John J. Poggie

3 – A Framework for Monitoring and Assessing Socioeconomics and Governance of Large Marine Ecosystems1

This chapter has described a framework for assessing and monitoring the salient socioeconomic and governance elements of LMEs. The assessment and monitoring framework consists of 12 steps that, if applied, are expected to produce the essential information required for adaptive ecosystem management. The ecosystem paradigm is emerging as the dominant approach to managing natural resources in the U.S., as well as internationally. The shift away from the management of individual resources to the broader perspective of ecosystems has not been confined to academia and think tanks where it first began; it also is beginning to take root in government policy and programs. Many have advocated a new, broader approach to managing the nations natural resources. The approach recognizes that plant and animal communities are interdependent and interact with their physical environment to form distinct ecological units called ecosystems. The approach also recognizes that many human actions and their consequences, including marine pollution, extend across jurisdictional boundaries. This chapter presents a methodology for determining what is known of the socioeconomic and governance aspects—the human dimensions—of LME management. The chapter describes a basic framework for identifying the salient socioeconomic and governance elements and processes of an LME. Methods for monitoring and assessing the various elements and processes are also discussed in the chapter. There is description on the human dimensions of LMES, monitoring and assessment, applications of the monitoring and assessment framework, property rights entitlements and regimes for LME management, the structure of property rights entitlements in an LME, property rights regimes and management of LME resources. Property rights paradigm could be the framework necessary to design LME resource management policies for long-term economic growth and resource sustainability. Property rights establish the incentives and time-horizons for resource use and investment.

Risk as a Basis for Taboos among Fishermen in Southern New England

The paper examines the relationship between fishermens taboos, a form of ritual behavior, and a number of sociocultural variables. Taboo usage was positively related to time spent at sea and negatively related to socialization in a fishing family. These interrelated findings strongly support the risk and ritual hypothesis proposed by Malinowski by showing that within a single dangerous occupation, degree of ritual covaries with the degree of risk involved.

The Natural Resource Region and marine policy: a case study from the New England Groundfish Fishery

This paper proposes the Natural Resource Region (NRR) as a policy tool for the management of total capital flows and interactions with Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs). The NRR is conceptualized as a network of Natural Resource Communities bound together by total capital flows and dependent on the marine resources of adjacent LMEs. The NRR is illustrated with a case study of the New England multispecies groundfish fishery, showing how ignorance by managers of tolal capital components (i.e. social, economic, cultural, human, biophysical) significantly destabilized the fishery. A NRR approach to marine policy and management is anticipated to improve the sustainability of both natural resources and natural-resource dependent communities.

Factors Influencing the Success of Fishermen's Cooperatives in Ecuador

The fishermens cooperative is viewed by many as the ideal type of organization for use in improving the welfare of fishermen in development projects (cf. Meynell 1984; Jentoft 1986). Major development agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Bank also advocate their use. For example, a review of World Bank fishery projects between 1976 and 1981 indicated that 53 percent involved fishermens cooperatives (Pollnac 1985). Judging from the relatively high failure rate that appears to exist for this type of organization, however, it is clear that their development is a difficult matter. The success of fishermens cooperatives depends on a large number of factors as evidenced by the numerous variables identified in the literature for local organizations in general (Esman and Uphoff 1984) and fishermens organizations in particular (Poggie 1980a; Meynell 1984; Pollnac 1988). Pollnac (1985) identified no fewer than 21 important determinants of success for fishermens organizations, some of which are clusters of variables. It appears, however, that there may be several important dimensions that underlie the reported concomitants of the success and failure of fishermens organizations. As a means of furthering our understanding of these basic dimensions, this study analyzes a number of items reported in the literature to be associated with the success and failure of this type of organization.

Coastal Resource Foraging, Life Satisfaction, and Well-Being in Southeastern Puerto Rico

Based on ethnographic work in coastal southeastern Puerto Rico, we explore the empirical observation that people who make a significant part of their living from fishing and exploitation of other coastal resources are more satisfied with their lives, their work, and their enjoyment of community life than their fellow community members. Coastal resource foraging (CRF) denotes a set of economic activities and social relations related to making a living by the capture and selling of local coastal resources (primarily fish and shellfish). We argue that CRF in southeastern Puerto Rico can be understood as a separate mode of production within the region’s rural, coastal communities and use this framework to make intracultural comparisons between individuals and households. Coastal resource foragers report higher overall life satisfaction than their non-foraging neighbors.

Food Resource Periodicity and Cooperation Values: A Cross-Cultural Consideration

This article deals with the relationship of maintenance systems and socialization values cross-culturally. A theoretical discussion of the hypothesis that periodicity in food resource production relates to socialization for cooperation is presented. Drawing on two separate random samples from the HRAF Probability Sample Files, the hypothesis is tested and found to be strongly supported. The findings are discussed in terms of how they appear to answer a question raised by Margaret Mead some 57 years ago, concerning why some cultures stress cooperation and others do not.

5 – A Total Capital Approach to the Management of Large Marine Ecosystems: Case Studies of Two Natural Resource Disasters

This chapter presents the clues to the happenings when a natural resource disaster impacts a marine-linked human ecosystem and, how a holistic human ecosystem approach, the total capital model, might be applied to help prevent such disasters. It is proposed that integrating total capital forms—human, cultural, biophysical, social, and economic capital into legislation— aimed at achieving management of Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) can improve the speed of recovery and lessen the negative impacts of regional natural resource disasters on user populations. The frequency and severity of natural resource disasters can be mitigated through a proactive total capital approach to resource management. The focus is on the human consequences of Natural Resource Disasters (NRDs) in the LMEs. The disaster recovery model presented is designed to balance stock recovery with recovery of the other forms of total capital, with the unit of analysis being the fishing community, and networks of fishing communities within identified natural resource regions. The chapter details the concepts and units of analysis—the terms total capital, social capital, cultural capital, and biophysical capital—the western Long Island Sound Lobster Fishery and the 1999-2000 die-off—brief historical overview of the fishery, the die-off as a natural resource disaster, natural resource disaster impacts to the human ecosystem—the Groundfish Fishery collapse of New England—a brief historical overview of the fishery and the natural resource disaster of the Groundfish stock collapse. There is discussion on a total capital response approach to natural resource disaster mitigation—basic components, component of response model (social capital, cultural capital, economic capital, human capital, and biophysical capital). Anything that forces the base biophysical capital to collapse has the potential to disrupt all the other capital forms, including the established patterns of capital flows that hold the system together creating a natural resource disaster.