Artisanal fishers across the world are facing change from all sides. While these changes have been well documented, the intricacies of the adaptation strategies they are forced to assume remain underexplored. A group of researchers met at a workshop held at the ISS in December last year to discuss the challenges artisanal fishers face and what we can learn from their responses.
In this blog article, Ilaha Abasli, Nina Swen, and Oane Visser highlight the key takeaways of the workshop, showing that while artisanal fishers are trying to turn the tide by adapting, the challenges they face may seem, at times, unsurmountable:
Artisanal fishing is a profession and livelihood profoundly impacted by climate and other anthropogenic changes. Fishers across the globe are facing declining fish stocks, biodiversity loss, and shrinking spaces caused mainly by environmental pollution, changing sea temperatures, and fish migration, combined with increasingly restrictive ecological conservation policies. They are forced to adapt their practices, for example by changing how and where they fish.
The adaptation practices of artisanal fishers remain under-researched, however, which prompted a group of researchers at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) to organize a workshop in December last year titled ‘Artisanal fisheries, climate change and knowledge for adaptation’, which sought to bring together junior and senior researchers from the Netherlands and beyond who work on socio-ecological aspects of fisheries, climate change, and marine anthropologies.
We as workshop organizers focused on the following questions: How do fishers adapt to the changes they face? What role do collaboration and new technologies play? The first part of the workshop comprised a panel discussion among early-career researchers centred around artisanal fisheries, knowledge, and technology in the context of climate change adaptation. The second part of the workshop featured a plenary session where senior researchers discussed their research on artisanal fisheries. This was followed by a roundtable discussion with representatives from academia and beyond. This blog article shares the workshop’s key takeaways.
Is climate change the only cause of the challenges fishers face?
Artisanal fishers are among the first to notice climate and other anthropogenic changes, including fluctuations in sea levels and temperatures and changes in the quantity and quality of available fish, altered fish migration patterns, and the appearance or extinction of species.
Climate change and anthropogenic activities heavily impact artisanal fisheries. Ilaha Abasli, Nina Swen, and Oane Visser of the ISS showed that fisheries situated along the coast of the Caspian Sea for instance are threatened by oil and gas extraction that causes pollution, disrupts fish migration, and affects fish populations. Vitor Renck of Wageningen University & Research demonstrated that Brazilian artisanal fishers in Bahia face overfishing by larger vessels and inadequate regulation of fishing activities. And Yasmine Ahmed Hafez of SOAS University of London noted that at Lake Victoria, strict quota systems and environmental conservation measures exacerbate the negative impacts, limiting their access to certain areas and types of fish.
Climate and anthropogenic change is fundamentally changing. How are small-scale fisheries operating?
The combination of climate and anthropogenic impacts on these water bodies lead to fundamental changes in the practices and livelihoods of small-scale fisheries. They are unable to maintain the same level of fishing in quantity and quality as they did previously and have to go further offshore in vessels that are ill suited to withstanding harsher conditions, risking their lives. These changes often affect their practices, income, and food sovereignty.
For instance, fishing communities must adapt to unfamiliar species, such as the invasive round goby in the Eastern Baltic Sea. Guntra Aistara of the Central European University talked about how such invasive species transition from being perceived as threats to becoming a valuable food source. It exemplifies how communities rapidly recognize their nutritional and social significance.
By sharing their skills, knowledge and technology with each other, fishers are learning more about adapting.
Many of the case studies discussed during the workshop highlighted the exchange of knowledge and technology as a key adaptation strategy. Workshop participants drew on their research to discuss its definition and the ways in which it manifests. Artisanal fisheries in the Caspian Sea for example adapted to change through collective initiatives; these include pooling resources to acquire affordable technologies like GPS trackers and life vests, which facilitates navigation in deeper waters, and sharing skills, for example teaching others how to swim and how to repair and refurbish old technology and boats.
Along the Caspian coast, communication platforms and tools such as WhatsApp groups and gatherings at tea houses (cayxanas) served as a way of sharing information on weather events, fish migration patterns, and recipes for preparing fish previously considered “poor man’s food”. Aistara noted that fishers from the Eastern Baltic and Caspian Seas share a Soviet history that enable them to compare adaptation strategies. Both groups have adapted to the new conditions of the seas by becoming skilled in repairing, constructing, and repurposing materials and other existing technologies.
