[env-trinity] CBB: UW study says species diversification key to resilient fishing communities

Fri Jan 20 16:33:50 PST 2017

Columbia Basin Bulletin

 <http://www.cbbulletin.com/438201.aspp> Print this Story Print this Story
<http://www.cbbulletin.com/Email_EmailContent.aspx?id=438201> Email this
Story Email this Story 

UW Study Says Diversification (Catching A Variety Of Species) Key To
Resilient Fishing Communities 
Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2017 (PST) 

Fishing communities can survive -- and even thrive -- as fish abundance and
market prices shift if they can catch a variety of species and nimbly move
from one fishery to the next.

These findings, published Jan. 14 in Nature Communications, draw upon 34
years of data collected in more than 100 fishing communities in Alaska that
depend on fishing for livelihoods, cultural traditions and daily
subsistence. The University of Washington researchers found that communities
that fished for many different species and had the ability to shift what
they harvested and when, were more resilient to unpredictable downturns in
fish abundance and market prices than communities that put all their effort
into only a few fisheries.

"This study is about starting the conversation about how communities can
buffer themselves against unpredictable ecosystem changes in the future,"
said lead author Timothy Cline, a doctoral student in the UW's School of
Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. "There is no reason why any community in the
world that depends on renewable resources could not benefit from this
approach."

In their analysis, the researchers used common financial principles to
illustrate how fishing communities can buffer against market and ecosystem
shifts. Maintaining a diverse portfolio of fishing permits, for example,
ensures that a community can switch to halibut or Dungeness crab if salmon
take a turn for the worse. Just like with financial stocks, each fishery
might not deliver at the same time, but that diversity allows for stability
in the long run.

"Human systems can collapse if they have no ability to roll with the punches
and adapt when ecosystems re-express themselves," said co-author Daniel
Schindler, a UW professor of aquatic and fishery sciences. "This analysis
shows that the communities that did not suffer from oceanic regime shifts
were those that could adapt to changes in the quantity and composition of
natural resources."

The researchers looked specifically at the average fishing revenue in 106
Alaskan communities for 10 years before and after 1989, a year when the
North Pacific Ocean experienced a significant shift in productivity and
abrupt changes in the composition of marine food webs, while at the same
time the global price for salmon dropped because of competition from
farm-raised fish. 

Commercial fishing in Alaska provides $1.3 billion in annual income from
harvest alone, and in some remote areas fishing is the only major industry.

Many Alaskan communities lost more than half of their revenue following
1989. However, the researchers found that communities with the highest level
of diversity in what they fished for saw little or no change in revenue.
Specifically, communities that had high diversity were able to shift to
different fisheries after 1989, and some even increased their revenue
streams by leveraging new and emerging fish markets.

"We found that well-diversified communities also had higher turnover, or the
ability to go out and fish for species that are more abundant while relying
less on those that declined," Cline said. "If you are diversified, it's just
a matter of focusing on fisheries that are more abundant or more valuable,
and if you're not diversified, that means adapting your portfolio by selling
what you had and buying something new."

The authors recognize this can be difficult for individual fishermen -
fishing permits are expensive and can be hard to obtain. When dispersed
across the community level, however, individuals could still specialize, but
differently from their neighbor. For example, one subset could fish for pink
salmon, while another tackles halibut or Dungeness crab. Revenues from these
efforts are felt throughout the community.

Additionally, this approach promotes a powerful shared identity, the authors
explain. 

"There's intrinsic value in the identity of being a fishing community,"
Schindler said. "That sense of community identity is basically reinforced by
the fact that the community is adapting to the ecosystem, which is always
changing."

The rich dataset used in this analysis, provided by the Alaska Commercial
Fisheries Entry Commission, was invaluable in allowing the researchers to
test concepts of diversification and turnover -- switching to catch more
abundant fish -- which have been put forth in other papers as ways of
managing human interactions with natural resources.

These principles could be applied to fisheries around the world, and many
small fishing communities already diversify naturally, the authors
explained. Traditional science tends to emphasize gathering data to make
better predictions of how natural resources will fare, but perhaps that
isn't the best approach when managing resources in a highly variable and
unpredictable environment, they argue.

"With ongoing climate change, population growth and ocean acidification, the
question is, what's the future going to look like? We should expect the
unexpected," Schindler said. "Then the question becomes, what can we do to
develop resilient communities for what is guaranteed to be an unexpected new
future?"

"While 40 years ago most fishermen were generalists, and switched between
fish stocks as they fluctuated, the efforts to reduce overall fishing effort
has generally forced fishermen to specialize in a small number of fisheries,
said co-author Ray Hilborn, a UW professor in aquatic and fishery sciences.
"We need to explore ways to allow flexibility while still restraining the
total catch."

This work was funded by the National Science Foundation.

 <http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&pub=xa-4a73074e66d2b0b0>
Bookmark and Share

Bottom of Form

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20170120/d1f5cff7/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 8928 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20170120/d1f5cff7/attachment.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 63 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20170120/d1f5cff7/attachment-0001.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image003.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 64 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20170120/d1f5cff7/attachment-0002.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image004.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 596 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20170120/d1f5cff7/attachment-0003.gif>