Biological Conservation 236 (2019) 223–235

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Biological Conservation
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biocon

Review

Perspectives in coastal human ecology (CHE) for marine conservation T

Shankar Aswani
Departments of Anthropology and Ichthyology and Fisheries Science, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Coastal human ecology (CHE) is a mixture of different theoretical and thematic approaches straddling between
Actionable scholarship the humanities and social and natural sciences which studies human and coastal/marine interactions at the local-
Coastal human ecology (CHE) scale and through intense fieldwork. Topics of interest include human coastal adaptations past and present; the
Marine conservation historical ecology of fisheries and future implications; local forms of marine governance and economic systems;
Research frontiers
local food security and livelihoods, and indigenous/local ecological knowledge systems among many research
themes. In this paper, I explore different strands of CHE in the study of tribal, artisanal, and small-scale industrial
fisheries from the mid-90s onward that can contribute to the foundational knowledge necessary for designing
and implementing successful coastal fisheries management and conservation programs. Marine conservation has
often failed due to a lack of understanding of the fine grained marine human-environmental interactions at the
local scale. In this context, I also examine developing and future research directions in CHE, and discuss their
potential contribution for filling the gap in existing approaches to actionable scholarship in marine conservation.
The strength of many CHE approaches lies in their potential for bridging humanism and natural science, and thus
CHE approaches are well equipped to address many of the challenges faced by marine conservation practitioners
today.

1. Introduction conservation. Bennett et al. (2017) provide an exhaustive array of ap-

Coastal and nearshore marine ecosystems are severely threatened
by human activities. While this threat is spread across all habitat types
(Halpern et al., 2007), coral reefs are among the most vulnerable
coastal ecosystems in the world (e.g., Bruno and Selig, 2007). Multiple
anthropogenic stressors such as marine pollution and sedimentation,
overfishing, ocean acidification, plastics, sea level rise, etc. are severely
impacting the oceans and coasts (e.g., Crain et al., 2008), and this de-
gradation is likely to worsen as the human population continues to
grow and move to the coast (e.g., Neumann et al., 2015). From a re-
search perspective, dealing with human driven threats to coasts and
oceans will require mustering and combining a number of natural and
social science disciplines to improve marine habitat management and
increase the effectiveness of local interventions. Paying attention to the
interactions between humans and the environment for resource man-
agement and conservation has been recognized for decades (e.g.,
Mascia et al., 2003; Mace, 2014), with economic approaches being
emphasized in mainstream management and conservation (e.g., eco-
system services [see Hare, 2016]).
In recent years, various papers have exalted the importance of other
‘environmental’ (Moran, 2010) and ‘conservation’ ‘social sciences’
(Bennett et al., 2017) for informing biological management and
proaches in the social sciences that are important to consider in in-
forming biological conservation, and more recently, Bennett (2019) has
also explained the role of marine social science for the same purpose.
Generally, these positive reviews focus on social and cultural ap-
proaches that seek to understand human consciousness and rationality
as the principal driver to explain human behavior vis-à-vis the en-
vironment. Less attention, however, is given to research regarding the
biological and evolutionary underpinnings of actual human behavior,
cognition, and environmental use, which is also important to consider.
Levi and Poe (2017) and Aswani et al. (2018) conceptualize the en-
vironmental social sciences for informing marine conservation in the
context of the Anthropocene, albeit the arguments are general re-
commendations rather than specific prescriptions for local conserva-
tion. Scaling-down, which is necessary for concrete conservation in-
terventions and outputs, requires a more theoretically focused and
actionable scholarship/science (Palmer, 2012), or what I refer to as
Coastal Human Ecology (CHE). It is important to note that human
ecology as a field that studies the ecology of humans (e.g., their nu-
trition, health, foraging, cooperative behavior, population dynamics,
etc. [as other living organism]) has been around for more than a cen-
tury and its practice has crisscrossed a number of disciplines and topics
in the natural and social sciences (and has often been named

