I was glad to have the Curry mile close at hand to provide some comfort in the form of exotic food. The Curry mile is an interesting little street in Manchester where a concentration of mainly middle eastern and Indian restaurants coupled with others from every corner of the globe offer their cuisines to the weary modeller. However, the Curry mile pales in significance to an old Irish family recipe that our lovely fellow student Lia Aodha cooked for us at the end of our stay, Thank you Lia!
I think I am missing Manchester already.
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
An unholy alliance
By Kristinn Edvardsson
Being a first year PhD student can be quite confusing, especially when you are hired into a project such as SAF21. While I was taking my first unsure steps in this project I kind of knew what I wanted to do but I still felt something was missing. My aim was to use Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to analyse the fisheries of Iceland, which was all well and good, but I was getting interested in this agent-based modelling everyone was going on about. Luckily for me (or so I thought) one of our partner institutions here in Iceland, MATÍS, hired an ABM expert named Cezara Pastrav who apparently loved ABM. In my naivety I thought it would be a grand idea to do a secondment at MATÍS and try to see what all this ABM was about, and perhaps I might include a small ABM in my work. After all, ABM is on the rise within the discipline of GIS.
I was received well at MATÍS courtesy of Sigríður Sigurðardóttir (who has changed jobs since then) and Jónas Viðarsson. I cannot go on without giving thanks to the cooks at MATÍS, who are probably partially responsible for what is to follow by keeping our energy levels up with wonderful food.
As it turned out I had a wonderful dataset on Iceland and its fisheries that could be used as a basis for an agent based model. Cezara had a thing called Unity (which I thought was Ubuntu´s graphical user interface) and undying confidence and a vision to do something spectacular. I got more confident since I consider myself an Ubuntu expert and suggested “why not model the whole Icelandic fishing industry?” Cezara´s mind, already three steps ahead of me said “yes! and turn it into a computer game while we are at it!”. I agreed, at the time thinking of something basic looking like most agent-based models are, something like an old eighties computer game.
Then it dawned on me that Cezara wanted to implement the ABM in a 3D gaming engine called Unity (not to be confused with Ubuntu except that it also runs on Ubuntu) and set it up more as a computer game. Already confident, I loved the Idea of making an ABM that would be nice to look at and said “yes” enthusiastically. It quickly dawned on me that I was in for a ride, a crash course in model design, C# programing, UML, and database design to name a few. None of these things where unfamiliar to me as I have had a brush with them through my GIS work, but the level of sophistication needed for this project would challenge most GIS experts to the breaking point.
What had initially been intended as a few weeks of learning about ABM ended up being six months of design sessions, programing, presentations and general fun on the job (even the bitter arguments were fun) with no end in sight. During this extended few weeks sessions we managed to create an ABM model of the Icelandic fishing industry that should work in theory, and need a lot more work in practice, but we proved to ourselves, and others, that it is doable.
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
When in doubt, do a secondment
By Cezara Pastrav
Back in spring I was looking at my event schedule for the next half a year, discovering that I had a SAF21 training camp/workshop in Manchester and a conference in Toulouse a month apart, and feeling the bitter miserly part of me squirm at the thought of how much it´s going to cost to fly from Iceland to the continent twice in four weeks. Such a deplorable use of financial resources, really. And when you´ve spent years in computer science and work on a project about the conservation and better use of finite resources, suboptimal situations like this are like an itch you can´t quite scratch.
Sometimes you wait them out.
Other times you end up doing two secondments back to back.
Manchester
I am one of the few ESRs in this project whose main concern is agent-based modeling, so it was natural to do a secondment at the Manchester Metropolitan University because this is where Bruce Edmonds is.
At that point I had been working on a number of versions of the same model of the Icelandic coastal communities for a couple of months and had implemented about 10% of any of them. I like agent models of social systems, I really do. The field is old enough to be rich in examples you can draw on, and there are a few guidelines to help you build a model of your own, but young enough (and dealing with systems complex enough) for the stranglehold of established methodologies to be blissfully absent. Working is this field makes me feel very much like a kid left unsupervised in the candy store.
But there is such a thing as too much candy. There were so many models I could build I was starting to lose track of what I was actually trying to achieve. It was high time for me to find my way back to a more productive frame of mind, and I was hoping Bruce would give me some insights, advice or a really stern talking to – whatever works on wayward modelers, I´m not picky. Bruce did something far far more painful: he gave me one week to sort through the hairball of model parts, half formed questions, disconnected knowledge bits and hazy goals my research was turning into, and give a presentation on what I was doing and wanted to achieve during the PhD.
Kristinn, demonstrating his uncanny ability to remain calm while confronted with a model that does not yet make sense, a talent I completely lack, and do not understand.
Here´s some advice for when you´re stuck in your research: go to someone you find intimidating to the point where every time they talk to you your brain gives the „abandon ship“ signal and you find yourself staring at them while trying to remember which part of your face words are supposed to come out of. Then explain to them what you´re doing and why you´re stuck. I managed to get most of my ideas sorted out during that week, with the help of Kristinn Edvardsson – who is my collaborator on the model, and had joined me for a week-long secondment of his own. We spent the week haunting the university classrooms, scribbling on whiteboards, drafting and redrafting the models over and over until they made sense. Well, mostly.
When I wasn´t busy drawing whole mazes of diagrams or secretly wondering whether it was too late to consider a career as a goat herder, I spent time with the other ESRs. I talked to Luz about her work on data visualization, and to Lia about the model she´s building, and to Shaheen about his text mining. We went out and had excellent food and drinks and discussed the upcoming Brexit. After the results were announced, we discussed building a bunker in Iceland in case Trump gets elected president too and the world really goes down in flames.
Then I said my goodbyes and boarded a plane to the Netherlands.
Utrecht
There is a reason I chose to split my time between Manchester and Utrecht instead of spending a month at either of them. My supervisor, Frank Dignum, is at Utrecht University, so Utrecht should have been priority number one. However, I spent a year and a half in the Netherlands before going to Iceland and learned one very important lesson: you don´t go the Dutch without a plan, not if you want to keep imagining you can do better than a goat herder in this life. So I stopped in Manchester first, and then went to Utrecht confident I could make the most of my time there.
