Strategies used by communities that fished primarily for local consumption or exchange which have management consequences for fish stocks are defined as “traditional management strategies.” Such strategies can be divided into two very broad general categories; “intentional” and “inadvertent” (Klee, 1980). Judging from the literature, neither are as common among inland fishing communities as among marine communities. Of 91 societies from the Human Relations Area Files on which we examined information on inland fishing, no management strategies were reported in 73 percent (66) of the cases. Of those that were reported, the overwhelming proportion (89 percent) were “inadvertent” strategies, with only three of the 91 societies (three percent) reporting as having strategies in the intentional category.
The information gathered dealt with Latin America, Africa and South Asia (Nepal, India and Sri Lanka). Of those regions, management strategies were least reported from traditional fishing communities in Latin America and South Asia. In Latin America only five out of 38 societies (13 percent) were said to have management strategies, all of which were inadvertent, while only two of 17 South Asian societies (12 percent) had strategies, with one having both “intentional” and “inadvertent” strategies. Although 19 of 36 societies (53 percent) in Africa were reported to have management strategies, again inadvertent strategies were in the large majority with intentional ones reported in only two cases.
This paucity of information requires explanation. There are two possibilities. One is that information was not collected even where such strategies existed. The other is that there were no such strategies, at least at the time of documentation. Since we believe that both explanations have merit, clearly more research is needed. Because the ongoing process of commercialization is undermining the effectiveness and frequency of the traditional management strategies that remain, urgent field research in a number of carefully selected cases should have priority. Archival research, especially in FAO's archives, is also important.
The purpose of the Human Relations Area Files is to bring together in one place all sorts of ethnographic information for purposes of cross-cultural comparison. Fishing is one of many categories utilized. Although some information on fishing was available for each of the 91 societies assessed, the quality and quantity of that information varies between sources. Accordingly it is easy to imagine circumstances under which information on management strategies might be ignored. For example, though researching a riverine people, the investigator might have reported on an inland community in which fishing was deemphasized, or his research priorities were such that only passing reference was made to fishing. Management strategies might also have died out in recent years, although that possibility is less likely since the HRAF sources are based on field research that was carried out before 1960 and hence prior to much of the recent commercialization of traditional fisheries. Regardless the reasons, we know from our own experience, or from more recent research, that some of the societies for which no strategies are reported, in fact have management strategies.
Fragmentary as the evidence is, with the possible exception of some of the more remote tribal populations in Latin America, we suspect that all societies have inadvertent strategies which have fish management consequences. On the other hand, we suspect that the paucity of published examples of intentional strategies of fish management is a relatively accurate reflection of the real world, although more research presumably would identify more cases.
The inadvertent strategies which we believe have close to universal application are limited access strategies. Though great variations exist, especially among hunting and gathering bands, at the very least traditional societies try to restrict access to certain lands on which they are dependent for agriculture, livestock management, gathering and a range of other activities. Some form of land tenure, with access restriction provisions, is, in other words, a universal societal attribute. Where adjacent waters also have value to the societies involved, it is logical to expect the reasoning behind local tenurial systems to be applied to both land and water systems.
Though scanty, there is some evidence to suggest that this is the case. Writing on the Yoruba of Nigeria, Rowling (1956:27) wrote that “in the confined waters of rivers and streams there exists a system of rights exactly similar to those in farm land: 'Village', 'Quarter' … and individual all at one time or another putting in claims.” In the Ivory Coast Lawson (1983:13) cites Verdeaux (1980) as stating “ that in the lagoon fisheries of Ivory Coast fishing areas are appropriated like land and a system of ownership and management similar to land tenure has developed.” In Kenya, Hickling states that most of the large weirs (keks) “ on the larger rivers are built and owned by the families that own the land on either side, their respective rights terminating halfway across the river” (1961:110). And in Sri Lanka, Alexander (1980:91–111) applied Obeyeskere's ideal model of land tenure (based on his analysis of actual systems) to the marine tenurial system of the Sri Lankan coastal community of Mawelle.
A possible explanation for the paucity of other cases reported may well be the bias of western law against “water tenure” which may have prejudiced scholars to overlook indigenous cases. This bias exists throughout the tropics in former colonial dependencies. While the government of Peru has given some Indian communities title to lands, rights to “waters within those lands” are excluded (Bergman, 1980:218). Similarly in Zambia, the former colonial power refused to acknowledge the customary rights of the Batwa to the Kafue Flats (Lehmann, 1977:42), while Johannes (1978:358) notes that the value of marine tenure in Oceania “was not generally appreciated by Western colonizers. It not only ran counter to the Western tradition of 'freedom of the seas', which they assumed to have universal validity, but it also interfered with their desire to exploit the islands' marine resources … Colonial governments often passed laws that weakened or abolished marine tenure.”
