Fisheries, Ethnoecology, Human Ecology and Food Security: a review of concepts, collaboration and teaching

Abstract

The literature on incentives for conserving biodiversity frequently conflates causes and consequences or perhaps processes and outputs. There is, for example, a need to review briefly: outcomes (or outputs), such as governance and co-management; processes, such as trust, legitimacy and transparency; drivers, that can be positive (incentives, food security, biodiversity) or negative (pollution, poverty alleviation); and the instruments available to reach the outcomes, such as collaborative processes, and local ecological knowledge (LEK). LEK is suggested as having great potential within collaborative processes with small-scale fishers. A Human Ecological Model (CAT – Cultural Adaptation Template), adapted to small-scale fisheries, is used as analytical tool in order to organize feedback processes among ecological information, collaborative processes and food security. We illustrate a collaboration and interaction with fishers in a research conducted at Copacabana (Posto 6), Rio de Janeiro by studying the grouper Epinephelus marginatus. We evaluate positive drivers to engage fishers into co-management, such as PES, Payments for Environmental Services. PES can be part of co-management outcomes, such as in MPAs, by directly paying fishers to help in surveillances.