Which turned out to mean learning exactly how much my knowledge and understanding of normative agent models approached zero. Frank met with me so we could talk in person, as opposed to Skype and emails. I used this time to pester him with rapid fire questions about normative models, and he used it to paint a vivid picture of how much I would need to learn before I could develop one of my own. To this day I go over his style of explaining things trying to figure out what sort of sorcery allowed him to utterly demolish my idea about how much I thought I knew (along with some ideas I had that never saw the light of day as a result) without putting a dent in my confidence that I am nevertheless capable enough to build a model worth something. I must learn how to do it myself one day. Right after I learn how to properly model norms.
Me, fitting in in the Netherlands.
Samaneh, Frank´s other ESR who´s also hosted at Utrecht, was present for most of the talks, and was the one to point out after one of the meetings that wow, I ask a lot of questions. I was hit by the sudden realization that while Frank and Samaneh were going about their day with unflappable calm and the precision of a well-oiled mechanism, I was going about it with the composure of a rat on cocaine, one coffee cup away from actually twitching in my seat. I tried to tone it down in public so I´d fit in better with the place, but behind the closed door of my office, talking to Samaneh about how norms resemble RPG structure, and how to combine our models into something grander, and how to set up a participatory modelling stage in Iceland, the rat got to run free. Luckily for me, under all that calm, Samaneh is a lot more enthusiastic and excitable than you´d think so we got along pretty well.
I also used the time in Utrecht to run away to Brussels for a weekend and meet my father and some friends, and remind myself that I used to have a life outside my PhD. A Belgian waffle and some conversation that is about anything other than ongoing and future research go a long way towards restoring someone´s morale.
At the end of two weeks I said my goodbyes and boarded a plane to France (I suspect a lot of my stories will end like this by the time I´m done with this project), and thus ended my two summer secondments. I´ll probably do a couple more in a few months.
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
My secondment in Tromsø, the forge of a project
By Ixai Salvo Borda
7 months and 6 days, meaning that 219 days has passed since my plane landed in Tromsø. Too many days since the snow mesh up my beard and the cold wind welcomes me with a hug. A long time has passed since I landed for my 5 weeks secondment in the Arctic University of Norway (UiT).
University of Tromsø in January Morning (12/01/16 at 9 am)
Now, in the hot Spanish summer, looking the palm trees through my window, memories came back. The snow on my feet, the dark “daytime”, the northern lights over the University….
The University! I do not want to give the impression that my secondment was just a lovely travel, although is always a pleasure to travel up far north and enjoy the snow. Really, it was a busy period where 3 professors, Svein Jentoft, Janh Petter Johnsen and Peter Holm, worked hard with me to set up what is going to be my first article (soon to be finished).
It was during this time (3 weeks) of storms and ice when inside the forge of knowledge (a.k.a. The University) those 3 brilliant minds challenged my ideas and with patience and wisdom molded my young and crazy thoughts into suitable projects and results. Those intellectual fights challenge all my knowledge on fisheries governance and sharpen my view of the world.
Clever PhD’s create evil but ethical snowman after Philosophy course
After those 3 weeks of creation, I stayed 2 weeks more to attend the Philosophy and Ethics in Science (BIO-8603) course that the Arctic University of Norway prepares for PhD students. This course sinks into the souls of the students and brings up the values and the hidden ideas to confront them with the empirical science, the great philosophical theories, and the daily ethical problems. It allows evaluating the values of science in a multidisciplinary environment.
In addition to this course, all the ESR’s of SAF21 attended the Training Camp 2 of the program, but that, as another story it has to be told in the proper time and in the proper way.
But, not everything was knowledge fights, hard work and mind challenges. During this time I had also the chance to re-connect with a city, friends, and landscapes that I love. I also had time to spent and know better the ones that are my travel companions in the SAF-21 group and I even had time to participate in “Aurora hunting” (this is, Northern lights watching).
Coming back to the present, it can be said that it was a very productive time with lots of fun between a structured, organized and well programmed successful work.
Will I ever go back to Tromsø? Who knows, the world is big, life no so long, many places to visit, but the Paris of the Arctic has always something that attracts crazy fishermen like me.
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
Hilborn and the Fishing myths
By Ixai Salvo Borda,
Ray Hilborn, one of the most important fisheries researchers, biologist, and professor at the University of Washington, considers that we have to change our scope of fisheries resources and consider them as a source of food for human welfare. He defends a sustainable management of the fishing activities instead of the simplistic modern fishing bands, which do not make sense and do not take into account, for example, the impact that the lack of fish in the human diet will have to the environment. About fishing bands, Hilborn states that erasing fish from human diet will force to increase the production of other protein sources, as stockbreeding, which environmental impact is even bigger due to the emission of greenhouse effect gases. In addition, Hilborn defends that the sustainable management of fisheries could increase the relative biomass (amount of fish in the ocean) by 619 million Tons. This will allow increasing the fisheries catches by 16 million tons, meaning a protein supply for 500 million humans.
Hilborn based his study on the analysis of 4500 fisheries around the world. The analysis is based on the application of bio-economic models and proves that the productivity and health of the oceans are compatible. According to Hilborn “Most part of the bigger fisheries of the world have a quite good performance, but it is urgent to change quite a lot of local fisheries, mostly in developing countries, where millions of people does not only use fisheries as a food source, but as a way of living”. Hilborn takes down 4 of the biggest myths on fisheries science. First and second, he considers absurd to state that fish stocks are reducing on a global scale and that most parts of fisheries are managed in an unsustainable way. He considers that it is not possible to make so generalist arguments due to the differences between oceans, fisheries, stocks and species in the world. This differences force to address each system differently with different and defined management tools based on scientific knowledge. In the other side, the non-sustainability of nowadays fisheries management is also a myth, and a dangerous one, as it questions the important work done in most part of developed countries and that is precisely based on the sustainability. This third myth also includes the idea that fisheries activities are destroying the environment. According to Hilborn “fisheries activity changes the environment, but normally, does not reduce productivity”. Finally, on the fourth myth, the one where the best way to protect the oceans is to prohibit fisheries, Hilborn considers that “with the application of efficient management systems, stocks will continue stable or will increase”.
In addition, Hilborn says that the lack of scientific data arises problems as the ones in the Mediterranean, the Northeast coast of Africa or the South and East Asia, where stocks do not have any representation in the evaluations. Precisely those areas are the ones where overfishing is more common, mostly because of the lack of effective management plans. In the other side of the spectrum, The United States of America, Iceland, Norway and New Zealand, that for a long time have had a strong strategy in terms of policies and on the establishment of measures based on scientific advice, present good environmental results. In Europe, the progressive recovery that the Atlantic stocks are suffering shows the efficiency of the approach.
