Evaluation and Revision

This phase is key for observing the achievements of the management plan, the extent to which objectives have been achieved and the required adjustments necessary to meet original goals. This stage requires the comparison of different indicator values with proposed reference points. Given that fishers are the principal target group of management, their participation and support is critical to perceive and assess the effectiveness of measures that have been applied.

4. DISCUSSION

The use of FEK applied to resource management undoubtedly represents one of the mechanisms to generate resilience within artisanal fisheries (Berkes and Seixas, 2005) and contributes to improved governance mechanisms that promote trust, transparency hen fishers are incorporated into the decision process (Folke et  al., 2005; Berkes and Turner, 2009). As a result, fisheries are empowered as improve their visibility, influence and importance with respect to the management of fisheries and acquire a sense of ownership over resources. This represents an important input for advancing in the implementation of an ecosystem-based management approach in which basic information about the dynamics of the environment and major biological and ecological aspects of the species are required but that in several cases cannot be timely gather by scientific knowledge or management agencies. Resource managers should design appropriate strategies to include FEK as a component of data collection programs, identifying what aspects may be informed by fishers and specifying their value to resource management. In the particular case of the large river ecosystems of Latin America, where scientific information remains scarce and many fisheries depend on migratory species, it is necessary to involve the knowledge of fishers in order to improve management of these critical resources (Fabre and Barthem, 2005).

Fisher´s Ecological Knowledge Use and Implementation

The use of FEK in an ecosystem-based approach differs from other approaches by emphasizing aspects and information related to the function and conservation of

Guidelines for use of FEK in the fisheries ecosystem approach to small-scale fisheries in neotropical South America 73

fluvial ecosystems, rather than exclusive collection of fisheries data. In other words, FEK as concept involves the possibility of gathering an array of ecological and fishery information in a related way. This is an aspect that resource managers should take into account, while observing several premises, if they intend to incorporate FEK as a wise strategy. In the case of South America freshwater and marine fisheries, it is necessary to ensure that the application of the ecosystem approach to artisanal fisheries management be adopted as part of planning and management agendas. For this to occur, it is important to have a full understanding of this approach and how to implement it for the conservation of ecological integrity of river and marine systems, including their abiotic, biotic and human components. Such knowledge should be expanded across stakeholders involved not only in fisheries management but also in other environmental issues related to watersheds conservation and resource uses.

In South America, particularly in large river fisheries, there is a substantial lack of examples of implementation of the EAF, and those that exist are poorly developed, having only recently been recommended as an appropriate management approach for river basins (Valbo-Jørgensen et al., 2008). It is therefore critical to begin laying the conceptual and empirical foundations with which to promote and disseminate the EAF as a means to capitalize and apply FEK to management processes in inland waters.

The implementation of FEK, however, has several important implications that must be recognized by the different actors involved. First, resource managers should acknowledge that artisanal fishing needs to be considered an ecosystem service and not a mere “commodity”, being valued as a food resource, a source of jobs, a regulatory effect on the abundance of species and food webs and a relevant component related to the functioning of river systems, etc. (FAO, 2012; Baigún, 2013). This implies recognizing that the welfare of many fishers depends on the exploitation and subsistence of these services for which it is essential to conserve the health of marine and freshwater ecosystems. This principle is one of the essential foundations of the EAF management whereby artisanal fishers of small-scale fisheries do not necessarily seek to maximize economic gains, as do large scale fisheries, but seek to ensure long-term sustainable resource use (Johannes, 2002). Examples of such include Amazon fisheries managed via fishing agreements (Almeida et al., 2004; McGrath et al., 2008;

MacCord et  al., 2007), where the objective is not economic-extractivist but social-conservationist, and through which economic benefits are feasible to preserve fishing as a steady livelihood component for local communities. The fishers know that these fisheries are regulated in the face of profound hydrological changes across the year, caused by drought and flood pulses, which clearly reinforces the ecosystem framework on which their management should be based.

