Keeping food on the table: responses and changing coastal fisheries in Solomon Islands
- Albert, Simon, Aswani, Shankar, Fisher, Paul L, Albert, Joelle
- Authors: Albert, Simon , Aswani, Shankar , Fisher, Paul L , Albert, Joelle
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70593 , vital:29678 , https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130800
- Description: Globally the majority of commercial fisheries have experienced dramatic declines in stock and catch. Likewise, projections for many subsistence fisheries in the tropics indicate a dramatic decline is looming in the coming decades. In the Pacific Islands coastal fisheries provide basic subsistence needs for millions of people. A decline in fish catch would therefore have profound impacts on the health and livelihoods of these coastal communities. Given the decrease in local catch rates reported for many coastal communities in the Pacific, it is important to understand if fishers have responded to ecological change (either by expanding their fishing range and/or increasing their fishing effort), and if so, to evaluate the costs or benefits of these responses. We compare data from fish catches in 1995 and 2011 from a rural coastal community in Solomon Islands to examine the potentially changing coastal reef fishery at these time points. In particular we found changes in preferred fishing locations, fishing methodology and catch composition between these data sets. The results indicate that despite changes in catch rates (catch per unit effort) between data collected in 2011 and 16 years previously, the study community was able to increase gross catches through visiting fishing sites further away, diversifying fishing methods and targeting pelagic species through trolling. Such insight into local-scale responses to changing resources and/ or fisheries development will help scientists and policy makers throughout the Pacific region in managing the region’s fisheries in the future.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Albert, Simon , Aswani, Shankar , Fisher, Paul L , Albert, Joelle
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70593 , vital:29678 , https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130800
- Description: Globally the majority of commercial fisheries have experienced dramatic declines in stock and catch. Likewise, projections for many subsistence fisheries in the tropics indicate a dramatic decline is looming in the coming decades. In the Pacific Islands coastal fisheries provide basic subsistence needs for millions of people. A decline in fish catch would therefore have profound impacts on the health and livelihoods of these coastal communities. Given the decrease in local catch rates reported for many coastal communities in the Pacific, it is important to understand if fishers have responded to ecological change (either by expanding their fishing range and/or increasing their fishing effort), and if so, to evaluate the costs or benefits of these responses. We compare data from fish catches in 1995 and 2011 from a rural coastal community in Solomon Islands to examine the potentially changing coastal reef fishery at these time points. In particular we found changes in preferred fishing locations, fishing methodology and catch composition between these data sets. The results indicate that despite changes in catch rates (catch per unit effort) between data collected in 2011 and 16 years previously, the study community was able to increase gross catches through visiting fishing sites further away, diversifying fishing methods and targeting pelagic species through trolling. Such insight into local-scale responses to changing resources and/ or fisheries development will help scientists and policy makers throughout the Pacific region in managing the region’s fisheries in the future.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Environmental and social recovery asymmetries to large-scale disturbances in small island communities
- Aswani, Shankar, Van Putten, Ingrid, Miñarro, Sara
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Van Putten, Ingrid , Miñarro, Sara
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67325 , vital:29073 , https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-016-2685-2
- Description: publisher version , People’s livelihoods in tropical small-island developing states are greatly dependent on marine ecosystem services. Yet services such as fisheries and coastal buffering are being degraded at an alarming rate, thus making people increasing vulnerable to protracted and sudden environmental changes. In the context of the occurrences of extreme events such as earthquakes and tsunamis, it is vital to uncover the processes that make people in these island states resilient, or not, to environmental disruptions. This paper compares people’s perceptions of social and environmental impacts after an extreme event in the Western Solomon Islands (11 different villages on 8 different islands) to better understand how knowledge systems influence the coupling of human and natural systems. We examine the factors that contributed to perceptions of respective recovery in the environmental versus the social domains across communities with different traditional governance and modernization characteristics in a tsunami impact gradient. First, we separately assessed, at the community and individual level, the potential determinants of perceived recovery in the environmental and social domains. At the community level, the average values of the perceived environmental and social recovery were calculated for each community (1 year after the tsunami), and at the individual level, normally distributed environmental and social recovery variables (based on the difference in perceptions immediately and 1 year after the tsunami) were used as dependent variables in two General Linear Models. Results suggest that environmental and social resilience are not always coupled correspondingly and, less unexpectedly, that asymmetries during recovery can occur as a result of the underlying social and ecological context and existing adaptive capacity. More generally, the study shows how by evaluating post-disturbance perceptional data in tsunami-affected communities, we can better understand how subjective perceptions of change can affect the (de)-coupling of human and natural systems.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Van Putten, Ingrid , Miñarro, Sara
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67325 , vital:29073 , https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-016-2685-2
- Description: publisher version , People’s livelihoods in tropical small-island developing states are greatly dependent on marine ecosystem services. Yet services such as fisheries and coastal buffering are being degraded at an alarming rate, thus making people increasing vulnerable to protracted and sudden environmental changes. In the context of the occurrences of extreme events such as earthquakes and tsunamis, it is vital to uncover the processes that make people in these island states resilient, or not, to environmental disruptions. This paper compares people’s perceptions of social and environmental impacts after an extreme event in the Western Solomon Islands (11 different villages on 8 different islands) to better understand how knowledge systems influence the coupling of human and natural systems. We examine the factors that contributed to perceptions of respective recovery in the environmental versus the social domains across communities with different traditional governance and modernization characteristics in a tsunami impact gradient. First, we separately assessed, at the community and individual level, the potential determinants of perceived recovery in the environmental and social domains. At the community level, the average values of the perceived environmental and social recovery were calculated for each community (1 year after the tsunami), and at the individual level, normally distributed environmental and social recovery variables (based on the difference in perceptions immediately and 1 year after the tsunami) were used as dependent variables in two General Linear Models. Results suggest that environmental and social resilience are not always coupled correspondingly and, less unexpectedly, that asymmetries during recovery can occur as a result of the underlying social and ecological context and existing adaptive capacity. More generally, the study shows how by evaluating post-disturbance perceptional data in tsunami-affected communities, we can better understand how subjective perceptions of change can affect the (de)-coupling of human and natural systems.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017