Finally, Hilborn defends that the localization and freezing of fishing effects, the vulnerable marine ecosystem area closures and the establishment of encounter protocols have being proved as efficient measures for conservation of stocks. Hilborn also encourages the need of finding an equilibrium on fisheries management against those organizations that encourage the prohibition of some fishing gears. Precisely, he argues that trawling is not as harmful as these organization defend. He says that trawling, nowadays, in the areas where is practiced, has a minimum effect and in some cases, even helps to regenerate the system and increase primary production.
The ideas that Hilborn presents can be strongly argued or defended. Biologically the removal effect that fisheries have in the environment, when fishing is an “environmentally sustainable activity”, help to maintain a constant renewal rate and in some cases. This mostly happens in the traditional fisheries where fishing is based on the upper levels of the trophic chain. This kind of fishery, help to increase primary production by the removal of predator species. However, the current fisheries state, where major stocks are overfished, has forced to fish down the trophic chain with disastrous effects in the environments. It is also true, as Hilborn states, which most part of this situations happens more often in development countries where the fishing effort control management plans are, in the best case, introduced but not enforced among stakeholders. Socially speaking, those societies where Hilborn locates the negative management balances, are mostly based on survival, artisanal fisheries models. In this societies, big management plans are more difficult to enforce and there is a big lack of scientific data. However, efforts are being done to include stakeholder’s knowledge to reduce this lack.
Personally, Hilborn ideas present some bias regarding the societal characteristics of the “bad places”. First, those places are mostly undeveloped or developing fishing communities where the introduction of any kind of management effort have a bigger effect on the society. Fisheries are not one industrial activity more of the society. Instead, they can suppose the difference between survival and extinction. The introduction of management plans, based on “occidental” ideas can unbalance the system with traumatic effects. Secondly, Hilborn considers the lack of research data as one of the big issues to solve. Easy to say when the northern hemisphere is mostly based on generalist fisheries with a strong scientific backup behind. The “negative” places of Hilborn, by contrast, are mostly small communities with small resources that cannot contemplate the idea of not fishing. In addition, the influence and extension of big industrial fishing fleets has endangered even more this communities. In terms of research, this “developing” countries that Hilborn mention, sometimes has to fight big economic interest coming from fisheries companies (normally from third “developed” countries) that try to control the research.
In conclusion, it can be said that Hilborn has taken a risky but well-planned road that could improve world fisheries state. However, he tends to forget the small populations of the world. His view is quite conditioned by his background and that’s why he tends to see fisheries as a worldwide ecological system, biologically understandable, forgetting that, as most part of this things in the world, resources are not just quantities or numbers of biomass. Resources involve communities, people and in this unfair world, the “not developed” ones are always the ones with the smallest part of the cake.
Refrences:
- Hilborn, Ray. (2016). “Why Do We Keep Hearing Global Fisheries Are Collapsing? “Earth
- Hilborn, R. (2016). Correlation and Causation in Fisheries and Watershed Management. Fisheries, 41(1), 18-25.
- Kenchington, T. J. (2016). Implications of fish migration and fishing mortality for marine protected area design. Fish and Fisheries.
- Roeger, J., Foale, S., & Sheaves, M. (2016). When ‘fishing down the food chain ‘results in improved food security: Evidence from a small pelagic fishery in Solomon Islands. Fisheries Research, 174, 250-259.
- Fisheries, F. A. O. Aquaculture Department (2015) The state of world fisheries and aquaculture 2014. Food and agriculture organization of the United Nations, Rome.
- Lee, K. J., Scott, D., Floyd, M. F., & Edwards, M. B. (2016). Social Stratification in Fishing Participation in the United States: A Multiple Hierarchy Stratification Perspective. Journal of Leisure Research, 48(3), 245.
- Christensen, V., Steenbeek, J., & Failler, P. (2011). A combined ecosystem and value chain modeling approach for evaluating societal cost and benefit of fishing. Ecological Modelling, 222(3), 857-864.
- McClanahan, T. R., & Mangi, S. C. (2004). Gear‐based management of a tropical artisanal fishery based on species selectivity and capture size.Fisheries Management and Ecology, 11(1), 51-60.
- Hilborn, Ray. (2016). “Why Do We Keep Hearing Global Fisheries Are Collapsing? “Earth
- Hilborn, R. (2016). Correlation and Causation in Fisheries and Watershed Management. Fisheries, 41(1), 18-25.
- Kenchington, T. J. (2016). Implications of fish migration and fishing mortality for marine protected area design. Fish and Fisheries.
- Roeger, J., Foale, S., & Sheaves, M. (2016). When ‘fishing down the food chain ‘results in improved food security: Evidence from a small pelagic fishery in Solomon Islands. Fisheries Research, 174, 250-259.
- Fisheries, F. A. O. Aquaculture Department (2015) The state of world fisheries and aquaculture 2014. Food and agriculture organization of the United Nations, Rome.
- Lee, K. J., Scott, D., Floyd, M. F., & Edwards, M. B. (2016). Social Stratification in Fishing Participation in the United States: A Multiple Hierarchy Stratification Perspective. Journal of Leisure Research, 48(3), 245.
- Christensen, V., Steenbeek, J., & Failler, P. (2011). A combined ecosystem and value chain modeling approach for evaluating societal cost and benefit of fishing. Ecological Modelling, 222(3), 857-864.
- McClanahan, T. R., & Mangi, S. C. (2004). Gear‐based management of a tropical artisanal fishery based on species selectivity and capture size.Fisheries Management and Ecology, 11(1), 51-60.
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
- Hilborn, Ray. (2016). “Why Do We Keep Hearing Global Fisheries Are Collapsing? “Earth
- Hilborn, R. (2016). Correlation and Causation in Fisheries and Watershed Management. Fisheries, 41(1), 18-25.
- Kenchington, T. J. (2016). Implications of fish migration and fishing mortality for marine protected area design. Fish and Fisheries.
- Roeger, J., Foale, S., & Sheaves, M. (2016). When ‘fishing down the food chain ‘results in improved food security: Evidence from a small pelagic fishery in Solomon Islands. Fisheries Research, 174, 250-259.
- Fisheries, F. A. O. Aquaculture Department (2015) The state of world fisheries and aquaculture 2014. Food and agriculture organization of the United Nations, Rome.
- Lee, K. J., Scott, D., Floyd, M. F., & Edwards, M. B. (2016). Social Stratification in Fishing Participation in the United States: A Multiple Hierarchy Stratification Perspective. Journal of Leisure Research, 48(3), 245.
