Social-Ecological Systems Analysis

There are various ways in which local communities are, and can become more, involved in reef management. Attempts have been made to comprehensively highlight successes and failures, but with little rigorous assessment of what the conditions of long-term success are.

Overfishing threatens Fijian coral reefs, even those small island areas used mainly for subsistence fishing. Management is needed towards future availability of fish, but means to quantify local pressures on the fishery (i.e., monitoring) are still lacking in most communities. The customary tenure system (including sharing, traditional leadership and resource ownership) serves as basis for management actions, but is drastically altering - and does not comprise monitoring. Fishing data collected between 2003 and 2009 on three islands in Fiji exemplify a good possibility of local marine resource monitoring on small islands. However, data processing for scientifically (and locally) useful outcomes remains a fragile effort, and some management actions rather seem to originate in the precautionary principle.

Highlights
► Resource management at all scales needs continuous on-site monitoring. ► Otherwise, the precautionary principle replaces actual data. ► Fishing logbook data and trained local marine advisers can be an alternative. ► Local catch monitoring can be self-sufficient, largely without external input.

This paper arises from a four-year Indonesian-German research cooperation on the governance and
management of Indonesian coastal and marine ecosystems. Project objectives were to investigate coastal
and marine social-ecological dynamics and feedbacks and to analyse socio-political and institutional
structures and processes in order to support adaptive coastal governance. Participating researchers
worked in the Spermonde Archipelago, off South Sulawesi, Indonesia, between 2007 and 2010. Methods
included ship-based research excursions, several classical surveys, anthropological participant observation,
and participatory research methods applied by an interdisciplinary social-natural science team. This
paper summarises our findings and draws policy conclusions. First, we discuss Marine Protected Areas
and participation focussing on local “rules-in-use”. In addition, reef exploitation and local livelihoods, in
particular fisheries and mariculture, and the existing social networks and hierarchies in fisheries are
explored to understand social vulnerability, resilience and marine resource governance in the context of
the Spermonde Archipelago. An outline of major policy recommendations concludes this article.

The success or failure of environmental management goals can be partially attributed to the support for such goals from the public. Despite this, environmental management is still dominated by a natural science approach with little input from disciplines that are concerned with the relationship between humans and the natural environment such as environmental psychology. Within the marine and freshwater environments, this is particularly concerning given the cultural and aesthetic significance of these environments to the public, coupled with the services delivered by freshwater and marine ecosystems, and the vulnerability of aquatic ecosystems to human-driven environmental perturbations. This paper documents nine case studies which use environmental psychology methods to support a range of aquatic management goals. Examples include understanding the drivers of public attitudes towards ecologically important but uncharismatic river species, impacts of marine litter on human well-being, efficacy of small-scale governance of tropical marine fisheries and the role of media in shaping attitudes towards. These case studies illustrate how environmental psychology and natural sciences can be used together to apply an interdisciplinary approach to the management of aquatic environments. Such an approach that actively takes into account the range of issues surrounding aquatic environment management is more likely to result in successful outcomes, from both human and environmental perspectives. Furthermore, the results illustrate that better understanding the societal importance of aquatic ecosystems can reduce conflict between social needs and ecological objectives, and help improve the governance of aquatic ecosystems. Thus, this paper concludes that an effective relationship between academics and practitioners requires fully utilising the skills, knowledge and experience from both sectors.

Jakarta Bay, next to the Jakarta Metropolitan Area with around 30 million inhabitants, is facing extreme pollution. Although local coral reefs are degraded and marine resources heavily exploited, they provide livelihoods for millions of people. This study investigates anthropogenic pressures on local fisheries resources and associated livelihoods. Questionnaire surveys were conducted in 15 coastal communities (10 coastal neighborhoods in Jakarta Bay on the mainland and 5 of the offshore Thousand Islands). The most economically valuable species were Caesio cuning (Redbelly yellowtail fusilier) on the islands and Rastrelliger kanagurta (Indian mackerel) on the mainland. Over 80% of all interviewed fishermen regarded the current state of marine resources as declining, mainly due to pollution and overexploitation. While perceptions of declining resources were equally high on the islands and the mainland, pollution was listed as the principal cause of degradation significantly more on the mainland. Findings are discussed in the context of coastal livelihood vulnerability.

