Information technologies (IT) can be used as an agent to foster social change. This case study describes an Internet start-up, Lonxanet, and analyzes its potential role as a catalyst of changes in the Galician (northwest Spain) artisanal seafood fisheries. These fisheries are traditionally associated to rural communities of fishers, selling their products in local auction markets known as lonxa...

This paper presents a survey of French Eastern English Channel fishers' observations of the past and current state of the marine ecosystem and their wishes for the future, as a first step towards formulating management objectives. Twenty-nine semi-directive interviews were carried out in June 2006 among fishers and shellfish farmers. Cognitive maps proved useful to formalise their experience an...

Change is a defining characteristic of coastal social-ecological systems, yet the magnitude and speed of contemporary change is challenging the adaptive capacity of even the most robust coastal communities. In the context of multiple drivers of change, it has become increasingly important to identify how threatened communities adapt to livelihood stressors. We investigate how adaptation is nego...

Developing the theoretical links between the knowledge of fishers and socieconomic outcomes of its use is important if fishers’ knowledge it to be taken seriously by policy makers. Having a theoretical basis that accounts for fishers’ knowledge allows for rigorous approaches to marine ecosystem-based policy development that incorporates both social and ecological variables in management experim...

Recent petitions to list the fisher (Martes pennanti) under the Endangered Species Act have brought attention to fisher conservation. Although commercial trapping of fishers in California ended in 1946, summarizing the commercial harvest data can provide a historical perspective to fisher conservation and may indicate the prevalence of incidental fisher captures in traps set for other species. ...

Fisheries management aimed at sustainable exploitation may affect fish populations indirectly by influencing human behaviour. We propose a methodology that includes stakeholders’ opinions, perceptions, and resulting behaviour, within assessment models designed to evaluate the impact of different management measures on the stocks. Based on interviews and a questionnaire, we use a Bayesian belief...

The job satisfaction of capture fishers is of more than sectoral interest. On a practical level the relevance is as follows: capture fishing is known to contribute in a major way to the degradation of the world’s oceans (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment 2005), and could possibly be relieved if fishers are induced to move out of fishing (Pauly et al. 1989). Whether fishers are actually inclined to...

Fishing for Greenland halibut (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides) in the estuary and the Gulf of St. Lawrence (NAFO divisions 4RST) has been practiced mainly with gillnets by coastal fishers of Quebec and Newfoundland since the beginning of the 1970s. However, little information is available on the development of this exploitation, for example, on the evolution of the fishing practices. In 1997, a p...

Many fishers diversify their income by participating in multiple fisheries, which has been shown to significantly reduce year-to-year variation in income. The ability of fishers to diversify has become increasingly constrained in the last few decades, and catch share programs could further reduce diversification as a result of consolidation. This could increase income variation and thus financi...