Theories on the use of fisheries resources that bordered to those that won this year’s Nobel Prize for Economics were vented at a recent Stockholm seminar.
Professor Kenneth Frank of Michigan State University, based on his research, urged decision makers, community leaders, and fishery managers to take into account the whole scope of the fishery system, including a fishery culture with strong values, norms and traditions. Policy which is put into effect will be successful if these factors are considered and weaved into the system, he said, adding that education plays an important part in this process.
Another American professor, Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University, shared this year’s Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for her work on “governance”, how common resources are used. In her studies, which have included fishing communities in Mexico, she has sometimes revoked the otherwise popular theory among economists of “the tragedy of the common”.
On the link below you can read FISH Staffer Iwona Roman’s report from the seminar at the Stockholm Resilience Centre.