Secondly, FEK should be considered an inseparable part of the socio-cultural context of the fisher communities and therefore its incorporation should not be conducted as a formal act isolated from those who generate this knowledge, avoiding considering them mere low-cost data collectors (Stanley and Rice, 2003). On the contrary, those who are the owners of the knowledge and information of interest should be involved in a participatory manner, preferentially of the iterative type when possible (Geilfus, 2009). This implies that locally organized groups should participate in the design, implementation and evaluation of projects, being involved in a teaching-learning cycle and allowing them to take progressively some control of the fishery management process.

Such situations are facilitated when fishers have their own local knowledge that resource managers and scientists often lack. These skills are inseparable traits of each person “and go with them”, making it essential that they partake in decisions about when, where and how their knowledge is used (Johannes, Freeman and Hamilton, 2000;

Johannes and Neis, 2007). This mandates that FEK be conceived as part of the social, human and natural capital that fishing communities own and utilize. In this sense, this

knowledge is a cultural resource oriented towards the creation of management systems, adapting to each culture as occurs in fishing and in the maintenance of the diversity of local human practices and relevant knowledge (Camacho, 2013).

Scaling Fisher´s Ecological Knowledge

In many cases scientific information, when available, is limited to a few sites within a watershed over limited timespans, and often focuses on a small number of species.

In contrast, FEK, based on an enhanced spatial extent of experience in diverse environments and over prolonged time periods, allows improved understanding fishing events at larger time scale (Figure 5).In this context, FEK has the ability to integrate common and extraordinary episodes and extract knowledge and lessons that can be materialized into adapted behaviors among fishers. Not surprisingly, most fishers have the ability to optimize fishing strategies as result of continuous learning processes. The different scales at which fishers acquire their knowledge is of great relevance as they have the capacity of recognizing specific habitats that play a key role in supporting fish life cycles, therefore having great ecological relevance. For example, fishers have the capacity to detect changes on a small spatial scale such reduction or increase of floodplain lakes, disappearance of species in river sectors or small tributaries, increase of catch and effort, etc. This small scale perspective is in agreement with the noticeable environmental complexity showed by the fluvial landscape in floodplain rivers (Nestler et al., 2012). It cannot be always captured by scientific assessment, and often is of not of interest to management agencies. Also, it is given low priority for scientific research, which tends to be oriented towards the understanding of larger-scale processes and phenomena, thus requiring different questions and assessment objectives (Figure  6).

In fluvial systems, however, a broad perspective can be also achieved by integrating small scale and patchy information provided by as fishers. For example, while scientific research is appropriate and more relevant for describing characteristics of the fishery at the scale of the basin, sub-basin or of the entire river from a management perspective, FEK highly increase its relevance at the scale of particular section or specific sites of the river, filling also a valuable knowledge niche. In this context, scientific knowledge and FEK and can both been applied in a complementary way to provide fisheries information at multiple scales.

FIGURE 6

Importance level of information derived from scientific knowledge (SK) and fishers’

ecological knowledge (FEK) according to questions and information acquisition that may be appropriate at each scale

Guidelines for use of FEK in the fisheries ecosystem approach to small-scale fisheries in neotropical South America 75

Certainly, one of the most prominent aspects of FEK is that it usually applies at different spatial and temporal scales than scientific knowledge, allowing the detection of phenomena over the long-term (diachronic information) or at fine spatial scales often unrecognized by short-term data (synchronous data) obtained by management agencies and scientific assessments. Therefore, FEK can provide records of extreme events and unusual patterns reflected by memories and collective experiences (Moller et al., 2004). Whereas some events can be considered as rare or “surprises” by a short term perspective, FEK can report them as not new or unusual (Figure 7). Such changes ultimately respond to natural phenomena integrated into the multi-scale character of ecosystems (Wilson, 2006) and small scale fishery systems, and cannot be necessarily accounted for within a conventional approach that aims to record changes only in species abundance with no regard to the environmental and socio-economic context.

