Viability and resilience of small-scale fisheries through cooperative arrangements

TL;DR: In this article, the authors developed a bio-economic model and a quantitative measure of resilience in order to explore the interaction between socioeconomic and ecological dynamics, and to analyze the potential role that cooperation and collective arrangements can play in this interaction to maintain the viability of the system.

Abstract: The small-scale fisheries sector in many Pacific islands is facing increasing challenges in relation to resource availability, economic opportunity, and demographic and social pressure. In particular, intensifying cash-oriented livelihood strategies can exacerbate existing vulnerabilities and threaten food security and resource conservation. In this paper the authors develop a bio-economic model and a quantitative measure of resilience in order to explore the interaction between socio-economic and ecological dynamics, and to analyze the potential role that cooperation and collective arrangements can play in this interaction to maintain the viability of the system. Based on the case of the system known as wantok typically found in the Solomon Islands, numerical examples are used to explore the potential gain that cooperation between fishers can bring in terms of subsistence, profitability and ecological performances, as well as the resilience of the whole system to shocks.

Summary

1 Introduction

• Small-scale fisheries are facing increasing challenges induced by the amplitude and the pace of the changes that are taking place in both their economic and ecological ’worlds’.
• Most of the island countries in the region are still considered as poor countries and small-scale fisheries are an important (sometime the only) economic opportunity for many poor households, especially in the rural and remote parts of these islands (Kronen, 2004, 2007).
• The authors propose to explore whether the establishment of these types of collaborative mechanisms among groups of fishers exploiting the same resource can be a critical element that contributes to create, or to maintain, the overall viability of the small-scale fishery system in a challenging environment where shocks and sudden changes in resource abundance are frequent.
• Many recent definitions of resilience have been proposed in different disciplines (Manyena, 2006; Bahadur et al., 2010).

2 The Solomon Islands case study

• Within Solomon Islands, the Western province was used for their field work (see Figure (1)).
• There the small town of Gizo (on Gizo Island) where the fishing ground is shared by 4 communities of fishers was selected 1.
• The cooperation between the four community is considered as an ’extended’ wantok as in practice each community has its own constitutive wantok.
• The information and data on the socio-economical context of this case study are derived from field work conducted by the first author of this article from May to August 2011 in the Gizo area, supplemented by a thorough review of the existing literature on Gizo market (Alec, 2005; Schwarz et al., 2007).

3 The bio-economic model

• The dynamic bio-economic model is based on a renewable resource assumed to be exploited by heterogeneous agents who differ from each other by their operating costs 5 and catchability efficiency 2.
• These agents’ fishing strategies are assumed to be driven by cash optimality under subsistence constraints, following cooperative and non cooperative strategies.
• In their dynamic framework, both non cooperative and cooperative agents are assumed to be myopic with respect to the impact of their fishing effort on the stock dynamics.
• Hence cooperation is not considered as a way to internalize this stock dynamics but as a mean to concentrate the fishing effort into the hands of the most efficient agent(s) in order to ensure the fulfilment of the subsistence constraint for all agents.

3.2 Agents’ strategy: subsistence versus cash

• The different fishers are assumed to exploit the biomass B(t) to cover their household’s subsistence needs.
• Each agent is therefore characterized by a specific catchability efficiency qi that reflects his own community’s average catchability efficiency plus or minus a variation randomly assigned within a 20% range.
• Note that the way the cooperative strategy is defined implies that it can be optimal for the most efficient fishers in the group to fish on the behalf of the least efficient fishers, to ensure that the Hlim requirement is satisfied for all in the group.

3.3 The resilience index

• The modelling analysis is completed by the computation of a resilience index.
• Following Béné et al. (2001) and Martin (2005), this resilience index is based on the calculation of system’s ’time of crisis’, that is, the time it takes for a system to come back to a viable configuration after a shock.
• In their case, viable configurations correspond to situations where the subsistence constraint defined by the threshold Hlim is satisfied (i.e. food security is secured for all members of the community).
• Values close to 1 indicate systems with strong resilience (i.e. situations where a system can return to food security condition relatively rapidly), while values close to 0 indicate cases where a system has difficulties to return to a viable condition after a crisis.

