A scientific study to take advantage of knowledge amassed by fishermen, not always on par with scientists’ outlook, is underway in Ireland.
The study, performed by the newly formed Socio-Economic Marine Research Unit at the university in Galway, has been going on for more than a year, with individual fishermen being interviewed about the history of their boats, the gear they use and the species they fish. They have also been asked to show on maps where they have been fishing, and what changes they have noticed over the years.
The goal of the Irish Fishers’ Knowledge Project,” says Edward Hind, a PhD student on the project, “is to investigate the knowledge which Irish fishermen have that could potentially be utilised in Irish/European fisheries management. So far we have found that Irish fishermen have potentially unique knowledge, not only of ecological conditions, but also of the social and economic environment in which they live. They also have many ideas that could shape marine policy and management.”
Today’s fishermen have often questioned the scientists’ assessments of dwindling stocks, but it may come as a surprise that when Irish fishermen in the late 1800s expressed concern over what they saw as depleting stocks, leading scientists of the time told them that they shouldn’t worry – those stocks were “inexhaustible”.
More recently, scientists associated the project point out, fishermen were the first to notice a decline in the cod stocks on the Grand Banks of Canada but their observations were disregarded by fisheries managers of the time – and the stocks collapsed dramatically in the early 1990s.
Studies since then have shown these fishers did indeed have unique ecological knowledge about the fishery that the operated in.
Some interesting findings have already been made in the ongoing study, including confirmation that fishing strategy really seems to be linked to the degree to which a fisherman has invested in capital. Fishermen with high investments have no option but to fish for volume, while others have adopted a strategy of fishing for value and have scaled down investment and reduced costs to do so.