- Christensen, V., Steenbeek, J., & Failler, P. (2011). A combined ecosystem and value chain modeling approach for evaluating societal cost and benefit of fishing. Ecological Modelling, 222(3), 857-864.
- McClanahan, T. R., & Mangi, S. C. (2004). Gear‐based management of a tropical artisanal fishery based on species selectivity and capture size.Fisheries Management and Ecology, 11(1), 51-60.
- Hilborn, Ray. (2016). “Why Do We Keep Hearing Global Fisheries Are Collapsing? “Earth
- Hilborn, R. (2016). Correlation and Causation in Fisheries and Watershed Management. Fisheries, 41(1), 18-25.
- Kenchington, T. J. (2016). Implications of fish migration and fishing mortality for marine protected area design. Fish and Fisheries.
- Roeger, J., Foale, S., & Sheaves, M. (2016). When ‘fishing down the food chain ‘results in improved food security: Evidence from a small pelagic fishery in Solomon Islands. Fisheries Research, 174, 250-259.
- Fisheries, F. A. O. Aquaculture Department (2015) The state of world fisheries and aquaculture 2014. Food and agriculture organization of the United Nations, Rome.
- Lee, K. J., Scott, D., Floyd, M. F., & Edwards, M. B. (2016). Social Stratification in Fishing Participation in the United States: A Multiple Hierarchy Stratification Perspective. Journal of Leisure Research, 48(3), 245.
- Christensen, V., Steenbeek, J., & Failler, P. (2011). A combined ecosystem and value chain modeling approach for evaluating societal cost and benefit of fishing. Ecological Modelling, 222(3), 857-864.
- McClanahan, T. R., & Mangi, S. C. (2004). Gear‐based management of a tropical artisanal fishery based on species selectivity and capture size.Fisheries Management and Ecology, 11(1), 51-60.
- Hilborn, Ray. (2016). “Why Do We Keep Hearing Global Fisheries Are Collapsing? “Earth
- Hilborn, R. (2016). Correlation and Causation in Fisheries and Watershed Management. Fisheries, 41(1), 18-25.
- Kenchington, T. J. (2016). Implications of fish migration and fishing mortality for marine protected area design. Fish and Fisheries.
- Roeger, J., Foale, S., & Sheaves, M. (2016). When ‘fishing down the food chain ‘results in improved food security: Evidence from a small pelagic fishery in Solomon Islands. Fisheries Research, 174, 250-259.
- Fisheries, F. A. O. Aquaculture Department (2015) The state of world fisheries and aquaculture 2014. Food and agriculture organization of the United Nations, Rome.
- Lee, K. J., Scott, D., Floyd, M. F., & Edwards, M. B. (2016). Social Stratification in Fishing Participation in the United States: A Multiple Hierarchy Stratification Perspective. Journal of Leisure Research, 48(3), 245.
- Christensen, V., Steenbeek, J., & Failler, P. (2011). A combined ecosystem and value chain modeling approach for evaluating societal cost and benefit of fishing. Ecological Modelling, 222(3), 857-864.
- McClanahan, T. R., & Mangi, S. C. (2004). Gear‐based management of a tropical artisanal fishery based on species selectivity and capture size.Fisheries Management and Ecology, 11(1), 51-60.
- Hilborn, Ray. (2016). “Why Do We Keep Hearing Global Fisheries Are Collapsing? “Earth
- Hilborn, R. (2016). Correlation and Causation in Fisheries and Watershed Management. Fisheries, 41(1), 18-25.
- Kenchington, T. J. (2016). Implications of fish migration and fishing mortality for marine protected area design. Fish and Fisheries.
- Roeger, J., Foale, S., & Sheaves, M. (2016). When ‘fishing down the food chain ‘results in improved food security: Evidence from a small pelagic fishery in Solomon Islands. Fisheries Research, 174, 250-259.
- Fisheries, F. A. O. Aquaculture Department (2015) The state of world fisheries and aquaculture 2014. Food and agriculture organization of the United Nations, Rome.
- Lee, K. J., Scott, D., Floyd, M. F., & Edwards, M. B. (2016). Social Stratification in Fishing Participation in the United States: A Multiple Hierarchy Stratification Perspective. Journal of Leisure Research, 48(3), 245.
- Christensen, V., Steenbeek, J., & Failler, P. (2011). A combined ecosystem and value chain modeling approach for evaluating societal cost and benefit of fishing. Ecological Modelling, 222(3), 857-864.
- McClanahan, T. R., & Mangi, S. C. (2004). Gear‐based management of a tropical artisanal fishery based on species selectivity and capture size.Fisheries Management and Ecology, 11(1), 51-60.
What a stupid question to ask!
By Charlotte Weber
Reflections on the ICES MSEAS Young Researchers Workshop in Brest, June 2016
This June I had the great pleasure to be accepted for presentation at the ICES MSEAS conference with the theme: “Understanding marine socio-ecological systems: including the human dimension in Integrated Ecosystem Assessments”. Apart from presenting my research I also attended the Young Researchers Workshop which was organized as part of the conference. This workshop was set up for early career scientists to be able to pose a question to senior scientists in a relaxed environment.
Charlotte presenting at the ICES MSEAS Young Researchers Workshop, with Jake Rice on the right, who was invited as one of the senior scientists.
The workshop had invited some of the “big guys” of fishery science, like Jake Rice and Doug Lipton, to engage in the discussions and to give advice to the youngsters. The organizers asked for alternative presentation methods and provided snacks and drinks during the sessions, which gave the event a laid-back feeling.
I decided to pose the question: “What is the human dimension for you?”
The human dimension seems to be very fashionable at the moment in fishery science. Everyone talks about it, ICES throws an entire conference about it and yet, the concept of the human dimension is neither defined nor very straight forward. So why is nobody asking what it is? People from very different disciplines and research fields all use this term. Yet, what do we all mean by it? Are we actually talking about the same thing?
However, when I asked what the human dimension was, I received some quite strong responses, especially from the older senior audience. A lot of the feedback I got through the open discussion was more critical about my question, rather than the lack of definition. I was told it was too big of a question to ask. The question was seen as too shallow, the problem too big. I was told to “get over it” and move on.
I admit, I was startled. These weren’t the responses I had hoped for. I didn’t expect an easy answer in the first place, but to just drop the question? That came as a surprise.
So how come my question upset the crowd like that? Did I hit a sore spot? Or was it just the question that was stupid? I was always told there is no such thing as a stupid question. Science lives from asking questions. So are there good and bad questions? Or are some questions just better than others? Maybe sometimes we are just a little afraid of ‘big’ questions?
