Title: Communities, knowledge and fisheries of the future

Authors: Kevin St. Martin, Bonnie J. McCay, Grant D. Murray, Teresa R. Johnson, Bryan Oles

Addresses: Department of Geography, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey, 54 Joyce Kilmer Drive, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8045, USA. ' Department of Human Ecology, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey, 55 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA. ' Institute for Coastal Research, Malaspina University-College, 900-5th Street, Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada V9R 5S5. ' Graduate Program in Ecology and Evolution and Department of Human Ecology, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey, 55 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA. ' I.M. Systems Group, Inc., 6307 Executive Blvd., Rockville, MD 20852, USA

Abstract: The |human dimension| in fisheries management has historically been incorporated via a specific economic understanding of fisheries wedded to a single-species approach. Meeting the challenge of fisheries, however, will require a broadening of fisheries science towards an ecosystems-based approach. There is also the need for a parallel shift in social science understandings of fishing towards context and interrelationships amongst and between fishermen and fishing communities. While the move towards ecosystems is well underway, a corresponding movement in fisheries social science is less well established. The latter will require a commitment to new sources of data, methods and forms and scales of analysis. Promising initiatives that align with ecosystem-based approaches include the documentation and incorporation of Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK), cooperative research that bridges communicative and epistemological gaps between fishermen and scientists and community-level data collections and analyses emerging from legislative mandates and community-based advocacy. These examples suggest a reorientation of fisheries social science in step with ecosystem approaches.

Keywords: fishing communities; fisheries management; fisheries policy; local ecological knowledge; LEK; cooperative research; ecosystems based management; social practice of fishing; fisheries social science; human dimensions; fish stocks.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGENVI.2007.013575

International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, 2007 Vol.7 No.2/3, pp.221 - 239

Published online: 08 May 2007 *

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