On the other hand, there are African examples were tenurial claims apparently were not extended to major rivers. In spite of the crucial importance of fish to riverine communities, and tenurial claims to swamps and pools, Cunnison (1959:218) claims that the Luapula River (the major water resource in the area) “never 'belonged' to anyone: people say it ‘belongs only to God.’” Similar statements have been made about Nigerian rivers. And in Latin America, it is possible that many tribal societies have no fishery management strategies aside from very weak concepts of water tenure, even though fishing may be the most important source of animal protein in the diet.
In his 1980 book on Amazon Economics: The Simplicity of Shipibo Indian Wealth, Bergman makes no explicit reference to mechanisms for managing fish stocks, in spite of their critical importance to riverine communities of Peruvian Shipibo. While village communities have fishing and hunting grounds, these overlap with adjacent communities. Since any Shipibo can apparently fish when, where and to the extent to which he wishes, limited access criteria appear to be, at best, weakly developed. The logical explanation for such situations is that local communities so underutilized available resources that management was unnecessary. Indeed, generalizing about customary use of Amazonian resources, Moran (1981:52) notes that “fishing is relatively free of restrictions due to the abundance of the resource relative to aboriginal capacity for its exploitation.”
In most of the Latin American cases reviewed, fishing technologies were simple and population densities low. In the Shipibo community studied by Bergman, 107 individuals utilized for subsistence purposes about 28 square kilometers. Fifty percent of all fish and game, however, was “secured within about a 1, 600 meter radius of the village” (p. 203). Though the people's technology was very simple (the bow and arrow was the main fishing device), the people's diet was excellent with agriculture, fishing and hunting providing “an average of 1, 665 kilocalories and 67 grams of protein per capita daily” (p. 204). Prior to the commercialization of certain aspects of the economy (which resulted in serious reductions in populations of turtles and Arapaima gigas), there was no evidence that any aquatic species were being over utilized. Similar situations existed elsewhere in Latin America, as well as in Africa and Asia (5. 3. 1).
Five inadvertent strategies which have fish management consequences are reported in the literature. These are water tenure; ritual prohibitions on fishing certain areas; food taboos relating to fish in general or to taboos on specific species; technical inadequacies and attitudes adverse to fish and fishing; and magic. All of these limit utilization of fishery resources. In terms of their implications for designing new approaches to management, the first has, by far, the most significance, so that it will be given more emphasis in the sections that follow.
Though documented for only 18 of the 91 societies reviewed, as noted in the preceding section we believe that water tenure is more common than reported. It takes a number of forms, which can be combined or used separately. Variations are legion both in time within the same society and between adjacent societies at the same point in time. In some cases, those having limited access to the fish populations of certain water resources are territorial units like kingdoms, chieftaincies and villages. In other cases they are such kinship units as clans, lineages and families. And in still other cases territorial rights may be vested in certain ritually dominant individuals and kin groups, or within hierarchically organized political leaders, with kin groups and others exercising use rights while residual rights remained vested in the territorial authority. Where individuals control access to certain fishing sites, this may be related to political patronage or to their position within a wider kin group. In either case, rights usually are handed down from one generation to another.
Because of the paucity of available information, and the diversity and dynamics characterizing cases of water tenure that are documented, it would be unwise to attempt to generalize about the frequency of different types of water tenure. Rather a few illustrative examples will be presented.
In Africa the custodian of a territorial unit may allow common access to all fishing pitches within that unit to all citizens without prejudice or specific pitches may fall under the control of specific individuals and/or kin groups. In either case “outsiders” must get permission from the “owner, ” and usually they must share a portion of the catch as a form of “tribute” or “tax.” Custodians often combine political with ritual functions, being responsible for carrying out various rituals which ensure the fertility of fish as well as of people and other resources. In West Africa they may be referred to as “fetish priests” and in Eastern Africa as “owners of the land.” Such institutional roles were imported into Latin America by slaves. Referring to the so-called Bush Negroes, Hurault refers to the “grand man” as someone who “is supposed to retain power over all the lands of Boni country which are not allocated to lineages; in particular this is the case with the upper basin of the headstreams of the Lawa. … He alone can authorize group fishing on the great river” (1961:99).