Isn’t it a bit ironic, though, to attend a conference which is entirely themed around ‘the integration of the human dimension into ecosystem assessments’, but avoiding the discussion of what that human dimension really is? How can we talk about the integration of something if nobody knows what that something is exactly? Yes, one could argue that the term is quite broad and might mean different things to different disciplines and researchers. But nobody at the conference defined how they interpreted it.
As you might see, this workshop raised much more questions for me than it answered. Yet, I feel inspired, because it made me not only think about the concept of the human dimension a lot more, but also about science as a community with different ongoing discussions, mindsets, opinions and believes. There is so much more to science than just methodology, research and publications. There are some things you cannot read upon, you need to experience them to learn about them, and I am glad this conference workshop gave me exactly that.
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
Objectivity in social science research: There is no objectivity. Or is there?
By Lia Ni Aodha
Many of you will probably have read about the recent spat between Ray Hilborn and Greenpeace. Greenpeace has cried that Hilborn’s work suffers from a conflict of interest, given the fact, that he receives a portion of his research funding from within the fishing industry, and has (allegedly) failed to be upfront about this. For some background information, it is worth considering that Hilborn’s work has highlighted that the doom and gloom media portrayal of global fisheries collapse is not an altogether accurate representation of the status of fish stocks, in all places (in fact, some are doing quite well). Greenpeace, in contrast, fairly consistently argue that overfishing is, in all areas, universal and at catastrophic levels.
Funnily enough (or perhaps not so), the current stage of my research has caused me to spend a lot of time pondering the notion of objectivity. I’ve done this from the perspective of my philosophical assumptions surrounding the role of the researcher within the research, but also in relation, to the subject matter of my thesis. Obviously, there is not a direct parallel between Greenpeace’s charge against Hilborn (given Hilborn, as a biologist, is rooted firmly within the natural sciences, and as such (for some) in an altogether different conception of objectivity,than say that of a social scientist), and some of my own musings. However, this debate did get me thinking. It seems reasonable to pose the question: Can we any longer premise that scientists (or if you prefer researchers), working on the big issues our generation face, can remain truly objective?
Firstly, in direct relation to the Hilborn-Greenpeace argument, the reality is that more and more funding for research comes from a variety of sources – which can, for sure, hold a very particular agenda, and may have all sorts of implications for knowledge production. However, like it or not, ‘Curiosity driven, economically disinterested research is becoming the exception rather than the rule…’ (1). While this may be the case, this need not ensure that research is no longer conducted in a rigorous manner, this is down to the researcher themselves.
Reflecting on my own research, however, obviously the spectrum of approaches to research, and the role of the researcher within the research, is altogether more diverse within the social sciences. This scale can range from the role of detached observer to fully engaged participant, insider versus outsider, and feeds directly into debates surrounding objectivity, and (or versus!) subjectivity. Indeed, having carefully considered this role – I’m not sure I ascribe to the notion that a researcher, within social science research, can ever be totally outside the research. Nor, that they should be.
The reality is that given that the subject matter under investigation is the social, the researcher is immediately in some manner situated, and so I don’t believe that the position of detached outside observer is realistic. This is particularly the case today as people are focused on big issues, that by virtue of their humanity they have a clear stake in. Furthermore, a number of advantages have been highlighted in relation to one’s subjectivity (particularly, if it is not positioned on some extreme spectrum). Such can drive the entire research process, from the topic pursued, to the focus on the subjectivities of those participating in the research – in this way such an approach can illuminate perspectives that are otherwise not heard or ignored. Indeed, it has been argued that in the era of post-normal science, narratives with explicit values are crucial, alongside facts (2)
That is not to say that I am open to the notion of biased, non-rigorous research – however, I do believe that accepting the notion of one’s place within the research, is a crucial first step in ensuring the quality of the research can be maintained. Furthermore, as a number of authors have highlighted, thorough research design and intellectual discipline can go a long way to circumventing any pitfalls associated with such a position (3, 4).
This final point brings us back to the original subject matter – funding sources as a conflict of interest, and the suggestion that the researcher plays a central role in ensuring that this does not become so. It seems fairly sensible to suggest that the adoption of similar steps, as highlighted above, can circumvent any such traps which such might lay – regardless of whether we are talking about the social or the natural sciences.
(For the record, I don’t really see any conflict of interest in Hilborn’s work, arising from the fact that he receives partial funding from within the fishing industry. He also receives funding, as he has highlighted, from a fairly wide range of other groups, including an array of environmental groups. There are numerous groups who have an interest in our oceans – none less so, I would argue, than those who rely on her resources for their livelihoods. It would look altogether more biased if the funding for Hilborn’s work came from one specific interest alone).
(Full disclosure – SAF21, and as such my own research, is funded by the EU).
References:
- Funtowicz, S., & Strand, R. (2007). Models of science and policy. Biosafety first: Holistic approaches to risk and uncertainty in genetic engineering and genetically modified organisms, 263-278.
- Allen, T. H. F., A. Tainter, J. C. Pires, and T. W. Hoekstra (2001), Dragnet ecology—“Just the facts, ma’am”: The privilege of science in a postmodern world, BioScience, 51, 475–485.
- Merton, R. K. (1972). Insiders and outsiders: A chapter in the sociology of knowledge. American journal of sociology, 9-47.
- Ratner, C. (2002, September). Subjectivity and objectivity in qualitative methodology. In Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research (Vol. 3, No. 3).
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
May 21st, 2016
~~~~~~~~~
My Secondment at UiT (Arctic University of Norway)
By Shaheen Syed
Coming from a pure computer science background and having worked as a software developer in the industry for quite some time, I really wanted to gain some knowledge on fisheries. As my Ph.D. tries to blend computer science, and more specifically text analytics with fisheries, going to UiT was the logical choice. This was further fueled by my ongoing research on building semantic lexicons for the fisheries domain.
Having been in Tromso during the winter, the city looks totally different in the summer. I stayed in Tromso for almost 6 weeks ( 4 April – 15 May) and have enjoyed the city and the people to the fullest. I met some great people working at UiT, had a wonderful time with my fellow ESRs and learned a lot from everyone. I followed a course on computational linguistics, did a course on Ph.D. leadership skills, gave two workshops on how to create a WordPress site and how to code a scientific paper in Latex. I furthermore managed to write up my first paper on bootstrapping a semantic lexicon which is now submitted and under review.
