Toward a New Social Contract: Fikret Berkes
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TOWARD A NEW SOCIAL CONTRACT: COMMUNITY-BASED RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND SMALL-SCALE FISHERIES FIKRET BERKES T B T I G L O B A L B O O K S E R I E S FIKRET BERKES University of Manitoba Toward A New Social Contract: Community-based Resource Management and Small-scale Fisheries Copyright © 2021 by Fikret Berkes All rights reserved Published by TBTI Global This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License TBTI Global Book Series ISBN: 978-1-7773202-4-9 Too Big To Ignore Global (TBTI; toobigtoignore.net) is a research network and knowledge mobilization partnership supported by over 700 members from around the world. The network aims at elevating the profile of small-scale fisheries, arguing against their marginalization in national and international policies, and developing research and governance capacity to address global fisheries challenges. TBTI Global Book Series is a publication series that aims to highlights why we need to pay close attention to small-scale fisheries. The series will be of use to anyone interested in learning more about small-scale fisheries, especially about their important contribution to livelihoods, well-being, poverty alleviation and food security, as well as to those who are keen to help raise profile of small-scale fisheries in the policy realm. Cover image: Small and smaller: Fisheries in the Paraty area, Brazil. The dugout canoe is used mainly in hand-lining, including jigging for squid. (Photo: F. Berkes) Cover graphic design by Vesna Kerezi, Canada. Production manager for the TBTI Global Book Series: Vesna Kerezi. Contents Foreword v Acknowledgments vii Preface xii I The Context 1. Decades of Community–based Resource Management 3 2. Alternatives to Conventional Management: Small-Scale 15 Fisheries in Focus 3. Shifting Perspectives: Intellectual Baggage of “Natural 31 Resources” and “Management” II Social-ecological Resilience and Globalization Preface: What Is Resilience Good for? 49 4. Resilience as a Theory of Change 53 5. Restoring Unity: Social-ecological Systems 67 6. Globalization, Roving Bandits and Marine Resources 82 7. Matching Governance and Ecology: Lessons from Roving 92 Bandits III Commons Preface: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love 107 the Commons 8. Paradigms Lost: Changing Views of the Commons 111 9. Commons Theory for Marine Resource Management 12 5 10. From Community-based Resource Management to Complex 13 8 Systems 11. Co-management and Social Learning 15 2 IV Indigenous Peoples and Traditional Ecological Knowledge Preface: Why Traditional Knowledge? Why Indigenous 171 Peoples? 12. Traditional Ecological Knowledge: An Overview 175 13. Indigenous Ways of Knowing 183 14. Integrated Management: Role of ILK in Community- 193 based Monitoring 15. Ecological Complexity, Fuzzy Logic, and Holism in 205 Indigenous Knowledge V Northern Peoples, Climate Change and Adaptation Preface: Toward a Social Contract Role Reversal? 22 1 16. Why Keep a Community-based Focus in Times of 22 5 Global Interactions? 17. Adapting to Climate Change in the Canadian Western 23 5 Arctic 18. Co-management Institutions, Knowledge and 255 Learning for Adaptation VI People and Ecosystems Preface: Exploring the Basic Ecological Unit 27 3 19. Ecosystem-like Concepts in Traditional Societies 276 20. Implementing Ecosystem-based Management: 28 8 Evolution or Revolution? References 30 1 Foreword It was partly for a selfish reason that I approached Prof. Berkes on whether he would be interested in writing a book for TBTI. Like many, I was fascinated, not only by the number of books and papers that he has written, but also the wide range of topics and geographic scope of his work. We are familiar with the concept ‘community-based resource management’ and the acronym CBRM,buthowdiditstart? Thefirstchapterofthisbookdoesnotdisappoint on that front, as we get the full account of Prof. Berkes’ journey, and what makes him known for CBRM. I was also pleasantly surprised by his connection with Bonne Bay, Newfoundland, and was rather pleased when he accepted to use a photo that I took during one of my many visits to the area in Chapter 1. It seems that Bonne Bay has never lost its charm, as it is also part of what keeps me in Newfoundland. Prof. Berkes referred to Cree fishers as ‘masters in their environment’. This book shows that he is also that in the academic domain. One might say that Prof. Berkes’ work is mainly about natural resources, broadly speaking. But throughout this book, we can see that small-scale fisheries are well integrated in his work, and he clearly presents the many nuances about small-scale fisheries, and argues strongly for the special attention to improve the governance of this sector. He was among the first to raise issues about the need for alternative approaches to small-scale fisheries management. He brings solid evidences of that, with his research and field