Description
The introduction of financial mechanisms and trading strategies in the privatization of assigning access rights to fishery resources are changing socioeconomic and cultural dynamics of structurally dependent fishing communities. The project addresses the whole concept of fisheries governance from a local perspective. Analyzing the social changes that are occurring in two highly dependent regions of fishing, such as Iceland and Galicia, is intended to create the best indicators to planning and designing models fairer and sustainable governance, characterize the social implications caused by the inclusion of 'private use regimes' and the relationships with the new participatory management models in Icelandic and Galician fisheries. The purpose is to develop a comparative study of the advantages / disadvantages of using both models (Galician and Icelandic) and looking for indicators and basic recommendations for good practice and sustainable management. It is hoped that the information collected is used to generate processes of dialogue between fishermen, managers and scientists who usually have very distant interests. The project promoter, University of A Coruña, has a strong experience in the proposed research field .The publications (number and content) are excellent. Donor partner, Stefansson Arctic Institute (Iceland), will contribute its know-how and many years of experience in conducting investigations in ITC, privatization of common property rights, models of fisheries governance, social, marine reserves, risk management, and arctic fisheries. The cooperation is intended as a sharing of individual experiences of two researchers from the University of A Coruña (Dr Ramón Muiño Boedo and D. Duarte F-Vidal (Phd) and an Icelandic researcher from Stefansson Arctic Institute, Dr Niels Einarsson. Dr Einarsson will visit the University of A Coruña.
Summary of project results
The main rationale for the project is that very little comparative research has been done on social, economic and political implications of the recent international shift towards private property rights regimes in fisheries management. Partners felt an urgent need to widen the scientific study of marine governance to include the welfare of fishing communities, such as those of Galicia, and the complex relationship between public access, property rights and local resource rights. The topic of fishing and access rights to marine resources is also extremely important to coastal communities in the Artic, as they are in the rest of the world of fishing societies. One of the main changes taking place is the privatization of formerly common property resources, linking local livelihoods and community viability to economic and financial processes of national and global markets. The project builds on ongoing anthropological and interdisciplinary research and deals with some of the aspects of this very rapid social change which is also coupled to global financial processes. The project involved not only the partners by also researchers from other universities and research institutions in the region. Discussions with stakeholders of the fishing community in Galicia were held (Cofradía representatives, company managers, fishermen), obtaining first-hand information, essential to understand the internal socioeconomic and cultural dynamics of change and potential future developments and their social implications. Preliminary conclusions is that there is not a reason to assume that the impacts of paradigm change in governance will have the same outcome in Galicia as in Norway or Iceland, but that the coming development will to great extent depend on social and political discourses and policy design which will need to fit the social and cultural environment and the needs of Galician fishing societies. Further research is needed to better understand the systems and processes which shape the adaptive pathways and potential at hand. Papers and publications are planned. Main beneficiaries of the project will be the fishing communities involved as well as policy makers. Appropriate arrangement with good governance are essential to efficient and effective fisheries management and this project has as main goal to share empirical experience of different systems of regulating access and exploitation of marine common pool resources.
Summary of bilateral results
The aim of the granted activity was to initiate a project that will lead to further collaboration and to touch base with key stakeholders in the Galician fishing communities, including fishers, Cofradías and commercial fishing companies. With the help of the Spanish partner the researcher was able to gain access and meet with key actors in both local fishing communities in Celeiro and Cedeira as well as the leaders of Federación de Cofradías de Galicia. These meetings, together with a visit to Lira and Carnota with the author and expert on Galician fishing culture, Francisco Naval, gave the researcher invaluable insight and experience that is much needed for contextualised anthropological understanding of the issues of social and cultural adapation to governance change. This is a highly relevant case study of assessing socio-ecological risk for other maritime societies such a Iceland, in the context of climate change induced receding sea ice and increased trans-artic chipping of oil and gas. The researcher cooperated also for the preparation of a major new research proposal of the EU Horizon 2020 programme which involves an interdisciplinary project on the impacts of climate change on fish stocks and human societies reliant on harvesting them in the North Atlantic. Granted researcher also met the leaders of the AFOOD project (predicting Consequences of Climate Change on Aquatic Food Production), led by the National Agency of Scientific Research in Spain. Besides, he is invited to further participate in lectures and seminars at the University of A Coruña.