3.4 Calibration of the model

• All simulations are based on a weekly time unit.
• In total the whole fishing community includes about 160 fishers who exploit the Gizo’s reefs on a weekly basis.
• The productivity expressed in kg/h/fisher is multiplied by the number of agents and divided by the biomass in kg to obtain the catchability parameters (in 1/h): 6. This is equivalent to 22.5 Kg/agent/week since the average number of fisher per agent is 5 and the number of people in a fisher’s household is 5.2 (National Statistic Office, 1999) 11.

4 Results

• Figure 2 displays the trajectories of the exploited resource B(t), the average fishing efforts of each community (or group) e(t)k/Nbk(t), the average subsistence level H(t)/Nb(t) and average cash-income derived from fishing π(t)/N(t) under the non-collaborative (Black curves) and collaborative (light blue curves) strategies.
• Without collaboration, the four groups of fishers are all fishing to ensure their individual subsistence (Fig.2, diagramme (b) black curves).
• In the last few months before the collapse, the fishers were just able to maintain their subsistence (diagramme (c) black curve) at the food security threshold level Hlim (shown in red on the figure).
• As the shock hits the resource, the level of biomass B(t) is reduced by 50 %.
• The curves confirm the great benefit of cooperative strategies.

5.1 Key-findings

• According to Oru (2011) or Russell (1948.), the local economy in Solomon Islands is an economy of social values rather than market ones.
• A series of initial key-points emerge: Cooperation helps maintaining ecological sustainability.
• This strategy (which can be considered as a coping strategy at the community level) is the evidence of the ability of the fishers to adjust and modify their fishing behaviour under the wantok system in an attempt to protect their food security.
• Finally it is interesting to note that two other recent studies also mentioned resilience in relation to the wantok system.
• In essence this illustrates the point now made by an increasing number of scholars who recognise the importance not to consider ecological or social resilience separately but instead to try to integrate both the social and ecological mechanisms of resilience into one single combined concept, that of social-ecological resilience (Armitage et al., 2012).

6 Conclusion

• The nexus between food security, poverty alleviation and resource conservation is one of the most challenging problems faced by many countries in the developing world (Adams, 2004; Sanderson, 2005; Rice, 2011; Bene et al., 2011).
• In the case of small state islands where natural resources are particularly limited and the dependence of the population on these resources particularly high, the problem becomes even more acute (Reenberg et al., 2008; Schwarz et al., 2010; Hardy et al., 2013).
• The wantok has been implemented for many decades in the Solomon Islands fisheries, but its adaptation to the modern world is a critical issue.
• In particular the growing pressure for cash that is imposed by the increased marketization of the economy does represent a direct challenge for some of the more fundamental values 23 that underpin this customary system.
• In that sense the long-term evolution of the whole fishery is still hard to anticipate.

Figures

Figure 1: Solomon Islands

Figure 2: Cooperation vs non cooperation. Trajectories of biomass B(t), community (or group) efforts ek(t), subsistence Hi(t) and cash πi(t) in the case of cooperation (‘c’ in blue) and non cooperation (‘nc’ in black).

Table 2: Market surveys compilation by community, profit, costs and market price are expresed in $SB, the effort in hour per day per fisher and the catch per kg.

Table 3: List of parameters and values used in the model.

Table 1: The number of agent per community and their relative average catchability parameter

Figure 4: Resilience index: Comparison of resilience index Res(B) under cooperation ‘c’ (blue) and non cooperation ‘nc’ strategies (black). Initial biomass B(t0) as estinmated in 2005 indicated by the green triangle.

Figure 3: Cooperation vs non cooperation with a 50% shock in the biomass occurring after 3.5 year. Trajectories of biomass B(t), community (or group) efforts ek(t), subsistence Hi(t) and cash πi(t) in the case of cooperation (‘c’ in blue) and non cooperation (‘nc’ in black) .