Among the Luapula peoples (Zaire and Zambia) prior to their conquest by the Lunda ‘king’ Kazembe, “owners of the land” controlled swamps which contained large numbers of highly productive lagoons. Partly because of security problems, local fishermen tended to restrict their fishing activities to the territory under their own “owner of the land, ” fishing rights not being otherwise subdivided. Responsible for the fertility of fish within their realm, “owners of the land” carried out annual rituals of which the most important ended a closed season for one technique (Kutumpula or beating the water) by “unlocking the fish.” After Kazembe's conquest, “owners of the land” continued to carry out such rituals while political control of land and water resources (along with much of the tribute) fell under the control of Kazembe and his chiefs. Partly because of improved security fishermen no longer restricted their activities to the closest fishery (Cunnison, pp. 10–11, 218).
Southeast of the Luapula are the Bangweulu Swamps where a different form of water tenure was practiced by the Unga. According to Brelsford(1946), open waters were open to all comers, including non-Unga provided they paid tribute to the Chief. On the other hand, weir sites were allocated by the Chief only to individuals who were Unga. Guarded over by watchful ancestral spirits, use rights were restricted to that user and his heirs. Such individual rights to weirs (and the surrounding waters), as well as to pools used for poisoning, were common throughout Africa. Less common, but far from rare, were individual rights to larger lagoons and pools which often were communally fished once annually after an appropriate opening ceremony was completed by the owner (to whom the main benefit was prestige and status rather than the small tribute in fish given by participants; see also 7.2.2 [1]).
Where ritual and political leaders in traditional societies allocate long term heritable use rights to fishery resources to certain individuals/kin groups/communities, the leaders retain residual rights to the water resources involved. Though use rights tended to be in perpetuity, they were theoretically revokable if the user did not provide expected services and/or tribute (in the form of fish) to the “owner of the lands and waters.” With such arrangements acknowledged in customary law, one could argue that, in principle, they constitute a type of indefinite lease. We stress this point, because leasing and especially leasing through auction mechanisms to local communities or to individuals/kingroups within those communities has a number of attractive features as a management feature.
Though we are aware of no examples of formalized leasing of fishery resources among traditional societies of fishermen, such do occur with some frequency among the ancient civilizations of South Asia in which some commercialization of the fishery had already occurred. In such cases, local rulers (maharajas, etc.), and subsequently the colonial powers and/or the state. Leased out various fisheries to local people and to outsiders. According to Hickling in Combodia the King leased out flooded areas to “a few favoured people, usually Chinese. These in turn sub-let at a profit, and finally as many as eight stages of sub-letting might intervene between the State and the actual exploiter” (1961 : 137). Because of corruption, the system was altered in 1908, with some areas designated free fisheries while others were leased out as concessions. The latter were worked not by local communities, however, but by entrepreneurs, each of whom “had a large staff, not only of fishermen but also of boat repairers and general laborers.”
In South Asia, Lawrence (1895:157) also refers to state leasing of fisheries in the Valley of Kashmir, while leasing also occurred elsewhere in India right down to the level of village tanks where local communities might lease out fishing rights to a family/kingroup from within the community (1984 oral communication from Nicholas Dirks). Though specific examples are not given, Welcomme (1979:229) notes that “in many rivers, especially in Asia, … control is achieved by dividing the river and the plain into lots, for which individuals or groups of fishermen compete at auction each year. The job of policing the lot rented then devolves upon the fishermen groups.”
In the above cases we appear to be dealing with an evolutionary process with positive management consequences (see 9. 4. 1 [3]). Such a process can also be combined with intensification as in the case of a 1920 manmade lake in Java referred to by Hickling (1961:246). In that case the reservoir is stocked, with a wide range of agricultural and human wastes fertilizing the waters. The first leasee was the owner of a dairy farm who allowed locals to fish for a set fee per kilo landed. A portion of other fees went to the village fund. After the initial thirty-three year lease expired, a fishermen's cooperative of 160 members took over management.
Though sometimes separate, ritual prohibitions against fishing certain areas were often associated with water tenure as a means to deny access. In the Middle Zambezi Valley, for example, lagoons associated with rain shrines and other sacred sites were closed to fishing throughout the rainy season and the annual flood of the Zambezi. As the flood waters began to recede, the neighborhood ritual leader designated a day on which the ban would be removed. On that occasion hundreds of people communally fished the area after the ritual leader had ceremonially initiated fishing activities, calling out the names of appropriate ancestors in the process. Variations on this procedure are reported throughout tropical Africa, with territorial leaders involved in some cases, and individuals and representatives of kin groups in others. In most such cases, various ancestors were exhorted as part of the ritual process prior to the commencement of fishing.
