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Session Detail (parallel)

Pacific fisheries in a ‘sea of connections’

Coordinator(s)


Annette Breckwoldt, Gilbert David, Elodie Fache, Catherine Sabinot


Session presentation

Fisheries is one of the main sectors of activity in the ‘Pacific Oceanscape’, and a critical component of local livelihoods, national and regional economies, and global fish supplies. In Oceania, both coastal and offshore fisheries have been studied for several decades by anthropologists, geographers, and other social scientists alongside fisheries scientists and marine ecologists. The focus of these studies varies, for instance, from customary marine tenure or specific fishing techniques, to fisheries development and management efforts, through the complex web of socio-cultural, policy and geopolitical connections (and conversely, disconnections or reconnections) within which all these occur. These studies often deal with a diversity of interests, legal and cognitive pluralisms, and cross-scale issues.
In this panel, we would like to invite a wide range of contributions on ‘fishy’ topics, rooted in various approaches (including multi-/inter-/trans-disciplinary and artistic perspectives) and anchored in geographically diverse (including multi-scalar) case studies. Contributions surrounding the following themes are particularly welcome: continuities and changes in human-fish relationships; fisheries co-management at various scales; connections/disconnections/reconnections within the land-sea-ocean continuum; and reef passages/channels as ‘connected/connecting’ places. Contributions could also address how coastal fisheries and offshore fisheries interact with each other, or how coastal and/or offshore fisheries are linked to other economic sectors (e.g., tourism or mining), conservation policies and practices, and/or sovereignty claims and enactments. Beyond this non-exhaustive list of themes, any paper proposal related to fish, fishing and/or fishers will be appreciated.


Paper submissions are closed



Accepted papers


Introduction



Annette Breckwoldt (Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Ecology (ZMT))

Gilbert David (IRD)

Elodie Fache (IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement)

Catherine Sabinot (IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement)



Exploring Pacific fisheries through children's drawings



Elodie Fache (IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement)


In the South Pacific region, children are users of marine territories and resources, and are therefore one of the relevant stakeholder groups whose understandings of ocean connectivity and perspectives on fisheries and their (current and future) management should be given serious consideration. This paper will do so, based on 290 children’s drawings from Fiji and New Caledonia, made in 2019 in spontaneous response to the simple instruction: “Draw the sea and what you and others do in the sea”, as well as the drawers’ own description of their artwork. We will show that, although we intentionally omitted any direct reference to fisheries in the drawing instruction, fishing was a recurrent theme in the children’s drawings. Our interdisciplinary team (anthropology, geography, ethnoecology, marine science) has also highlighted that these fishing activities were represented as embedded in webs of connections with and within the sea, the latter being conceived (1) beyond a land-sea compartmentation, (2) as a ‘place-full’ space connecting human and more-than-human realms, and (3) as a locus of both exploitation and conservation of marine life.

The Forgotten Coast, New Caledonia, between minescape, fishing practices and terraqueous territoriality



Pierre-Yves Le Meur (IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement)


The Forgotten Coast, South New Caledonia, bears the hallmark of nickel extraction, from the end of the 19th century until the early 1980s. In the 1970s, tensions between mining companies and local populations (mainly Kanak) increased in intensity, against the backdrop of rising Kanak claim for independence. Mining activity practically ceased for more than three decades on the Forgotten Coast (except in one enclave). In 2013-14, several mining companies wished to launch new mining exploration campaigns in the area (with different objectives: to maintain their concessions, to open new ones, to increase their production). To do so, they tried to obtain local consent beyond the requirements of the NC mining code. The neighboring populations of Thio and Yaté quickly reacted and declared a two-year moratorium in 2014, extended in 2018 for 10 years. The ban aimed at regaining control over time and imagining the future of this mine-affected landscape. From 2016 onward, the Southern Province of New Caledonia has accompanied the process, which resulted in the creation of Forgotten Coast Provincial Park in 2019. The contribution will describe and analyze the different (and sometimes conflicting) forms of territoriality asserted by the different actors involved in the management and appropriation of the area: the cadastral and concessionary logic of mining companies, the terraqueous territoriality and adjacency fishing rights of Kanak communities, and the environmental logic of the parc.

