The role of land tenure in livelihood transitions from fishing to tourism

© 2019, The Author(s). Coastal tourism has been supported by the growth of middle-class tourist markets, promoted by governments who view it as an important avenue for economic growth and backed by environmental organisations who regard it as an alternative, more environmentally sustainable livelihood than capture fisheries. How policymakers and households in coastal areas negotiate the challenges and opportunities associated with growing tourism and declining capture fisheries is increasingly important. Drawing on extended ethnographic fieldwork from the Philippines between 2006 and 2018, this paper examines the transition from fishing to tourism and the consequences for one coastal community. I focus on land tenure as a key variable that shapes the effects and opportunities associated with livelihood transitions from fishing to tourism. While tourism has not been inherently positive or negative, the ability of local households to negotiate the boom and obtain the full benefits out of it is questionable. Many fishers have switched their primary livelihood activity to tourism, including the construction of tourist boats, working as tour guides or providing accommodation. However, the growth of tourism has prompted several attempts to evict the community, including from local elites who aimed to develop resorts on the coast and a recent push by the national administration to ‘clean up’ tourist sites around the country. I argue that land tenure in coastal communities should be more of a focus for researchers working in small-scale fisheries, as well as for researchers working on land rights

Maritime disputes and seafood regimes: a broader perspective on fishing and the Philippines–China relationship

© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. In much discussion surrounding the relationship between maritime disputes and fisheries resources, emphasis is given to the role of fisheries resources as a driver of the dispute or how states use fishing to further their interests through territoriality. Yet a narrow focus on maritime disputes obscures the broader ways in which fishing contributes to interstate relationships. This paper uses a political ecology and food regimes approach to demonstrate how seafood flows between the Philippines and China represent power relations. China exports a significant volume of low-value small fish and molluscs from its distant water fishery. The Philippines exports low numbers of high-value reef fish. Current Chinese aquaculture investments are minimal. Poaching forms another component of this seafood regime, which is marked by environmental unsustainability and unequal relations between the Philippines and China. This analysis highlights the value of seeing fishing and fishery resources as constitutive of a broader politicized environment

Environmental fixes and historical trajectories of marine resource use in Southeast Asia

This paper emphasises the long-term historical trajectories of marine resource use in the Philippines through an examination of successive environmental fixes. Based on fieldwork from coastal Mindoro province, the paper shows how the technological intensification and geographical expansion of fisheries, the development of aquaculture and the promotion of tourism represent three forms of environmental fixes that aim to address the problems caused by marine resource declines and subsequent lack of availability of means of production. All three fixes have struggled to reduce environmental pressure or provide a long-term basis for livelihoods. The paper argues that viewing how successive types of environmental fixes unfold over long periods of time highlights how marine resource declines are part of much wider economic and historical processes, with consequent implications for livelihoods and governance.</p

Food and water insecurity in specialised fishing communities: evidence from the Philippines

© 2018 The Authors. Natural Resources Forum © 2018 United Nations Food insecurity remains a common problem for Southeast Asian communities that specialise in fishing. Food insecurity is closely linked to other social conditions, and the linkages between these social conditions and their underlying drivers are less well explored in fishing contexts than they are in agricultural contexts. In this paper I draw on fieldwork from a community that specialises in fishing in the Western Philippines to examine the linkages between and drivers of food and water insecurity. Food insecurity is common, and characterised by a lack of funds to buy food, particularly during periods of bad weather. Water insecurity is also characterised by the need to pay for the delivery of drinking water from one of several remote sources. Because of the central role of markets in communities that specialise in fishing, I argue that both food and water insecurity are driven by income poverty. Understanding the relations between food and water insecurity and the wider drivers of poverty in specialised fishing community contexts should generate improved understandings of how food and water insecurity persist, and how these conditions may be better addressed

Access to fisheries in the maritime frontier of Palawan Province, Philippines

© 2018 Department of Geography, National University of Singapore and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd Globally, capital investments are intensifying extraction and contestation over resources in frontier spaces, yet most discussion has focused on terrestrial frontiers. This paper shifts this focus to bring a scaled political ecology approach to examine the access dynamics of fisheries trade in the maritime frontier of Palawan province, the Philippines. We adapt the linked concepts of access and exclusion to highlight how access dynamics unfold at multiple scales. At the local scale, social relations of class and ethnicity serve as important markers of difference that inform control over access to fisheries resources. At the regional scale, we show how engagement in fisheries trade is also shaped by broader historical and geographical contexts of migration and land use change. Access dynamics unfold at multiple inter-related scales to heavily influence the differentiated social outcomes of expanded fisheries trade

Fishing for Fairness Poverty, Morality and Marine Resource Regulation in the Philippines

The book draws on data from ethnographic fieldwork with fishers, government and NGO officials, fish traders and tourism operators to show how the strategic responses of fishers to management initiatives are couched within particular ..

Seafood trade routes for lobster obscure teleconnected vulnerabilities

© 2018 Stoll, Crona, Fabinyi and Farr. Reliance on international seafood markets leaves small-scale fishers and fishing economies vulnerable to distant disturbances that can negatively affect market prices and trigger social, economic, and environmental crises at local levels. This paper examines the role of seafood trade routes and re-exports in masking such market linkages. We employ a network approach to map the global trade routes of lobster (Homarus spp.) from small-scale producers in North America to terminal markets and evaluate the extent to which intermediary nations act to obscure producer-market relationships. In taking this approach, we provide a method for systematically measuring "teleconnectivity" created through seafood trade routes, and thus making explicit vulnerabilities to small-scale fisheries from this teleconnectivity. Our empirical analysis shows that the perceived trade diversification of lobster producers is masking increased dependencies on a reduced number of end-markets, particularly in Asia. These results suggest, paradoxically, that the apparent diversification of trade partnerships may actually amplify, rather than reduce, the vulnerabilities of small-scale fishers associated with international trade by making risk harder to identify and anticipate. We discuss our results in the context of local fisheries and global seafood trade and describe key impediments to being able to monitor market dependencies and exposure to potential vulnerabilities

China’s approach to global fisheries: power in the governance of anti-illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing

As a significant actor in global governance, China has become increasingly active in addressing global environmental challenges. However, Chinese fishing practices do not conform with its policies. How do we understand China’s apparently incoherent stance? Using the case of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing governance, we explore why China shifted its approach from reluctance to engagement while still allowing the Chinese fleet’s IUU fishing activities to some extent. We find that China safeguards its self-interest by shaping domestic and international rules on anti-IUU fishing while pursuing means of legitimising its actions and intangible aspects of power in the oceans. Our findings have far-reaching implications. First, China’s notion of environmental responsibility is likely to remain within the scope of its interests and what China can control. Second, China’s global environmental approach can be understood as the pursuit of intangible aspects of great power status in addition to its tangible interests