Scientific frontiers in the management of coral reefs
- Aswani, Shankar, Mumby, Peter J, Baker, Andrew, Christie, Patrick, McCook, Laurence J, Steneck, Robert S, Richmond, Robert H
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Mumby, Peter J , Baker, Andrew , Christie, Patrick , McCook, Laurence J , Steneck, Robert S , Richmond, Robert H
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70582 , vital:29677 , https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2015.00050
- Description: Coral reefs are subjected globally to a variety of natural and anthropogenic stressors that often act synergistically. Today, reversing ongoing and future coral reef degradation presents significant challenges and countering this negative trend will take considerable efforts and investments. Scientific knowledge can inform and guide the requisite decision-making process and offer practical solutions to the problem of protection as the effects of climate change exacerbate. However, implementation of solutions presently lags far behind the pace required to reverse global declines, and there is a need for an urgent and significant step-up in the extent and range of strategies being implemented. In this paper, we consider scientific frontiers in natural and social science research that can help build stronger support for reef management and improve the efficacy of interventions. We cover various areas including: (1) enhancing the case for reef conservation and management, (2) dealing with local stressors on reefs, (3) addressing global climate change impacts, (4) and reviewing various approaches to the governance of coral reefs. In sum, we consider scientific frontiers in natural and social science that will require further attention in coming years as managers work toward building stronger support for reef management and improve the efficacy of local interventions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Mumby, Peter J , Baker, Andrew , Christie, Patrick , McCook, Laurence J , Steneck, Robert S , Richmond, Robert H
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70582 , vital:29677 , https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2015.00050
- Description: Coral reefs are subjected globally to a variety of natural and anthropogenic stressors that often act synergistically. Today, reversing ongoing and future coral reef degradation presents significant challenges and countering this negative trend will take considerable efforts and investments. Scientific knowledge can inform and guide the requisite decision-making process and offer practical solutions to the problem of protection as the effects of climate change exacerbate. However, implementation of solutions presently lags far behind the pace required to reverse global declines, and there is a need for an urgent and significant step-up in the extent and range of strategies being implemented. In this paper, we consider scientific frontiers in natural and social science research that can help build stronger support for reef management and improve the efficacy of interventions. We cover various areas including: (1) enhancing the case for reef conservation and management, (2) dealing with local stressors on reefs, (3) addressing global climate change impacts, (4) and reviewing various approaches to the governance of coral reefs. In sum, we consider scientific frontiers in natural and social science that will require further attention in coming years as managers work toward building stronger support for reef management and improve the efficacy of local interventions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
One size does not fit all: critical insights for effective community-based resource management in Melanesia
- Aswani, Shankar, Albert, Simon, Love, Mark
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Albert, Simon , Love, Mark
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145392 , vital:38434 , DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2017.03.041
- Description: In recent years, Fiji's approach of combining traditional systems of community-based coastal management and modern management systems has become a successful blueprint for marine conservation, particularly the Locally Managed Marine Area (LMMA) network model. As a result of this success, conservation practitioners have imported the Fiji LMMA model to the Solomon Islands and in Vanuatu in hope of replicating the purported success attained in Fiji. This paper argues that because tenure systems and associated political systems in Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu are substantially different, one cannot simply extrapolate the more centralized tenurial and political Fiji model to the decentralized tenurial and politically eclectic Solomons and Vanuatu. This paper provides an analysis of some of the various approaches used in these countries to make a case for why socio-political diversity and historical particulars matter to resource management and conservation-in-practice (and for any development interventions).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Albert, Simon , Love, Mark
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145392 , vital:38434 , DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2017.03.041
- Description: In recent years, Fiji's approach of combining traditional systems of community-based coastal management and modern management systems has become a successful blueprint for marine conservation, particularly the Locally Managed Marine Area (LMMA) network model. As a result of this success, conservation practitioners have imported the Fiji LMMA model to the Solomon Islands and in Vanuatu in hope of replicating the purported success attained in Fiji. This paper argues that because tenure systems and associated political systems in Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu are substantially different, one cannot simply extrapolate the more centralized tenurial and political Fiji model to the decentralized tenurial and politically eclectic Solomons and Vanuatu. This paper provides an analysis of some of the various approaches used in these countries to make a case for why socio-political diversity and historical particulars matter to resource management and conservation-in-practice (and for any development interventions).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Global trends of local ecological knowledge and future implications
- Aswani, Shankar, Lemahieu, Anne, Sauer, Warwick H H
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Lemahieu, Anne , Sauer, Warwick H H
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70504 , vital:29668 , https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195440
- Description: Local and indigenous knowledge is being transformed globally, particularly being eroded when pertaining to ecology. In many parts of the world, rural and indigenous communities are facing tremendous cultural, economic and environmental changes, which contribute to weaken their local knowledge base. In the face of profound and ongoing environmental changes, both cultural and biological diversity are likely to be severely impacted as well as local resilience capacities from this loss. In this global literature review, we analyse the drivers of various types of local and indigenous ecological knowledge transformation and assess the directionality of the reported change. Results of this analysis show a global impoverishment of local and indigenous knowledge with 77% of papers reporting the loss of knowledge driven by globalization, modernization, and market integration. The recording of this loss, however, is not symmetrical, with losses being recorded more strongly in medicinal and ethnobotanical knowledge. Persistence of knowledge (15% of the studies) occurred in studies where traditional practices were being maintained consiously and where hybrid knowledge was being produced as a resut of certain types of incentives created by economic development. This review provides some insights into local and indigenous ecological knowledge change, its causes and implications, and recommends venues for the development of replicable and comparative research. The larger implication of these results is that because of the interconnection between cultural and biological diversity, the loss of local and indigenous knowledge is likely to critically threaten effective conservation of biodiversity, particularly in community-based conservation local efforts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Lemahieu, Anne , Sauer, Warwick H H