E-mail address: s.aswani@ru.ac.za.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.05.047
Received 26 February 2019; Received in revised form 13 May 2019; Accepted 23 May 2019
Available online 04 June 2019
0006-3207/ © 2019 The Author. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/).
S. Aswani
differently). Its use for understanding coastal and marine-humans in-
teractions has been identified by Ruddle (1996), Castilla (1999) and
more recently by Jennings et al. (2009) and Berkes (2015) among
others, but more details regarding its contemporary breadth and po-
tential for informing marine conservation is necessary.
Most of what I call CHE is a hybrid of natural and social sciences
and, for the most part, it cross-fertilizes humanism, social sciences, and
ecology/human ecology more intensively than the other conservation
or environmental social sciences, albeit all these are deeply interrelated
and draw concepts and methods from each other. CHE draws from
theories, concepts, and methods from archaeology, paleoecology, an-
thropology, human geography and ecology, evolutionary ecology, be-
havioral science, experimental/environmental economics, climate sci-
ence, zoology, oceanography, and marine biology among others. CHE
examines different dimensions of human and coastal/marine interac-
tions (of both individuals and groups), and focuses on local-scale pro-
cesses and on intense and long-term fieldwork using a combination of
interdisciplinary qualitative (e.g., participatory observation and open-
ended interviews) and quantitative (e.g., focal follows, cost-benefit and
nutritional analyses, time allocation studies, etc.) field methods. It is
also important to note that CHE studies also include case studies of
other aquatic environments including riverine and lake habitats, but in
this paper I retain the epithet ‘coastal’ because the brunt of these studies
are in coastal and nearshore marine contexts.
Why should CHE be treated differently than other natural or en-
vironmental/conservation social science approaches? And what can
CHE provide that is missing in the marine conservation tool box? CHE is
specifically designed to study how humans adapt (i.e., biologically,
cognitively, culturally) and transform (i.e., ecologically, socio-
economically, and politically) coastal and nearshore marine environ-
ments, as well as discerning how humans closely interact with other
biological organisms and ecological communities, while simultaneously
studying how these adaptations and transformations themselves re-
ciprocally influence individuals and human systems alike. So, CHE
seeks to unveil theoretically the proximate and ultimate causation me-
chanisms that shape human environmental cognition and behaviour. By
understanding how and why local individual and group coupled human-
nature processes evolve, function, and transform marine coastal and
marine environments, CHE researchers (which may not call themselves
as such) can better understand the nuances of socioeconomic, political,
cultural, and ecological interactive processes at the local scale. In a
more general way, traditional strands of CHE (e.g., human behavioral
ecology, micro-economic behavior, territoriality studies, indigenous
knowledge systems, etc.) can converge research encompassing the
concerns in humanism and the natural sciences, and therefore can in
some ways lead to the disciplinary consilience (Wilson, 1998), or the
“interdisciplinarity” that most people today understand as fundamental
for addressing the difficult challenges in marine and terrestrial con-
servation.
This kind of research somewhat differs from the more widely used
larger-scale and more holistic attempt to understand coupled human
and natural marine systems under the umbrella of socio-ecological
systems (SES) theory (e.g., Folke, 2006; Berkes, 2015), or an approach
in which the “system” is the unit of analysis and is an approach epis-
temologically similar to the 1960s “ecosystems approach” in the social
sciences (e.g., Rappaport, 2000 [1968]). CHE shares many concepts and
objectives with SES but it is epistemologically closer to Steward's
(1955) “culture ecology,” thus differing from SES in its units of analysis
(often actor-based but not always [scale]), theoretical scope (often, but
not always, underpinned by neoDarwinian principles), and field research
methods (relying on observational/behavioral data rather than ex-
clusively on perceptual survey data). While CHE is well suited for
building conservation interventions from the ground up due to its lo-
cocentric perspective, SES can provide a bigger picture scenario and
thus CHE and SES should be conceptualized as complementary and not
antagonistic approaches.
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Biological Conservation 236 (2019) 223–235
From an applied perspective, CHE researchers can use this fine-
grained knowledge (e.g., details of human marine foraging behaviors
