Rosemary E. Ommer

An inshore fishery: A commercially viable industry or an employer of last resort

Abstract Traditional fisheries often coexist tenuously with modern economies. Within Canada, Newfoundland has a heavily subsidized groundfishery. Despite repeated crises and innumerable studies, the commercially unviable fishery continues to support too many fishermen because the industrial society in which the fishery is embedded provides few employment alternatives. Society can “muddle through,”; hoping that demographic or political changes will solve the problem, or can eliminate subsidies, letting fishermen fend for themselves, or systematically reduce the size of the industry. Action must ultimately be taken; governments will not subsidize the industry forever, and continued overfishing can lead to the complete closure of the fishery. This article describes the historical and economic framework of the Newfoundland fishery, the crises it has faced over the past twenty‐five years, and the public debate over its future. Although the details are specific to Newfoundland, a similar story could be told of ...

A Comparative Analysis of Three Modes of Collaborative Learning in Fisheries Governance: Hierarchy, Networks and Community

This chapter discusses three different ways of using collaborative learning in fisheries governance, all of which have been applied in the Coasts Under Stress (CUS) project in Canada. The three modes are: hierarchy; networks; and community. The hierarchical mode entails top-down computer modelling techniques, in which the experiential knowledge that is gathered from fishers’ haul data is integrated with scientists’ survey data into management plans. The networks mode entails developing an understanding of complex marine ecosystems by sharing knowledge between individuals and groups interacting in discussions about ecosystem structures and recovery strategies. The community mode entails the involvement of local communities in knowledge sharing. Our finding is that, in whatever mode it occurs, collaborative learning is of inestimable value in improving fisheries governance, especially by removing mutual misunderstandings. But techniques of collaborative learning cost time and money, and governments must be willing to devote the necessary resources to make them work.

Primitive accumulation and the Scottish clann in the Old World and the New

In the Highlands of Scotland the clan system was destroyed in two or three generations after the Rising of 1745, but Scottish emigrants reconstituted clan settlements in Cape Breton and southwest Newfoundland that persisted until the first world war. This study compares kinship relations and territorial organization in the Old World and the New, examining their social structures and economic bases from the bottom up, using the concept of primitive accumulation as an analytic tool. Both in Scotland and in British North America the clan was tribal, an extended family, that held territory in common. Settlements were characteristically agglomerated and property was commonly owned by the whole kinship group. In sixteenth-century Scotland, clansmen took a tribal view of their territorial possessions and resisted feudal claims of landlordship. The assumption of ownership rights by clan chiefs in the eighteenth century undermined the clansmens free enjoyment of the use of their communal lands and resources. Those who emigrated to Cape Breton and Newfoundland sought out their own kin and settled alongside them. Farms passed from one branch of a family to another through succeeding generations but continued to be occupied by members of the same clan and they shared labour and tools when the need arose. In the New World, the clan system was preserved by marriage, mutual aid and communal tenure not for sentimental reasons but for survival and efficiency in a harsh pioneering environment.

Fisheries Policy and the Survival of Fishing Communities in Eastern Canada

Since the introduction of deep-sea fishing technology in the 1970s, fisheries policy in Canada has increasingly favoured large corporate enterprises. The deep-sea fleets have been seen as highly efficient operators in contrast to the smaller, inshore operators, in which simple labour intensive methods are employed, and the catch rates are relatively low. The deep-sea fleets have replaced labour with capital intensity, and have been centralized as much as possible in a few ports. With the fall-out from the current moratoria on most fishing operations, however, such an approach is being re-examined since it is now considered likely that an over abundance of poorly-managed but technologically efficient fishing effort may be the principal cause of the collapse of the groundfish stocks in the north west Atlantic. Concerns about a fleet in which there has been excessive capital investment are matched by worries about the sustainability of the many small communities of coastal eastern Canada whose inshore fisheries have suffered in the general collapse of the stocks. There is a growing realisation that fisheries management and science cannot be separated from the social context in which they operate. Fisheries are ultimately about employment and the overall economic well-being of regions; not just industry, although this, of course, is related. A meaningful debate is necessary that brings together all the various stakeholders in this remarkably diffuse resource sector. The sustainability of stocks is related to the viability of provincial economies, fishing and processing firms and fishing communities. Failure to recognise this interdependence has led to a great deal of division and bitterness between those most concerned in the fishery. As deep water fishing on the continental slope becomes a regular part of the industry, and as new fisheries are found and developed, it is essential that the mistakes of the past not be repeated. Regardless of how the fishery will be prosecuted and managed in the future, debates on the sustainability of fish stocks must ultimately include concern about the sustainability of fishing communities.