Full text

GRETHA U M R CNR S 5 1 13
Université Montesquieu Bordeaux IV
Avenue Léon Duguit - 33608 PESSAC - FRANCE
Tel : +33 (0)5.56.84.25.75 - Fax : +33 (0)5.56.84.86.47 - www.gretha.fr
Viability and resilience of small-scale fisheries through
cooperative arrangements
P. Y. HARDY
CNRS MNHN
C. BENE
Institute of Development Studies
Sussex University (BRIGHTON - UK)
L. DOYEN
GREThA, CNRS, UMR 5113
Université de Bordeaux
J. C. PEREAU
GREThA, CNRS, UMR 5113
Université de Bordeaux
D. MILES
WorldFish Center, MALAYSIA
Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Australia
Cahiers du GREThA
n° 2013-18
September

Cahiers du GREThA 2013 – 18
G R E T H A U M R C N R S 5 1 1 3
Universi t é Monte s q u i eu Bor d e a u x I V
Ave nu e Lé on Du gu i t - 33 6 0 8 PE S S AC - FR ANCE
Te l : + 33 (0 )5 .5 6 .8 4 .2 5 .75 - F ax : + 3 3 (0 )5 .5 6 .84 .86 .4 7 - w ww . g r e th a.fr
La coopération pour la viabilité et la résilience de petites pêcheries artisanales
Résumé
Les petites pêcheries artisanales situées dans les iles du Pacifique sont actuellement
confrontées à de fortes pressions écologiques, économiques, démographiques et sociales. En
particulier, des stratégies de recherche de profit peuvent aggraver des vulnérabilités
existantes, menacer la sécurité d’approvisionnement alimentaire, la pauvreté et la
conservation de la biodiversité. Dans le cadre d’un modèle bio-économique couplant des
dynamiques écologiques et socio-économiques, cet article propose une mesure quantitative
de la résilience en lien avec la viabilité du système. Une attention particulière est portée sur
l'importance des mécanismes de coopération pour la viabilité et la résilience bio-
économique. Dans le cas du système coutumier des îles Salomon appelé « wantok », des
illustrations numériques montrent quel est le gain de la coopération entre les pêcheurs en
termes de subsistance, de profitabilité, de performances écologiques et de résilience face à
des chocs.
Mots-clés : résilience, coopération, viabilité, temps de crise, pêcheries, wantok
Viability and resilience of small-scale fisheries through cooperative arrangements
Abstract
The small-scale fishery sector in many Pacific islands is facing increasing challenges in
relation to resource availability, economic opportunity, demographic and social pressure. In
particular, intensifying cash-oriented livelihood strategies can exacerbate existing
vulnerabilities and threaten food security, poverty alleviation and resource conservation. In
this paper we develop a bio-economic model and a quantitative measure of resilience to
explore the interaction between socio-economic and ecological dynamics, and to analyse the
potential role that cooperation and collective arrangements can play in this interaction to
maintain the viability of the system. Based on the case of the customary system called
wantok found in Solomon Islands, numerical examples are used to illustrate the gain that
cooperation between fishers can bring in terms of subsistence, profitability, ecological
performances as well as resilience to shock.
Keywords: resilience, cooperation, viability, crisis time, fisheries, wantok
Reference to this paper: HARDY P.H., BENE C., DOYEN L., PEREAU J. C., MILLS D. (2013) Viability and
resilience of small-scale fisheries through cooperative arrangements, Cahiers du GREThA, n°2013-18.
http://ideas.repec.org/p/grt/wpegrt/2013-18.html.

Viability and resilience of small-scale fisheries
through cooperative arrangements
Hardy P.-Y.
∗
, B´en´e C.
†
, Doyen L.
∗
, J.C. Pereau
‡
, Mills D.
§
July 2, 2013
Abstract
The small-scale fishery sector in many Pacific islands is facing increasing challenges
in relation to resource availability, economic opportun ity, demographic and social pres-
sure. In particular, intensifying cash-oriented liveliho od strategies can exacerbate ex-
isting vulnerabilities and threaten food security, poverty alleviation and resource con-
servation. In this paper we develop a bio-economic model and a quantitative measure
of resilience to explore the interaction between s ocio-economic and ecological dynam-
ics, and to analyse the potential role that cooperation and collective arrangements can
play in this interaction to maintain the viability of the sys tem. Based on the case of
the customary system called wantok fou nd in Solomon Islands, numerical examples
are used to illustrate the gain that cooperation between fishers can bring in terms of
subsistence, profitability, ecological performances as well as resilience to shock.
1 Introduction
Small-scale fisheries are facing increasing challenges induced by the amplitude and the
pace of the changes that are taking place in both their economic and ecological ’worlds’.
In many coastal developing countries, combined effects of pollution, climate change and
overfishing affect marine habitats and reduce resources and diversity (Halpern et al., 2 008;
Mora, 2008). In some places, this situation is exacerbated by the rapid demographic tran-
sition that characterises the developing world (Sunderlin, 1994 ; Botsford et al., 1997). In
∗
CNRS-MNHN, 55 rue Buffon, 7005 Paris, France
†
Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University, Brighton BN1 9RE, UK
‡
GREThA, University Montesquieu Bordeaux IV, avenue L´eon Duguit, Pessac, France
§
WorldFish Center, Penang, Malaysia, and C/o ARC CoE fo r Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University,
Townsville, Australia
1

