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The following is taken from Obstacles and Opportunities For Community-Based Fisheries Management in the United States. The research and report by Michael Weber and Suzanne Iudicello was prepared for the Ford Foundation. The Ford Foundation and Coastal Enterprises, Inc., of Portland, Maine had it reviewed by fisheries stakeholders. The first half of the final remarks section of the report appears here. Our review of community-based fisheries management (CBFM) practices abroad and of fisheries management institutions and specific fisheries in the United States leads us to a number of observations about potential application of CBFM approaches domestically. In many ways, basic conditions that inspired recent CBFM efforts abroad are very different from the conditions that prevail in the United States. For instance, in many cases abroad, fisheries are a principal source of employment, income, and protein for entire communities, while in the United States, most fisheries are minor players in communities that offer other sources of employment, income, and protein. Likewise, many communities where CBFM has been introduced abroad depend largely upon fisheries for their economic life, while the same dependency is rare in the United States. In the United States, there are highly developed administrative processes for setting and enforcing fishery management measures, and these processes provide opportunities for participation by fishermen that fishermen in many other countries, in contrast, would find remarkable. There are also striking similarities between conditions in the United States and those found abroad where some form of CBFM has been initiated. In almost all situations, the same fisheries management functions need to be carried out. In almost all countries, the boosterism of the 1960s and later decades led to a growth in fishing effort and fleets well beyond sustainable levels, and to chronic ecological, economic, and social pressures in fisheries. In most countries, the dominant paradigm for fisheries management has emphasized maximum yield and technocratic centralization. Like fishing communities in many countries where CBFM has been introduced, most U.S. fishing communities are ineffective at actively and effectively representing themselves in fisheries management forums, much less managing their fisheries themselves. In the United States, this general feature of fishing communities is aggravated by a number of political factors. First, like fisheries in most western European countries, fisheries in the United States retain a very strong attachment to the principle of freedom of the seas. For many fishermen, the ocean offers the only remaining space and resource that is not confined by private property, although it is increasingly confined by management regulations. The conflict between the freedom of the seas and the complex confinement of life on land, among many other things, often alienates fishermen from their communities and vice versa. Increasing engagement by centralized government in the management of fisheries has further reduced the already weak investment of fishermen in the conservation of fisheries for future enjoyment. Over the last couple of decades, a kind of co-dependency has developed, in which the government plays the role of scolding parent, and fishermen play the role of child victims. As a result, fishermen often have become passive-aggressive, blaming fisheries managers for their woes; fisheries managers have fallen into their own rut. The entry of conservation organizations and ecological scientists into fisheries management decision making —once the sole domain of government managers, fisheries yield scientists, and fishermen—has further alienated many fishermen from broader society and management. (Others have taken up the challenge of the new approach conservationists and ecologists have pressed.) These and other factors have eroded the already weak organization of fishermen in individual fisheries as well as regionally and nationally. Where fishermen do organize, they often organize to battle other interest groups—whether other gear types or recreational fishermen—over allocation of available quotas. The communities that surround communities of fishermen are at least as disengaged from conservation of local fisheries, and may intentionally or unintentionally undercut the financial viability of local fisheries through omission or commission. In the end, introducing CBFM into most U.S. fisheries faces many of the same needs as found in fisheries abroad, beginning with building the capacity of fishermen to take on increasing responsibility for the longterm sustainability of their activities in an organized fashion that meshes with broader society. Building the capacity of fishermen’s organizations is a very tall order, for a number of reasons. First, there is the practical difficulty of getting a group of people who have little time after making a living to invest in suffering through the slog of organizing themselves. Second is the need to deliver measurable change quickly in order to affirm the wisdom of investing in the slog. CBFM is often not a quick fix. Some of the domestic and foreign projects we reviewed have been going on for years without any concrete management action to show for the work, time and investment. Community organizing is not the kind of “campaign” activity that produces deliverables and reaches projected milestones. Third, the skills that make for a successful fisherman are usually at odds with the skills needed to discuss, debate, disagree, and decide and then get on to the next issue. Fourth, neither management agencies nor conservation organizations are likely to welcome the risk inherent in strengthening fishermen’s organizations. The question will be raised: how will fishermen’s organizations use their strength? For conservation? Or for preventing necessary steps toward conservation? Above, we have mentioned the incongruity between the training that most fisheries scientists and managers receive and the skills that a more collaborative management approach will require. In the United States, where the traditional paradigm is deeply embedded in the legal and political structures and norms, CBFM presents particular challenges. Unlike the traditional paradigm, CBFM does not aim at maximum production, focuses beyond marketable fish to the ecosystem, is not centralized, and does not hinge on reductionist scientific analysis. This very different approach presents challenges not only to government agencies but also to fishermen and conservation organizations, whose debates revolve almost entirely around the traditional paradigm. Perhaps the largest challenges have to do with decentralization of decision making and acceptance of other forms and sources of information and analysis than traditional scientific ones. All of this is to say that there are obstacles to introducing CBFM in U.S. fisheries that may well be very deeply embedded and that may require considerable patience to overcome. Finding Candidate Fisheries in the United States We have found that some of the same incentives as encouraged CBFM abroad are likely to do so in the United States, particularly in smaller-scale fisheries. In our interviews, we found urgency in protecting the resource as a common impetus for change, but it is not the only impetus to move communities toward alternatives. Who gets the resource, and where the income goes are also important motivators. A shift from local to non-local fleets, consolidation of access to the resource, vertical integration of catching and processing, and dependence of the rest of the community on healthy fisheries are also trends that have motivated communities to take a hand in their own fate. In fishery after fishery, interviews with community activists revealed a chain of circumstances in which small boat fleets, close to home, with flexible fishing styles, were shut out of single-species fisheries once entry was limited. Because these fishermen fished for what was available, they had insufficient catch history on any one species to qualify for limited fisheries. Because they fished at the margins, they had insufficient capital to buy into licensed or quota fisheries. “Highliners” were rewarded with licenses, quota shares, days-at-sea, and even awards and recognitions from the fishing press. Speed, efficiency and volume were recognized by the management system. Whether it is declining fish populations, competition with more powerful fishing or political interests, or some other crisis, there must be some significant incentive for fishing communities to organize themselves to take greater responsibility for their welfare and the long-term conservation of the fisheries they depend upon. Trying to organize fishing communities absent some such crisis is likely to be fruitless, however much sense it may make to an outside observer. In this respect, fishing communities are little different from most other communities who advance only when confronted with an undeniable crisis. There are other important considerations in successful CBFM efforts than such incentives. In terms of identifying both fisheries that may be good candidates for CBFM and points of intervention, we recommend the results of the review conducted by Pinkerton and Weinstein. That review found that communities that successfully managed their resources shared the following features: • Highly dependent on the fishery. • Highly vulnerable to non-sustainable use. • Highly identified with their fishing place. • Unwilling or unable to transfer access rights out of the area. • Willing to use a mechanism for equitable resource access or sharing. • Able to assert management rights on an informal, if not formal, basis. |