In India, the only permanent fish sanctuaries were associated with religious shrines (Jhingran and Tripathi, 1977). Certain areas might also be closed to fishing for prolonged periods following the death of important personages. Lawrence, for example, wrote that “on the death of Maharaja Gulab Singh the killing of fish was strictly prohibited for about six years” (1895:157) after which the ban remained in force in one particular area at the time of the author's visit.
Two general types of taboos are reported in the literature which inadvertently protect fish stocks. The first is a general taboo against eating fish in any form. The second includes more specific taboos against certain species. General taboos may either be sacred or profane. Though prohibitions against eating fish because of their sacred association with the gods or the human soul appear to have been most developed by societies living close to the Mediterranean (Pariser and Hammerle, 1966:62), similar beliefs were held by at least some Igbo in Nigeria (Basden, 1966:40; Meek, 1970. and Ottenberg, 1968 and 1971). Although local communities of Igbo fished the Niger, no fishing in many smaller streams was allowed. There fish were scared either because they were “believed to embody the souls of the people's ancestors” (Meek, p. 18) or because they were considered to be the children of a particular deity or spirit. Under such circumstances, those who still held the beliefs that supported such taboos were offended by the fishing of other Igbo (Christian converts, for example) or outsiders.
Prohibitions among various ethnic groups in North East, East and Central Africa were profane rather than scared, at least at the time of their recording. Among the Dorobo of Kenya and the Masai of Kenya-Tanzania, Macquire (1928:250) reported that the eating of fish was considered “anathema,” while Hollis (1905) noted that throughout their extensive territory the Masai neither fished nor used boats. The eating of fish was also prohibited among a number of Cushitic peoples in northeast Africa (Simoons et al., 1979).
Specific taboos were far more common. Some were totemic, restricting those honoring a particular totem from killing or eating a particular species of fish. Others were individual taboos, the maintenance of which might be required as part of a cure for certain types of illnesses. Still others were associated with certain stages is a person's development cycle, with women often prohibited from eating particular species of fish while menstruating or nursing, or during pregnancy. Young men might also avoid certain species, like Clarias the consumption of which they feared might cause impotency or other undesirable states.
Taboos were an extreme form of a more general reluctance to eat fish which obviously protected fish stocks in the past. According to Pariser and Hammerle, “Except in Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Northwest Europe, fish is not generally considered to be a very desirable food, ” with world fish consumption representing “perhaps 3 to 5% of all proteins consumed” (1966:61). Though emphasizing the difficulties in any attempt to examine the causality of such a bias, the authors go on to note that “despite ubiquitous and dire nutritional needs, a massive body of attitudes ranging from resignation over technical obstacles to indifference, reluctance, and resistance toward the large-scale use of fish as human food must have developed in many countries” (p. 62).
Though Pariser and Hammerle draw their examples mainly from ancient civilizations, they also apply to quite a few smaller scale societies. Concerning technical inadequacies, some of the earlier European explorers to Patagonia were surprised to find that certain populations had no techniques for catching otherwise available fish stocks (Musters, 1973), while elsewhere fishing was restricted to the use of bows and arrows (Holmberg, 1950). In Africa and Asia reluctance to eat fish often lead to holding those who did eat fish, or who caught and traded fish, in ill repute. Such attitudes even spread to people for whom fish was a minor component of their diet, the Kenyan Kikuyu, for example, disdainfully referring to the Luo, for whom fish was a major food, as “naked fish eaters.” In South Asia, fishermen belonged to the lower castes or to tribal populations, with both categories held in low esteem by higher caste Hindus.
Though both marine and inland fisheries have long been associated with innumerable magical practices, few studies have commented on the management implications of these aside from giving fishermen confidence in the face of a wide range of hazards and threats (crocodiles and hippopotamuses; storms and adverse water conditions; envious and hostile rivals; and potentially hostile spirits). A major exception is LaMuniere's 1969 study of Aspects of Leadership in a Multi-tribal Society: Sorcery and Personal Achievement. This unpublished Ph.D thesis deals with Zambia's Kafue fishery in the early 1960s. Because of the multiethnic character of the fishery and the absence of other systems of social control, LaMuniere argues that magic and more specifically sorcery came to provide “an alternative system of hierarchization and social control.” Underlying this system was a “least common denominator” belief held by all fishermen (and still believed today by elders from all the ethnic groups involved) that the best fishermen catch more fish not only because they have charms and fishing magic but also because, as sorcerers, they have killed relatives or laborers whose spirits are then coopted to drive fish into their nets. If desirous of political power, such fishermen are most apt to become local leaders, in which case their yields (and reputations as sorcerers) are apt to increase, since now they have access (from followers) to additional information on where the fishing is good. With better access to labor, they can then travel in the morning to such fishing grounds with their reputation as sorcerers keeping rivals or later arrivals “at bay.” In such cases reputation as a sorcerers not only can lead to positions of leadership but also works as a “limited access mechanism” through the spacing of fishermen in reference to each other.