particular, while the number of fishers may not grow any longer as rapidly as it has in
the previous 50 years, global fishing effort is still increasing, mainly dr iven by economic
forces and the demand from the growing (local and distant) urban population (Crossland
and Philipson, 1993). This paper explores the issue of the viability of small-scale fisheries
in this particular context. We are especially interested in considering the importance of the
interactio n between socio-economic and ecological dynamics, and in analysing the potential
role that cooperation and collective a r rangements between agents can play in this interaction
to maintain the viability of the system.
The Pacific region is a very relevant ’prism’ t o observe and explore these issues. Most of
the island count r ies in the region are still considered as poor countries and small-scale fisheries
are an impor tant (sometime the only) economic opportunity for many poor households,
esp ecially in the rura l and remote parts of these islands (Kronen, 2004, 2007). The sector is
therefore a keystone of the domestic economy. At the same time fish is also the main source
of protein for the vast majority of t he (urban and rural) population in the whole region (Yari,
2003/04; Molea and Vuki, 2008; Oreihaka and Ramohia, 1994). Unfortunately many of these
islands are experiencing a rapid degradation of their marine resources (Dalzell et al., 1996 ;
Aswani and Sabetian, 2009; Masu and Vave-Kara mui, 2012). Fewer fish would therefore
imply important food security problems for these countries (Weeratunge et al., 2011; Bell
et al., 20 09).
Fishers from this part of the world are currently experiencing other important socio-
economical changes. The ancient tradition of bart er (Marshall, 1963; Sheppard and Walter,
2006) and g ift economy (Feinberg, 1996 ) t hat had characterized these societies since centuries
is being progressively eroded by the increasing need for cash imposed by the globalized
economy (Dignan et al., 2004). Cash is in fact becoming a central element in the lif e of
these people, even if subsistence economy is still prevalent, especially in rural areas (Schwarz
et al., 20 07; Kronen et al., 2008; Hardy et al., 2013).
Pacific small-scale fisheries are still managed through customary systems. These custom-
2

ary systems do not refer only to community-based management rules that define how and
where people can fish (Cinner, 2 005; Faanunu, n.d.; Johannes, 1 981). They also include social
redistributive mechanisms between groups of fishers (including family and friends) that aim
to ensure that each member of the group receives a minimum amount of fish irrespective of
their personal catch. The underlying principle is one that ensures the food security amongst
the different members of the community. In that sense this redistributive element shares
some common features with the old concept of mutual aid describ ed in Kropotkin (2009
[1904]), or Borkman (1999). These collaborative arrangements of redistribution are named
in various ways around the Pacific region; the ‘wantok ’ in Papua New Guinea and Solomon
Islands, or the ’kerekere ’ in Fidji (Monsell-Davis, 1993; Gordon, 2011; Cinner, 2009). We pro-
pose to explore whether t he establishment of these types of collaborative mechanisms among
groups of fishers exploiting the same r esource can be a critical element that contributes to
create, or to maintain, the overall viability of the small-scale fishery system in a challenging
environment where shocks and sudden changes in resource abundance are frequent.
To explore this hypothesis, we use the concept of resilience as understood in the social-
ecological literature. Many recent definitions of resilience have been proposed in different
disciplines (Manyena, 2006; Bahadur et al., 2010). Most of them however share in common
the basic idea that a resilient system is a system that is able to r educe/smooth the nega-
tive impacts of shocks and a dapts when these changes affect par t s of , or the whole system.
Quantifying or measuring this ability t o reduce impacts of perturbation is however method-
ologically difficult (Armitage et al., 2012; Frankenberger and Nelson, 201 3; B´en´e et al., 2012).
In our case, that is, under a dynamic framewor k, we follow B´en´e et al. (2001) and Martin
(2005) who propo se to link resilience to the concept of ’time of crisis’. Time of crisis is the
time it takes for a dynamic system to come back to a viable state after a shock. In other
words, the more resilient a system is, the shorter the time of crisis is expected to be. This
approach is in f act relatively close to some of the earlier ’engineering’ definitions of resilience
as proposed by, e.g. Holling 1 973 who defined r esilience as the ”ability of a system to bounce
3

