Making Space for Community Resource Management in Fisheries

TLDR

Fisheries science traditionally centers on individual fishermen in an open‑access commons, framing the resource as a tragedy of the commons and overlooking fishers’ own perceptions and management desires, which leads to divergent maps and solutions. Mapping fisheries from fishers’ perspectives uncovers diverse landscapes and communities, indicating that area‑based management could promote community development instead of solely individual prosperity.

Abstract

The dominant discourse of fisheries science and management, bioeconomics, places the behavior of individual fishermen operating on an open-access commons at the center of its understanding of fisheries resources and the fishing industry. Within this discourse, fishermen are the sole actors and the fishery is the fixed stage for an inevitable 'tragedy of the commons.' Starting from these particular assumptions of both subject and space, bioeconomics proposes solutions to fisheries crisis that differ sharply from fishers' perceptions of the resource and their desires for management. These divergent understandings of both the natural and social environments are reflected in the maps produced by fisheries scientists/managers and those produced by fishers themselves. Remapping fisheries in terms of fishers' perceptions and scales of operation reveals diverse natural landscapes and communities in which the dominant discourse charted only quantities of fish and individual fishermen. The landscape of fishing communities, once made visible, suggests an opportunity for forms of area-based management that might facilitate community development rather than just individual prosperity.