It is for this reason that, under an ecosystem approach, where information linking the behavior of the fishery with changes in processes occurring at different scales is desired, FEK holds considerable value. FEK is even more important in the case of species that are migratory or that use transboundary rivers for which local fishers provide detailed information on biology and habitat use in certain zones of rivers, thus providing valuable information that can be integrated at the river scale.

Fisher´s Ecological Knowledge and Scientific Ecological Knowledge in a Management Context

One of the most obvious difficulties in incorporating FEK into fisheries resource management is that usually FEK is not equated with, or recognized as, complementing scientific knowledge (Moller et al., 2004; Lertzman, 2010), even when the advantages of its use are demonstrated in the management of natural resources (Huntington, 2000). In the Amazon Basin, however, the participation of the fishers was decisive in reversing the state of the population of Arapaima gigas (Castello et  al., 2009) based on their capacity for counting individuals and therefore define catch quotas. Similarly, fishers of Brazil’s coastal fisheries exhibit detailed knowledge of fish behavior and ecological factors that facilitated complementation of scientific information (Silvano and Valbo - Jørgenssen, 2008). Although there are obvious differences and approaches between traditional community-based knowledge and scientific knowledge (Johnson, 1992), this should not be considered an obstacle. Rather, it is necessary to eliminate the preconceived notions so ingrained in many resource managers such that FEK cannot be formally applied in fisheries management given a lack of support by scientific evidence.

Certainly, FEK does not always require scientific validation in order to be accepted

FIGURE 7

Comparative capacity to obtain information on a resource variation according to temporal scales (horizontal lines) and spatial scales (vertical lines) based on fishers

ecological knowledge (FEF) and scientific knowledge (SK). The arrow indicates the moment at which information is obtained based on a considered unusual event (surprise) from the management agency perspective (MA), but that has been detected

in the past by the FEK and could not been documented by SK

or used (Mackinson and Nottestad, 1998), and scientific knowledge needs not be the baseline against which FEK is compared. While quantitative data regularly support scientific research, qualitative information provided by fishers regarding changes in environmental factors, relative abundances of target species or catch size have an intrinsic value and therefore not should be dismissed or underestimated. Similarly, FEK may not necessarily be systematized according to classic scientific paradigms to make a valuable contribution. Rather, there is often substantial and complementary agreement between FEK and scientific information (Begossi and Silvano, 2002; 2008;

Silvano et al., 2008; Silvano and Begossi, 2012). In some cases, FEK may be the only source of information available, thereby being in agreement with the precautionary principle that claims to use the best information available to conserve resources (FAO, 1995). Such principle applies well in large rivers where most of knowledge is

“embedded” within fisher´s communities and scientific knowledge is limited and open new visions for assessing fishery status and detect trends.

FEK, on the other hand, provides a direct link with different approaches or strategies that make up fisheries management, such as user rights, the code of conduct for responsible fisheries, the precautionary approach and co-management. The latter is of particular interest given its strong association with the application of FEK (Begossi et al., 2011). This strategy has provided promising results in various coastal fisheries of Central America (Fannning et  al., 2011) and Uruguay, in the Amazon Basin (Ruffino, 2005, McGrath et al., 2006; Ruffino, 2008), as well as in other major rivers worldwide (Baird, 2003), particularly when accompanied by the implementation of land use rights, or to organize resource use and prevent the potential effects of overfishing. Shared resource management overcomes the various barriers that still exist between management agencies, scientists and fishers by means of improving communication between sectors, generating mutual trust and enabling a fluid exchange of information and knowledge that facilitates the use of ecological knowledge of fishers and its integration in an ecosystem framework. As mentioned by Begossi (2008), local knowledge on resource use and on the biology and ecology of fishes is essential for enhancing the understanding of ecosystem function and the fisheries they sustain. In this context, FEK must be incorporated together with scientific knowledge in order to reduce uncertainty and the risk associated with management decisions (FAO, 2010).