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70504 , vital:29668 , https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195440
- Description: Local and indigenous knowledge is being transformed globally, particularly being eroded when pertaining to ecology. In many parts of the world, rural and indigenous communities are facing tremendous cultural, economic and environmental changes, which contribute to weaken their local knowledge base. In the face of profound and ongoing environmental changes, both cultural and biological diversity are likely to be severely impacted as well as local resilience capacities from this loss. In this global literature review, we analyse the drivers of various types of local and indigenous ecological knowledge transformation and assess the directionality of the reported change. Results of this analysis show a global impoverishment of local and indigenous knowledge with 77% of papers reporting the loss of knowledge driven by globalization, modernization, and market integration. The recording of this loss, however, is not symmetrical, with losses being recorded more strongly in medicinal and ethnobotanical knowledge. Persistence of knowledge (15% of the studies) occurred in studies where traditional practices were being maintained consiously and where hybrid knowledge was being produced as a resut of certain types of incentives created by economic development. This review provides some insights into local and indigenous ecological knowledge change, its causes and implications, and recommends venues for the development of replicable and comparative research. The larger implication of these results is that because of the interconnection between cultural and biological diversity, the loss of local and indigenous knowledge is likely to critically threaten effective conservation of biodiversity, particularly in community-based conservation local efforts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
Indigenous polycentric and nested customary sea-tenure (CST) institutions: a Solomon Islands case study
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar
- Date: 2019
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/178964 , vital:40100 , ISBN 9780429628283
- Description: In one volume, this book brings together a diversity of approaches, theory and frameworks that can be used to analyse the governance of renewable natural resources. Renewable natural resources are under pressure, with over-exploitation and degradation raising concern globally. Understanding governance systems and practice is essential for developing effective and fair solutions. This book introduces readers to key concepts and issues concerned with the governance of renewable natural resources and illustrates the diversity of approaches, theories and frameworks that have been used to analyse governance systems and practice. Each chapter provides an introduction to an area of literature and theory and demonstrates application through a case study. The book covers a range of geographical locations, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries, and several types of natural resources. The approaches and theories introduced include common property theory, political ecology, institutional analysis, the social -ecological systems framework and social network analysis. Findings from across the chapters support an analytical focus on institutions and local context and a practical focus on diverse, flexible and inclusive governance solutions. The book serves as an essential introduction to the governance of renewable natural resources for students, researchers and practitioners.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar
- Date: 2019
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/178964 , vital:40100 , ISBN 9780429628283
- Description: In one volume, this book brings together a diversity of approaches, theory and frameworks that can be used to analyse the governance of renewable natural resources. Renewable natural resources are under pressure, with over-exploitation and degradation raising concern globally. Understanding governance systems and practice is essential for developing effective and fair solutions. This book introduces readers to key concepts and issues concerned with the governance of renewable natural resources and illustrates the diversity of approaches, theories and frameworks that have been used to analyse governance systems and practice. Each chapter provides an introduction to an area of literature and theory and demonstrates application through a case study. The book covers a range of geographical locations, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries, and several types of natural resources. The approaches and theories introduced include common property theory, political ecology, institutional analysis, the social -ecological systems framework and social network analysis. Findings from across the chapters support an analytical focus on institutions and local context and a practical focus on diverse, flexible and inclusive governance solutions. The book serves as an essential introduction to the governance of renewable natural resources for students, researchers and practitioners.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Investigating coral reef ethnobiology in the western Solomon Islands for enhancing livelihood resilience:
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145425 , vital:38437 , DOI: 10.15286/jps.123.3.237-276
- Description: Coral reefs are of great socio-economic and cultural importance for many coastal communities across the tropics, yet little is known about people's local classifications and their social and ecological relationships with these habitats. In the case of island peoples, coral reefs are more than just resource exploitation areas; they are also géomorphologie features that allow or bar people from navigating, markers that define property rights of the seascape in relation to other coastal and terrestrial habitats, and cultural and historical features that embody tribal identity and ideology. Building upon over two decades of research, this paper uses published and unpublished data to describe people's ecological and socio-economic relationships with coral reefs in two extensive lagoon ecosystems in the Western Solomon Islands.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145425 , vital:38437 , DOI: 10.15286/jps.123.3.237-276
- Description: Coral reefs are of great socio-economic and cultural importance for many coastal communities across the tropics, yet little is known about people's local classifications and their social and ecological relationships with these habitats. In the case of island peoples, coral reefs are more than just resource exploitation areas; they are also géomorphologie features that allow or bar people from navigating, markers that define property rights of the seascape in relation to other coastal and terrestrial habitats, and cultural and historical features that embody tribal identity and ideology. Building upon over two decades of research, this paper uses published and unpublished data to describe people's ecological and socio-economic relationships with coral reefs in two extensive lagoon ecosystems in the Western Solomon Islands.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Can perceptions of environmental and climate change in island communities assist in adaptation planning locally?