and indigenous knowledge systems) for employing a common language
that can build better partnerships with natural scientists and local
communities for local resource management and/or conservation. This
is important because many community-based marine conservation
programs have failed or barely survived (e.g., in Melanesia [e.g., Foale
and Manele, 2004]) as a consequence of the frequent lack of detailed
socio-cultural and ecological knowledge about human-environmental
interactions at the local scale. This information can also be scaled-up
from the local to the global (through cross-cultural analysis of parallel
or dissimilar case studies) (e.g., Cinner et al., 2016), which is significant
because international and global conservation strategies are often in
complete disjuncture with resident understandings and what occurs or
needs to occur locally. Finally, coastal and nearshore ecosystems, which
are at the interface between land and the open sea, as well as the ocean
itself, present a set of management challenges that general conservation
approaches on land are unsuitable for. Humans adapt and interact with
the coasts and the oceans in different ways than on the mainland, in-
cluding how they view and deploy mobility and navigational knowl-
edge, the way they conceptualize and exploit marine resources (past
and present), and the kinds of coastal and marine property systems that
have developed to use and access marine resources among other di-
mensions.
In this paper, I explore different strands of research that I group
under the umbrella of CHE (which can belong to other disciplines such
as archaeology, human geography, ecological anthropology, environ-
mental science, or environmental sociology) (Fig. 1) from the mid-90s
onward, and illustrate how various strands of CHE research in the study
of tribal, artisanal, and small-scale industrial fisheries can complement
and fill gaps in the existing foundational knowledge (e.g., current SES
approaches) that is necessary for designing marine conservation stra-
tegies. I also examine developing and future research frontiers in the
branching ecology of human dimensions as they relate to CHE, and
discuss their potential contribution to marine conservation. The criteria
for grouping different strands of CHE in this paper approximate
groupings presented by Barnes et al.'s (2013) in a discussion of the
contributions of anthropology to the study of climate change. These
include: (1) the historical context of human-marine interactions, as
understanding the past is key to address current environmental pro-
blems; (2) studies of contemporary ecological dynamics, socio-eco-
nomic behavior/institutions, cultural and societal values, political re-
lations, and governance institutions that inform our understanding of
human-marine interactions for marine conservation (which I dis-
aggregate into various categories and sub-categories), and (3) the more
widely used strand of research that examine human-marine interrela-
tions as complex adaptive systems under a rapidly changing environ-
ment and climate for building social and ecological resilience.
The selection of this non-exhaustive set of CHE themes (Fig. 1) and
case studies for marine conservation is also based on my 27 year ex-
perience in CHE research and in leading or involvement in environ-
mental management and conservation programs in Oceania, Africa, and
more recently in Macaronesia (Canary Islands). Finally, it is important
to note that advocating for detailed CHE research locally does not dis-
miss the importance of regional or global research/meta-analyses, as
Bruno et al. (2019) have, for instance, demonstrated the inefficiency of
local reef closures in sustaining ‘managed resilience’, thus showing that
local research and action alone are insufficient, and that global analyses
of reef protection strategies locally are necessary to show that efforts to
curtail CO2 are more urgent than ever. In a different example, Cinner
et al. (2016) use a number of case studies to show that healthier coral
reefs occur in regions that still have effective local governance, such as
customary management systems, and where there are high levels of
local engagement in management. What detailed CHE research can do
is provide better social and ecological baseline data/case studies for
scaling-up and producing more accurate global analyses and
S. Aswani
concomitantly better local and global conservation policy. In addition,
advocating for local CHE research is not necessarily promoting local
resource management control exclusively, as research is showing the
frequent failure of community-based projects in conserving marine
ecosystems (e.g. Foale and Manele, 2004).
2. Maritime interactions across space and time
History matters in conservation. Studying ancient human adapta-
tion to marine and aquatic environments is a foundational topic for
understanding coastal human ecological deep history—and history is
