SUBSTANCE AND DEPTH IN FISHERIES MANAGEMENT: ENGAGING HAWAIʻI SMALL BOAT FISHERS TO MITIGATE PELAGIC SHARK MORTALITY

Item Summary

Title:	SUBSTANCE AND DEPTH IN FISHERIES MANAGEMENT: ENGAGING HAWAIʻI SMALL BOAT FISHERS TO MITIGATE PELAGIC SHARK MORTALITY
Authors:	Iwane, Mia Aiko
Contributors:	Oleson, Kirsten L.L. (advisor) Natural Resources and Environmental Management (department)
Keywords:	Natural resource management Social research conflict fisheries management power show 3 moreproblem definition shark conservation West Hawaiʻi show less
Date Issued:	2019
Publisher:	University of Hawai'i at Manoa
Abstract:	Fisheries management problems are complex, yet simplified, technical problem definitions often inhibit the management regimes that seek to identify and resolve them. This leads to management solutions that fail to address underlying conflicts and exacerbate social and political inequities. I explore opportunities to engage fishers to address these failures. This work finds footing in a case study of interactions between small boat fishers and pelagic sharks. Semi-structured interviews and a community-based shark-tagging project with small boat fishers on Hawaiʻi Island illuminate fishers’ relationships with one another, fisheries managers and scientists, and the sharks they encounter. Using a theoretical framework that mobilizes theories of conflict and problem definition, I find that the shark-fisher interaction problem is layered. It is shaped both by substantive factors, like shark behavior and economic context, and deeper-level problems, including degraded fisher-manager and fisher-researcher relationships, threats to fisher identity, and poor fisher perceptions of management legitimacy. Thus, endeavors to mitigate shark mortality require an equally multi-depth solution with substantive, process-, and relationships-based approaches. Such a multi-depth solution might include collaborative research for alternatives to lethal shark-handling practices, wherein fishers and scientists reconcile dissonant values and problem definitions and exchange and co-produce knowledge in pursuit of a transparent goal; and scientists communicate early and often with fishers both directly and using the fishing community’s existing social structures. These lessons and the framework used to incite them have applications wherever diverse actors seek solutions to complex, layered problems with variable definitions, in natural resource management and beyond.
Description:	M.S. Thesis. Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2019
Pages/Duration:	119 pages
URI:	http://hdl.handle.net/10125/63213
Rights:	All UHM dissertations and theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission from the copyright owner.
Appears in Collections:	M.S. - Natural Resources and Environmental Managament

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