- Aswani, Shankar, Vaccaro, Ismael, Abernethy, Kirsten Elizabeth, Albert, Simon, de Pablo, Javier Fernández-López
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Vaccaro, Ismael , Abernethy, Kirsten Elizabeth , Albert, Simon , de Pablo, Javier Fernández-López
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/123310 , vital:35426 , https://doi.10.1007/s00267-015-0572-3
- Description: Local perceptions of environmental and climate change, as well as associated adaptations made by local populations, are fundamental for designing comprehensive and inclusive mitigation and adaptation plans both locally and nationally. In this paper, we analyze people’s perceptions of environmental and climate-related transformations in communities across the Western Solomon Islands through ethnographic and geospatial methods. Specifically, we documented people’s observed changes over the past decades across various environmental domains, and for each change, we asked respondents to identify the causes, timing, and people’s adaptive responses. We also incorporated this information into a geographical information system database to produce broad-scale base maps of local perceptions of environmental change. Results suggest that people detected changes that tended to be acute (e.g., water clarity, logging intensity, and agricultural diseases). We inferred from these results that most local observations of and adaptations to change were related to parts of environment/ecosystem that are most directly or indirectly related to harvesting strategies. On the other hand, people were less aware of slower insidious/chronic changes identified by scientific studies. For the Solomon Islands and similar contexts in the insular tropics, a broader anticipatory adaptation planning strategy to climate change should include a mix of local scientific studies and local observations of ongoing ecological changes.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Vaccaro, Ismael , Abernethy, Kirsten Elizabeth , Albert, Simon , de Pablo, Javier Fernández-López
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/123310 , vital:35426 , https://doi.10.1007/s00267-015-0572-3
- Description: Local perceptions of environmental and climate change, as well as associated adaptations made by local populations, are fundamental for designing comprehensive and inclusive mitigation and adaptation plans both locally and nationally. In this paper, we analyze people’s perceptions of environmental and climate-related transformations in communities across the Western Solomon Islands through ethnographic and geospatial methods. Specifically, we documented people’s observed changes over the past decades across various environmental domains, and for each change, we asked respondents to identify the causes, timing, and people’s adaptive responses. We also incorporated this information into a geographical information system database to produce broad-scale base maps of local perceptions of environmental change. Results suggest that people detected changes that tended to be acute (e.g., water clarity, logging intensity, and agricultural diseases). We inferred from these results that most local observations of and adaptations to change were related to parts of environment/ecosystem that are most directly or indirectly related to harvesting strategies. On the other hand, people were less aware of slower insidious/chronic changes identified by scientific studies. For the Solomon Islands and similar contexts in the insular tropics, a broader anticipatory adaptation planning strategy to climate change should include a mix of local scientific studies and local observations of ongoing ecological changes.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Perspectives in coastal human ecology (CHE) for marine conservation
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar
- Date: 2019
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/125576 , vital:35797 , https://doi.10.1016/j.biocon.2019.05.047
- Description: Coastal human ecology (CHE) is a mixture of different theoretical and thematic approaches straddling between the humanities and social and natural sciences which studies human and coastal/marine interactions at the local-scale and through intense fieldwork. Topics of interest include human coastal adaptations past and present; the historical ecology of fisheries and future implications; local forms of marine governance and economic systems; local food security and livelihoods, and indigenous/local ecological knowledge systems among many research themes. In this paper, I explore different strands of CHE in the study of tribal, artisanal, and small-scale industrial fisheries from the mid-90s onward that can contribute to the foundational knowledge necessary for designing and implementing successful coastal fisheries management and conservation programs. Marine conservation has often failed due to a lack of understanding of the fine grained marine human-environmental interactions at the local scale. In this context, I also examine developing and future research directions in CHE, and discuss their potential contribution for filling the gap in existing approaches to actionable scholarship in marine conservation. The strength of many CHE approaches lies in their potential for bridging humanism and natural science, and thus CHE approaches are well equipped to address many of the challenges faced by marine conservation practitioners today.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar
- Date: 2019
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/125576 , vital:35797 , https://doi.10.1016/j.biocon.2019.05.047
- Description: Coastal human ecology (CHE) is a mixture of different theoretical and thematic approaches straddling between the humanities and social and natural sciences which studies human and coastal/marine interactions at the local-scale and through intense fieldwork. Topics of interest include human coastal adaptations past and present; the historical ecology of fisheries and future implications; local forms of marine governance and economic systems; local food security and livelihoods, and indigenous/local ecological knowledge systems among many research themes. In this paper, I explore different strands of CHE in the study of tribal, artisanal, and small-scale industrial fisheries from the mid-90s onward that can contribute to the foundational knowledge necessary for designing and implementing successful coastal fisheries management and conservation programs. Marine conservation has often failed due to a lack of understanding of the fine grained marine human-environmental interactions at the local scale. In this context, I also examine developing and future research directions in CHE, and discuss their potential contribution for filling the gap in existing approaches to actionable scholarship in marine conservation. The strength of many CHE approaches lies in their potential for bridging humanism and natural science, and thus CHE approaches are well equipped to address many of the challenges faced by marine conservation practitioners today.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Design of realistic hybrid marine resource management programs in Oceania
- Aswani, Shankar, Ruddle, Kenneth
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Ruddle, Kenneth
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70615 , vital:29681 , https://doi.org/10.2984/67.3.11
- Description: This review article synthesizes the authors' several decades of multidisciplinary natural and social science and applied marine resource management experience in the Asia-Pacific region to examine the strengthening of coastal and marine resource management and conservation using alliances between local communities and external institutions. The objective is to assist the design of resource management and conservation programs that enhance the capacity of coastal communities in Oceania to confront both diminishing marine resources and the effects of climate change by providing guidelines for protecting marine biodiversity and vulnerable ecosystem functions. This article describes a management framework that hybridizes local beliefs and institutions expressed in customary management (CM) with such modern management concepts as marine protected areas (MPAs) and ecosystem-based management (EBM). Hybrid management accommodates the social, political, economic, and cultural contexts of Oceanic communities and, compared with recent or conventional management approaches, can therefore better address fundamental local concerns such as coastal degradation, climate change, sea level rise, weak governance, corruption, limited resources and staff to manage and monitor marine resources, and increasing poverty. Research on the hybridization of management systems demonstrates opportunities to establish context-appropriate EBM and/or other managerial arrangements that include terrestrial and adjacent coastal-marine ecosystems. Formal and informal CM systems are widespread in Oceania and in some parts of Southeast Asia, and if appropriate strategies are employed rapid progress toward hybrid CM-EBM could be enabled.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Ruddle, Kenneth