Though similar beliefs in fishing magic have been reported from many traditional fishing communities, LaMuniere's study is the only one found by us that analyzes the importance of magic and sorcery as an organizing and management factor in an once traditional fishery that is both multiethnic and highly commercialized. Though commercialized gillnet fishermen on Lake Kariba hold similar beliefs, their relationship to the political economy and organization of the fishery has not been analyzed. To the best of our knowledge the same applies to the multiethnic fishery of the Middle Niger. Though there are other institutional modes for organizing fishermen on the Niger and incorporating them within a wider polity, nonetheless we would suspect that control of magic there, and one's reputation as a sorcerer, might also serve as a spacing mechanism. On the other hand, the situation reported by LaMuniere may well be a transitional phenomenon for organizing a multiethnic fishery prior to the emergence or strengthening of other forms of political organization (political parties, local councils, fishermen's organizations etc.).
Though apparently relatively uncommon, strategies implemented with the explicit intention of managing (preserving) fish stocks can be divided into three general categories. These relate to gear restrictions, closed seasons and intensification.
Of various intentional techniques, gear restrictions are the least commonly reported. In the few cases where they do occur they apply to only a limited number of techniques, with analysts explaining the prohibition on either biological or sociological grounds. On one part of the Middle Niger, local custom prohibited the construction of a barrier across the width of the river at low water, Hickling implying that this was a mechanism for protecting shoaling Alestes leuciscus which were a much valued source of cooking oil. The prohibition of more efficient techniques on certain pools and lagoons is probably better explained in sociological terms. Referring to two ponds controlled by Igbo (Afikpo) descent groups in Nigeria, Ottenberg (1971:193) reports “fishing regulations which forbid the use of canoes and large nets.”
Closed to all fishing during part of the year, such pools are fished communally by relatively large numbers of people at a given time each year. Though their control varies from area to area, almost universally the “owners” are influential people who gain prestige through the organization of large communal fishing parties, and the distribution of the catch to dependents and others. Fortes emphasizes this point for the Ghanaian Tallensi: “Communal fishing does not benefit the owner of the pool much materially. However large his tribute, the net gain to himself is small since he distributes much of it to others. … Why then do owners of pools call out communal fishing expeditions? … With few exceptions appointment to a chieftainship … constitutes the title to the ownership of a particular pool. … To organize a communal fishing expedition is thus a prerogative of chieftainship. It maintains the prestige and proclaims the status of a chief beyond the confines of his own limited territory” (1945:140). Since large numbers of participants are wanted (Fortes notes that on the appointed day “ceaseless processions” of adults of both sexes and children come forward) to fish the pool throughout the day, or over several days, it makes sense to restrict gear that would shorten the expedition or concentrate the catch in a few hands.
There are few other cases, however, where gear restrictions would appear to make sense. If so, Johannes' analysis of marine fisheries in Oceania would appear to be equally applicable to traditional inland fisheries. In Johannes' words, “Gear restrictions, probably the oldest form of fisheries regulation in the west …, seem to be the rarest form of conservation practiced in Oceania. … It is not surprising that restriction on efficient fishing gear are not used traditionally in Oceania. . (As Crutchfield, 1972 has) said, ‘the achievement of a desired level of fishing mortality by deliberate proscription of efficient harvesting methods is wasteful, self-defeating and devastating in its effects on technological progress.’ Traditional Pacific Island fishermen would probably have been incredulous to learn that in some parts of the world efficient fishing devices were forbidden” (1978:354).
Among recorded cases of intentional management of inland fishing resources, closed seasons are by far the most important mechanism used by traditional fishermen. Throughout Africa “owners” of pools frequently prohibit all fishing (except possibly single hook and line fishing) until the fishing season is ceremonially opened through a communal fishing party (which usually is timed to correlate with falling water levels). Such parties usually occur on an annual basis although “the owner” might prohibit it over a several years period if fish were scarce, due, for example, to several years of drought. Wilson (1951:58) reports such a case among the Nyakyusa of Tanzania.
