Rural Sociology and Psycology (1+0)

1.2.5.Socio-economic features of fishing community

Need of assessment of socio-economics of the fisherfolk

Socio-economic assessment involving observations of user group activities, focus groups with key informants, and semi-structured surveys. The assessment can be used to develop a sketch of the short-term and long-term social and economic impacts of a marine system on user groups or to determine demographic characteristics, such as population growth rates, education levels and migrant ratios. In addition, data can be used for econometric analysis (regression) to determine relationships between variables (for example, catch is positively related to whether the fishermen in the household make daily trips). Relationship and inter dependencies between resource systems and social systems. The analysis involves identifying town clusters of coastal communities associated with primary and secondary fisheries resource catchments and using this information to determine the location and type of social impacts associated with the fishing industry and management regimes. Trade off analysis, a combination of stakeholder analysis (identification of stakeholders and their interests) and multi-criteria analysis (development of management criteria, evaluation of alternative management scenarios), draws on participatory approaches and consensus building to bring together diverse options through shared discussions of priority issues. This approach enables decision-makers to gain an understanding of stakeholders’ preferences for different management options and their consequences on stakeholders.

An important aspect of conducting socio-economic assessments is determining who to study. Studies often target the easily-defined groups of people, such as local residents, subsistence or commercial fishers, or dive tourists. When defining whose values are to be considered, socio-economic assessments for natural resources follow the thin line between being too specific about the user groups (and thereby not counting valid “holders of value”) and being too global (and thereby running the risk of an invalid, overly-general result).