Editor’s Foreword: The Puertoricanization of North American Fisheries Research
David Griffith
Anthropological Applications in the Management of Federally Managed Fisheries: Context, Institutional History, and Prospectus
Lisa L. Colburn, Susan Abbott-Jamieson, and Patricia M. Clay
This special issue of Human Organization provides a selection of articles addressing the use of applied anthropology in fisheries management in the United States today. NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)1 has employed anthropologists and sociologists internally and externally to support fisheries management since 1974, although it used economists earlier; recent expansion of NMFS’ sociocultural analysis effort is generating new initiatives and findings of interest to the wider social science community. This introduction provides the background for this issue through a brief account of past, present, and future directions of this new growth area within applied anthropology. The origins and intent of the special issue are discussed first, followed by the institutional history of the integration of anthropologists and sociologists into fisheries management at NMFS and an outline of NMFS’ developing sociocultural analysis program. Finally, the specific policies and themes addressed in the individual papers are related to broader policy issues and themes within fisheries anthropology and fisheries management.
Key words: fisheries anthropology, fisheries management, United States
Lobster and Groundfish Management in the Gulf of Maine: A Rational Choice Perspective
James M. Acheson
Many of the world’s most important fisheries are in a state of crisis. The Maine lobster industry is one of the very few exceptions, with catches at an all time high. Much of the success of this fishery stems from effective conservation legislation, passed largely through the long-term lobbying activities of powerful factions within the industry itself. In stark contrast is the Maine groundfishery, where stocks and catches have never been so low. This industry has had to deal with a top-down management system that has given it little incentive to conserve and has made it virtually impossible to get rules the industry considers effective. They have responded by using a roving bandit strategy. From the perspective of rational choice theory, the basic difference is that the lobster industry has been able to organize politically to get legislation to solve its communal action dilemma, while the groundfishing industry, like most fishing industries, has not. This paper explores the biological, technical, economic, social, and political factors underlying the differential ability of these two industries to develop effective conservation legislation. These data contribute to answering one of the most important questions facing resource management at present—namely, under what conditions will resource users develop rules to sustain the resources on which their livelihood depends?
Key words: rational choice, fisheries management, lobster industry, groundfish industry, Maine
Restoration of the Chesapeake Bay Using a Non-Native Oyster: Ecological and Fishery Considerations
Michael Paolisso, Nicole Dery, and Stan Herman
In 2004, the State of Maryland and Commonwealth of Virginia proposed to introduce a non-native oyster species, Crassostrea ariakensis, into the tidal waters of Maryland and Virginia. The states planned to take action as soon as a rigorous, scientifically based Environmental Impact Statement and Record of Decision could be prepared. The benefits advanced by the supporters of this introduction included: improving water quality; providing important habitat for oysters, finfish, crabs and a diversity of other species; rehabilitating an oyster population capable of supporting an economically viable oyster industry; and preserving Chesapeake Bay communities and culture. As part of the broader Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), the authors were contracted to evaluate the sociocultural risks and benefits of introducing C. ariakensis, as compared to a number of alternative actions. In this article, we describe some emergent findings from the cultural and socioeconomic risk analysis portion of the EIS analysis. In particular, we focus our analysis on patterns of agreement and disagreement regarding specific restoration goals and the management efforts needed to achieve those goals.
Key words: oysters, restoration, fishery, ecology, Chesapeake
Toward Mitigating Problems at the Fisheries-Oil Development Interface: The Case of the Salmon Drift Gillnet Fishery in Cook Inlet, Alaska
Edward W. Glazier, J. Cody Petterson, and Amy Craver
Participants in the drift gillnet fishery in Cook Inlet, Alaska deploy long nets from small boats in treacherous rip zones where salmon tend to congregate. Cook Inlet is also rich in petroleum resources, and oil and natural gas firms active in the region may eventually be permitted to emplace drilling platforms in the fishing grounds to extract such resources. But fishermen express concerns about potential net “wrapping,” disruptions to established patterns of navigation, oil spills, and protracted spill litigation. But fishing and oil and gas production have developed in tandem here, with many actors involved in or appreciative of both forms of enterprise. A model of clearly dichotomized or antagonistic relations between local fishing and global-corporate oil interests is confounded in this region. Moreover, fishery participants deal with a range of more immediately cogent challenges. Thus, while the potential for spatial conflict certainly exists, the social and economic context as described herein may ultimately enhance the potential for mitigation efforts to succeed, thereby allowing the two industries to continue to coexist in close proximity.
Key words: outer continental shelf, drift gillnetting, NEPA, key informants
Fish Scales: Scale and Method in Social Science Research for North Pacific and West Coast Fishing Communities
Jennifer Sepez, Karma Norman, Amanda Poole, and Bryan Tilt
Under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSFCMA) and other legal mandates, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is conducting basic social science research on fishing communities. This basic research differs from issue-driven social impact assessments in that it does not address pending policy changes or specified locations. As a consequence, NMFS’s basic social science research must cover very large geographic scales and address a broad array of analytical issues. These needs are in tension with the traditional ethnographic methods of anthropology and the MSFCMA’s focus on the community as a unit of analysis. This paper describes how anthropologists at NMFS’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center and Northwest Fisheries Science Center navigate these conflicting imperatives by adopting large-scale community profiling using social and fishing indicators informed by ethnographic site visits, and advocating a “nested-scale” analytical framework that imbricates the community level analytical unit with macro-level considerations related to regional and global forces and micro-level dynamics related to intra-community heterogeneity.
