Fishing for what? : understanding fisher decision-making in southwest England

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Fishing for What? Fisher Decision Making in the South-West of England

How do fishermen choose where to fish? A logistic random utility model (RUM) of fisher location choice by beam trawlers in the southwest of England was used to help answer this question. The RUM was parameterised using data from the EU vessel monitoring system, the UK logbook Fishing Activity database and the UK Fishing Vessel Register from 2005 to 2008. Individual vessel location choices and model variables were aggregated to ICES statistical rectangles (approximately 30 nautical miles square) by month. The model outputs show that vessels in southwest England made location choices (in 2005 - 2007) based on recent economic returns (value of catch per hour fished) in the month prior and in the previous year in the same month. Vessel skippers also made decisions based on the economic returns of the entire fleet; and tended to choose locations that yielded higher economic returns to the fleet compared to other available locations. This suggests a transfer of knowledge on what others in the fleet are catching and where. Beam trawlers also appeared to be risk-averse, preferring to fish locations closer to their homeport, and at locations with less variance in the value of catch per unit effort at a location, even if the economic returns could be high elsewhere. Vessels also preferred to fish in deeper water, particularly the larger vessels of the fleet. To evaluate the models predictive ability, we compared 2008 location choices with predicted choices using the 2005 - 2007 model coefficients. The model correctly predicted vessels not fishing in a rectangle in 97% of cases and correctly predicted where vessels fished in 56% of cases. The predictive ability of the model varied by ICES statistical rectangle and month and the spatial density of predicted choices corresponded closely to the observed choice densities. This study shows that a RUM approach can be of practical use for policy makers who want to determine the factors that influence location choice of fishers and with further model development may be useful for predicting fisher response to management action.Keywords: Fisheries Economics, Fish and Aquaculture Sectors Development, Fishers Behavio

Variation in perception of environmental changes in nine Solomon Islands communities : implications for securing fairness in community-based adaptation

Community-based approaches are pursued in recognition of the need for place-based responses to environmental change that integrate local understandings of risk and vulnerability. Yet the potential for fair adaptation is intimately linked to how variations in perceptions of environmental change and risk are treated. There is, however, little empirical evidence of the extent and nature of variations in risk perception in and between multiple community settings. Here, we rely on data from 231 semi-structured interviews conducted in nine communities in Western Province, Solomon Islands, to statistically model differential perceptions of risk and change within and between communities. Overall, people were found to be less likely to perceive environmental changes in the marine environment than they were for terrestrial systems. The distance to the nearest market town (which may be a proxy for exposure to commercial logging and degree of involvement with the market economy) and gender had the greatest overall statistical effects on perceptions of risk. Yet, we also find that significant environmental change is under reported in communities, while variations in perception are not always easily related to commonly assumed fault lines of vulnerability. The findings suggest that there is an urgent need for methods that engage with the drivers of perceptions as part of community-based approaches. In particular, it is important to explicitly account for place, complexity and diversity of environmental risk perceptions, and we reinforce calls to engage seriously with underlying questions of power, culture, identity and practice that influence adaptive capacity and risk perception

Can perceptions of environmental and climate change in island communities assist in adaptation planning locally?

Local perceptions of environmental and climate change, as well as associated adaptations made by local populations, are fundamental for designing comprehensive and inclusive mitigation and adaptation plans both locally and nationally. In this paper, we analyze people’s perceptions of environmental and climate-related transformations in communities across the Western Solomon Islands through ethnographic and geospatial methods. Specifically, we documented people’s observed changes over the past decades across various environmental domains, and for each change, we asked respondents to identify the causes, timing, and people’s adaptive responses. We also incorporated this information into a geographical information system database to produce broad-scale base maps of local perceptions of environmental change. Results suggest that people detected changes that tended to be acute (e.g., water clarity, logging intensity, and agricultural diseases). We inferred from these results that most local observations of and adaptations to change were related to parts of environment/ecosystem that are most directly or indirectly related to harvesting strategies. On the other hand, people were less aware of slower insidious/chronic changes identified by scientific studies. For the Solomon Islands and similar contexts in the insular tropics, a broader anticipatory adaptation planning strategy to climate change should include a mix of local scientific studies and local observations of ongoing ecological changes

Exploring ‘islandness’ and the impacts of nature conservation through the lens of wellbeing

Motivated by growing concern as to the many threats that islands face, subsequent calls for more extensive island nature conservation and recent discussion in the conservation literature about the potential for wellbeing as a useful approach to understanding how conservation affects people's lives, this paper reviews the literature in order to explore how islands and wellbeing relate and how conservation might impact that relationship. We apply a three-dimensional concept of social wellbeing to structure the discussion and illustrate the importance of understanding island–wellbeing interactions in the context of material, relational and subjective dimensions, using examples from the literature. We posit that islands and their shared characteristics of ‘islandness’ provide a useful setting in which to apply social wellbeing as a generalizable framework, which is particularly adept at illuminating the relevance of social relationships and subjective perceptions in island life – aspects that are often marginalized in more economically focused conservation impact assessments. The paper then explores in more depth the influences of island nature conservation on social wellbeing and sustainability outcomes using two case studies from the global north (UK islands) and global south (the Solomon Islands). We conclude that conservation approaches that engage with all three dimensions of wellbeing seem to be associated with success

