Maritime Studies最新文献

As an important contributor to Louisiana’s economy, the commercial freshwater fisheries have been the subject of growing attention in recent years by resource managers as the industry appears to be on the brink of collapse. Fewer participants are entering the field, fish buyers and processors are closing, and market prices remain stagnant. To better understand this industry, we conducted a study to characterize the commercial freshwater fisheries in Louisiana including the fishermen, the fishing operations, the effort across the state, local knowledge on management issue and barriers and opportunities for the future of the industry. We completed structured interviews at fish houses across Louisiana. The average full-time fisherman was 56 years old with about 34 years of commercial fishing experience, and catfish (Ictaluridae spp.) and buffalo (Ictobius spp.) appear to be the most sought-after finfish; however, this slightly differs by region. Overall, this study provides in-depth insight into the trends, problems, and successes of Louisiana’s freshwater commercial fisheries. This information will allow managers and other groups like cooperative extension to identify and design opportunities for the industry and utilize their information in management across the state.

Fair Trade USA Capture Fisheries Standard (CFS) requires small-scale fishers to be organized in groups before getting certified against its voluntary sustainability standard. This raises questions about what groups (can) do to enable individual fishers to participate in and benefit from certification. This study uses a capabilities framework to understand this dynamic. We use a case study of handline tuna fishery in Maluku, Indonesia. Three clusters of groups are included: the groups in Buru Island that have been certified by Fair Trade USA Capture Fisheries Standard and Marine Stewardship Council, the groups in Seram Island that have been certified by Fair Trade USA, and the groups in Buru and Seram Islands that have been excluded from Fair Trade USA certification. The results show how group capabilities play an essential role in group and individual fisher certification. We conclude that there is a need to support group certification as a mechanism to govern sustainability in small-scale fisheries. To achieve group certification policy interventions beyond the certification stakeholders are needed to provide conditions supportive for group capabilities.

Much of the current practice in promoting seafood sustainability relies on providing ecolabels that act as proxies for consumers to let them know that a given product is sustainably sourced. However, this approach does not empower consumers to judge for themselves whether a product is sustainable, which is especially important given the diversity of seafood products and the diversity of personal definitions of sustainability (e.g., a proxy label may not be based on information that a given person cares about). Moreover, proxy labels are provided by many different non-governmental certification organizations with various criteria that are not made fully transparent to consumers, creating a patchwork of labels that confuses rather than empowers. Informative, detailed labels that provide specific sustainability information about a product and that are implemented through a standardized process (i.e., through policy-based mandatory labelling requirements) may provide several advantages to the consumer. However, consumers may prefer proxy labels for their convenience, despite their deficiencies relative to informative labels. Here, we adopt an exploratory approach and evaluate consumer attitudes and behavioral intentions regarding proxy labels versus informative labels. As an initial comparative test of these labels, we utilized an experimental vignette approach and collected data from 90 participants who were interested in general sustainability topics, measuring attitudinal reactions to either a proxy label or an informative label for different seafood products. The results of our experiment show that participants interested in sustainability generally prefer the proxy label to the informative label, although evaluations were high in both regards. Moreover, several sources of descriptive and qualitative data demonstrate that participants were interested in many different pieces of information in evaluating sustainability of a seafood product. We discuss implications of our findings and recommend future research directions to continue to stimulate discussions on this topic.

Though climate variability research has largely focused on natural science and quantitative measures, there has been a notable shift towards using social science, including qualitative methods, to understand the impact of climate variability on coastal livelihoods. While these methods have been widely used in many coastal regions, their application in coastal Ghana remains limited. This study used qualitative methods to examine fishermen’s knowledge of climate variability and oceanic impacts on their livelihood opportunities on the central and eastern coasts of Ghana. Semi-structured interviews were used to gather data from 5,250 fishermen and 15 in-depth interviews were conducted with fishing group leaders. The results indicate that, while fishermen are aware of climate variability and oceanic impacts, their knowledge of city and urbanisation processes and their effects as urban climate drivers is limited. They perceived a decrease in the total annual fish catch over the last two decades as a result of overfishing and the practise of light fishing, along with climate variability. Several obstacles hinder the fishermen's activities, including high prices and shortages of premix fuel and saiko (trade in fish at sea between industrial trawlers and Ghanaian canoes). They are dissatisfied with their prevailing livelihood opportunities due to a lack of viable alternative options. The study revealed coastal livelihood initiatives to improve livelihood conditions, sustain fishermen’s activities, and improve their general well-being. There is a need for a policy initiative that prioritises providing practical training and support for fishermen to participate in additional livelihood activities such as agriculture (crops, livestock, and poultry), small business, occasional wage labour, and handicrafts. Additionally, it is important to implement a strategy that ensures an uninterrupted and direct channel of communication and distribution for premix fuel between the fishermen and the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development. Thus, qualitative methods continue to be a beneficial technique for achieving coastal livelihood goals in the face of climate variability.

This paper critically examines the evolution of integration as a concept in coastal zone planning through an analysis of Norwegian municipal coastal zone plans spanning a 35-year period. By drawing on the framework of governmentality, we show how the coastal zone and the activities taking place there are being subject to problematizations, rationalizations and technologies for promoting integration. This illustrates how previous spatial dispositions themselves become problematized at later points, giving rise to new rationalizations and new technologies of governing, revealing a dynamic redefinition of integration in response to complex coastal governance challenges. What integration entails is not a given. Instead, it’s a fluid concept, evolving over time in meaning and intent. The paper also shows how ambitions for integrated or comprehensive planning can obscure the purpose of planning and increase complexity. With integration being framed as an undisputed answer to conflicts in the coastal zone, the difficulty of managing the multitude of coastal activities does not lead to a critical discussion on whether ‘integration’ is a fruitful ambition. Instead, it becomes an argument for yet more integrative efforts.

