Explore the vast range of titles available.

This study contributes new knowledge in evaluating actions aimed at alleviating impacts of climate change on small-scale fishers and enhancing resilience in their households in West Africa. Evidence of the damage caused by climate change to the artisanal fisheries sector in West African countries is accumulating. Current measures in place for artisanal fishers to adapt to these changes include broad long-term pro-poor strategies designed to manage the persistent problem of overfishing and declining fish stocks. However, one immediate coping strategy is beginning to emerge, the more active use of reliable weather information. Based on 80 semi-structured interviews conducted in Senegal, Ghana, and Nigeria between 2021 and 2022, this study investigates claims that the use of weather information (WI) is helping West African artisanal fishers and those involved in secondary fishery activities to build more climate-resilient household income and food security. Unlike the long-term measures for mitigating the impact of climate change, results from the study show that by assessing the risk, their marine capture activities using weather information, fishers are immediately benefitting. Using the diffusion of the innovation theory to investigate the pattern of fishers’ adoption and usage of weather information, we found that Senegalese marine artisanal fishers can be classified as “Early Adopters” of this innovation. However, this is not the case with inland fishers who remain skeptical and will only use weather information if they can ascertain its reliability. West Africa’s inland fisheries sector is often neglected in climate change strategies: there is a lack of coordinated action to understand the weather information needs of these vulnerable fishers in order to coassess and codevelop bespoke weather products that offer benefits to them. However, West Africa’s fisheries, especially those inland, are too important to ignore if the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs), including no poverty and zero hunger, are to be achieved. To help this sector fully benefit from the use of weather information, this study recommends detailed research into the weather information needs of these fishers and user-friendly ways to engage with the fishers to transmit the information.

The study examined the determinants of catch sales of artisanal fishers through wealthy middle women in fishing communities of Ghana, often known as fish mothers or “fish mongers”. The effects of selected variables were examined with a double hurdle model. Self-financing was found to negatively affect the fishers’ sale of fish catch through fish mothers. The fishers were 19% less likely to sell to fish mothers if they self-finance, and that self-financing will result in a 10% downward unconditional change on the percentage of fish sold to the fish mothers. Factors that positively influenced the sale of fish catch through the fish mothers were price, percentage of high value fishes, size of boat, fishing experience, and number of fishing trips conducted in a year. The estimated average partial effects of boat size had the strongest effect with about 146% and 91% change, respectively on conditional and unconditional effect on the percentage of catch sales sold through the fish mothers. Overall, the study shows that long-term consistent economic and investment considerations such as investing in larger boats are important drivers for fishers’ choice of selling catches through fish mothers. The main implication of the results is that fishers need some economic leverage such as access to formal capital and financial resources to incentivize them to exercise control over their marketing activities so that they can receive a higher profit from their fishing operations. This is important for the sustainability of coastal fisheries communities and the sector as a whole. Artisanal fishers need resources such as low interest loans and market information systems that will enable them to negotiate prices for their fish catch with fish mothers.

Sustainable fishing is one of the most pressing challenges for mankind and requires insightful knowledge of the drivers that may foster or hinder predatory exploitation. It has been widely recognized that Indigenous and local knowledge can contribute to biodiversity conservation and sustainable use of resources, such as fisheries, worldwide. Nevertheless such knowledge continues to be marginalized and unacknowledged by a range of academic scientists and policy makers. In the present paper, we tackle this issue by discussing laws regarding closed fishing seasons, which are part of the Brazilian environmental policies for protecting marine fauna, from the perspective of artisanal fishers’ knowledge. In Brazil, these laws are typically based on governmental decisions (i.e., by administrative organizations and researchers acting as consultants) without taking fishers’ knowledge into account. Through semi-structured interviews with traditional experts of fishing villages situated along the northeast coast of Brazil, we aimed to investigate their knowledge of fish reproductive periods and analyze how it is related to the closed seasons at work in their region. We found an exact agreement between fishers’ knowledge and closed season regulations on the reproductive period of the mangrove crab (Ucides cordatus), but a conflict regarding the reproductive period of two snook species and four species of shrimps. We highlight the potential of fishers’ knowledge contributions to environmental regulations and we also explore three challenges of incorporating epistemic diversity in environmental policy. We conclude by advocating for a reflexive transdisciplinarity that highlights the potential of Indigenous and local knowledge while critically reflecting on the methodological and political challenges of transdisciplinary practices.