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70615 , vital:29681 , https://doi.org/10.2984/67.3.11
- Description: This review article synthesizes the authors' several decades of multidisciplinary natural and social science and applied marine resource management experience in the Asia-Pacific region to examine the strengthening of coastal and marine resource management and conservation using alliances between local communities and external institutions. The objective is to assist the design of resource management and conservation programs that enhance the capacity of coastal communities in Oceania to confront both diminishing marine resources and the effects of climate change by providing guidelines for protecting marine biodiversity and vulnerable ecosystem functions. This article describes a management framework that hybridizes local beliefs and institutions expressed in customary management (CM) with such modern management concepts as marine protected areas (MPAs) and ecosystem-based management (EBM). Hybrid management accommodates the social, political, economic, and cultural contexts of Oceanic communities and, compared with recent or conventional management approaches, can therefore better address fundamental local concerns such as coastal degradation, climate change, sea level rise, weak governance, corruption, limited resources and staff to manage and monitor marine resources, and increasing poverty. Research on the hybridization of management systems demonstrates opportunities to establish context-appropriate EBM and/or other managerial arrangements that include terrestrial and adjacent coastal-marine ecosystems. Formal and informal CM systems are widespread in Oceania and in some parts of Southeast Asia, and if appropriate strategies are employed rapid progress toward hybrid CM-EBM could be enabled.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Customary management as TURFs: social challenges and opportunities
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145403 , vital:38435 , DOI: 10.5343/bms.2015.1084
- Description: There is a growing interest in working with customary management (CM) systems to effectively manage benthic resources and small-scale fisheries. The underlying notion is that CM institution as territorial use rights in fisheries (TURFs) can be sufficiently adaptive and dynamic to create the local incentives that are necessary for promoting sustainable fishing practices and marine conservation more generally in a given region. This paper reviews the social opportunities and challenges of working with CM systems as a form of TURF, particularly in Oceania. A key conclusion is that policy makers and managers not only need to recognize natural interconnectivity in any one marine space, but also consider the social interconnectivity of stakeholders that covers customary TURFs. Only by recognizing and working with the existing social networks that overlay any given marine territory can the operational principles of CM (as reviewed in this paper) be effectively deployed for achieving some kind of bioeconomic efficiency and creating an equitable rights-based fisheries management system.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145403 , vital:38435 , DOI: 10.5343/bms.2015.1084
- Description: There is a growing interest in working with customary management (CM) systems to effectively manage benthic resources and small-scale fisheries. The underlying notion is that CM institution as territorial use rights in fisheries (TURFs) can be sufficiently adaptive and dynamic to create the local incentives that are necessary for promoting sustainable fishing practices and marine conservation more generally in a given region. This paper reviews the social opportunities and challenges of working with CM systems as a form of TURF, particularly in Oceania. A key conclusion is that policy makers and managers not only need to recognize natural interconnectivity in any one marine space, but also consider the social interconnectivity of stakeholders that covers customary TURFs. Only by recognizing and working with the existing social networks that overlay any given marine territory can the operational principles of CM (as reviewed in this paper) be effectively deployed for achieving some kind of bioeconomic efficiency and creating an equitable rights-based fisheries management system.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Marine resource management and conservation in the Anthropocene
- Aswani, Shankar, Basurto, Xavier, Ferse, Sebastian, Glaser, Marion, Campbell, Lisa, Cinner, Joshua E, Dalton, Tracey, Jenkins, Lekelia D, Miller, Marc L, Pollnac, Richard, McGill University, Christie, Patrick
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Basurto, Xavier , Ferse, Sebastian , Glaser, Marion , Campbell, Lisa , Cinner, Joshua E , Dalton, Tracey , Jenkins, Lekelia D , Miller, Marc L , Pollnac, Richard , McGill University , Christie, Patrick
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124987 , vital:35716 , https://doi.10.1017/S0376892917000431
- Description: Because the Anthropocene by definition is an epoch during which environmental change is largely anthropogenic and driven by social, economic, psychological and political forces, environmental social scientists can effectively analyse human behaviour and knowledge systems in this context. In this subject review, we summarize key ways in which the environmental social sciences can better inform fisheries management policy and practice and marine conservation in the Anthropocene. We argue that environmental social scientists are particularly well positioned to synergize research to fill the gaps between: (1) local behaviours/needs/worldviews and marine resource management and biological conservation concerns; and (2) large-scale drivers of planetary environmental change (globalization, affluence, technological change, etc.) and local cognitive, socioeconomic, cultural and historical processes that shape human behaviour in the marine environment. To illustrate this, we synthesize the roles of various environmental social science disciplines in better understanding the interaction between humans and tropical marine ecosystems in developing nations where issues arising from human–coastal interactions are particularly pronounced. We focus on: (1) the application of the environmental social sciences in marine resource management and conservation; (2) the development of ‘new’ socially equitable marine conservation; (3) repopulating the seascape; (4) incorporating multi-scale dynamics of marine social–ecological systems; and (5) envisioning the future of marine resource management and conservation for producing policies and projects for comprehensive and successful resource management and conservation in the Anthropocene.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Basurto, Xavier , Ferse, Sebastian , Glaser, Marion , Campbell, Lisa , Cinner, Joshua E , Dalton, Tracey , Jenkins, Lekelia D , Miller, Marc L , Pollnac, Richard , McGill University , Christie, Patrick
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124987 , vital:35716 , https://doi.10.1017/S0376892917000431
- Description: Because the Anthropocene by definition is an epoch during which environmental change is largely anthropogenic and driven by social, economic, psychological and political forces, environmental social scientists can effectively analyse human behaviour and knowledge systems in this context. In this subject review, we summarize key ways in which the environmental social sciences can better inform fisheries management policy and practice and marine conservation in the Anthropocene. We argue that environmental social scientists are particularly well positioned to synergize research to fill the gaps between: (1) local behaviours/needs/worldviews and marine resource management and biological conservation concerns; and (2) large-scale drivers of planetary environmental change (globalization, affluence, technological change, etc.) and local cognitive, socioeconomic, cultural and historical processes that shape human behaviour in the marine environment. To illustrate this, we synthesize the roles of various environmental social science disciplines in better understanding the interaction between humans and tropical marine ecosystems in developing nations where issues arising from human–coastal interactions are particularly pronounced. We focus on: (1) the application of the environmental social sciences in marine resource management and conservation; (2) the development of ‘new’ socially equitable marine conservation; (3) repopulating the seascape; (4) incorporating multi-scale dynamics of marine social–ecological systems; and (5) envisioning the future of marine resource management and conservation for producing policies and projects for comprehensive and successful resource management and conservation in the Anthropocene.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