Closed seasons are also reported for West African lagoon fisheries. Citing Mensah (1979), Kapetsky writes that in the case of community owned lagoons in Ghana, “regulation of fishing is controlled by a Chief Fetish Priest and is exercised in the form of closed seasons” (1981:10). Citing Verdeaux (1980) on Ivorien lagoon fisheries, Lawson (1983) refers to “a system of fishing regulations and prohibitions regarding seasons and fishing days, gears and locations” (p. 13).
We have seperated out two types from the cases of intensification described in the literature that involve traditional fisheries. The first is associated with floodplain fisheries while the second is practiced in paddy fields. Both are largely restricted to Africa and Asia.
In its simplest form floodplain intensification involves merely connecting the primary channel of the river with adjacent flood plains by cutting a channel through the levy. As water levels rise, water and fish are swept outward through the channel, being caught via various gears when they return to the main river as the flood waters recede. Stubbs, as reported by Hickling (1961:132), described this technique among the Sudanic Dinka back in the 1940s and Scudder was told by Dinka fishermen in the 1970s that it was still practiced. It is carried a step further by the Libinza who fish a major tributary of the Ubangi River in Zaire. According to Leynseele (1979), natural levees were raised with channels left open to allow fish to enter adjacent pools. These were then closed off with wickerwork, becoming an immense fish trap. “Before the colonial period, the drowned meadows of the Ngiri were one vast fishery…. The fish thus retained in … the pools were so concentrated that it was necessary to feed them…. Thus, this intensive fishing was a beginning of fish-farming” (p. 177).
Further west in Benin rectangular fish ponds, with the long axis often running perpendicular to the river, are actually dug to increase the habitant available for fish and to ease their capture as flood waters fall. According to Welcomme, such ponds often exceed a kilometer in length though their width and depth is seldom more than 4 meters and 1.5 meters respectively. Where natural ponds exist they “are often artificially extended” (1971:136). After the annual flood has filled the ponds, the entrances are fenced off from the main river, with the pools fished toward the end of the dry season. At that time, vegetation growing within the ponds is removed and fences are advanced inland to concentrate the fish before they are captured.
One of the few cases of traditional intensification from Latin America also involves pond construction. According to Steward and Faron. “in Columbia the Gorron built special ponds in which they raised fish for trade with other groups” (1959:183).
There are other cases where farmer/fishermen fertilize bodies of water adjacent to their communities, although the literature is unclear as to whether or not this practice is intentional. In his analysis of the floodplain fishery of the Cocamilla of northeastern Peru, Stocks (1983) notes how the people recycle wastes into the floodplain lake adjacent to their community. Furthermore, he argues, “I do not believe that these cultural practices are merely coincidental because the Cocamilla support these disposal customs with an array of folklore that suggests that the customs might have some practical value. For that reason, I wish to make the argument that the Cocamilla manage their lake resources ‘in effect,’ or behaviorally (p. 264).
Another form of intensification of floodplain fisheries are what Welcomme calls “fish parks.” While “fish parks” have been reported from South and Southeast Asia (see Hickling, 1961:141–5 for a brief description of examples from Cambodia and Burma), the most detailed documentation is from West Africa (Welcomme, 1971 and 1979, Kapetsky, 1981, and Lawson, 1983) where examples are reported from Benin, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Togo. Though several varieties are identified by the fishermen, the underlying principle is the same, the main difference being in the nature of the materials used, in the sophistication of construction and in size, with small fish parks being a few meters in diameter versus over twenty meters for larger ones. In each case vegetation is placed in shallow water to attract fish with the “park” subsequently surrounded with netting prior to the capture of the resident population. In the simpler cases, floating vegetation may be placed in the water “which attract fish in search of food and refuge. Such installations are fished within a few days of their construction and act as refuge-traps that attract fish from waters surrounding them” (Welcomme, 1971:130). In more sophisticated cases, the floating vegetation is surrounded by stakes or branches which are driven into the river or lake bottom. Construction occurs after the annual flood, with the structures fished at intervals of several weeks to several months depending on conditions. Where Welcomme recorded yields in the delta of the Ouémé River (Benin), harvests extrapolated on an annual basis came to 28 tons per hectare “without apparently affecting the catch by other fishing methods in the area” (1979:194).