In recent years the blue bioeconomy has been presented as a way for marine-based industries to break with traditional models of relentless resource extraction and extensive damage on marine ecosystems. Centering in innovation and biotechnological enhancement, the concept promises a future that makes compatible continual economic growth with environmental sustainability. In practice, however, the blue bioeconomy still mostly an object of imagination than a reality. In this paper we analyze a leading cause for such lack of effectiveness: the reductionistic ways in which most blue bioeconomy proposals engage with the agencies of marine entities. Adopting an analytical frame from science and technology studies (STS), we understand the multiple strategies oriented to produce neat and simple versions of marine beings as forms of “pacification” that enable the transformation of these beings in commodities that could be easily traded in global markets, at the expense of their sociobiological complexity. To explore the ways in which pacification works, the paper analyzes current attempts at renovating the seaweed industry in Chile. Especially we analyze two policy proposals – one focused on turning seaweed into the basis of a blue carbon economy and the other centered on the potential of seaweed as high-end novel foods for export – showing how they produce a highly pacified versions of seaweed that bear little resemblance with the complex beings populating Chilean seas. Pacified seaweed comes handy for market-oriented policy proposals but tend to fare quite poorly beyond them.

Cross-border fish trade contributes to regional food security and is a source of income for informal traders. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the activities of cross-border traders were severely affected. Lockdowns and border closures limited the movement of people and goods, hindering regional trade. The study builds on a survey using semi-structured questionnaires and in-depth interviews conducted in Ghana in 2021 and examines the impacts of the Ghana-Togo border closure on informal cross-border female fish traders’ livelihoods and food security. The findings demonstrate that despite traders’ great efforts to keep their businesses afloat, the border closure affected the traders’ mobility, trade routes, trade volumes, and incomes, which in turn negatively affected the variety and quality of their households’ diets. However, the study also documents how traders were able to implement different strategies to cope with the difficult situation by activating and extending trust-based social networks crucial for trade. The authors therefore conclude that the social embeddedness of fish traders’ informal economic activities was decisive for the resilience of the cross-border trade system during the pandemic, which at least to some degree mitigated the negative effects on traders’ livelihoods and food security.

Pacific Island Countries and Territories are highly exposed to natural disasters, intensified by increases in frequency and force of extreme weather events. Pacific societies, like in Vanuatu, have been shaped in many ways by such natural disasters; reflected in customary practices and social fabric of rural coastal communities. When a natural disaster occurs, government attention justifiably focuses on channelling and coordinating international humanitarian aid to fill gaps in capacity and resourcing national recovery efforts. However, central to disaster recovery, particularly in the immediate aftermath of disruption, are the ways that local people support each other (within and between communities). Disconnects between national and local recovery efforts are common and stand to inhibit effective responses. This study aims to understand horizontal, self-organised community-to-community support systems and communities’ post-disaster engagement with external aid. It draws from two different datasets: i) the observations collected through the emergency relief work led by the National Disaster Management Office in Vanuatu shortly after the 2023 twin tropical cyclones Judy and Kevin hit the country, as well as ii) the loss and damage survey led by the Vanuatu Fisheries Department to estimate the level of damage these cyclones caused in various regions of Vanuatu. Through this process, we highlight the social systems that enable community-to-community support, as well as potential opportunities for external-aid to support communities in a more efficient manner. Results reveal that community-to-community support is critical in the first weeks post-disaster. Recognizing the roles that different support networks play at different stages of disaster response is critical not only to improving people's and institutions' ability to bounce back from particular disruptions, but also in broader efforts to strengthen community resilience in the face of climate change.

This paper is a synthesis of the collection ‘Small fish for food and nutrition in the Global South: A value chain approach’. Small fish, often the most inexpensive available animal protein, are increasingly perceived as contributing to the food security and nutrition of poor and undernourished populations in the Global South. However, the value chains of these fish remain understudied. Therefore, we ask: what are the myriad ways through which small fish reach consumers in countries in Africa and Asia? The papers in this collection explore the value chains of marine and freshwater small fish, which are often consumed whole, and are rich in micronutrients. We give space to rich case studies of these value chains and further theoretical explorations of its various segments. They show a concern for the often-hidden power relations implicit in these value chains and food systems. Moreover, they show how, despite structural limits imposed by social categories or socio-economic transformation, the agency articulated by actors emerge as central, as they negotiate their engagement within small fish value chains.

Understanding long-term change in fish populations often relies on comparing catches from historical and contemporary trawl surveys. However, such comparisons may not resolve biases associated with differences in fishing gears and their relative catchabilities. It is possible to reduce these uncertainties by replicating historical trawl gear and practices. With the availability of unique historical catch data, we investigated the trawl gear employed by the Northumberland Sea Fisheries Committee (NSFC) during scientific surveys conducted between 1892–1913 in inshore waters of the Northumberland coast (UK), and describe our attempt to reconstruct the gear using currently available materials. We reviewed the historical literature, photographs and acquired technical expertise to reconstruct a late nineteenth century beam trawl used by the NSFC. The replica gear consisted of a 6.7 m beam connected by two Brixham style wrought-iron trawl heads, which held open a triangular-shaped trawl net with rounded ground-rope. Following construction, we tested the performance and catchability of the replica gear by conducting comparative trawls using a modern otter trawl in August 2018 and March 2019. Both trawl gears exhibited similar catches for flatfish in August trials, yet a higher proportion of individuals were landed by the otter trawl in March. Zero or negligible catches were exhibited by the replica gear during this period. This work collates relevant information to describe the evolution, design and functioning of late nineteenth century beam trawls used around the British Isles, providing an important repository for investigators interested in trawl technology and survey designs.