Key words: fisheries, fishing communities, community profiles, social indicators, methodology
Beeliners, Pinkies, and Kitties: Mobility and Marginalization in the South Atlantic Snapper Grouper Fishery
Kathi R. Kitner
This paper describes and analyzes the results of anthropological fieldwork carried out to determine the degree and patterns of residential mobility of commercial fishermen based in a small, southeastern US community undergoing rapid transformations. While the study was conducted to directly aid in understanding the issue of mobility for the Census Bureau, the findings are also applicable to the job of improving federal fishery management by making it more responsive to the needs of fishing communities. Such communities, however defined, are currently experiencing great stress from the exogenous forces of tourism, land redevelopment, globalization of seafood markets, increasing property taxes, and environmental degradation. How different groupings in the community respond to or resist such stress is conditioned by the role and class each grouping occupies. In the case of this small grouping of snapper-grouper fishermen, their extremely marginalized position in the community did not afford them the ability to resist being forced out of business and their fish house being closed down in December 2003. This paper explores the marginalization of commercial fishermen in the southeastern United States, and submits that the process and outcome of federal fisheries management can be improved by better understanding the social and cultural context of fishermen’s day-to-day lives.
Key words: mobility, marginalization, commercial fishing, fishery management, South Atlantic coastal United States
Changing Property, Spatializing Difference: The Sea Scallop Fishery in New Bedford, Massachusetts
Julia Olson
While the historical character of US fisheries has been dominated by the idea of open access, the last several decades have seen sometimes quite radical changes to this basic way of thinking. Government regulation has increasingly taken the form of limited access to fisheries by various means. The Atlantic Sea Scallop fishery in the Northeast US provides a unique insight into the meanings, practices, and implications of these changes in the character of property relations. While the fishery has seen rebounding success in the past few years, the scallop fishery also encapsulates a number of the changes and controversies confronting fisheries worldwide. At the same time, the regulatory regime has seen a shift towards area-based management, which underscores spatial heterogeneity of the resources while using a culturally constructed view of fishermen. New area-based management measures have forced into view a fundamental difference in access between a more property-oriented industrial style of fishing and an open access fishery. These differences are found in and through New Bedford, the largest scalloping port in the Northeast, opening up the notion of a fishing community to multiple interests, positions, and interpretations, with implications for understandings of management, community, and the social practices of fishing.
Key words: fisheries anthropology, property rights, common property, fisheries management, New Bedford Massachusetts
Monitoring Environmental Justice Impacts: Vietnamese-American Longline Fishermen Adapt to the Hawaii Swordfish Fishery Closure
Stewart D. Allen and Amy Gough
The Hawaii-based longline fishery, which lands the vast majority of the Hawaii commercial catch of pelagic fish, is a limited entry fishery capped at 164 permits. Of the 120 active vessels, roughly 1/3 are owned by Vietnamese-Americans. Since the late 1980s, nearly all of the Vietnamese-American longline fishermen targeted swordfish. This changed dramatically in 2001 when the National Marine Fisheries Service prohibited targeting of swordfish due to interactions with threatened and endangered sea turtles. The final environmental impact statement predicted that the closure and related actions would disproportionately and negatively affect Vietnamese-American fishermen. To monitor actual social impacts, researchers conducted in-depth interviews with 40 Vietnamese-American owners, captains, and wives from June - November 2003. Changes in household income, family cohesion, and community cohesion, coupled with the cumulative impact from other actions, created a dramatic change in the quality of life of affected individuals and families, with effects rippling through the Vietnamese-American fishing community and the broader longline community. The impact assessment had identified some types of impacts, but missed substantial components of others, demonstrating the necessity of monitoring social impacts.
Key words: Hawaii longline fleet, social impact assessment, impacts of fishing regulations, environmental justice, Vietnamese-American fishermen
Job Satisfaction in the Fishery in Two Southeast Alaskan Towns
Richard B. Pollnac and John J. Poggie, Jr.
Job satisfaction provides us with a window to view the psycho-cultural adaptations of individuals in communities. In this case we are looking at three maritime occupations in two highly fishing-dependent communities in Southeast Alaska. A great deal of research has linked job satisfaction to individual attributes such as mental health and longevity; and social problems such as family violence, absenteeism, and job performance. Job satisfaction, in turn, is related to aspects of the occupation that can be impacted by changes resulting from development and/or management. The paper examines aspects of job satisfaction among commercial fishers, charter boat operators and fish plant workers in Petersburg and Craig, Southeast Alaska. Respondents were requested to rate 21 aspects of their present occupation in terms of their relative satisfaction. Analysis of the data resulted in a component structure very similar to that found among fishers in Nova Scotia, New England, and the Mid-Atlantic coast. Inclusion of non-commercial fishers in the sample gives this research a dimension that was missing in the earlier work. Interrelationships between job satisfaction data, aspects of the occupation (e.g., fishing type, crew size, etc.), and individual characteristics (e.g., age, years experience, fishing family origin, etc.) are examined and discussed in the paper in relationship to management and technological changes in the fishery. Overall, the paper provides an increment to our understanding of the theory of job satisfaction in the fishery.
Key words: commercial fishers, charter boat operators, fish plant workers, job satisfaction, Southeast Alaska