The above examples are especially important because intensification has important implications as a management strategy. Yet many experts dealing with aquaculture prefer to work with farmers rather than fishermen, believing the latter to be resistant to intensification. While resistance may occur in some areas, it is not an intrinsic characteristic of fishing communities.
This is mentioned only in passing since the owners of the fields are farmers rather than fishermen or fishermen/farmers. Where shrimp are cropped following the rice harvest, the fields may be leased out as in South India (Memon, 1955 as quoted by Hickling, 1961). Elsewhere, as in Java, fish may be harvested as a second crop following the rice harvest by the farmers themselves. In such cases, bunds may be heightened so that paddy fields become temporary fish ponds. The origins of aquaculture are considered to be derived from such examples, although as we have seen already fishermen and fishermen/farmers have also developed within traditional inland fisheries prototypical systems of fish culture.
Traditional management strategies were dominated by inadvertent ones which, generally speaking, were too effective in that they caused the underfishing of resources. This was especially the case in societies with negative attitudes toward fish as a food. It was also true in those parts of Latin America where people fished with a small number of relatively inefficient technologies. Reliance on the bow and arrow, for example, not only restricted fishing to a relatively small number of species but also to the older age categories of those species.
Presumably a major reason why intentional strategies were uncommon was that they were relatively unnecessary except under such special conditions as prolonged periods of drought. If we are correct that such limited access strategies as water tenure were almost universal in Africa and Asia, while seasonal ritual exclusions were common, such strategies would have reduced the risk of overfishing even the most desirable stocks by distributing fishing effort in space and time.
Where intentional strategies did exist, closed seasons and gear restrictions were possibly responses to periodic droughts (rather than population dynamics), a tentative conclusion suggested by the fact that most of our examples come from semi-arid to arid as opposed to humid habitats, or from floodwater regimes influenced by seasonal (and hence fluctuating) rainfall. As for intensification, research is needed to see whether or not the development of more efficient techniques is a response to sedentarization or, as Boserup (1965) has hypothesized for traditional farming populations, to population increase. In both cases, there would have been a need for a larger and more reliable supply of fish which might have explained the more intensive floodplain fisheries of the Mothany Dinka in the Sudan, of the Lubinza in Zaire, and of the builders of fish ponds and fish parks in Benin. On the other hand, granted the multispecies nature of such fisheries, and the remarkable productivity and recuperative powers of inland floodwater fisheries, there is no evidence at all that more efficient techniques (such as using several types of poison in pools and, under reduced flow conditions, in rivers and streams) or intensification threatened individual fish stocks, let alone entire fisheries, prior to their commercialization.
During the colonial period and/or since national independence, the effectiveness of traditional management strategies has decreased. Due largely to the increasing commercialization of riverine fisheries and the secularization/reduction of traditional beliefs (in the form of both exclusionary rituals and taboos), both local fishermen and outsiders alike are apt to disregard limited access criteria unless they are effectively enforced.
Prior to the imposition of colonial rule, infringement on restricted fishing grounds might be cause for armed resistance as among the Nilotic Nuer(Sudan) or Venezuela's Kamarakoto Indians (according to Simpson [1940:134] “the only serious Indian war that the Kamarakotos remember arose from infringement of (fishing) rights and such infringement is still, in theory at least, a capital offense”). But the colonial regimes seldom supported restricted use rights to major bodies of water with the result that such fisheries were opened up to all comers. In Zambia, we have already described how the Batwa's customary rights over the Kafue Flats were disregarded by the British. Elsewhere in Zambia, the commercialization of local fisheries has caused locals and outsiders alike to disregard customary exclusionary privileges. The taxation of commercial fisheries by locally run district councils (which were established by the British in the 1930s) has also undercut the demands of “owners of the lands and waters” for tribute. In the Luapula case, no longer do they “find it a straightforward matter to obtain tribute from fishermen on their waters, because the fishermen are now paying ‘tribute’ elsewhere in the form of tax. Money-making is now the fisherman's chief concern and he goes where he expects to get the best catches” (Cunnison, 1959:10). While some politically powerfully figures can still collect tribute (especially from local fishermen who still acknowledge their jurisdiction), their position, as elsewhere, has been weakened.
As for other exclusionary mechanisms, education and the arrival of outsiders with different beliefs, has reduced the effectiveness of ritual exclusions, of taboos of all sorts, and of magical exclusions. Where once underfishing could be considered the main problem, today overfishing, though hard to document except for particular species, appears to be a major threat as more fishermen use more effective techniques without effective self or external regulation.