There was room for fun times as well. After work drinks, quiz nights, BBQs, birthday parties, home parties, escape room, road trip, pool and much more. I really want to thank all the nice people I met in Tromso for a wonderful time.
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
~~~~~~~~~
You can do it – with a flip chart!
By Charlotte Weber
Ongoing fisheries research is happening right now in Tromsø: Here is a prime example of collaboration between people, projects, and disciplines!
Yesterday, Melania and I got together with John Pope, who is currently involved in the running EU project MareFrame. We had agreed to collaborate on a paper, which we will present at the upcoming ICES MSEAS conference in Brest in May, and after several Skype discussions, we managed finally to meet again face to face.
John Pope is a mathematician who specialized in fisheries models. I, on the other side, am a biologists and marine conservationist. Our third partner in crime, Melania, has a law degree but specialized in social sciences and fisheries.
You can imagine, it was not the easiest thing for us as such a multidisciplinary team to agree on common goals and objectives, never mind results. But we sat, we discussed, we argued (a tiny bit), we listened to each other and tried to understand one another. It took some extra time for everyone to understand the disciplinary specialties of the other. For example, when John started with formulas and functions, I had the occasional question mark written on my face. But no matter what, we took the time to get everyone on the same page.
In the end, this collaboration was a journey and a great experience! It taught me the advantages and struggles of interdisciplinary work on many different levels. Yet maybe the most important lesson: just give it some time, plenty of whiteboards and many flip chart pages and you might look just as happy as us after a full day of work!
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
~~~~~~~~~~
The limitations of bio-economic modelling
By Lia Ni Aodha
A recent study published has made a splash across a number of forums with big taglines and equally big promises. At first glance, it seems like this paper may have the answer to current fisheries challenges – a win-win answer for all. However, on closer inspection a number of problems quickly arise. This study conducted by Costello et al (2016) poses the question: What would extensive fishery reform look like?
Using bio-economic models, the authors explore the benefits and trade-offs of alternative fisheries management approaches – business as usual (BAU), fishing to maximise long-term catch (FMSY), and rights based fisheries management (RBFM). The study estimates future catches, profits, and biomass under each ‘alternative’ policy and, ultimately, argues that RBFM, in the form of individual or communal access rights, can align incentives across profit, food and conservation – with few trade-offs across these dimensions. Essentially, these ‘common-sense reforms’ (?) could rapidly lead to an increase in overall fish abundance while, also increasing food security and profits. They do acknowledge that the effects of reform are likely to be somewhat context specific, while also highlighting that the guise of RBFM to be implemented (co-ops, TURFS, ITQs…) will depend on the social, economic, and ecological objectives within any given context (1).
So there we have it – the solution to the fisheries challenge is in our grasp! Such requires a (somewhat) clear-cut prescription involving the assignment of rights to users, whereby everybody wins – the fish, fishermen, and society in general. Indeed, such assertions have rapidly been making the rounds on various media forums over the past week.
Alas, however, in reality, such is not quite as clear-cut as it would initially seem. Firstly, as stated, the study employed bio-economic modelling. The thing with such models is they use biological and economic parameters and, largely, ignore any social parameters. The authors acknowledge this stating: ‘Other social objectives such as employment, equity, or biodiversity conservation are clearly important…but are not explicitly modelled here’ (1). However, it may be argued (and, indeed, it has) that such has been a core problem of fisheries management and research for most of the past century, and one that has directly manifested in the challenges (both social and ecological) that we see today.
Fisheries management clearly involves people (as opposed to just economic or biological components), and as such, I am not sure if such an aspect can be left out of a model that strives to develop an optimal, alternative resource management strategy. In the age where we are inundated with the rhetoric of sustainability (which, in relation to fisheries policy, is explicitly laid out by the European Commission as inferring such from a social, economic, and ecological perspective) such an approach seems, somewhat, outdated in the development of an acceptable fisheries management regime.
Given the above, perhaps it is unsurprising that the magic bullet that the results of this study have identified, as being the most favourable management strategy is, perhaps, one of the least favourable management strategies from a social perspective.
We know the rationale for rights based fishing, held by many fisheries economists and scientists – poorly regulated access regimes, devoid of clearly defined rights, are the biggest cause of overexploitation of the world’s fish stocks. As such, the creation of property rights can end the ‘inefficiencies’ of fishing and the unsustainable ‘race to fish’. The endowment of such rights will incentivise more sustainable behaviour (as fishermen become the stewards of their own resource), and encourage efficiency – as the least efficient fishermen will be weeded out. Such a line of argument is not new and goes back, at least, as far as the 1950s and Gordon (2). However, the push really took off, perhaps tellingly, in the late 1980s (3). Indeed, today such an approach is advocated by many of our large global institutions.
The thing is, however, these regimes of private property (as with other forms of private property) are instituted in a social, economic, and political context – an environment that involves complex systems of relationships that involve structural power hierarchies. Unfortunately, proponents of such rights, largely, ignore the existence of these (4). As such, it is somewhat unsurprising that real life models of fisheries management indicate that RBFM, almost without fail, regardless of its manifestation, results in the dispossession of many (usually those less powerful) at the benefit of a few.
Property rights by their nature are exclusionary, and the reality of RBFM is a concentration of rights in the hands of powerful (often vertically integrated) companies or individuals, a reduction in fishing vessels in operation and number of people fishing. As with many economic policies the less powerful lose out – that means smaller fishermen, their crews, communities and families. There is no shortage of evidence to support this assertion.
Iceland introduced such a system, and today over fifty percent of the quota is owned by ten companies. Similarly, the institution of a RBFM system in Chile has resulted in ninety percent of the quota being held by four companies (3). The introduction in Denmark in 2005 has culminated in a loss of place based fishing – quota, and thus, boats and livelihoods, diminishing hugely (and even disappearing) in many communities (5). Similar patterns are observed in Namibia, New England, and New Zealand – which, incidentally, this study references optimistically (along with Iceland) stating, in relation to the various guises through which RBFM may be implemented:
Although, these all fall under the umbrella of RBFM, each will bring different benefits in different settings that must be weighed against the cost of reform. Although these costs have not been explicitly modelled here, experiences from countries such as Iceland, New Zealand, and Australia suggest that they are likely to be only a fraction of the potential benefits identified here (1).