Addressing uncertainty in marine resource management; combining community engagement and tracking technology to characterize human behavior

This study was approved by the University of Exeter Ethics committee and the Ministry of Scientific Research and Technological Innovation in Congo (Permit: No. 023/MRSIT/DGRST/DMAST); and supported by funding from the Darwin Initiative (Projects 20-009 and 23-011) and the Wildlife Conservation Society.Small-scale fisheries provide an essential source of food and employment for coastal communities, yet the availability of detailed information on the spatiotemporal distribution of fishing effort to support resource management at a country level is scarce. Here, using a national-scale study in the Republic of Congo, we engaged with fishers from 23 of 28 small-scale fisheries landing sites along the coast to demonstrate how combining community engagement and relatively low cost Global Positioning System (GPS) trackers can rapidly provide fine-scale information on: (1) the behavioral dynamics of the fishers and fleets that operate within this sector; and (2) the location, size and attributes of important fishing grounds upon which communities are dependent. This multi-disciplinary approach should be considered within a global context where uncertainty over the behavior of marine and terrestrial resource-users can lead to management decisions that potentially compromise local livelihoods, conservation, and resource sustainability goals.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

BHPR research: qualitative1. Complex reasoning determines patients' perception of outcome following foot surgery in rheumatoid arhtritis

Background: Foot surgery is common in patients with RA but research into surgical outcomes is limited and conceptually flawed as current outcome measures lack face validity: to date no one has asked patients what is important to them. This study aimed to determine which factors are important to patients when evaluating the success of foot surgery in RA Methods: Semi structured interviews of RA patients who had undergone foot surgery were conducted and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis of interviews was conducted to explore issues that were important to patients. Results: 11 RA patients (9 ♂, mean age 59, dis dur = 22yrs, mean of 3 yrs post op) with mixed experiences of foot surgery were interviewed. Patients interpreted outcome in respect to a multitude of factors, frequently positive change in one aspect contrasted with negative opinions about another. Overall, four major themes emerged. Function: Functional ability & participation in valued activities were very important to patients. Walking ability was a key concern but patients interpreted levels of activity in light of other aspects of their disease, reflecting on change in functional ability more than overall level. Positive feelings of improved mobility were often moderated by negative self perception ("I mean, I still walk like a waddling duck”). Appearance: Appearance was important to almost all patients but perhaps the most complex theme of all. Physical appearance, foot shape, and footwear were closely interlinked, yet patients saw these as distinct separate concepts. Patients need to legitimize these feelings was clear and they frequently entered into a defensive repertoire ("it's not cosmetic surgery; it's something that's more important than that, you know?”). Clinician opinion: Surgeons' post operative evaluation of the procedure was very influential. The impact of this appraisal continued to affect patients' lasting impression irrespective of how the outcome compared to their initial goals ("when he'd done it ... he said that hasn't worked as good as he'd wanted to ... but the pain has gone”). Pain: Whilst pain was important to almost all patients, it appeared to be less important than the other themes. Pain was predominately raised when it influenced other themes, such as function; many still felt the need to legitimize their foot pain in order for health professionals to take it seriously ("in the end I went to my GP because it had happened a few times and I went to an orthopaedic surgeon who was quite dismissive of it, it was like what are you complaining about”). Conclusions: Patients interpret the outcome of foot surgery using a multitude of interrelated factors, particularly functional ability, appearance and surgeons' appraisal of the procedure. While pain was often noted, this appeared less important than other factors in the overall outcome of the surgery. Future research into foot surgery should incorporate the complexity of how patients determine their outcome Disclosure statement: All authors have declared no conflicts of interes

Navigating the transformation to community-based resource management

Discourses of unprecedented and accelerated human impacts on the earth’s ecosystems underpin increasing scholarship on deliberate and desirable transformations towards sustainability (ISSC and UNESCO, 2013). While transformations in dynamic social-ecological systems are inherently difficult to define and identify, they broadly describe a profound change when existing systems become untenable; a change that recombines existing elements of social-ecological systems in fundamentally novel ways (Walker et al., 2004). Transformations in ecological systems can include changing stability landscapes or fundamental alterations in species composition and biomass (Biggs et al., 2009; McClanahan et al., 2011; Scheffer et al., 2012). In social systems, transformations can lead to restructuring of social institutions, changes in human agency, or new ways of making a living (Chapin et al., 2010). An emerging literature on transformational pathways aims to characterise transformative change and identify its key drivers (e.g. Biggs et al., 2010; Leach et al., 2012; Olsson et al., 2006; Westley et al., 2011). Understanding how to deliberately trigger and navigate such transformations is an important frontier of sustainability science (Brown et al., 2013). In this chapter, we use the case of community-based resource management (CBRM) in the Solomon Islands to contribute a critical social science perspective on navigating social transformations towards sustainability

Health in fishing communities: A global perspective (dataset)

The article associated with this dataset is located in ORE at: http://hdl.handle.net/10871/33258This is the dataset used for the Woodhead et al. (2018) article "Health in fishing communities: A global perspective" published in the Fish and Fisheries journal