Monitoring with Logic and Illogic a Case for Democratising Observation in Fisheries

DISCUSSION PAPER 2012 MONITORING WITH LOGIC AND ILLOGIC A CASE FOR DEMOCRATISING OBSERVATION IN FISHERIES Aarthi Sridhar1,2 and Naveen Namboothri1,3 1Dakshin Foundation, Bengaluru 2Centre for Studies in Science Policy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 3Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru The bioeconomic logic of monitoring fisheries, such as traders, merchants, women vendors etc., are also custodians of knowledge produced from Marine animals and environments have their observations of trends, patterns, and changes offered multiple meanings to people living and in what they see. However, in its task of fisheries interacting with them. Marine resources have management, does the state machinery draw been understood and depicted variously across upon any of these regular observations and related time and contexts, by a range of actors—fishers, knowledges? What is the relation between official scientists, government officials, vendors, fisheries monitoring and fisheries management, and traders, conservationists, development has this monitoring achieved its putative goals? agencies etc.—as being cultural artefacts, as food, as locally exchangeable commodities, as The post-Cold War world has seen fish most strongly ecological entities, and so on. Each of these discussed as a national produce particularly in meanings has driven these actors to make a developing countries, as a means of ensuring self- range of observations and produce different reliance and as a product for sale in distant domestic fisheries ‘knowledges’. However, fisheries and global markets (Smith 1994). Institutions were science today has become synonymous with set up at the international, national, and state level natural sciences, and involves expert driven to promote fisheries productivity and to establish quantitative data collection and analyses. The control over the exploitation of fish stocks (Silas 2003; ecological research conducted today and the Bavinck 2011), which themselves were categorised analyses and theories on marine systems and as national, regional, or global. This understanding fisheries owe a deep debt to the knowledge that of marine life as ‘produce’ witnessed subtle shifts in fishers generate of their areas, their observations character, in particular, a shift from being a ‘renewable’ on fishing grounds, species behaviour, bounty of nature to an ‘over-exploited’ resource habitats, the political economy of fisheries, etc. when scientists began highlighting that stocks were Communities of fisheries scientists recognising depleting and too much was being harvested. The and seeking fisher knowledge have often early half of the twentieth century saw the emergence richly benefited from such knowledge. Aside of the ‘bioeconomic’ view of fisheries, which from fishers themselves, associated agents in promoted two key concepts—Maximum Sustainable 1 Yield (MSY; the point up to which fish catches increase practices surrounding official fisheries monitoring in in response to fishing effort) and Maximum Economic India as a means of bringing into question existing Yield (MEY; where economic returns from fishing fisheries management and governance systems arising would be maximised relative to cost). This bioeconomic out of this exercise. We conclude by suggesting an view is the genesis and driver of contemporary fisheries approach to monitoring and management frameworks inventorying practices—the form of data and analyses that accommodate what are often considered ‘illogics’ employed by the state (St. Martin 2001). Importantly, it or ‘non-science’—namely the social, cultural, ‘human’ circumscribes problem identification, and sets the terms or ‘community’ dimensions of fisheries recognising on which fisheries management solutions can be debated. that these not only exist but are critical to the situation The bulk of official statistics on fisheries in India relates of fishers and fisheries. In doing so, we reiterate the to the monitoring of various fish stocks and fish catch, opinions of scholars who advocate a long overdue as a metric of its national wealth and development reorientation of fisheries governance systems (see Jentoft status. Investigations into what constitutes official 2000; St. Martin 2001; Kooiman et al. 2005), which are fisheries monitoring provides insights into the successes necessary to accommodate pluralistic ways of observing, or failures of management solutions that depend on understanding, and democratically managing fisheries in monitoring. In this paper, we highlight the logics and India. OBSERVATIONS, KNOWLEDGE, AND MANAGEMENT: AN INCOMPLETE CONTINUUM The problem of deciding how much should be exploited in fisheries that need managing? Are these local in and by whom has a recorded history, which is probably nature, or are they at scales that can only be managed as old as the act of fishing itself. Anthropologists and by state systems of management? In exploring these sociologists have shown the multitude of ways and questions, we cannot neglect the problematic role of the methods whereby fishers observe, record, produce, and bioeconomic assumptions of state fisheries monitoring share information and knowledge about not just fish, and management systems as a contributor to crises in but the entire seascape (above and below the waterline) fisheries. (Neis & Felt 2000; Haggen et al. 2007). Their knowledge is constructed around environmental, cultural, and Social scientists have described the existence of legal social landscapes that they engage with on a daily pluralism in many contemporary fisher societies basis (St. Martin 2001), and this knowledge brings (Bavinck 2005), and suggest that fisheries exploitation individual fishers and their communities together over problems can best be understood and addressed through understandings of resource challenges and solutions. governance systems that are inclusive and highlight the need to embrace concepts that reflect the actual Much of the community management of resources is dynamics that operate at varying scales within fisheries done at local scales where the management boundaries (Bavinck & Jentoft 2011; Kooiman et al. 2011). The are often abstract and contiguous with a cultural-social- term legal pluralism refers to the operation of local ecological landscape, unlike the physical resource-based non-official rules simultaneously with official state boundaries found in official management designs. rules; many of these non-official rules have an old and While scientists and managers cite this scale-dependent established history. Social scientists have shown the attribute of community monitoring and management existence of local regulations among more traditional as its biggest limitation, even the official version is not small-scale fishers and similar possibilities in First free of problems, either at local or larger scales (CSO World fisheries (St. Martin 2005), where decisions and 2011). What therefore is the true nature of the problems rules are devised not by individual fishers (as assumed 2 by the bioeconomic model) but by the social group, recognise the role of communities in regulation. based on observations and reasons that defy the logics Ironically, scholars (both social and natural scientists), of MSY and MEY (i.e., neither stock dependent nor government officials, fisher leaders, and merchants often economically rational). On the contrary, fishers make a point that fisheries information, monitoring, research, range of observations and fashion their reasoning based and governance (including aspects such as development on social, cultural, spatial, ecological, political, and programmes, law and order, regulation, planning, etc.) economic considerations (McCay 1978; St. Martin et al. do in fact rely a great deal on the cooperation and 2007). However, official fisheries monitoring mechanisms assistance received from a range of non-government are designed and carried out through structures that actors, particularly fishers. What therefore appears to be allow no formal means of gathering and applying these the fixed responsibility of the state is in actuality shared forms of observations, analyses, and knowledges. Legal with communities, albeit informally, unequally, and mechanisms for managing fisheries also do not formally arbitrarily. TRACING INSTITUTIONALISED FISHERIES MONITORING IN INDIA The need for the state (whether colonial or post-colonial) Sea Fishing Station was operational with the objective to control the use of fish resources prompted efforts toward of augmenting food supply through the development documentation, research, and management. In 1862, Sir of deep-sea fishing. This project was to soon transform Francis Day was instructed by the British government to into the Fishery Survey of India in 1983, whose primary record all extant species of fishes in India. His colossal responsibility would be the survey and assessment of fish monograph titled “The Fishes of India” was inspired by stocks in the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone. concerns over potential declines in the fishery resources as a result of the construction of dams over some of the Data on fish catch in various states has been collected major Indian rivers (Day 1878). The Indian Fisheries Act by both the state fisheries departments and the CMFRI was introduced in 1897, which empowered the colonial since their inception, although each used different administration to formulate rules and regulations for methods altogether. Since independence, fish production

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