The reality in New Zealand (as with Iceland), however, is that smaller scale fishermen have lost out under the system – disadvantaged from the out, and unable to access the credit (as quotas are not considered collateral) required in order to grow their initial paltry allocation into a viable business. Subsequently, this has led to a large-scale buy up by larger companies of much of the tradable quota (6). Interestingly, New Zealand and Iceland also have the highest costs of management per fishing vessel, which says something in relation to the fictional stewardship capacities such rights foster (7).
This is not simply the case with notorious ITQ (Individual Transferable Quota) systems, but also holds true for more community- based systems of rights allocation such as co-ops or TURFs (territorial user rights). Studies have shown that the top down imposition of such can weaken traditional institutions (which fisheries economics so often decides to ignore or pretend doesn’t exist), impact negatively on trust within the community, intensify conflict among users, and may actually lead to conditions whereby the ecosystems resilience is, in fact, threatened rather than secured (8).
As Bromley so nicely puts it the utopian vision of so-called privatisation (that draws on a political ideology that sanctifies the individual as the sole decision maker that can produce optimal outcomes), essentially, amounts to ‘free-gifting’ of permanent endowments of wealth to certain parts of the fisheries sector. Fisheries management is left to the market, and national governments are absolved of any responsibility. However, over-fishing has little (if anything) to do with property rights – given the ample evidence of our ability to protect natural resources (through public ownership – which we seem so quick to want to throw away in relation to our seas), when we choose to (7). The fact of the matter is that the world’s fisheries are in precisely the condition they are in today due to how they have been managed – as opposed to an absence of property rights.
The over-arching goal of fisheries management is (in theory) the sustainable use of fisheries resources (9). However, what we have got instead is a big focus on economic efficiency. Subsequently, the choice of management is portrayed as one between maximised resource rent or, alternatively, some kind of less efficient, but socially favourable policy (7). Stakeholders (and their knowledge) are ignored or side-lined. I had hoped that we were moving away from this kind of focus, but it seems, alas we are not quite there yet – bio-economic models still dominate.
Unfortunately, when studies like this (adopting such an approach), make big headlines advocating a very particular prescription for action – we get an oversimplified message, that fails to acknowledge the complexities of reality. It is this message, however, that is picked up by the media, public, lobbies, and fisheries managers. Evidence is clear in the following caption in direct relation to the article published by Washington Post on the 28/03/16:
To bring about this happy ending, governments must give fishermen a stake in the overall health of their fisheries. One way to accomplish this is to require fishermen to hold rights to catch a certain amount of seafood in a certain fishery, which allows governments to manage the total haul and reduces the frenzied competition to scoop up as much as possible as quickly as possible. Ideally, these “catch shares” could be bought and sold so that rights would end up with those who could fish most efficiently (10).
This has huge implications for public perceptions of fisheries, for fisheries management, and for the livelihoods of fishermen – not large firms that trawl huge nets across the sea and remain far outside the realm of inspection, but relatively small scale fishermen based in communities.
What repercussions does this have for the faith fishermen have in fisheries science? Or for the relationships that we now accept as being crucial to sustainable fisheries management?
References:
- Costello et al (2016) Global Fishery prospects under contrasting management regimes, available at http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/03/29/1520420113.full
- Gordon, H. S. (1954).The economic theory of a common-property resource: the fishery (pp. 178-203). Palgrave Macmillan UK.
- TNI Agrarian Justice Programme, Masifundise, Afrika Kontakt (2014) Global Ocean Grab: A Primer, available at http://worldfishers.org/wp content/uploads/2015/01/The_Global_Ocean_Grab-EN.pdf.
- Ratner, B. D., Åsgård, B., & Allison, E. H. (2014). Fishing for justice: Human rights, development, and fisheries sector reform. Global Environmental Change, 27, 120-130.
- Høst, Jeppe Engset. (2013) Captains of Finance.
- World Forum of Fisher People (2013) A Call for Governments to Stop Supporting the Global Partnership for Oceans (GPO) and Rights-Based Fishing (RBF) Reforms, available at http://worldfishers.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/WFFP-WFF-Call-on-Governments_GPO_200313.pdf.
- Bromley, D. W. (2009). Abdicating responsibility: the deceits of fisheries policy. Fisheries, 34(6), 280-290.
- Gelcich, S., Edwards-Jones, G., Kaiser, M. J., & Castilla, J. C. (2006). Co-management policy can reduce resilience in traditionally managed marine ecosystems. Ecosystems, 9(6), 951-966.
- (2002). A Fishery Manager’s Guidebook – Management Measures and Their Application, Fisheries Technical Paper, 424.
- Washington Post (2016) How to Save the World’s Fisheries, available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-plan-to-save-the-worlds-fisheries/2016/03/28/8ad38528-f52b-11e5-a3ce-f06b5ba21f33_story.html
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
April 5th, 2016
~~~~~~~~~~
How to bake sustainable fisheries – a recipe
By Charlotte Weber
Fisheries face many problems today, from overfishing and overcapacity to the extinction of key species and an overall degradation of the marine environment. So in order to improve the overall situation, making things better for the fish, the oceans and the people working in fisheries, we need to become more sustainable in our resource use. But what makes sustainability sustainable?
There are several ways on how to describe and display sustainability (link). They all have one thing in common. The inclusion of three main factors: Environment, Society and Economy (Figure 1). In fisheries, science has mainly focused on the ‘fish-side’ and the economic aspects. Which is understandable, because we only know how much to fish if we know how many fish are out there. And one can only go out to fish if there is some money to be made, to pay for fuel and boats in return. Out of simplicity, the technicalities are also often looked at first. Maybe less boats, or maybe different gear can help to solve some of today’s problems. However, these approaches haven’t lead to any desired outcomes and severe issues remain as listed in the EU Green Paper (link). Unsurprisingly, sustainability couldn’t be obtained by considering only two out of the three components, namely the environment and the economy. Now, in order to reach sustainability, a sound management plan needs to be in place that takes all the aspects of the fishery (from social, to biological to economic) into account (link). This ideal management plan will then provide well-being for humans and allow for sustainable resource use at the same time.
Figure 1: Two sustainability models. Left side: The bullseye sustainability model. Right side: the Mickey mouse sustainability model.
So I believe it is about time that we manage humans, not fish! Yet grasping the role of ‘society’ in the fishery system is a different story. Fishery science has only started within the last couple of years to regard people as a part of sustainable fisheries. Additionally, it is not that easy to identify how to really take society into consideration, in the sense that ‘social factors’ leave a lot of room for interpretation. And how do we actually ‘measure’ things concerning human well-being? So what is truly social and which of these social aspects are then in return relevant for fisheries considerations and will help to reach sustainability?