Based on a mixed-methods study involving triad tasks and ethnobiological models, we analyze local categories and knowledge of key ethnospecies of fish exploring partial overlaps between artisanal fishers’ and academic knowledge in a fishing community in northeast Brazil. We argue that fishers’ and academic knowledge overlaps may provide common ground for transdisciplinary collaboration, while their partiality requires reflection on epistemological and ontological differences. Here, we show how knowledge of artisanal fishers can complement academic knowledge and bring about tensions that need to be addressed through intercultural dialogue. By integrating a general philosophical framework of partial overlaps with a mixed-methods study on fishers’ knowledge, we show how ethnobiology can contribute to reflective and empirically-grounded transdisciplinary practices.

This study aimed to investigate the environmental impacts generated by the hydroelectric complex in the Madeira River, Brazilian Amazon, based on the perceptions of local fishers and fishery database, it focus attention on three main impacts: (i) on local fishery stocks; (ii) in fish fauna and (iii) on the aquatic ecosystems. The local fishers were selected through the “snowball” approach for the application of semi-structured interviews. All the local fishers confirmed having perceived a decline in fishery productivity following the impounding of the Madeira River. Changes in the condition of the fish were also perceived by the local fishers, including exophthalmia (82%), a reduction in the weight or length of the fish (25%), and irregular breeding patterns (14%). In the case of impacts on the river, changes in the hydrological cycle were the process remembered most frequently (75%). The results elucidated a range of environmental impacts caused by the hydroelectric dams of the Madeira River.

Social foraging decisions depend on individual payoffs. However, it is unclear how individual variation in phenotypic and behavioural traits can influence these payoffs, thereby the decisions to forage socially or individually. Here, we studied how individual traits influence foraging tactics of net-casting fishers who interact with wild dolphins. While net-casting is primarily an individual activity, in the traditional fishery with dolphins, fishers can choose between fishing in cooperative groups or solitarily. Our semi-structured interviews with fishers show their social network is mapped onto these foraging tactics. By quantifying the fishers’ catch, we found that fishers in cooperative groups catch more fish per capita than solitary fishers. By quantifying foraging and social traits of fishers, we found that the choice between foraging tactics—and whom to cooperate with—relates to differences in peer reputation and to similarities in number of friends, propensity to fish with relatives, and frequency of interaction with dolphins. These findings indicate different payoffs between foraging tactics and that by choosing the cooperative partner fishers likely access other benefits such as social prestige and embeddedness. These findings reveal the importance of not only material but also non-material benefits of social foraging tactics, which can have implications for the dynamics of this rare fishery. Faced with the current fluctuation in fishing resource availability, the payoffs of both tactics may change, affecting the fishers’ social and foraging decisions, potentially threatening the persistence of this century-old fishery involving humans and wildlife.

Background Traditional fishing communities are strongholds of ethnobiological knowledge but establishing to what degree they harbor cultural consensus about different aspects of this knowledge has been a challenge in many ethnobiological studies. Methods We conducted an ethnobiological study in an artisanal fishing community in northeast Brazil, where we interviewed 91 community members (49 men and 42 women) with different type of activities (fishers and non-fishers), in order to obtain free lists and salience indices of the fish they know. To establish whether there is cultural consensus in their traditional knowledge on fish, we engaged a smaller subset of 45 participants in triad tasks where they chose the most different fish out of 30 triads. We used the similarity matrices generated from the task results to detect if there is cultural consensus in the way fish were classified by them. Results The findings show how large is the community’s knowledge of fish, with 197 ethnospecies registered, of which 33 species were detected as salient or important to the community. In general, men cited more fish than women. We also found that there was no cultural consensus in the ways fish were classified. Conclusions Both free-listing and triad task methods revealed little cultural consensus in the way knowledge is structured and how fish were classified by community members. Our results suggest that it is prudent not to make assumptions that a given local community has a single cultural consensus model in classifying the organisms in their environment.