5. CONCLUSIONS

The perspective presented here shows that in South America the use of FEK remains rudimentary or at an early stage and - with the exception of some cases from coastal areas and few sites in the Amazon basin –is still rarely used for the management of artisanal fisheries. These fisheries contribute to livelihoods in many coastal and riverine communities that rely heavily on fishing and, thus, for which there is a considerable wealth of information and knowledge that is not harnessed or used appropriately. The formal incorporation of this knowledge into management faces limitations related to several factors, such as lack of appreciation of its importance by governing agencies and academia, a shortage of experts in the field, cultural barriers, and changing political and institutional scenarios. To overcome these challenges, management agencies should begin to design strategies that include FEK their databases, and use as a framework to address fishery-related, biological, ecological, social and economic factors that shape the structure of fishery systems. Nonetheless, given that the ecological knowledge possessed by fishers is almost always inextricably linked to them as part of their cultural heritage, it is imperative to interact with, and integrate, fishing communities into policy-making decisions. This means, on one side, supporting decentralized management agencies to achieve or reinforce a stronger relationship with local communities, as usually the fishers knowledge is rather disperse more than concentrated in the large riverine systems. On the other side, it is necessary to guide management plans towards

Guidelines for use of FEK in the fisheries ecosystem approach to small-scale fisheries in neotropical South America 77

an adaptive ecosystem-based approach, which comprises the appropriate tools and offer reliable opportunities for the use of FEK and achieving the necessary interaction among different actors. This approach thus incorporates guidelines and good fishing practices that many fishers are already developing in fisheries characterized by traditional management or even unmanaged, which prioritizes the conservation of resources to guarantee fishing as a livelihood source.

However, particularly in the case of inland water fisheries, there remains a challenge to achieve a sufficiently developed theoretical framework and to gain experience as to how to make the ecosystem approach to fisheries management operational and effective. At present, this represents a true bottleneck which affects also taking advantage of FEK for large river fisheries management. While there are many examples in South America, basically in marine environments, of the use and value of FEK, it has been primarily used as a means to capture biological information on species rather than to diagnose fisheries. These cases generally respond to needs or concerns arising from the academia, rather than from the needs of management agencies, highlighting the need of a change in the paradigms of use and data collection for artisanal fisheries and the perspective these agencies have.

These examples, while still limited, have rescued the positive responses and interests shown by fishers to contribute their knowledge when they are incorporated into the process of diagnosis, evaluation and monitoring. Furthermore, they have demonstrated how management agencies could benefit from obtaining fishing and reliable biological information at a local scale, which would be directly applicable to define or modify management guidelines for specific resources. Clearly, fisheries ordination processes, including management plans, should start expanding their scope encompassing the integration of FEK as a main avenue to support healthy fisheries within an ecosystem framework.

The application of FEK, however, will requires expanding the competency of fisheries administrations to include the collection of ethnobiological information, the application of new methodological tools, and training of human resources in new aspects related to fishing sociology and economics. This should be accompanied by the development or adjustment of the legal and administrative instruments that promote and facilitate interaction between sectors, and allow the active involvement of fishing communities in the politics of resources management and administration. In this context, FEK relevance will be notably empowered as fisheries management in South American fisheries start shifting from a conventional management perspective, based on solely fisheries issues, to a co-management and ecosystem approach where also ecological and social dimensions are strongly taken into account.

Acknowledgements: This contribution was inspired by the invitation and support from FAO to attend the FAO workshop on “Fisher’s Knowledge and the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries”, 14 to 18 October 2013, Panama, whose organizers are grateful.

A special acknowledge to Christine Lucas for her appreciated editing comments and English translation and to Jose Orensanz and Carlos García-Quijano for their valuable suggestions that improved this paper.

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