And this is where I come in! I am part of an EU-funded Marie Skłodowska-Curie European Training Network working with social science aspects of fisheries. In my current work, I am trying to establish a framework for exactly these social factors relevant for fisheries. This framework will help to grasp the yet so vague ‘social factors’. It will include a description and precise definition of each social factor and why and how it is relevant to fisheries.
In order to ‘bake’ a management plan, we need to be sure on how much of which ingredients to mix together in order to get a tasty result everyone wants to have a bite of.
Definitions are vital to precise work. Not only in science, but even in everyday life. For us to understand and work with almost everything in our world, we need to define it. How would you bake a cake if someone hadn’t gone out and defined how much a milliliter and a gram was? The same goes for management plans. In order to ‘bake’ a management plan, we need to be sure on how much of which ingredients to mix together in order to get a tasty result everyone wants to have a bite of.
So now let’s say we developed our ‘recipe’ with all the necessary ingredients, defined all the social aspects needed. How do we know that what we came up with will be any good? If it’s just a cake, we can bake it and try. But if we are talking about a management plan, this will take a huge effort, money, time and resources to put it into place. So you want to be really, really sure about it, before implementing it.
Figure 2: Picture of a simulation of Fishing. Black figures simulate boats, red dots simulate fish stocks.
If we stick to the ‘cake’ analogy for now, imagine you found your cake recipe on the internet: To check the quality of the recipe you might find comments by other users or simply a picture of the cake. This may help you to see if it looks like what you imagined it, and to decide whether or not to bake the cake or otherwise to choose a different recipe.
Scientist do something similar to check their “management plan recipes”. They use models and simulations (Figure 2). These are programs that can help us to simulate the real world. A researcher will tell the program all the ‘ingredients’ for that newly developed management plan and the program will bake this cake for you. In other words, you will get a picture of the outcomes, the results, and the consequences of your management. It might not be a 100% true what this program will predict and show, because after all it is always only an imitation of the real world. Yet in this way researchers have the possibility to explore their ideas, “ingredients” and outcomes of their management plans. Maybe it wasn’t the right ingredient, so just change it in the program and see if this makes it any better. We don’t have much to lose because it’s just a simulation, not the real world. And I believe you will agree that it is better to go for ‘trial and error’ in a computer world than the in the real one.
In my research I will take the ingredients that I will establish – the relevant social factors to fisheries – and will give them a good bake, mixed together with the biological and economic factors already available. This simulation will hopefully help me to come up with a tasty cake, so that the people, the fishermen, the communities and all other stakeholders will want to have a great bite out of it.
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
Me, myself and my research
By Ixai Salvo Borda
My name is Ixai Salvo Borda, born and raise in a small inland town in the north of Spain near the beautiful city of Pamplona. Without any maritime roots in my family but due to the constant traveling around the Basque coast, I develop, surprisingly for some, a passion for any activity related with the Sea. Therefore, as I was growing, it was day by day more clear that I was going to dedicate my life to the study of maritime systems, animals, activities….
I always think better looking the sea (trip around Mediterranean fishing places)
Following my interests, I studied Environmental Biology at the University of Navarra and specialized in Marine Biology at the Plymouth University during my Erasmus year. The time at this beautiful English harbor made finally realize that from all the things that I was loving from the Sea, fishing and fishing activities were going to be my future. Following this though, and wanting to change my winds, I decide to move to the Arctic University of Norway (University of Tromsø) to study the International Fisheries Management master. In addition, once there, I soon started working as an onboard fisheries researcher for the University, and, when I finish my Master I stayed one more year there working.
However, I was feeling worried about one aspect all the time. Back in Tromsø, while working with fishing technology, biology of fishes and related topics, I realize that I was missing something. With my experience from the Master I soon realize that I was forgetting about one of the most important things in the Fisheries world, the people. Once that I agreed with myself on that, I decided to make a jump, change the direction of my research and focus in the social sciences aspects of the fisheries.
…I soon realize that I was forgetting about one of the most important things in the Fisheries world, the people
My search of future walking paths (and the invaluable help of advisors) guide my steps to discover the EU Early Stage Researcher’s (Marie Curie scholarship) of the SAF21 project. This project focus in understanding how to manage socio-ecological system betters, the EU fisheries, to develop effective fisheries management strategies.
Me
As part of the SAF21 project of the European Union, I work with fisheries governance and stakeholders´ interactions. My intention is to integrate social and governance metrics, for measuring the performance of socio-ecological systems through a structured multidisciplinary dialogue. I want to achieve a general overview of how the governance is applied and perform inside a fishery and answer a key question for me: It is possible to measure fisheries governance in an easy way?
In the project I aim to create a tool for the measurement of fisheries governance in a simple and useful way to be used all around the world. This measurement of the fisheries governance will be done through the development of social and governability fishery indicators. Linked to this path, the project involves an analysis of different kind of interactions that stakeholders have in different management systems.
I am based in the CETMAR Foundation in Vigo, and that’s why my first try of my tool will be in Galician fisheries and afterwards I will try to spread the system around the EU and who knows, in the world?
The content of this blog does not reflect the official opinion of the SAF21 project or of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in this blog lies entirely with the author(s).
My Secondment at Syntesa
By Charlotte Weber
For my secondment at Syntesa I travelled to a tiny place, somewhere in the Atlantic between Norway and Iceland. I arrived at a stunning scenery, wild mountains, rough seas, stormy winds and sheep all over the place – welcome to the Faroe Islands!
The Syntesa Team outside their office in Gøta, Faroe Islands
I chose Syntesa because I wanted to collect experiences beyond the world of academia. Syntesa is a small company with a diverse team and a wide field of action. The company works with everything from innovation management and national and international research to providing advisory services to the industry. Their team is just as diverse, which makes it a great place to get a very rich impression of how entrepreneurship in combination with innovation and science might look like. The small size of the company got me to work very closely with the entire Syntesa team. That was a great advantage because through that I felt I was directly involved with their ongoing work and got to look “over people’s shoulders”. I felt I could contribute with a scientific mind to a very interdisciplinary work environment. My times at Syntesa brought me a lot of teamwork experience, discussing ideas and making things happen by combining everyone’s expertise.
I returned home with a feeling of having enriched not only my skill set, but also my network and work experience. The times at Syntesa taught me many things I could not have learned within the academic environment at my home university at Tromsø.
Therefore, I want to shout out to the entire Syntesa team at this point: Thank you for having me!