The Diversity of Fisheries Based Livelihoods in the Berau Delta, East Kalimantan

Fisheries based livelihoods in the Berau Delta are diverse. The everyday life of small-scale fishers shows that gear diversification, changing fishing gear over a lifetime and practical knowledge to access good fishing grounds in the rich coastal waters are the main livelihood strategies developed by fishers. Fishing practices in the coastal frontier of Berau are influenced by the Bugis habitus of patronage networks between the punggawa and the dependent fishers. An essential element in the decision making of fishers is their embeddedness in political-economic patronage networks as the result of values, interests and knowledge contestations. Livelihood trajectories of different fishers from various classes confirm that as social actors, whether rich or poor, they have the agency to search for better livelihoods

Case Study: Prototype links South African fishing co-op to markets, models value chain innovation for new law

Small-scale fishing in South Africa has been characterized by a system in which individual fishers are at the mercy of supply-chain middlemen and have no control over the prices they receive for their diminishing catches. To improve their incomes, fishers expanded their efforts, putting increased pressure on the area's already overexploited marine resources, which include west coast rock lobster and line-caught fish species. Shortening the value chain so that fishers would have greater access to markets at better prices required harnessing new legislation granting commercial fishing rights and marine management responsibilities to small-scale fishers working in newly formed cooperatives. Implementing this novel approach designed to contribute to local socio-economic development and help alleviate poverty would require the support and participation of community fishers, NGOs, and businesses, as well as tourism, university, and government officials

Socioeconomic characteristics of payang seine (lampara) and driftnet fisheries in West Sumatra, Indonesia

A proportionate random sample survey of 10 percent of the driftnet and Payang seine fishers in West Sumatra was carried out in 1998. A total of 45 driftnet and 66 lampara fishers were interviewed to obtain socioeconomic data on the fisheries. About 40 percent of the driftnet and 76 percent of the lampara fishers owned and operated their fishing vessels and gears indicating a high level of ownership of fishing assets by these small scale fishers. The lampara catches consisted mainly of eastern little tuna, skipjack tuna, yellow fin tuna and mackerel, while the driftnets caught mainly Spanish mackerel, Indian mackerel, eastern little tuna and scad

The Diversity of Fisheries Based Livelihoods in the Berau Delta, East Kalimantan

Fisheries based livelihoods in the Berau Delta are diverse. The everyday life of small-scale fishers shows that gear diversification, changing fishing gear over a lifetime and practical knowledge to access good fishing grounds in the rich coastal waters are the main livelihood strategies developed by fishers. Fishing practices in the coastal frontier of Berau are influenced by the Bugis habitus of patronage networks between the punggawa and the dependent fishers. An essential element in the decision making of fishers is their embeddedness in political-economic patronage networks as the result of values, interests and knowledge contestations. Livelihood trajectories of different fishers from various classes confirm that as social actors, whether rich or poor, they have the agency to search for better livelihoods

Anticoagulant rodenticides on our public and community lands: spatial distribution of exposure and poisoning of a rare forest carnivore.

Anticoagulant rodenticide (AR) poisoning has emerged as a significant concern for conservation and management of non-target wildlife. The purpose for these toxicants is to suppress pest populations in agricultural or urban settings. The potential of direct and indirect exposures and illicit use of ARs on public and community forest lands have recently raised concern for fishers (Martes pennanti), a candidate for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act in the Pacific states. In an investigation of threats to fisher population persistence in the two isolated California populations, we investigate the magnitude of this previously undocumented threat to fishers, we tested 58 carcasses for the presence and quantification of ARs, conducted spatial analysis of exposed fishers in an effort to identify potential point sources of AR, and identified fishers that died directly due to AR poisoning. We found 46 of 58 (79%) fishers exposed to an AR with 96% of those individuals having been exposed to one or more second-generation AR compounds. No spatial clustering of AR exposure was detected and the spatial distribution of exposure suggests that AR contamination is widespread within the fisher's range in California, which encompasses mostly public forest and park lands Additionally, we diagnosed four fisher deaths, including a lactating female, that were directly attributed to AR toxicosis and documented the first neonatal or milk transfer of an AR to an altricial fisher kit. These ARs, which some are acutely toxic, pose both a direct mortality or fitness risk to fishers, and a significant indirect risk to these isolated populations. Future research should be directed towards investigating risks to prey populations fishers are dependent on, exposure in other rare forest carnivores, and potential AR point sources such as illegal marijuana cultivation in the range of fishers on California public lands

Socioeconomic factors that affect artisanal fishers’ readiness to exit a declining fishery

The emerging world crisis created by declining fish stocks poses a challenge to resource users and managers. The problem is particularly acute in poor nations, such as those in East Africa, where fishing is an important subsistence activity but high fishing intensity and use of destructive gear have resulted in declining catches. In this context developing effective management strategies requires an understanding of how fishers may respond to declines in catch. We examined the readiness of 141 Kenyan fishers to stop fishing under hypothetical scenarios of declines in catch and how socioeconomic conditions influenced their decisions. As expected, the proportion of fishers that would exit the fishery increased with magnitude of decline in catch. Fishers were more likely to say they would stop fishing if they were from households that had a higher material style of life and a greater number of occupations. Variables such as capital investment in the fishery and the proportion of catch sold had weak, nonsignificant relationships. Our finding that fishers from poorer households would be less likely to exit a severely declining fishery is consistent with the literature on poverty traps, which suggests the poor are unable to mobilize the necessary resources to overcome either shocks or chronic low-income situations and consequently may remain in poverty. This finding supports the proposition \ud that wealth generation and employment opportunities directed at the poorest fishers may help reduce fishing effort on overexploited fisheries, but successful interventions such as these will require an understanding of the socioeconomic context in which fishers operate. \u

Price Uncertainty, Expectations Formation and Fishers' Location Choices

This paper deals with the effects of uncertain output prices upon fishers' location choices. It employs ARIMA models to construct the price forecasts used by fishers in a model which generates expected profits for three fishing locations in the British Columbia salmon fishery. A random utility model of fishing location choice is then estimated using two different sets of regressors. The first is expected seasonal profit and its variability. The second is expected wealth and its variability, where expected wealth is taken to be the sum of the known preseason wealth and the expected profitability of a given fishing location. Results show that expected profitability is a significant determinant of fishing location choice but that expected wealth plays an even bigger role. This suggests that there is a type of wealth or stock effect present in decisions made by fishers. The results also provide evidence that the variability of profits or wealth is generally a less significant component in regard to fishing location choice. In fact, some fishers thrive on greater variability, thereby providing some evidence of the risk loving behaviour typically attributed to fishers. This is not the case, however, for all fishers since some are found to be risk-neutral and even risk-averse. Given the finding that fishers do respond to economic incentives, one policy implication concerns the ability of fisheries managers to alter the dispersion of fishers over fishing locations via the adjustment of the economic incentives by means of differential royalty taxes. A second policy implication results from the finding of risk-loving behavior. This calls into question models that assume risk-averse behaviour and predict a dominance of crop-sharing contracts over wage contracts.Uncertainty, location choice, random utility, risk preferences, Environmental Economics and Policy, Production Economics,