Knowledge- and technology-sharing practices are influenced by social norms and values.
Such cases reveal that while knowledge and technology sharing are widespread, these practices are influenced by community social norms and values. In specific communities, people for example uphold and respect territorial boundaries agreed upon by fishers and refrain from crossing into each other’s parts of the sea, even if it means catching fewer fish.
Ahmed Hafez highlighted the bottom-up adaptation process taking place at Lake Victoria and Egypt’s Nile Delta by reflecting on internal dynamics that (re)shape social norms and values such as race, migration, and gender. She explicitly focused on patriarchal norms, as men in the communities mostly dominate fisheries. Iddrisu Amadu and Ingrid Boas of Wageningen University & Research talked about how nomadic Fante fishing communities in Senegal and Gambia are adapting, focusing on the entanglements between social and material elements across land-sea spaces. They also stressed that mobilities and their challenging encounters within fisheries during adaptation transcend fixed land-sea boundaries.
Traditional knowledge driving local adaptation needs to be incorporated into official adaptation strategies.
Artisanal fishers in Bahia have successfully adapted technologies, actively using advanced GPS technology and various nets combined with traditional knowledge to navigate changing waters. Renck observed that the significance of adaptation to fishing communities (in Siribinha and Poças) extends beyond preserving fisheries; they are also actively involved in mangrove preservation initiatives in Brazil. Workshop participants agreed that documenting and incorporating the traditional knowledge of local fishers into adaptation strategies is of critical importance for fostering a dialogue between scientific and indigenous and local knowledge systems amidst environmental and anthropogenic changes.
Contextual factors have a bearing on collaboration but does not prevent it.
In several fishing communities, collaboration among fishers is facilitated or constrained by the geographical, political, legal, technological, cultural, and social context they live in. Cornelie Quist of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) for example shared that despite their diversity, artisanal fishing communities have mobilised nationally and globally in manifold ways to push for recognition and prompt political change through policies and treaties. The most significant achievement in this respect is the endorsement in 2014 of the International Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Alleviation following their lobbying efforts. Quist noted that these guidelines are important for promoting a human rights approach in fisheries policies.
Fishers are adapting, but what does the future hold?
A critical reflection followed on the limitations of adaptation to climate change. Participants highlighted unease among fishers in the adaptation process, particularly because of its high costs for artisanal fisheries already unacknowledged by governance regimes and crowded out by industrial aqua fisheries. And despite pooling resources, adaptation through technology and collective action is only sometimes feasible due to ecological and governance limitations.
For instance, at Lake Victoria and in the Nile Delta, artisanal fishers are forced to abandon their fishing grounds due to resource depletion and relocate further along the river. Similarly, in the case of the Caspian Sea, some artisanal fishers have abandoned their vessels and have become taxi drivers to provide for their families. Joeri Scholtens of the University of Amsterdam commented that fishers working in the Indian Ocean are subjected to a shrinking space for adaptation, with smaller fisheries being outcompeted by bigger industrial vessels.
Additionally, adaptation practices are influenced and disrupted by evolving border regulations and stricter governmental policies prioritising environmental preservation or industrial activities, such as imposing quotas, fines, and territorial markings. Scholtens demonstrated how the Indian government’s Blue Revolution and Blue Economy policies from 1960 to 2020 squeezed out many of the small fisheries and reinforced the pre-existing vulnerabilities of these groups.
We need to work towards preserving traditional knowledge systems and better understanding and recognising their role in modern adaptation strategies.
All in all, the workshop sparked extensive discussions and highlighted the cultural, economic, and social importance of artisanal fishing. Moreover, it highlighted the significance of fishers’ knowledge in addressing the challenges posed by climate and anthropogenic change. The conversation also discussed the interplay between moral and legal boundaries and associated imaginaries. As Aistara aptly summarised, the future holds manifold uncertainties for artisanal fishing, influenced by climate and economic changes and conditioned by political regimes and internal dynamics.