Environmental Engineering Reference
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the competition for similar resources, technical interferences (the operation of active
and passive gears in the same sea space) and increasing state support for industry at
the expense of developing small-scale fisheries (McGoodwin 1987; Platteau, 1989;
FAO 2003). The steady deterioration of fish stocks and marine environments acts to
exacerbate such conflicts of interest.
The manifold changes in and around the fisheries precipitated new governance
arrangements. As fisheries became worthy of attention, they drew in outside investors
with their own perspectives of rights and regulations. Governments claimed coastal
territory, capitalised on fisheries development, and drew up modernisation plans and
regulatory legislation. In recent decades, there has also been a flurry of international
effort to curb unwanted fishing practice. The end result of which has been the inte-
gration of the marginal fisheries of the past into a widening governance framework
consisting of multiple layers and different societal origins.
What have all these changes meant for the incidence and character of fishing con-
flicts? In comparison with the pre-industrial era, we argue that conflicts in the SG have
intensified (as the economic stakes have become higher and resources decline), widened
(with hitherto distinct fisher groups now meeting on the same fishing grounds), and
expanded (with the rise of competing interests). Furthermore, where the state has sup-
ported the growth of industry at the expense of the small-scale sector, interactions
between SG and GS have become more conflictual.
The development of legal pluralism too has impacted on the manifestation of
conflict. Following Rapoport's (1974) distinction introduced earlier, we argue that
endogenous conflict has frequently been replaced by exogenous conflict between par-
ties adhering to different legal systems. In some contexts, the expansion and increasing
economic and political power of the industrial sector has relegated the small-scale fish-
eries sector to the margins and fueled 'illegal' fishing activities. However, for these now
marginal fishers and fishing communities, harvesting resources is not only a means of
livelihood, but also an element of cultural identity. Thus the ongoing harvesting of
resources in spite of the imposition of formal rules is considered legitimate in terms
of customary systems (Jentoft and McCay 2003; Cinner and Aswani 2007; Hauck
2011). This has consequences for the intensity and duration of fishing conflicts, as
well as their resolvability. After all, as Jentoft et al. argue: “the stronger the pluralism,
the greater the information problem, the greater the problems of enforcement, and the
more likely the violation of rules'' (2009: 29).
The development of legal pluralism also coincides with another dimension dis-
cussed by Rapoport - the difference between symmetrical and asymmetrical conflict.
Symmetrical conflicts include opponents of comparable weight, while asymmetrical
conflicts juxtapose parties that “may be widely disparate or may perceive each other
in different ways'' (1974: 176). Our analysis of longer-term trends in the fisheries sug-
gests that asymmetrical conflicts have generally increased. This is true first of all in the
SG, which has diversified in terms of capacity and strength. Small-scale fishers now
ply the same fishing grounds as fishers on board semi-industrial trawlers and modern
factory ships, and the conflicts between them are highly unequal in nature. Within the
GS asymmetry has too come about, with national and international governing actors
and institutions gaining weight at the expense of local governing systems. This shift
has coincided with the removal of the centers of governing activity away from the
coasts and the fishers themselves to centralised locations, where fishing interests also
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