Sense of place and sea cucumber fishery in New Caledonia and Vanuatu



Catherine Sabinot (IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement)


Sea cucumbers are entrenched in a historic globalized fishery connecting local fishing areas in the Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) to Asian markets, where they constitute a high-value food delicacy. Growing pressure on the resource combined with the recognition of their important role for the functioning of ecosystems recently led to conservation and stock management endeavors. These operate at the international level as well as in various countries and territories of the South pacific region. These restrictions of access to sea cucumbers, combined to the wider development of protected areas, go hand in hand with a recent upsurge of illegal fishing boats from Asia that have become a prominent concern in the PICTs. New Caledonia’s struggle with Vietnamese “Blue Boats” in 2017 became an influential factor to adjust surveillance and control efforts.
This communication looks into the multiple connections that link sea cucumbers to human societies in their various dimensions. Drawing on the cases of New Caledonia and Vanuatu, it highlights the complex interplay of actors (fishers, local communities, conservationists, fishery managers...), values and scales (from the local to the global) around this fishery and its management. We show that beyond economic aspects, sea cucumbers and their management participate in building and transforming specific senses of place and become a matter of concern to defend sovereign claims, both at the local and governmental level.

Logics and constraints of the use of coastal marine space, for fishers – What are the drivers of the choice of fishing grounds?



Laure Vaitiare André (IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement)


In the Pacific Islands, fishing is an important component of people’s way of life; whether for food security, income-generating or recreational activity. By their own experience and knowledge sharing, fishers have their habits on special spots for fishing, depending on catch success, but not only. In some cases, the use of the sea is not totally free and fishers have to deal with other activities in competition for this space, such as pearl farming, or with constraints linked to food safety, such as ciguatera poisoning risk. We focus on the case study of Mangareva Island, in French Polynesia and try to grasp (some of) the logics that guide their choices of fishing grounds. Using the results from map-based interviews of 42 active fishers, we first explore how their cumulated fishing grounds covered the lagoon in terms of extent, catch abundance, annual effort, and type of geomorphological habitat (such as forereef, soft bottom, barrier reef, pass etc.). Second, we compare these fishery uses with the spatial extent of pearl farming activities. We visualize the competition for space evoked by some fishers, particularly when farms are nearshore. Then, we look at the spatialized ciguatera risk, as perceived by the fishers, and how they deal with it. Finally, we discuss these spatial interrelations, and the ongoing dynamics, including on ciguatera local knowledge update and the demand for renaissance of sanctuary zones, as rooted in ancient customary marine tenure (rāhui).

Fishing for information about tuna fisheries in the South Pacific: Onboard fisheries observers, between science, management and compliance



juliette Kon kam king (IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement; Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3; University of Bremen)


Tuna fisheries are of utmost importance to the Western and Central Pacific region. Given the growing fishing pressure and the dwindling of worldwide tuna stocks, ensuring their sustainability is paramount. The monitoring of tuna stocks and of fishing activities is a pillar and a challenge of tuna management in order to assess the viability of tuna populations, the impact of fishing on marine ecosystems or the compliance of fishers. To that end, the Observer programmes have become a key tool to make industrial tuna fisheries ‘visible'. Fisheries Observers are placed onboard fishing vessels to observe, collect, record and report on fishing activities.
The present contribution proposes to look into these Observers programmes and to provide a description of an underinvestigated profession linked to tuna fisheries. It draws on a qualitative investigation combining ethnographic fieldwork in Fiji, New Caledonia and online. It will discuss the frictions caused by the multiple and partially conflicting roles of observers, serving as the “eyes and ears” of managers, scientists and compliance officers. It will unpack how these multiple binds shape the production of information (or lack thereof) about tuna fisheries and the work of observers. Approaching the Observers programmes as “boundary apparatuses”, the contribution will illuminate some of the connections these actors permit between fishers, scientists and managers, between economic, environmental and social concerns.

Conclusion



Annette Breckwoldt (Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Ecology (ZMT))

Gilbert David (IRD)

Elodie Fache (IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement)

Catherine Sabinot (IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement)





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