New directions in Maritime and Fisheries Anthropology:
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/179028 , vital:40101 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1111/aman.13380
- Description: Maritime and fisheries anthropology is a mixture of different themes couched under various theoretical frameworks that straddle the humanities and the sciences. In this subject survey, I explore different thematic and theoretical strands of maritime and fisheries anthropology and illustrate broader changes in this subdiscipline since around the mid‐1990s. I also review developing and future thematic and theoretical research frontiers, and discuss their potential contribution to a public and actionable anthropology/scholarship that can better inform fisheries management and conservation. This is important because in the twenty‐first century, coastal peoples are facing socioeconomic and environmental challenges that are increasingly becoming hazardous. To create a more actionable discipline, anthropology needs to be more accessible, inform innovation, and recapture a more pluralistic scholarship that champions interdisciplinary work. This will require the consilience between the humanities and natural sciences for studying human–marine interactions more broadly and for protecting the marine environment.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/179028 , vital:40101 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1111/aman.13380
- Description: Maritime and fisheries anthropology is a mixture of different themes couched under various theoretical frameworks that straddle the humanities and the sciences. In this subject survey, I explore different thematic and theoretical strands of maritime and fisheries anthropology and illustrate broader changes in this subdiscipline since around the mid‐1990s. I also review developing and future thematic and theoretical research frontiers, and discuss their potential contribution to a public and actionable anthropology/scholarship that can better inform fisheries management and conservation. This is important because in the twenty‐first century, coastal peoples are facing socioeconomic and environmental challenges that are increasingly becoming hazardous. To create a more actionable discipline, anthropology needs to be more accessible, inform innovation, and recapture a more pluralistic scholarship that champions interdisciplinary work. This will require the consilience between the humanities and natural sciences for studying human–marine interactions more broadly and for protecting the marine environment.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Insights from experimental economics on local cooperation in a small-scale fishery management system:
- Aswani, Shankar, Gurney, Georgina G, Mulville, Sara, Matera, Jaime, Gurven, Michael
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Gurney, Georgina G , Mulville, Sara , Matera, Jaime , Gurven, Michael
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145437 , vital:38438 , DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.08.003
- Description: Cooperation is central to collective management of small-scale fisheries management, including marine protected areas. Thus an understanding of the factors influencing stakeholders’ propensity to cooperate to achieve shared benefits is essential to accomplishing successful collective fisheries management. In this paper we study stakeholders’ cooperative behavioral disposition and elucidate the role of various socio-economic factors in influencing it in the Roviana Lagoon, Western Solomon Islands. We employed a Public Goods Game from experimental economics tailored to mimic the problem of common pool fisheries management to elucidate peoples’ cooperative behavior. Using Ostrom's framework for analyzing social-ecological systems to guide our analysis, we examined how individual-scale variables (e.g., age, education, family size, ethnicity, occupational status, personal norms), in the context of village-scale variables (e.g., village, governance institutions, group coercive action), influence cooperative behavior, as indexed by game contribution. Ostrom's framework provides an effective window for conceptually peeling back the various socio-economic and governance layers which influence cooperation within these communities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Gurney, Georgina G , Mulville, Sara , Matera, Jaime , Gurven, Michael
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145437 , vital:38438 , DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.08.003
- Description: Cooperation is central to collective management of small-scale fisheries management, including marine protected areas. Thus an understanding of the factors influencing stakeholders’ propensity to cooperate to achieve shared benefits is essential to accomplishing successful collective fisheries management. In this paper we study stakeholders’ cooperative behavioral disposition and elucidate the role of various socio-economic factors in influencing it in the Roviana Lagoon, Western Solomon Islands. We employed a Public Goods Game from experimental economics tailored to mimic the problem of common pool fisheries management to elucidate peoples’ cooperative behavior. Using Ostrom's framework for analyzing social-ecological systems to guide our analysis, we examined how individual-scale variables (e.g., age, education, family size, ethnicity, occupational status, personal norms), in the context of village-scale variables (e.g., village, governance institutions, group coercive action), influence cooperative behavior, as indexed by game contribution. Ostrom's framework provides an effective window for conceptually peeling back the various socio-economic and governance layers which influence cooperation within these communities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Change in Roviana Lagoon Coral Reef ethnobiology:
- Aswani, Shankar, Albert, Simon
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Albert, Simon
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145460 , vital:38440 , ISBN 9783319237633 , DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-23763-3_10
- Description: Coral reefs are iconic for their beauty and biodiversity, and are of great socioeconomic and cultural importance for many coastal communities across the tropics. However, little is known about people’s local classification and their social and ecological relationship with these habitats. This chapter describes Roviana people’s changing ecological and social relationship with their coral reefs, which are increasingly being damaged by humans. First, we combined ecological and social data to describe people’s classification of local coral reefs in tandem with the productive practices conducted in these habitats. Second, we examined local perceptions and recognized effects of environmental and climatic changes on reefs over the last two decades. Finally, we measured changes in fishing activities and in the taxonomic systems (between 1995 and 2011) to evaluate if recent social and economic change has led to the erosion of marine indigenous ecological knowledge and associated practices. Studying people’s changing perceptions of their coral reefs is crucial to understand their ability to identify and adapt to environmental transformations. Simply, the way local people perceive the state of the environment is not only important in terms of changes in local epistemology but also has important implications for how resources are used and managed, and this information can be coupled with scientific one for a broader management strategy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Albert, Simon
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145460 , vital:38440 , ISBN 9783319237633 , DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-23763-3_10
