Why small-scale fisheries pursue different ways to survive

TO SURVIVE, DIVERSIFY: What do you do when both your catch and livelihood are in peril? This is something that many people depending on fishing around the world are struggling with as they try to adapt to changes imposed by global warming, degrading ecosystems and increasingly globalized markets.

Not surprisingly, some of the most common strategies include targeting diverse species, moving to fish elsewhere (temporarily or permanently) or pursuing alternative livelihoods.

But we still have too little detailed information about small-scale fisheries diversification strategies, especially in low- and middle-income countries, according to a new study published in the journal Environmental Science and Policy.

The study also includes centre colleagues Örjan Bodin, Emilie Lindkvist and Maja Schlüter, as well as researchers from Stanford University, University of California Santa Cruz and Duke University, members of the MAREA research group.

Two main questions

The new study focuses on the small-scale fisheries across the state of Baja California Sur in Mexico, addressing two specific questions:

1. How do patterns of species and spatial diversification change over time?
2. What environmental and institutional factors influence the observed diversification patterns?

To find the answers the researchers adopted a so called social-ecological network approach to analyse a fisheries landings data with a high level of resolution from 2008–2016. For example, whereas some patterns of diversification between different landing regions can occur annually, others can change dramatically across years. This means that the same actor can be fishing in two distant regions during the same year.

But, why?

In combination with a qualitative analysis of existing literature this enabled the authors to illuminate potential underlying environmental and other factors that could be influencing the observed diversification strategies.

More than just El Niño

The results indicate that changes in the diversification between regions are correlated with regional oceanographic changes, like the weather phenomenon El Niño which brings unusually warm sea surface temperatures and lower primary productivity every two to seven years.

Events like these are known to trigger significant changes in the distribution and abundance of fish and other marine resources.

Rather than acting in isolation, the authors hypothesize that environmental drivers like El Niño operate in combination with the local social, economic and institutional context to mediate diversification of fisheries strategies.

Overall, the results highlight that “spatial diversification” (when people move to follow a target species, or move to fish other species) is a highly dynamic and diverse process.

This improved understanding of diversification strategies constitutes an important step towards fisheries policies that account for the complex mechanisms through which environmental changes affect small-scale fisheries around the world.