Abstract
The underlying reason for the mismanagement of tropical nearshore fisheries is the implementation of policies and programs based on Western models and approaches, coupled with an inability and/or unwillingness to consider non-Western alternatives of empirically proven value. Such attitudes are embedded in donor and development agency behavior, and are demonstrated by the temperate bias in conventional approaches to fisheries education and management, with a corresponding lack of understanding of tropical milieux, and in the persistence of various prejudices. Adaptive Management, The Ecosystem Approach, Local Knowledge, and Protected Areas are discussed from the perspectives of Western models and pre-existing Pacific Island systems as alternative models. Given the parlous condition of the global environment and resources, the best non-Western pre-existing models and Western approaches must be blended to provide sustainable solutions.
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Notes
The former is usually the familiar Schaefer parabolic function representing the population dynamics of a fish stock. Based on this production function, optimal levels to maximize either production (MSY) or income (MEY) are established.
This information has elicited disbelief in some quarters, such as: “Johannes (1978) has made the extraordinary point that ‘almost every basic conservation measure devised in the West was in use in the tropical Pacific centuries ago’” (emphasis added) (Charles 2001: 330). Were more temperate zone fisheries economists familiar with even the easily accessed reports (e.g., Ruddle 1995) and other general literature on the early exploratory voyages in the Pacific, they would realize that the sophistication of Pacific Islanders fisheries had been appreciated by Westerners centuries ago. It certainly was by mid-nineteenth century British and other colonial administrators, who had frequently to wrestle with the intricacies of pre-existing management systems.
Bad environmental practices were also found in Pacific Islands, where constructive and destructive practices coexisted. Johannes (2003), for example, speculated on why Pacific Islanders developed sound methods of protecting marine resources when their record of exterminating avian species was so bad. He suggested that the answer to the second part was because it is easy for islanders to unwittingly exterminate birds and other island megafauna "because of their very low reproductive output”, together with the profound impact on ground-nesting birds of introduced predators such as dogs and rats (Ibid. 114). With the widespread destruction of nests by new predators, “extinctions of such creatures could have happened so fast that the islanders failed to comprehend the need for conservation until it was too late” (Ibid.115). In fact, most extinctions of Remote Oceania occurred within the first 200–300 years of being colonized (Steadman 1995; Kirch 1997), with an ecological equilibrium reached thereafter through the introduction of appropriate management measures.
Dualistic; referring specifically to an adherent of the dualistic religious system of Manes, a combination of Gnostic Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and various other elements, with a basic doctrine of a conflict between light and dark.
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Ruddle, K., Hickey, F.R. Accounting for the mismanagement of tropical nearshore fisheries. Environ Dev Sustain 10, 565–589 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-008-9152-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-008-9152-5