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Issue 15.2 Abstracts

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Walking Behind the Old Woman: Sacred Sakha Cow Knowledge in the 21st Century

By Susan A. Crate

This article examines the spiritual and utilitarian values of sacred practices related to cow care among rural Sakha of northeastern Siberia , Russia . Founded upon a pre-Soviet animistic belief system, sacred practices relating to cows are not only important to post-Soviet Sakha identity and ethnic revival but also may make a difference in the productivity of a herd and in maintaining social cohesion within households and village communities in a period of continued socio-economic and moral decline. The article also draws parallels with the importance of reinstating the sacred in human-animal relationships globally.

Keywords: sacred belief, indigenous peoples, Viliui Sakha, local knowledge, environmental anthropology, social cohesion

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A Measure of Fairness: An Investigative Framework to Explore Perceptions of Fairness and Justice in a Real-Life Social Conflict

By Catherine Gross

Conflicts or disagreements within communities have become commonplace where decisions concerning the allocation of natural resources must be made. Institutions responsible for governance and environmental decision-making frequently struggle to gain broad community and stakeholder approval for proposals concerning natural resources such as water allocation. At the centre of such complex problems are issues of equity and justice. Although there is a substantial body of research and theory on justice, much of this has been in the abstract or external to a social context. The lack of contextually applied justice research is recognized as a gap in environmental resource allocation research. Theories and constructs from several disciplines can be used to unravel the tangle of issues embedded within social problems. This paper outlines one such transdisciplinary research approach and provides an overview of its first application in the understanding of a real-life social conflict concerning the allocation of water for irrigation farming.

Keywords: justice research, fairness, water allocation, social conflict, fair decision-making processes

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Defining "Fishing Communities": Vulnerability and the Magnusun-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Mangement Act

By Patricia M. Clay and Julia Olson

As populations of many fish species worldwide have declined, the price of fuel has increased, and coastal development has mushroomed, fishing communities have suffered economic and social vulnerability. Since its 1996 re-authorization, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (which governs U.S. marine fisheries) has included a definition of “fishing community” as “substantially dependent on or substantially engaged in the harvest or processing of fishery resources to meet social and economic needs” and a requirement (National Standard 8) to minimize economic impacts and sustain participation in fisheries in these communities. These initiatives are being implemented in conjunction with a worldwide move towards ecosystem-based management. These legal and policy requirements add a new layer to theoretical discussions of “community” and “vulnerability.” We review key themes and issues from the literature on ecological anthropology, vulnerability, disasters, ecosystem-based management and fishing communities in the context of applied anthropological work in the U.S. Critical factors for understanding vulnerability in fishing communities are discussed and put in the context of more inclusive and holistic forms of management. 

Keywords: fishing, policy, community, vulnerability, ecosystem, resilience

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Creating a Place for "Community" in New England Fisheries

By Kevin St. Martin and Madeleine Hall-Arber

Although the Sustainable Fisheries Act that amended the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act in 1996 defined fishing communities to be places with significant harvesting and/or processing activities, a collaborative mapping project in the Northeast has made clear the limits of such a port-based definition by documenting the presence and nature of communities “at sea.” Using vessel trip report data, unique maps depicting community territories were created for a variety of communities dependent upon Gulf of Maine fisheries. Community-based researchers interviewed fishers from the region and asked them to engage with the maps, discuss the nature of community within those “at sea” locations, and document the type of local environmental knowledge they maintained.

The participatory interviews made clear the varied ways that communities respond to and are changed by the recent history of regulatory and environmental change. While the dominant port-based vision of fishing communities sees communities as sites of impact and decline, a focus on relationships between fishers and between fishers and their environments reveals communities as ongoing and emerging processes. While the former produces doubt relative to the development of any community-based initiatives for fisheries management, the latter points to the resilience of “community” and the always-emerging potential for community-based approaches.

Keywords: GIS, participatory research, commercial fishing, communities

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Assessing Vulnerabilities: Integrating Information about Driving Forces that Affect Risks and Resilience in Fishing Communities

By Seth Tuler, Julia Agyeman, Patricia Pinto da Silva, Karen Roth LoRusso, and Rebecca Kay

Those engaging in fishing-related activities and the communities in which they live face many and varied pressures. Resource depletion and the associated regulatory responses impose constraints on fishing activities and can exacerbate economic and social pressures on fisheries stakeholders. Other factors such as increasing coastal development and shifting demographics have brought additional threats to the sustainability of fisheries and those dependent on them. Regional fisheries management councils and the National Marine Fisheries Service are required to consider the potential benefits and costs of proposed management measures, as well as vulnerabilities and risks to fishers and fishing communities resulting from these measures. However, social and economic data related to fishery stakeholders are not always readily available.

