Tuna dreams revisited: economic contributions from a tuna enterprise in Solomon Islands

Tuna is one of the few renewable resources available on a large scale for Pacific island countries, and many countries want to develop onshore value-adding processing to generate more domestic economic development from tuna fisheries in the region. The case of Soltai Fishing and Processing (formerly Solomon Taiyo Ltd) provides many useful lessons about the benefits and pitfalls of this development strategy

The Social in Assessing for Sustainability. Fisheries in Australia.

The notion that sustainability rests on three pillars – economic, environmental and social – has been widely accepted since the 1990s. In practice, however, the economic and environmental aspects have tended to dominate the sustainability agenda, and social aspects have been sidelined. Two reasons for this are: 1) there is a lack of data collected about which to build meaningful pictures of social aspects of sustainability for populations over time, and 2) there is a lack of recognition of the role of social factors in sustainability, and a related lack of understanding of how to analyse them in conjunction with economic and environmental factors. This paper surveys the literature about sustainability in fisheries, focussing on Australia, and focussing on the way social aspects have been treated. The paper finds that the problems that have been identified for assessing the social in sustainability in general are certainly manifest in fisheries. Management of Australian fisheries has arguably made great improvements to biological sustainability over the last decade, but much remains to be done to generate similar improvements in social sustainability for fishing communities. This is the case for government-run resource management as well as for initiatives from the private sector and conservation organizations as part of movements for corporate social responsibility and ethical consumerism. A significant challenge for improving sustainability in Australian fisheries, therefore, lies in improving data collection on social factors, and in bridging disciplinary divides to better integrate social with economic and biological assessments of sustainability

Robert Boyer, Hiroyasu Uemura, and Akinori Isogai (Eds.) Diversity and transformations of Asian capitalisms. London and New York: Routledge. 2012.

Book review

Fishing futures

This policy brief focuses on fisheries and provides three perspectives: one, an overview of the underlying causes of overfishing; two, a discussion on the recent efforts of Australia to put its Commonwealth fisheries on a sustainable management path; and three, the challenges faced by our Pacific neighbours in managing valuable and migratory tuna fisheries. The contents are: Too few fish and too many boats by R. Quentin Grafton Getting things right: structural adjustment in Australia’s Commonwealth fisheries by Tom Kompas Ensuring sustainable fisheries in the Pacific by Kate Barcla

Gender-based violence: Relevance for fisheries practitioners

Attention to human dimensions of capture fisheries involves understanding how harms and benefits are experienced and distributed among different groups or people. Yet, not all harms are well understood or adequately addressed. There is a general (mis)conception that gender-based violence (GBV) is not of relevance for fisheries management or a topic within the remit of practitioners. Through a global review of capture fisheries, we illustrate how five types of GBV—physical, sexual, psychological, economic and cultural—are pervasive and can be reinforced by fisheries policies, practices and institutions. Our synthesis shows a variety of activities associated with these forms of violence, such as labour and human rights abuses, unsafe working and living conditions for children, women and men, and the cultural acceptance of various forms of discrimination. We argue GBV cannot be disentangled from other actions taken to achieve equitable social outcomes through fisheries management. We provide seven recommendations to help practitioners understand and work towards addressing GBV in capture fisheries: (1) removing gender blindness and bias by investing in gender-sensitisation of the sector; (2) forming strategic partnerships; (3) improving policy and coordination between regulatory bodies; (4) increasing investments in labour rights and laws; (5) gender integrative programme design and implementation; (6) investing in specific programs for the empowerment of women; and (7) investing in specific programs for men seeking healthy models of masculinity

Pencapaian Utama Kajian Separuh Penggal RMK-9 (2006-2007)

Growing trade networks through globalization have expanded governance of local environments to encompass multiple scales. The governing role of market actors, such as traders and consumers in importing countries, has been recognized and embraced for sustainable seafood sourcing and trade. The perceptions that affect the conduct of these actors are a potential influence on governance of distal environments. In this paper we investigate the perceptions of sea cucumber traders in China. Sea cucumbers are an important global fishery commodity predominantly traded to China, the world\u27s largest seafood market, and seven traded species are endangered globally. We examine what traders and consumers in China perceive as important issues in seafood markets, and where they perceive the responsibility for sustainable fisheries to lie, to interpret what scope there is for sustainability to become an important issue in China\u27s seafood markets. We find that clusters of perceptions about cultural status, quality, health and food safety, and country of origin influence decisions that consumers make. These norms are rooted in sociocultural practice and drive current trade strategies. While traders do want to mitigate risks and secure supplies, food safety, product quality and country of origin are viewed as more important concerns than stock sustainability. Responsibility for sustainable fishing is perceived to be that of national governments in production countries. Trading practices and consumer perceptions together pose a serious challenge to sustainable seafood markets, further confounded by clandestine cross-border gray trade into China

Uptake of hepatitis C specialist services and treatment following diagnosis by dried blood spot in Scotland