Multispecies fisheries commonly target those species and sizes that provide highest revenues (due to both their high abundances and market values) using multiple gears. Yet most tropical countries still apply single species management approaches, which ignore species - species and species - gear interactions in these complex fisheries. The objective of the here presented study was to evaluate the role and importance of the different fishing gears for the exploitation of the different species and sizes of the artisanal reef fishery catch from the Kenyan South Coast. Like in most tropical multi-species fisheries, the artisanal catch was characterized by a very large number of species (138 species representing 38 families). Of these, 17 species dominated the catch making up 91% of the overall abundance and 70% by weight of the total catch from all gears. Species belonging to the families Siganidae, Scaridae and Lethrinidae dominated the catch of most gears. Species selectivity by gear was determined by a classification analysis (hierarchical agglomerative clustering) based on a similarity matrix from transformed abundance data of the fish species by gear. At a similarity of 50%, five groups were differentiated by the cluster dendrogram. Considerable species and size overlap was observed between gears with the basket trap and beach seine showing very similar selectivity with the composition of their catches to a large extent being complementary. Overall the beach seine landed the smallest individuals in the catch with the key species captured being smaller than the size at first maturity but only contributed 10% of the total biomass landed compared to the basket traps which also targeted similar size ranges but at higher relative abundance and biomass. The hook and line method and the ring net targeted the largest individuals in the catch but the hook and line contributed more in terms of the total biomass landed (31%). Our findings indicate that the current fishing practices exploit fish species of small sizes but also small to medium sized specimens relative to the species potential maximum size. Therefore, fishers by diversifying their gears and strategies, have been able to target a significant part of the entire fish assemblage (species and sizes) with each gear imposing different fishing mortalities on the target species. This fishery strategy is a major challenge to decision-makers, and it is evident that the current regulations focusing on gear restrictions are not adequate to manage this complex and highly effective fishery. Thus, our proposal is that in addition to the current measures, an attempt should be made towards an integrated approach that incorporates the fishing dynamics and distribution of effort across different gears while complementing these with market based regulatory measures. Therefore, an important next step in the analysis of the fishery of Kenya’s coast should be the determination of the present exploitation rate of the target species along the resource size spectrum both temporally and spatially to provide a proper assessment of the fisheries and provide a more succinct management advice towards reallocation of fishing effort among alternative target species in this multispecies fisheries.

Every community-based marine resource management (CBMRM) inherently takes place in a highly complex social-ecological environment, and stakeholder perceptions related to various aspects of the natural and social environment guide behavior in every stage of the management process. This paper provides an introduction to the psychology of perception with regard to marine resource management. In particular, it offers a typology of CBMRM relevant perceptions along with an analysis of psychological, societal, and physical factors that modulate them. Based on this analysis, we propose the introduction of specially trained local Perception Experts (PE’s), whose role will be to recognize and reflect individual perceptions of involved stakeholders, and to communicate them at community meetings where decisions are made. This empirically testable addition to current CBMRM schemes could help to increase participation, develop management measures that fit the capacities of the involved stakeholders more accurately, and hence, contribute to a faster rehabilitation of marine resources.

The Spermonde Archipelago holds one of the largest artisanal fisheries in Indonesia, providing livelihoods for local communities and many other people involved in international trade networks of seafood. High demand and a lack of enforcement of existing fisheries regulations turn into high pressure for the coral reef ecosystem, contributing to its overall degradation. Estimations on the ecological impacts of different levels of fishing pressure, as well as fisheries stock assessments and marine resource management require precise information of the spatial distribution of fishing effort, which involves great uncertainty when only anecdotal information is considered. We explored the feasibility of applying participatory boat tracking to complement fisheries data during the NW monsoon season 2014–2015. We conducted interviews, measured catch landings, and distributed GPS data loggers among hook and line fishermen to identify fishing grounds by gear-dependent patterns of boat movement. Most of the fishing activities involved two gears (octopus bait and trolling line for live groupers) and three fishing grounds. The mass of catch landings was dominated by Octopoda (CPUE = 10.1 kg boatday −1) while the most diverse group was the fish family Serranidae, with Plectropomus leopardus being the main target species. In conclusion, boat tracking combined with interviews and catch surveys has proven a useful tool to reduce uncertainty in information on spatial resource use, while allowing a high level of participation by fishermen.