Session 1. 11. A.

This paper looks at the boom and bust of small-scale pelagic fisheries in Saint Louis, located on the Senegalese-Mauritanian border. During the last 15 years this Senegalese fishery mainly provided input for the Mauritania-based fishmeal and fishoil industry. New arrangements of property rights, new ways of financing this cross-border business emerged but also collapsed with the short period of time. Since 2017 the activities of Senegalese fishers have declined constantly. This rather short business cycle cannot be described as being sustainable, nor did it solve any food and nutritional insecurity problems existing in Senegal. Rather the opposite, the process might be described as nutrient and capital grabbing. The paper analyses, using a qualitative case study approach, the changes that have taken place in the contractual arrangements of Saint Louis pelagic fisheries, to understand the capital grabbing observed. It started with the early arrival of the first purse seiners in the 1970s. They were independent artisanal fishers, owning their boats, being wealthy people and leading the supply chain. Their wealth was built on abundant resources, in territory, including that which now has become Mauritanian waters. The fleet has exploded to various hundreds of purse seiners, who are mostly financed through international capital and who used to feed the Mauritanian, largely Chinese owned, fish meal industry, before fish stock started to decline. The previously independent sector has become highly indebted and patron client relationships are the norm. The paper describes this complex process and aims to deepen understanding using theories of institutional change.

Sechura Bay, Peru is a highly productive marine resource system, but rapid institutional changes and increasing climate impacts make the future uncertain for local livelihoods dependent on the bay. In the last two decades following the introduction of high-value scallop mariculture for export to international markets, the previous largely informal and open-access system in the bay has transformed towards formalization. What has emerged is a complex arrangement of formal institutional structures dominated by large processing firms and private property regimes, yet still characterized by many informal arrangements and activities, and simultaneously facing a high degree of uncertainty from warming ocean temperatures, harmful algal blooms, and other climate impacts. In this study, we apply participatory modeling, specifically fuzzy cognitive mapping, through a series of iterative workshop activities to model this complex social-ecological system from the perspective of local people. These people are embedded in various marine resource subsectors which are often competing, conflicting, coexisting, and codependent on each other. We synthesize and reflect on benefits and limitations of participatory modeling for (1) navigating conflict and consensus-making in marine resource governance, by exploring similarities and differences between mental models, social group identity, and normative values, and for (2) navigating uncertainty in marine resource governance, by using mental models and “what-if?” simulations to inform discussion and deliberation with local people regarding viable policy and adaptation strategies under potential future governance and environmental actors scenarios.

Integrating place-based knowledge in environmental management is increasingly critical, particularly in marine ecosystems where community involvement offers localized insight. However, the rise of social media complicates these efforts, exposing both managers and communities to external influences. As management moves toward legitimizing place-based conceptualizations, managers face challenges from the interconnectedness of social media platforms, where external actors—unconnected to specific environments—can influence public perception and policy from afar.

This paper examines the theoretical gap emerging between marine management and social media-based dynamics, highlighting how platforms shift the conceptual boundaries of "public" which may threaten the effective implication of place-based management. Drawing on how researchers have conceptualized publics, I explore how marine managers may struggle to legitimize local knowledge while contending with the vast reach and emotional dynamics of social media. Managers who adopt place-based policies without considering the risks emerging from social media may inadvertently reinforce dominant narratives and alienate the very communities they aim to empower. Moreover, the decentralized and rapid nature of social media communications amplifies this dilemma, as managers are often constrained by policies that limit their engagement with affective and networked publics.

By exploring these dynamics, this paper argues that marine managers need a deeper understanding of the socio-technical networks of social media to navigate the complexities of place-based management effectively. Without adapting their strategies to address new formations of public emerging from social media use, they risk undermining the very goals of community empowerment and sustainable environmental management.

We provide the first global assessment of the status of preferential access areas (PAAs), a relatively understudied policy tool to govern small-scale fisheries. We find 44 countries, most of them of low or low-middle income, have established a total of 63 PAAs encompassing 3% of continental shelf area worldwide. The analysis of an ad-hoc subsample of twelve countries in three continents for which data were available (2016-2017) revealed that PAAs supported greater amounts of small-scale fisheries marine catch volume, landed value, fishing for self-consumption, and more nutritious species than marine areas outside PAAs. This preliminary assessment suggests that if appropriately enforced through shared governance with fishers and responsible fishing practices, relatively small areas of the ocean could provide important nutrition security, economic, and employment benefits to millions of people living in coastal areas. We offer an agenda for future research and policy action based on our findings.

The diverse characteristics and contexts of small-scale producers underpin their multidimensional contributions to sustainable development, including food provision, resilience, poverty alleviation, and cultural heritage preservation. However, their diversity is often oversimplified, limiting their impact on global development and hindering effective food systems transformation. We use the case of small-scale fisheries, a diverse subsector capable of feeding one in four people globally, to challenge the dominant narrative that small-scale producers are too complex and context specific to be effectively categorised. Our analysis of over a thousand small-scale fisheries representing 66% of global marine small-scale fisheries using a model-based clustering approach, found five global archetypes of small-scale fisheries. Each archetype was characterised by different operational, socioeconomic, technological, and post-harvest attributes. Our findings start to unlock small-scale fisheries’ potential to contribute meaningfully to food systems transformation. Our approach is low-cost, simple to apply and well-suited for decision-making processes in data-limited contexts, particularly in the Global South. The case of small-scale fisheries is fully transferable to small-scale producers across other food sectors, paving the way for more precise policy-making and enabling their full contributions to sustainable development potentially benefiting millions of people globally.