Background: Dried blood spot (DBS) testing for hepatitis C (HCV) was introduced to Scotland in 2009. This minimally invasive specimen provides an alternative to venipuncture and can overcome barriers to testing in people who inject drugs (PWID). Objectives: The objective of this study was to determine rates and predictors of: exposure to HCV, attendance at specialist clinics and anti-viral treatment initiation among the DBS tested population in Scotland. Study design: DBS testing records were deterministically linked to the Scottish HCV Clinical database prior to logistic regression analysis. Results: In the first two years of usage in Scotland, 1322 individuals were tested by DBS of which 476 were found to have an active HCV infection. Linkage analysis showed that 32% had attended a specialist clinic within 12 months of their specimen collection date and 18% had begun anti-viral therapy within 18 months of their specimen collection date. A significantly reduced likelihood of attendance at a specialist clinic was evident amongst younger individuals (<35 years), those of unknown ethnic origin and those not reporting injecting drug use as a risk factor. Conclusion: We conclude that DBS testing in non-clinical settings has the potential to increase diagnosis and, with sufficient support, treatment of HCV infection among PWID

Transforming coastal and marine management: Deliberative democracy and integrated management in New South Wales, Australia

The integrated management (IM) of coastal and marine environments is an enduring problem, particularly in multi-sectoral and jurisdictional systems, with coastal management of New South Wales (NSW), Australia being no exception. Historically, NSW coastal and marine management was dominated by ecological and economic approaches, implemented in parallel through multiple government agencies with overlapping jurisdictions. A review in 2012 of NSW marine park management recommended addressing the unintended consequences of this management approach, and the Marine Estate Management Act (2014), was established to integrate management of the whole of the NSW coast. This paper discusses the role that a deliberative democratic approach has played in the approach to IM undertaken by the NSW Marine Estate Management Authority (MEMA). The NSW MEMA case study provides a robust reflection of the challenges identified by the literature in implementing effective integrated management, being the alignment of values, visions and methods of assessment, across multiple resources, ecosystems, stakeholders and administrative jurisdictions. Deliberative democratic approaches were used in reviewing the MEMA case to analyse its ability to address some of the challenges and realise benefits of IM. However, despite benefits being identified, a key finding is that achieving integration across multiple agencies with varied disciplinary approaches and organisational cultures, takes a significant amount of time. Even after several years, challenges remain in embedding cultural shifts and resource commitment at all levels to ensure the ongoing successful implementation of IM

Towards Gender-Equitable Small-Scale Fisheries and Markets in Solomon Islands

Fisheries and agriculture form the backbone of the Solomon Islands economy. The population is around half a million people, of whom 94 percent live within five kilometers of the coast. Women are key to effective fisheries management and development in Solomon Islands. They make up half of the community for community-based resource management and development, they fish, they do aquaculture, they markets seafood products, they are the main influence on household consumption of fish, and they support men in fisheries activities. However, fisheries management and development activities in Solomon Islands, like in the rest of the world, have often been based on the assumption that only men fish, and that benefits provided to men will filter through to the rest of communities. Building on 42 fieldwork interviews conducted across three Provinces in Solomon Islands, this paper focuses on women selling marine products in urban markets. We consider the opportunities available to them in the sector and the challenges confronting them. We argue that for resource managers to effectively promote economically and ecologically sustainable coastal fisheries in the Solomon Islands the conventional fisheries management focus on biological factors and the activities conducted on fishing boats is too narrow. Multidisciplinarity and consideration of the whole supply chain, including gender relations and the gendered division of labour, are vital tools for improving outcomes.Proceedings of the Eighteenth Biennial Conference of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade, held July 11-15, 2016 at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Center (AECC), Aberdeen, Scotland, UK

Chinese Trader Perceptions on Sourcing and Consumption of Endangered Seafood

Growing trade networks through globalization have expanded governance of local environments to encompass multiple scales. The governing role of market actors, such as traders and consumers in importing countries, has been recognized and embraced for sustainable seafood sourcing and trade. The perceptions that affect the conduct of these actors are a potential influence on governance of distal environments. In this paper we investigate the perceptions of sea cucumber traders in China. Sea cucumbers are an important global fishery commodity predominantly traded to China, the world's largest seafood market, and seven traded species are endangered globally. We examine what traders and consumers in China perceive as important issues in seafood markets, and where they perceive the responsibility for sustainable fisheries to lie, to interpret what scope there is for sustainability to become an important issue in China's seafood markets. We find that clusters of perceptions about cultural status, quality, health and food safety, and country of origin influence decisions that consumers make. These norms are rooted in sociocultural practice and drive current trade strategies. While traders do want to mitigate risks and secure supplies, food safety, product quality and country of origin are viewed as more important concerns than stock sustainability. Responsibility for sustainable fishing is perceived to be that of national governments in production countries. Trading practices and consumer perceptions together pose a serious challenge to sustainable seafood markets, further confounded by clandestine cross-border gray trade into China