Prateep Kumar Nayak

Resource degradation, marginalization, and poverty in small-scale fisheries: threats to social-ecological resilience in India and Brazil

In this study we examine poverty in local fisheries using a social-ecological resilience lens. In assessing why “fishery may rhyme with poverty”, Christophe Bene suggests a typology of impoverishment processes, which includes economic exclusion, social marginalization, class exploitation, and political disempowerment as key mechanisms that accelerate poverty. We extend his analysis by exploring these four mechanisms further and by intertwining them with processes of environmental change and degradation. Our goal is to understand poverty in local fisheries as a process rooted in social and institutional factors as influenced by ecological dynamics. We argue that understanding poverty will require a focus on the social-ecological system (SES) as a whole, and addressing poverty will mean rebuilding not only collapsed stocks but the entire social-ecological system, including restoring relationships between resources and people. Information from two cases, the Chilika Lagoon on the Bay of Bengal in India, and the Paraty region on the southeastern coast of Brazil, is used to understand how fishery social-ecological systems come under pressure from drivers at multiple levels, resulting in a range of impacts and pushing the system to a breaking point or collapse. We analyze elements of what it takes for the whole system to break down or collapse and push fishers into poverty and marginalization. The Chilika SES has already broken down, and the Paraty SES is under pressure from multiple drivers of change. The two cases help contrast key dynamics in the social, cultural, economic, political, and environmental spheres, for lessons on system collapse and recovery. Rebuilding fisheries may be examined as a process of building and strengthening resilience. The challenge is to make the fishery social-ecological system more resilient, with more flexibility and options, not only within fishing activities but also within a range of other sectors.

The Chilika Lagoon Social-Ecological System: An Historical Analysis

Innovations in social-ecological research require novel approaches to conceive change in human-environment systems. The study of history constitutes an important element of this process. First, using the Chilika Lagoon small-scale fisheries in India, as a case, in this paper I reflect on the appropriateness of a social-ecological perspective for understanding economic history. Second, I examine here how changes in various components of the lagoons social-ecological system influenced and shaped economic history and the political processes surrounding it. I then discuss the two-way linkages between economic history and social-ecological processes to highlight that the components of a social-ecological system, including the economic aspects, follow an interactive and interdependent trajectory such that their combined impacts have important implications for human-environment connections and sustainability of the system as a whole. Social, ecological, economic, and political components of a system are interlinked and may jointly contribute to the shaping of specific histories. Based on this synthesis, I offer insights to move beyond theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary boundaries as an overarching approach, an inclusive lens, to study change in complex social-ecological systems.

Linking global drivers with local and regional change: a social-ecological system approach in Chilika Lagoon, Bay of Bengal

Global scale drivers such as international markets for shrimp can trigger large changes at local and regional scales. But there is also a poorly appreciated reverse process, operating from the bottom up, with potential for triggering changes at higher scales. Thus, effects of drivers can be seen as a two-way process in which global drivers and local and regional drivers can potentially impact each other. Here, we argue that not only can global drivers impact the sustainability of local and regional social-ecological systems, but sustainability at higher scales can also be impacted by changes at the scale of local and regional social-ecological systems. Using Chilika, a large lagoon on the Bay of Bengal, Odisha State in India as a case, we show that traditional small-scale capture fisheries supporting 150 fisher villages with some 400,000 people were marginalized by aquaculture development for tiger prawn and by state-driven hydrological interventions, with impacts on the ecology of the lagoon. These changes, in turn, contribute to global poverty and food insecurity, making it difficult for India to meet international targets such as millennium development goals. The marginalized fisherfolk become part of environmental justice and other social movements. With large parts of the lagoon converted into a virtual monoculture for the production of tiger prawn, changes in Chilika (a Ramsar site) contribute to wetland habitat loss at the global scale, and biodiversity losses, possibly including IUCN red-listed species.

Power and politics of social–ecological regime shifts in the Chilika lagoon, India and Tam Giang lagoon, Vietnam

Analyses of ecological regime shifts primarily focus on abrupt, long-term and significant changes that trigger fundamental reorganisation in ecosystem structure and function. There remains limited empirical work on the relationship between regime shifts and social inequities, power imbalances, and social and environmental injustices. Inadequate attention to this social context restricts our ability to predict and avert impending regime shifts, or to effectively navigate where thresholds have been crossed. In this paper, we offer an initial empirical assessment of politics and power in two coastal lagoons in India and Vietnam experiencing abrupt change. We adopt a realist view of power to: (1) assess the social relations structuring human–environment interactions in both lagoons; (2) characterise the dominant framings and narratives that influence if and how regime shifts are understood; (3) consider who wins and loses if and when regime shifts and other forms of rapid environmental change take place; and (4) reflect on the implications of power and politics for the governance of regime shifts in linked human–ocean settings.