- Description: Coral reefs are iconic for their beauty and biodiversity, and are of great socioeconomic and cultural importance for many coastal communities across the tropics. However, little is known about people’s local classification and their social and ecological relationship with these habitats. This chapter describes Roviana people’s changing ecological and social relationship with their coral reefs, which are increasingly being damaged by humans. First, we combined ecological and social data to describe people’s classification of local coral reefs in tandem with the productive practices conducted in these habitats. Second, we examined local perceptions and recognized effects of environmental and climatic changes on reefs over the last two decades. Finally, we measured changes in fishing activities and in the taxonomic systems (between 1995 and 2011) to evaluate if recent social and economic change has led to the erosion of marine indigenous ecological knowledge and associated practices. Studying people’s changing perceptions of their coral reefs is crucial to understand their ability to identify and adapt to environmental transformations. Simply, the way local people perceive the state of the environment is not only important in terms of changes in local epistemology but also has important implications for how resources are used and managed, and this information can be coupled with scientific one for a broader management strategy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Geospatial technologies and indigenous Knowledge Systems:
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145448 , vital:38439 , ISBN 9781315181523 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315181523/chapters/10.1201/9781315181523-18
- Description: During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, pressure on coastal ecosystems has amplified and resulted in the widespread degradation of adjacent marine and terrestrial habitats globally (Burke et al., 2001). The ecosystem services provided by coastal habitats, including coastal protection and food procurement, have been heavily compromised by anthropogenic disturbance such as overfishing, pollution, sedimentation and alteration of coastal vegetation (Costanza et al., 1997; Agardy et al., 2009). In the context of small islands, this continued degradation in tandem with the ongoing effects of climate change is putting the livelihoods of coastal peoples at risk (e.g. Bell et al., 2009). While international efforts at curtailing these negative trends are ongoing, many researchers are working directly with coastal local/ indigenous communities to seek more effective management of coastal terrestrial and marine resources. Among various approaches, researchers are increasingly incorporating local knowledge systems for designing resource management and conservation plans (e.g. Gadgil et al., 1993).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145448 , vital:38439 , ISBN 9781315181523 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315181523/chapters/10.1201/9781315181523-18
- Description: During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, pressure on coastal ecosystems has amplified and resulted in the widespread degradation of adjacent marine and terrestrial habitats globally (Burke et al., 2001). The ecosystem services provided by coastal habitats, including coastal protection and food procurement, have been heavily compromised by anthropogenic disturbance such as overfishing, pollution, sedimentation and alteration of coastal vegetation (Costanza et al., 1997; Agardy et al., 2009). In the context of small islands, this continued degradation in tandem with the ongoing effects of climate change is putting the livelihoods of coastal peoples at risk (e.g. Bell et al., 2009). While international efforts at curtailing these negative trends are ongoing, many researchers are working directly with coastal local/ indigenous communities to seek more effective management of coastal terrestrial and marine resources. Among various approaches, researchers are increasingly incorporating local knowledge systems for designing resource management and conservation plans (e.g. Gadgil et al., 1993).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
Detecting change in local ecological knowledge: an application of an index of taxonomic distinctness to an ethnoichthyological classification in the Solomon Islands
- Aswani, Shankar, Ferse, Sebastian C A, Stäbler, Moritz, Chong-Montenegro, Carolina
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Ferse, Sebastian C A , Stäbler, Moritz , Chong-Montenegro, Carolina
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/179059 , vital:40103 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106865
- Description: The global accelerating loss of biodiversity is having immediate repercussions for ecosystems and human wellbeing, particularly in areas where people depend intimately on their natural environment for their livelihoods. Dovetailing this loss is the demise of local/traditional knowledge systems resulting from factors such as changing lifestyle and the transformation of local belief systems. While the importance of local ecological knowledge (LEK) for documentation of biodiversity and environmental change and development of management responses is well established, quantitative tools to analyze and systematically compare LEK are scarce. In this research, we analyze the complexity of local ecological knowledge used by respondents to classify locally-recognized marine species. We do so by applying a modified index of taxonomic distinctness to an ethnoichthyological classification in coastal communities in the Solomon Islands. In addition, we assess simple taxonomic diversity (richness in locally-recognized species names) by comparing taxonomies collected in 1992–1995 and 2014–2015.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Ferse, Sebastian C A , Stäbler, Moritz , Chong-Montenegro, Carolina
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/179059 , vital:40103 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106865
- Description: The global accelerating loss of biodiversity is having immediate repercussions for ecosystems and human wellbeing, particularly in areas where people depend intimately on their natural environment for their livelihoods. Dovetailing this loss is the demise of local/traditional knowledge systems resulting from factors such as changing lifestyle and the transformation of local belief systems. While the importance of local ecological knowledge (LEK) for documentation of biodiversity and environmental change and development of management responses is well established, quantitative tools to analyze and systematically compare LEK are scarce. In this research, we analyze the complexity of local ecological knowledge used by respondents to classify locally-recognized marine species. We do so by applying a modified index of taxonomic distinctness to an ethnoichthyological classification in coastal communities in the Solomon Islands. In addition, we assess simple taxonomic diversity (richness in locally-recognized species names) by comparing taxonomies collected in 1992–1995 and 2014–2015.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Human harvesting impacts on managed areas: ecological effects of socially-compatible shellfish reserves
- Aswani, Shankar, Flores, Carola F, Broitman, Bernardo R
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Flores, Carola F , Broitman, Bernardo R
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124664 , vital:35644 , https://doi.10.1007/s11160-014-9376-4
- Description: We examined how human harvesting impacts on managed areas affect the abundance and size distribution of the edible mangrove shellfish Anadara granosa and Polymesoda spp. in the Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands. We tested two hypotheses: (1) in areas permanently and temporally closed to human exploitation, abundance and size distribution of these shellfish species is significantly greater than in sites open to exploitation and (2) moderate human disturbance of shell beds, particularly of Polymesoda spp., increases their abundance. Firstly, we studied perceptions of environmental states and processes coupled to foraging and management interventions to assess sociocultural influences on harvesting practices and ascertain the types of management regime that people would consider in a context where poaching and interloping are common practices. Secondly, we compared shellfish abundance and shell size from areas that were permanently protected, temporally reserved for communal harvest, and permanently open for exploitation. Thirdly, drawing from women’s local knowledge, we measured the abundance of Polymesoda spp. in relation to mud compactness in quadrats across the three management regimes. Results showed that both species were significantly more abundant in permanent and temporally closed sites than in open sites. In the mud compactness study, however, while shell abundance was greater in moderately compacted quadrats, there was no statistical relationship between mud compactness and shell abundance within or across the three management regimes. Results suggest that even under the strong impacts of poaching, temporally closed areas have more clams than open areas and are as effective as areas that are permanently closed nominally. The results also suggest that human harvesting regimes can influence the effectiveness of local management decisions and thus are important when designing community-based conservation programs in the Solomon Islands and other Pacific Islands.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Flores, Carola F , Broitman, Bernardo R
