Observability and Controllability of Fishery Social Ecological Systems

Sustainability of fisheries and fishery dependent communities depends on intrinsic characteristics of ecological and environmental systems that govern the response of fish stocks to environmental forcing and exploitation and intrinsic characteristics of social, economic, and legal systems that determine who may fish and how fishing may occur. Some fisheries and fishery dependent communities have proven resilient to changes in fish abundance and distribution, exvessel prices and input costs, macroeconomic conditions, living costs and employment, and demography. Factors that affect resilience are illustrated by reference to sub-Arctic fisheries that have weathered or recovered from the influence of adverse forcing and others that have not. Durable individual entitlements to shares of the allowable catch increase profitability and help fishermen adapt to modest adverse changes in stock abundance, exvessel prices, and input costs but these highly constrained management strategies reduce resilience to non-stationarities and large perturbations. In addition, while durable entitlements increase choice and therefore resilience from the perspective of individuals, they decrease the resilience of some fishery dependent communities.