Putting Fishermen's Knowledge to Work

Putting Fishers’ Knowledge to Work: Conference Proceedings, Page 184 PUTTING FISHERMEN’S KNOWLEDGE TO bolstering the status quo, this approach tends to WORK: THE PROMISE AND PITFALLS employ fishing vessels rather than fishermen’s knowledge, which deals with local populations and their seasonal habitats. TED AMES Stonington Fisheries Alliance Fisheries science, involved as it is with the PO Box 274, Stonington ME 04681, USA analysis of large population units, has not Tel: +1 207 367 2473 focused on local level phenomena, such as the Email: [email protected] changes in behavior and distribution of local populations associated with the collapse of a ABSTRACT stock that are so often described by fishermen. Indigenous fishermen’s knowledge often gets The preoccupation of fisheries science with dismissed for being subjective, anecdotal, and of system-wide characteristics has left it without little value to today’s fisheries and centralized historical parameters that allow interpretation of management strategies. Yet, fishermen have fine-scale changes in stock distribution, spent much of their lives accumulating intimate, behavior, or migration patterns over time. fine scale ecological information that is not Consequently, management has lacked the otherwise available. Pitfalls encountered during ability to detect or interpret fine scale changes in efforts to access fishermen-based information abundance. during the mapping of historical Gulf of Maine spawning grounds of cod and haddock are reviewed and the strategies developed to A New Role for Fishers’ Knowledge overcome them are included. Current and future This lack of an historical perspective may have roles for fishermen’s knowledge in managing aggravated attempts to manage New England’s coastal fisheries are examined. Various ways to commercial fisheries. We have all been so integrate the local place-based information of preoccupied by the depressed state of our fishermen into current management strategies fisheries that we may have missed some of the and potential for introducing a new local root causes of their depletion. management paradigm are explored. If we are to develop sustainable fisheries, we must, at the very least, understand how and why INTRODUCTION the stocks collapsed in the first place. While In New England, fishermen’s knowledge has fishermen and scientists acknowledge that many often been dismissed as subjective, anecdotal, stocks have declined because of high catch rates, and dealing only with local situations. It is the problem is far more complex than the usually further discredited by the argument that simplistic rationale of “too many fishermen fishermen’s reports are not only subjective, but chasing too few fish”. (National Academy of they usually describe commercial stocks that Science 1997) Declines in abundance have were fished out decades ago and at best, are only consistently been accompanied by local changes historical footnotes describing a marine in distribution, migration patterns and species ecosystem that may no longer exist. assemblages. Clues abound about the disruption of local interrelationships and changes I tend to disagree. I have used fishermen’s associated with them. But fine-scale changes knowledge often in my life, not only in the cannot be detected by today’s system-wide traditional way of catching fish, but also as an fisheries assessments. important source of ecological information about a fishery. From this perspective, the accuracy It is here that fishermen’s knowledge can play an and breadth of knowledge shared by fishermen is important and perhaps critical role. Fishermen very impressive. Fishermen and their subjective, are, in fact, the only available source of local, anecdotal descriptions have a pivotal role to play historical, place-based fisheries information. in the development and function of sustainable Just to survive, let alone succeed, each fisherman fisheries. has become proficient at figuring out how local changes in a fish stock affect distribution and However, the question of whether fishermen’s abundance. This creates a pool of people with knowledge gets integrated into mainstream unique experiences with local marine ecology. science to influence management ultimately depends on the ways it is used. Fishermen and Not only do they have special knowledge about their vessels for example, are currently being what is presently there, but each generation of used to develop “real time” catch data for faster, fishermen has developed its own particular ongoing stock assessments. Though useful in fishing patterns that are attuned to the stock Page 185, Ames: Putting Fishers’ Knowledge to Work: The Promise and Pitfalls migrations and behavior present during that would drastically reduce the time depleted stocks period. With a little effort, information can be would need to recover. The commission retrieved about such factors as distribution, recommended that young cod and haddock be behavior, species assemblages and abundance released near once-productive spawning grounds that are unique to the period. and nursery areas in an attempt to jump-start the process. Releasing juveniles in the right Information collected from several generations habitats would be a critical step. of fishermen creates a series of historical windows into a fishery’s local ecology that can be Unfortunately, most of the inshore grounds that used to identify long-term processes in the were suitable for such a project had been fished fishery (Hutchings and Meyers 1995). Compiling out decades before and had long been an historical database forms a timeline that abandoned and forgotten by fishermen. With allows those processes to be studied. If a collapsed cod and haddock stocks, scientists relatively short time span is used to capture were unable to locate spawning areas by changes occurring before, during, and after the conventional methods. depletion of a fishery, the sequential effects of its depletion on the marine ecosystem can be In spite of the fact that the Gulf of Maine had analyzed. Linking the intimate, place-based maintained a directed cod fishery for more than knowledge of fishermen with scientists would three centuries, few spawning grounds were help in the study of how highly productive known. Most of the spawning areas suitable for coastal ecosystems functioned when they were such a project had been "fished out" decades more robust. This would also provide historical earlier and had been abandoned and forgotten. perspective into the fine-scale details so lacking Few current fishermen were even aware of their in fisheries today. existence. The value of fishermen’s historical insights into A study was funded to locate and interview the fisheries ecology goes beyond its benefit to few remaining fishermen who had fished those research. Fishermen’s knowledge is most areas to identify coastal spawning and nursery powerful when it is applied to fisheries areas of cod and haddock. It became my management. Fisheries management, based on privilege and great pleasure to interview these an understanding of local, long-term details of a older fishermen and to draw the spawning fishery’s ecology offers a whole new paradigm. ground maps based on their knowledge. Alternatives such as community-based strategies using local knowledge and local participation to Prior to the fishermen-based spawning ground maximize productivity within sustainable study, very few coastal spawning locations for fisheries could maintain local populations and cod and haddock were known, causing forage stocks while at the same time protecting researchers to raise important questions about spawning areas and nursery grounds. whether either species had actually been year- round coastal residents. Fishermen, however, THE GULF OF MAINE COD SPAWNING indicated quite the opposite was true. As the GROUNDS PROJECT interviews proceeded, the number of confirmed A good example of the use of traditional spawning sites mounted. fishermen’s information surfaced during efforts It soon became clear that both cod and haddock in New England to revitalize the collapsed once had spawning areas along the whole length inshore cod fishery. Two fishing associations, of the Gulf of Maine’s coast. By the time the Maine Gillnetters Association and Maine study was over, nearly 700,000 acres of Fisherman’s Co-op successfully petitioned the spawning grounds for cod and haddock were Maine State Legislature to form a Groundfish identified (see Figure 1), and numerous Hatchery Commission to study the feasibility of questions had been raised about what actually establishing one or more groundfish hatcheries. caused coastal fisheries to collapse. Their Raising the groundfish license fee to commercial contributions have provided new insights into fishermen funded the hatcheries. The the causes of the collapse of Atlantic cod in the commission found large areas of groundfish study area. (Ames et al. 2000) habitat along the coast that used to be highly productive, but were now abandoned. They An accompanying study, using side-scan sonar, concluded that, if hatchery production could be (Barnhardt et al. 1998) found the spawning used to increase the number of active spawning locations given by fishermen, including their sites along the coast by reintroducing groundfish descriptions of substrates and depths were into these areas, the resulting spawning success Putting Fishers’ Knowledge to Work: Conference Proceedings, Page 186 exceptionally accurate. This reinforced general A brief description of the problems

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