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What are the contributions mentioned in the paper "Viability and resilience of small-scale fisheries through cooperative arrangements" ?

In this paper the authors develop a bio-economic model and a quantitative measure of resilience to explore the interaction between socio-economic and ecological dynamics, and to analyse the potential role that cooperation and collective arrangements can play in this interaction to maintain the viability of the system. 

Q2. What future works have the authors mentioned in the paper "Viability and resilience of small-scale fisheries through cooperative arrangements" ?

The lessons from the present analysis confirm, however, the importance of the wantok in maintaining the current socio-ecological viability of the whole system, and suggest that this importance may increase in the future as the pressure on the resource continues to increase. 

Q3. What is the effect of the slowed down subsistence and cash income indicators?

The slow decrease in both subsistence and cash-income indicators (while the resource level remains constant) is the consequence of the growth in population and the subsequent increase in number of fishers - over the 10 years of the simulation. 

Q4. What is the resilience of non-cooperative fishers?

While the resilience index of non-cooperative fishers remain systematically at zero (suggesting that non-cooperative strategies provide the system with no resilience at all), the resilience index of cooperative fishers shows that for a large range of initial biomass the cooperative strategies offer the strong resilience property to the system. 

Q5. Why are the fishers from group 1 able to sustain a positive cash-income?

Because they are very efficient fishers from group 1 are able to catch enough fish to feed the whole community and still maintain positive the14aggregated cash-income for the whole community. 

Q6. How long does the food security of the whole community last?

The food security of the whole community is at stake for approximately one year during which the households subsistence is just maintained at the threshold level Hlim. 

Q7. What is the effect of the shock on the resource-base B(t)?

The combined effect of their fishing pressure on the resource (diagramme (a) black curve) leads the resource-base B(t) to slowly decline, forcing them to fish more intensively, in line with the race for fish described in the Tragedy of the Commons narrative. 

Q8. What are the challenges that small-scale fisheries are facing?

Small-scale fisheries are facing increasing challenges induced by the amplitude and the pace of the changes that are taking place in both their economic and ecological ’worlds’. 

Q9. What is the resilience index for non-cooperative fishers?

Figure 4 shows the resilience index computed for both non-cooperative (black curve) and cooperative fishers (light blue curve) as a function of the initial biomass B(0) for a 50% shock in the biomass. 

Q10. What is the role of the wantok system in promoting cash viability?

The resilience analysis shows that this household subsistence condition can be satisfied at all time even in the case of severe shocks- provided that the resource-base started above a critical biomass level B♯.Cooperation is better for cash viability Although no specific condition was imposed in the bio-economic model on this dimension, the simulations indicate that the cash income generated by fishers operating under the wantok system is always superior or equal to the cash income derived under non-cooperation, at any time. 

Q11. How did the wantok system recover from the shock?

This ability to preserve a critical function of the system was achieved by a change in the fishing strategy: fishers from the group 3 and 4 started to fish again for a short period of time,8. Complementary analyses (not shown here) indicate that in the same conditions a resource affected by a similar shock but exempt of any fishing pressure is able to bounce back to its original level. 

Q12. What are the lessons from the present analysis?

The lessons from the present analysis confirm, however, the importance of the wantok in maintaining the current socio-ecological viability of the whole system, and suggest that this importance may increase in the future as the pressure on the resource continues to increase. 

Q13. What is the main reason why the situation is exacerbated?

In some places, this situation is exacerbated by the rapid demographic transition that characterises the developing world (Sunderlin, 1994; Botsford et al., 1997).