Though this topic will be dealt with in more detail in a later section, a number of introductory points need stressing now. As fisheries managers search for other strategies to “shore up” or complement ineffective government regulatory mechanisms, there is a very real danger that too much will be expected of traditional management practices. While some practices may be directly relevant (Lawson, 1983), others were designed to handle very different circumstances. Without major adjustments and adaptations, it is unlikely that they can be utilized today, especially if they have died out because the people involved no longer accept the type of leadership involved and/or the underlying sanctions. Furthermore, even management practices which are still both strong and relevant must be fitted into a more comprehensive strategy which includes strong external support.
Let us take water tenure as an example. While limited access to a resource may be a necessary management strategy, it is not a sufficient one irrespective of whether the tenure is by individuals, kin groups, communities or companies. As the number of individuals with access to the resource increases, along with the intensity of utilization and amount and efficiency of gear, a “common property” problem can re-emerge unless other management techniques are also utilized. The same applies to land use. where degradation is more easily measured. There the degradation of both individually owned farms and of communally owned resources is a worldwide and very serious problem, which clearly is not being solved by limited access alone.
In such cases the local population, regardless of the form of tenure, is part of the problem. On the other hand, the desire of natural resource managers to secure their cooperation in finding solutions is crucial for, as we have already documented, local participation in project planning, implementation, management and evaluation not only pays off in terms of social equity but also in terms of higher productivity.
If “Putting People First” is cost effective (Cernea, 1985), then the next question is how to proceed. If, in the case of small-scale fisheries, socio-economic considerations are accepted to be as important at biophysical ones -- and we agree with Kapetsky (1981) and Welcomme (1979:10) that they are -- it follows that social scientists must be fully involved in designing new management strategies and projects in which those strategies are utilized. Following his analysis of World Bank evaluations of a range of project types, Kottak concluded that perhaps the most significant finding of his study was that “attention to social issues pays off in concrete economic terms: the average economic rates of return (ERR) for projects that were socioculturally compatible and were based on a more adequate understanding and analysis of social conditions were more than twice as high as those for socially incompatible and poorly analyzed projects” (p.5). More specifically, “cooperatives tend to be most successful when they are based on pre-existing local-level communal institutions” (p.31), and “not one of the successful projects sampled aimed at revolutionary changes in smallholder's lives” (p.11).
Applied to fishing communities, Cernea's and Kottak's conclusions mean that to be effective management strategies should be congruent with local institutions and concepts rather than revolutionary. If specific institutions are outmoded, however, then new management strategies should be congruent with the concepts and principles that underlie them. In the case of contemporary populations of formerly traditional fishing societies, our analysis suggests that three concepts are of particular importance. These are first, limited access; second, individual, kingroup and/or community participation and control; and third, “closed seasons.”
Special emphasis will be paid to these concepts in the final section of this report where suggestions for future management strategies are made. In particular, limited access and local participation will be linked. The history of traditional fresh water and marine fisheries is full of examples of attempts by local fishermen to protect limited access rights to fisheries. This was true in the past and it is also true today when such fisheries have become increasingly commercialized. Recent encounters between local and outsider fishermen are no less apt to be violent than in the past.
In the Amazon Basin, Smith refers to clashes between local subsistence fishermen and large-scale commercial fishermen out of Manaus who have expanded their range into the territories of the former. In 1971 several deaths occurred as a result of disputes over fishing rights (Smith, 1981). On the Kafue Flats, periodically the Batwa beat up outsider fishermen who use illegal techniques in their realm (Scudder, 1983 field notes). While local inland fishermen appear, however, to be on the losing side in such encounters, at least over the longer term, it need not be so if their attempts to protect their livelihood and fisheries receive appropriate outside support.
Though it involves a marine fishery, a case in point was the successful efforts of local fishermen along the coast of Java to ban the trawling rigs of outsiders. During the height of the conflict, several trawling captains were killed, at which point the government of Indonesia stepped in on behalf of the local fishermen. Though the resulting ban has the support of government, it “was initiated and enforced by small scale fishermen” (1984 written communication from Richard G. Dudley; see also Panayotou, 1982:41).
As for “closed seasons, ” not only have traditional fishing communities enforced them in the past, but they also appear willing to see them reestablished in the context of commercialized fisheries in which catch per unit effort is dropping. At Kariba, the former President of the Kariba Fishermen's Association has repeatedly told Scudder that the closed season enforced during the late 1950s and the early 1960s should be reestablished. Other fishermen agree(the point here is not that such a closed season is needed, but rather that it is acceptable to local fishermen as a management strategy).
