Do Sociocultural Impacts Measure Up to Management Mission?

by Laurie Schreiber

At its Jan. 29 meeting, the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) heard a report regarding the potential for adding more sociocultural information to its decision-making process around fishery management.

But there was some question about how much of a role sociocultural impact data can play, given NEFMC’s paramount mission to oversee fishery conservation and management.

NEFMC staffer Rachel Feeney said that, in 2012, she became NEFMC’s first social impact analyst.

“One of my first tasks was to conduct a review of how sociocultural information about our fisheries is making it into the management process,” she said.

She conducted interviews with managers and scientists around the country to get their input.

“It was noted at the time that all involved felt the sociocultural issues were important aspects of fisheries management,” she said. “However, a lot of need for improvement was noted.”

In 2018, NEFMC held a program review that resulted in discussion about the social and economic aspect of fisheries. Out of that came a recommendation to continue efforts by the NEFMC and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to better address Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act’s National Standard 8 on considering impact to fishermen and communities, she said.

National Standard 8 says that conservation and management measures “shall, consistent with the conservation requirements of this Act (including the prevention of overfishing and rebuilding of overfished stocks), take into account the importance of fishery resources to fishing communities by utilizing economic and social data…provide for the sustained participation of such communities, and…to the extent practicable, minimize adverse economic impacts on such communities.”

Beginning in early 2019, Feeney partnered with Lindsey Williams at MIT Sea Grant to conduct interviews with NEFMC members to better understand the type of information NEFMC needed.

In her Jan. 29 presentation to NEFMC, Williams explained that “sociocultural” covers aspects of human dimensions of fisheries that relate to the “who” of fishing, which are linked with the economics of fishing.

“Fisheries management is managing the human use of a renewable but exhaustible resource, as such understanding human dimensions is essential to management decisions,” she said in her presentation.

The overarching question in her survey, Williams said, was: What information do you need to know about fishery participants, communities and other stakeholders that would help you make better-informed decisions as a council member?

“There’s a wide range of the types of information you felt you needed to make management decisions,” she reported.

Challenges to gaining that information, she said, include the fact that much of it is voluntary.

“That links into the challenges around distrust and/or survey fatigue,” she said. “That’s linked into the feelings about management.”

Next steps, said Feeney, have included a series of webinars between NEFMC staff and regional scientists, to discuss 2020 management and research priorities and how sociocultural considerations might fit in.

Some council members wanted to know how more demographic information would help with NEFMC’s decision-making process.

“What frustrates me is we can’t consider the economic information any more than we do now,” said NEFMC member Terry Alexander.

“The issue of the role of socioeconomic information in the council decision-making process and the agency decision-making process has been a tough one for decades,” said NEFMC member Michael Sissenwine. “At the end of the day, it comes down to the question, which is taking into account that National Standard 1 trumps the other national standards. That’s a reality…It’s going to be difficult to formalize how this information will be used. It’s good to have it, but I’m not sure I’d go to great additional efforts to expand until there’s some clear signal regarding what we’re looking for.”