Along the southern coast of India, hard protective infrastructure has become the default response to increasingly frequent cyclones and severe coastal erosion. However, such interventions not only intensify erosion by disrupting sand movement, but also obscure its root causes, which are often contested through diverging narratives and knowledge claims about the sand and the sea. Making use of the burgeoning literature on ‘geosociality’ and ‘situated knowledges’, this paper interrogates how knowledge about coastal dynamics is produced, legitimised and contested in shaping these protective measures. Drawing on multi‐sited ethnographic fieldwork, including interviews and participant observation among ocean engineers, policymakers and artisanal fishers, we unravel the diverging and oftentimes contested epistemologies that shape how uncertain coastal futures are navigated. By examining the social entanglements with geomorphic processes such as sand movement and erosion, we show how different forms of knowledge adapt to the unpredictability of the sea, yet with uneven socio‐spatial consequences, particularly for artisanal fishers. We argue that coastal protection practices are embedded in epistemic hierarchies that prioritise technical expertise and predictive science, rendering fishers' situated knowledges less legitimate in decision‐making. By situating both livelihood practices and scientific modelling within their social and epistemic contexts, we demonstrate how confronting uncertainty can challenge power asymmetries that shape knowledge production. Rather than defaming engineering knowledge, we call for complementary approaches that recognise uncertainty, complexity and the value of co‐produced knowledge. Situating fishers' knowledges alongside modelling practices provides openings for re‐politicising adaptation and rethinking whose expertise counts in shaping coastal futures. Short This paper interrogates the politics of coastal protection on the southern Indian coast, where hard blue infrastructure often exacerbates erosion and marginalises local knowledges. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, it reveals how competing narratives and epistemic injustices shape adaptation strategies and argues for embracing uncertainty and plural knowledges to resist maladaptive, technocratic responses to climate change.

Background The capture of ornamental fish is one of the main economic activities of riverine families in the Amazon. However, studies regarding the local ecological knowledge of workers in this activity are still incipient. In view of this, we have studied and explored the local ecological knowledge of artisanal fishers who specialize in the capture of fish for the aquarium trade in the middle part of the Negro River basin and investigated issues related to the ecological aspects of the fish species that are targeted by this trade in the region. Methods Therefore, we conducted semi-structured interviews and applied questionnaires to artisanal fishers of ornamental fish ( N = 89), from the municipality of Barcelos, from January to April 2016. Results In total, 41 popular names were cited, which correspond to four ethnocategories and 10 families. The main species were Paracheirodon axelrodi (12.5%), Hemigrammus bleheri (8.3%), Ancistrus dolichopterus (6.4%), Symphysodon discus (5.3%), and Potamotrygon motoro (3.8%). According to the fishers, the species of fish known in the region as “piabas” have a preference for living in clusters (28.9%) and carry out migratory movements (26.1%). The diet of local fish species reported by fisheries is diverse, though mainly based on periphyton (42.2%), and the reproductive cycle directly influenced by the period of flooding of rivers in the region (37.6%) Conclusion Our study revealed that the fishers possess information on the ecological aspects of local ornamental fish species, many of which are consistent with scientific literature. The information presented may assist in the decision-making process for the management of local fishery resources and contribute to the resumption of growth and sustainability in the capture of ornamental fish.

The study examined the determinants of catch sales of artisanal fishers through wealthy middle women in fishing communities of Ghana, often known as fish mothers or “fish mongers”. The effects of selected variables were examined with a double hurdle model. Self-financing was found to negatively affect the fishers’ sale of fish catch through fish mothers. The fishers were 19% less likely to sell to fish mothers if they self-finance, and that self-financing will result in a 10% downward unconditional change on the percentage of fish sold to the fish mothers. Factors that positively influenced the sale of fish catch through the fish mothers were price, percentage of high value fishes, size of boat, fishing experience, and number of fishing trips conducted in a year. The estimated average partial effects of boat size had the strongest effect with about 146% and 91% change, respectively on conditional and unconditional effect on the percentage of catch sales sold through the fish mothers. Overall, the study shows that long-term consistent economic and investment considerations such as investing in larger boats are important drivers for fishers’ choice of selling catches through fish mothers. The main implication of the results is that fishers need some economic leverage such as access to formal capital and financial resources to incentivize them to exercise control over their marketing activities so that they can receive a higher profit from their fishing operations. This is important for the sustainability of coastal fisheries communities and the sector as a whole. Artisanal fishers need resources such as low interest loans and market information systems that will enable them to negotiate prices for their fish catch with fish mothers.