Additionally, information on specific sub-groups that may have special needs and vulnerabilities in terms of the potential for disproportionate impacts resulting from proposed measures is even more illusive. A large number of factors - or driving forces - may contribute to individual and group vulnerability. In this paper we explore the utility of considering vulnerability in the assessment of potential impacts from fisheries management measures. We begin by reviewing a conceptual framework of vulnerability and the driving forces of vulnerability. We then discuss how a consideration of vulnerability can inform managers by presenting results from recent empirical work related to marine fisheries. Finally, we discuss the potential benefits of a specific focus on vulnerability to fisheries management measures.

Keywords: vulnerability assessment, marine fisheries, social impact assessment, fishery management

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The Effects of Days at Sea on Employment, Income, and Hours of Work: Some Preliminary Evidence

By Daniel Georgianna and Debra Shrader

Data from the National Marine Fisheries Service, from interviews with fishing crews, and data from settlement houses show that between 1993 and 2002 employment decreased, net crew share increased, and hours of work per day increased for New Bedford scallopers and draggers. These results are consistent with predictions from economic theory on the effects of restricting user rights in common space, in this case restrictions on days at sea for scallopers and draggers, which began in 1994. However, we cannot claim that the effects were caused by the reductions in DAS because we did not control for changes in biological and other factors over the period. Large scallop stocks in closed areas opened to scallopers and growing stocks in the open areas probably increased the scallop catches. Declining stocks of groundfish reduced the catch in the dragger fishery. As expected, employment dropped more and net crew share rose less for draggers than for scallopers. Frequent changes in both the scale and number of factors affected by regulations and the increasing complexity of the regulations also affected these results.

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Happiness, Well-being, and Psychocultural Adaptation to the Stresses Associated with Marine Fishing

By Richard B. Pollnac and John J. Poggie

The purpose of this paper is to develop a heuristic model to account for the attachment that many particularly successful fishers seem to have to their occupation. It is argued here that the relatively risky nature of the occupation of fishing attracts and holds individuals manifesting an active, adventurous, aggressive, and courageous personality; hence, these risky components of the job have a positive influence on their levels of happiness. There is more to fishing than money. What other occupation is reflected in a popular recreational activity like marine sport fishing? It takes one into a different environment, away from shore-based activities and allows participants to become involved in the thrill of the hunt, pitting ones' luck and skill against others as well as against elusive prey hidden beneath the water. As a consequence, some fishers resist leaving the occupation even when economic returns suggest they should.

The paper first develops a heuristic human ecology model that illustrates relationships between aspects of the physical, political, and social environments that generate stress among commercial fishers. The model is then elaborated to include psychological, biobehavioral, technological, ideological and social adaptations that mediate between the stress causing variables and the individual fisher, reducing or eliminating the stress. A possible genetic component ia also discussed. The model is discussed in terms of its application to fisheries management in New England and elsewhere.

Keywords: fishing, job satisfaction, happiness, fishery management

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Reducing Risk to Life and Limb: Safety Training Steps Towards Resilience in Massachusetts' Commercial Fishing Industry

By Madeleine Hall-Arber and Karina Lorenz Mrakovcich

Vulnerability takes on a visceral meaning in the context of plying the seas in one of the most dangerous occupations in the U.S. Despite enhanced safety regulations for the fishing industry, deaths and injury abound. The loss of the F/V Northern Edge out of New Bedford with only one survivor sparked a new move towards the Northeast's commercial industry's participation in safety training courses in 2005 and 2006.

By looking at the New Bedford experience and an effort by the Massachusetts Fishermen's Partnership to build on that model, this paper explores the potential for developing a “culture of safety” in the fishing industry of the Northeast. Fishers have long been noted as either overt risk-takers or simply fatalists, but improvements in technology have made survival in emergency situations more likely. Participation in safety training may be viewed as an optimistic choice, reflecting a community's resilience in the face of adversity.

Keywords: commercial fishing, safety-training, risk, culture of safety

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Cases of Collaboration in New England Coastal Communities: An Approach to Manage Change

By Troy W. Hartley, Michele Gagne, and Robert A. Robertson

Communities in New England are using a collaboration strategy as one means of tackling the socio-economic, environmental and cultural changes they face today. The paper reports on two case studies of collaboration on a fishing industry health care plan in Massachusetts and a working waterfront preservation effort in Maine . These New England coastal communities experienced many of the same challenges, and achieve many of the same benefits, as collaboration in other natural resource contexts. Partnerships with stakeholders outside of the customary network (i.e., reaching out to uncommon partners) were central in the case studies. The networks among participants in the cases were compact with no individual more than two to three individuals removed from the resources (e.g., information, skills, financial) they needed to achieve the projects' objectives. Ramifications for community leaders and public officials are discussed.

Keywords: collaboration, coastal communities, networks

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