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124664 , vital:35644 , https://doi.10.1007/s11160-014-9376-4
- Description: We examined how human harvesting impacts on managed areas affect the abundance and size distribution of the edible mangrove shellfish Anadara granosa and Polymesoda spp. in the Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands. We tested two hypotheses: (1) in areas permanently and temporally closed to human exploitation, abundance and size distribution of these shellfish species is significantly greater than in sites open to exploitation and (2) moderate human disturbance of shell beds, particularly of Polymesoda spp., increases their abundance. Firstly, we studied perceptions of environmental states and processes coupled to foraging and management interventions to assess sociocultural influences on harvesting practices and ascertain the types of management regime that people would consider in a context where poaching and interloping are common practices. Secondly, we compared shellfish abundance and shell size from areas that were permanently protected, temporally reserved for communal harvest, and permanently open for exploitation. Thirdly, drawing from women’s local knowledge, we measured the abundance of Polymesoda spp. in relation to mud compactness in quadrats across the three management regimes. Results showed that both species were significantly more abundant in permanent and temporally closed sites than in open sites. In the mud compactness study, however, while shell abundance was greater in moderately compacted quadrats, there was no statistical relationship between mud compactness and shell abundance within or across the three management regimes. Results suggest that even under the strong impacts of poaching, temporally closed areas have more clams than open areas and are as effective as areas that are permanently closed nominally. The results also suggest that human harvesting regimes can influence the effectiveness of local management decisions and thus are important when designing community-based conservation programs in the Solomon Islands and other Pacific Islands.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Planning for the future: mapping anticipated environmental and social impacts in a nascent tourism destination
- Aswani, Shankar, Diedrich, Amy, Currier, Kitty
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Diedrich, Amy , Currier, Kitty
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145415 , vital:38436 , DOI: 10.1080/08941920.2015.1020582
- Description: Tourism is a significant driver of social and ecological change in developing countries, particularly in small-island states, which are susceptible to tourism impacts due to their particular social and environmental characteristics. In this article we present a participatory mapping approach to obtaining spatially explicit local perceptions of future environmental and social change resulting from tourism development, as well as addressing the different community conflicts that may arise through the introduction of tourism in the future in a Solomon Islands community. The results show that spatial conflicts within a community over territory and associated resources are likely to occur when designing natural resource management and tourism development plans. This knowledge can help us increase the future sustainability of tourism in nascent small-islands destinations, particularly in vulnerable regions such as Roviana, which have experienced very little tourism development and will likely experience more in the near future.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Diedrich, Amy , Currier, Kitty
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145415 , vital:38436 , DOI: 10.1080/08941920.2015.1020582
- Description: Tourism is a significant driver of social and ecological change in developing countries, particularly in small-island states, which are susceptible to tourism impacts due to their particular social and environmental characteristics. In this article we present a participatory mapping approach to obtaining spatially explicit local perceptions of future environmental and social change resulting from tourism development, as well as addressing the different community conflicts that may arise through the introduction of tourism in the future in a Solomon Islands community. The results show that spatial conflicts within a community over territory and associated resources are likely to occur when designing natural resource management and tourism development plans. This knowledge can help us increase the future sustainability of tourism in nascent small-islands destinations, particularly in vulnerable regions such as Roviana, which have experienced very little tourism development and will likely experience more in the near future.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
An integrated framework for assessing coastal community vulnerability across cultures, oceans and scales
- Aswani, Shankar, Howard, J A E, Gasalla, Maria A, Jennings, Sarah, Malherbe, W, Martins, I M, Salim, Shyam S
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Howard, J A E , Gasalla, Maria A , Jennings, Sarah , Malherbe, W , Martins, I M , Salim, Shyam S
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/123063 , vital:35402 , https://doi.10.1080/17565529.2018.1442795
- Description: Across the globe, many coastal communities rely on marine resources for their food security (FS), income and livelihoods and with predicted trends in human populations, the number of people reliant on these resources is likely to increase (FAO, 2012). However, the effects of climate change including increased variability are already being experienced by coastal communities and appear to be accelerating (Doney et al., 2012). Depending on a range of factors, including location, these changes are having mild to severe impacts on communities both in direct and indirect ways (Miller et al., 2010). Communities in coastal areas, for instance, are particularly at risk due to sea level rise but also through their dependence on marine resources that are impacted by multiple climate change pressures. A change in the availability and condition of marine resources has consequences on the livelihoods of fishing populations or those who depend directly on fishing as a source of food (Badjeck, Allison, Halls, & Dulvy, 2010).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Aswani, Shankar , Howard, J A E , Gasalla, Maria A , Jennings, Sarah , Malherbe, W , Martins, I M , Salim, Shyam S
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/123063 , vital:35402 , https://doi.10.1080/17565529.2018.1442795
- Description: Across the globe, many coastal communities rely on marine resources for their food security (FS), income and livelihoods and with predicted trends in human populations, the number of people reliant on these resources is likely to increase (FAO, 2012). However, the effects of climate change including increased variability are already being experienced by coastal communities and appear to be accelerating (Doney et al., 2012). Depending on a range of factors, including location, these changes are having mild to severe impacts on communities both in direct and indirect ways (Miller et al., 2010). Communities in coastal areas, for instance, are particularly at risk due to sea level rise but also through their dependence on marine resources that are impacted by multiple climate change pressures. A change in the availability and condition of marine resources has consequences on the livelihoods of fishing populations or those who depend directly on fishing as a source of food (Badjeck, Allison, Halls, & Dulvy, 2010).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018