visits to small-scale, coastal communities around the world. His work lends itself to endorsing, with undisputable authority, that small-scale fisheries are better equipped to deal with change, including climate and environmental change than their large-scale counterpart. Faced with overfishing and fisheries unsustainability, and amidst Covid-19 pandemic, it is time to turn to small-scale fisheries and v coastal communities for solutions, rather than seeing them as problems. This book by Prof. Berkes, “Toward a New Social Contract,” tells us why, and how. People familiar with transdisciplinary (TD) concept and perspective might be wondering why Prof. Berkes is not using the term in his book, even though it is obvious that he is a true pioneer in TD. Reading the book, especially Chapter 5, we certainly see the same rationale for, and process of, transformation, through facilitation and co-production of knowledge, which are the essences of TD. His work with indigenous and non-indigenous communities bodes well of his true appreciation for local, traditional and indigenous knowledge, and the importance of incorporating them in management and governance. With the publication of the book ‘Linking Social and Ecological System’ (SES) in 1998 (with Carl Folke), who would question the need to look at fisheries, coastal and natural resources from the TD lens? Needless to say, SES became another well-known acronym, among resilience and TD scholars interested in a framework that integrates and broadens perspectives in resource governance. The practice of TD shows up again when Prof. Berkes talks about transformation and transformative learning in Chapter 11. Now that the (academic) life of Fikret is an ‘open book’ for us, we invite you to delve in and enjoy learning about the many twists and turns that have shaped his work, making him one of the leaders in the publication scoreboard, and appreciate why he is so respected and admired by his students and peers around the world. Let’s also keep in mind, as we read this book, thatitis quite alright, in fact encouraged, to challenge ourselves, and our own paradigm, as Prof. Berkes has done throughout his career. Ratana Chuenpagdee TBTI Global Director St. John’s, Canada April 2021 vi Acknowledgments ItisanhonourtobeinvitedtocontributetotheTBTIGlobalBookSeries,with this book of my edited selected writings. I am thankful to the TBTI Global Director and the Book Series editor, Dr. Ratana Chuenpagdee, Memorial University of Newfoundland. I appreciate her graceful guidance throughout out this project, subtle instructions, and the efficient and timely help of her TBTI staff, especially Vesna Kerezi, Project Manager. Those who know Ratana are familiar with her ability to make complicated tasks look easy. I also acknowledge the inspiration from my other TBTI hero, Svein Jentoft, who published Life Above Water (2019), the first volume in the Global Book Series. There are many other people of course who were important in my original publications reproduced here, including respected senior colleagues who helped shape my thinking, and many graduate students(my bestteachers) who were my co-researchers and co-authors. They are too many in numbers to acknowledge here, but they are named in the original publications, and many of them are acknowledged in Chapter 1. It is a special opportunity for me to reconceptualise small-scale fisheries as a kind of community-based resource management, with all the practice and theory that goes with it. It took quite a bit of effort to figure out what to include in this volume. I hold a PhD in Marine Sciences, but I am not a fisheries specialist. I did include many of my papers that clearly have a small- scale fisheries focus. But I also decided to include works that emphasize what I consider to be the wider circle of concepts and themes that help make sense of small-scale fisheries as an important global phenomenon. These include the idea of social-ecological systems, resilience, commons, traditional ecological knowledge (with emphasis on Indigenous peoples), climate change and adaptation, and peoples and ecosystems. Many of these themes have vii their own sections, six of them, covering 20 chapters. Figuringoutwhattodowiththeseselectedpublicationswasthenextpuzzle. Initially, I thought I would include these papers and chapters “as is”. These were pretty good publications (I thought) and I have never had to retract a finding or confess to an error. Almost all the pieces had been through peer-review, some of them pretty stringent. Only once a reviewer asserted that I was completely wrong about everything! But now I see that review as a “feather in my cap”, a special tribute (I confess, I did not at the time.) So I re-read the selected papers and they still looked okay. Just then, Ratana’s subtle instructions came to the rescue. The chapters should be readable, Ratana reminded me, accessible to a wide audience. Not too long; not too many references. So Iedited the selected publicationsfor length.