Emerging Concepts in Adaptive Management

Adaptive management is an elegant concept. Structure management interventions and policies as experiments, monitor feedback, and make necessary adjustments. Yet, the implementation of adaptive management has often been difficult, and the outcomes unclear. We examine in this chapter six issues or concepts that emerge as central to ongoing efforts to advance the theory and practice of adaptive management of natural resources: (1) adopting a transdisciplinary perspective on adaptive management; (2) shifting from a natural resource management to social-ecological systems perspective; (3) situating adaptive management within a governance context; (4) surfacing the role of power in adaptive management processes; (5) engaging with knowledge co-production; and (6) exploring the role of adaptive management as a deliberative tool in support of social-ecological transformations.

COMMUNITY-BASED FOREST MANAGEMENT IN INDIA: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TENURE

SUMMARY Background The policies embracing the Community-based forest management systems in India have not yielded significant results. The National and State Governments have responded to the demands for community rights over forests by various policy statements, but the tenure of forest land remains the most contentious issue in the field of forest management in India. This paper examines policies in their local and external environments in both historical as well as current contexts. Important elements for understanding the local view points and assigning forest tenure are: • the community concerns for the state of forest resources and their efforts at its conservation, • rural poverty, • access to basic needs for livelihoods and • the condition of the forest resources. Relevant forest policies of the national and state governments are discussed with specific reference to the recent Joint Forest Management programme and questions of tenure. The topic is placed in context with the development of other sectors of the rural economy and international concern for the environment.

ADAPTIVE COMMUNITY FOREST MANAGEMENT: AN ALTERNATE PARADIGM

SUMMARY The paper traces the origins of community forest management in Orissa state, India and develops a definition of adaptive community forest management that stresses the essential elements of: • matching local interests with those of a wider national and international community; • acknowledging the heterogeneity and dynamism in the environment of management—both locally and on a wider stage; • allowing the resource management institutions to evolve through learning about this complex and changing environment. The author deduces general principles covering the development and adaptation of community resource management institutions to their changing circumstances in a world of uncertainty.

The Principles of Transdisciplinary Research in Small-Scale Fisheries

The diverse characteristics, values, and importance of small-scale fisheries imply at least two key considerations. First, there is no tailor-made, one-size-fits-all solution to the problems and challenges facing small-scale fisheries; thus, policy and governance must be sensitive to the contexts. Second, the close relationship and interactivity between the natural and the social dimensions of small-scale fisheries suggests that knowledge and understanding about small-scale fisheries may need to transcend the boundaries of academic disciplines. These are the premises for research and activities conducted in the Too Big To Ignore (TBTI) – Global Partnership for Small-Scale Fisheries Research. Taking a transdisciplinary approach to research, training, and learning about small-scale fisheries can help address real-world problems and reveal opportunities to move towards pragmatic solutions. In this chapter, we discuss what transdisciplinarity involves, what the underlying principles are, and what makes it distinct from other perspectives. We argue that transdisciplinarity in small-scale fisheries requires institutional and academic innovation at local and national scales that facilitates interactive and transformative learning.

Conditions for Governance of Tenure in Lagoon-Based Small-Scale Fisheries, India

This chapter begins by confirming that issues around tenure within lagoon-based small-scale fisheries context have largely been neglected. Despite a growing body of literature on lagoon commons and property rights systems, existing literature on marine and terrestrial tenure tend to subsume tenure issues of coastal lagoons. Lack of specific attention to lagoon tenure can potentially affect their long-term sustainability and further marginalize small-scale fishers that have depended on them for generations. This chapter identifies important challenges associated with lagoon tenure in relation to the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines), particularly focusing on its provisions for responsible governance of tenure. The tenure provisions in the SSF Guidelines highlight that small-scale fishing communities need to have secure tenure rights to resources that form the basis for their social, economic, and cultural wellbeing, and that the state should recognize and ensure such rights. To this effect, the chapter sets forth some of the key conditions for governance of tenure in the context of lagoon small-scale fisheries social-ecological systems through an extensive treatment of a broad range of fishers’ rights and multi actor responsibilities. Fisher experiences with the impacts of ongoing rapid social-ecological changes on lagoon tenure and community responses in Chilika Lagoon, Bay of Bengal, India region is used as a case. Data analyzed in this chapter comes from a series of workshops, meetings, and consultations with small-scale fishers and other stakeholders in Chilika. The chapter offers important lessons for governance of lagoon tenure by highlighting its key connections with resource systems, resource sectors, and user-level dynamics, to offer insights on possible institutional and governance arrangements around secure lagoon tenure. Further, it provides suggestions and reflections on the specific characteristics of lagoon small-scale fisheries tenure and possible future directions for governance. Despite its specific focus on lagoon systems, the main learnings about the key conditions, characteristics, and governance directions of small-scale fisheries tenure provides crucial insights on successful implementation of the SSF Guidelines, especially its tenure provisions.