fundamental for grasping context and local trajectory. There are several
historical study areas in CHE which are relevant for marine conserva-
tion.
2.1. Archaeology and coastal adaptations (ACA)
Conceptualizing ancient human adaptations to marine and aquatic
environments requires an archaeological and historical understanding.
Coastal archaeological research on shell middens and other anthro-
pogenic features in the landscape have been fundamental for under-
standing human dispersal and adaptation to coastal environments
around many regions of the world. Erlandson (2001) suggests that
Pleistocene archaeology reveals the significance of aquatic and mar-
itime adaptations and their profound impacts on human dispersion and
the development of cultural complexity across many coastal societies in
the world. Such adaptations extend millennia into the past, with re-
search in South Africa showing that the use of marine coastal resources
by early Homo sapiens extends as far back as the Middle Pleistocene or
around 160 thousand years ago. Coastal adaptation and persistent
consumption of shellfish and other marine invertebrates by early hu-
mans in South Africa, therefore, may have had cognitive and behavioral
impacts on human evolution (Jerardino and Marean, 2010) and
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Biological Conservation 236 (2019) 223–235
Fig. 1. Arrow length and thickness indicates the-
matic, theoretical, and methodological proximity of
a research topic to core CHE interests. Legend
clockwise: ACA (Archaeology and Coastal
Adaptations), INS (Indigenous Navigational
Systems), HE (Historical Ecology), HBE (Human
Behavioral Ecology), EE (Experimental Economics),
FS (Food Security), PE (Political Ecology), CMT
(Coastal Marine Tourism), EFC (Ethnography of
Fishing Communities), MPA (Marine Protected
Areas), MTS (Marine Territorial Systems), LEK
(Local Ecological Knowledge), MSS (Marine
Socioecological Systems), ECC (Environmental and
Climate Change), and PDD (Proximate and Distal
Drivers).
influenced human population growth and the out-of-Africa diaspora of
our species (Klein and Steele, 2013).
Based on the analysis of stable isotope of human skeletons, Sealy
(2006) has suggested that between 4500 and 2000 BP South African
coastal foragers consumed large quantities of high-trophic-level marine
mammals in addition to large quantities of marine mollusks, thus
showing that resource dependency of San or San like foragers extended
beyond terrestrial and marine invertebrate resources. What this re-
search shows is that maritime human adaptations have not occurred in
resource poor areas or as marginal adaptations, but generally occurred
in relatively productive coastal ecosystem and commonly resulted in a
number of demographic and socio economic factors including high-
population densities, sedentism, societal cooperation, and inter- and
intra-resource completion and warfare that have had profound impacts
of human evolution and cultural development (see Erlandson, 2001).
Other research in this field has investigated the ecological effects and
sustainability implications of California Chumash Indian fishing stra-
tegies (fishing up the food web rather than down) over a period of 12
thousand years (Erlandson et al., 2009); resource use patterns and
settlement configurations in northwest Australia prior to the Holocene
(Veth et al., 2016); and shown that Paleoindians in Alaska were con-
suming anadromous salmon as early as 11.500 BP, thus providing
evidence that these people were not only “big-game” hunting foragers
(Halffman et al., 2015) among many other studies.
Recent and promising research for understanding human resource
use across space and time encompass (1) the more accurate dating of
the earliest sustained (prior to 160 thousand years ago) consumption of
marine resources (i.e., beyond opportunistic foraging) (e.g., Jerardino,
2016), (2) a better understanding of the significance (or not) of marine
resources during periods of glaciation when terrestrial productivity may
have been affected, particularly surveying areas of abrupt bathymetry
which may have been less affected by sea level changes (e.g., Fisher
et al., 2010), and (3) studying the role or marine resources in terms of
S. Aswani
the resilience, vulnerability, and persistence/disappearance of human
populations along coastal fringes.
2.2. Indigenous navigational systems and trade networks (INS)
This area of study is closely linked to the archaeological study of
coastal adaptations but differs somewhat in its focal and experimental
nature. The archaeological study of human navigation and coastal
adaptation strategies stretches back for decades and in the context of
shipwreck/nautical and underwater archaeology, George Bass' seminal
research stretched across the Mediterranean to provide a unique
window into the ancient past of maritime cultures (e.g., Bronze Age)
through the in situ excavation of ancient shipwrecks (e.g., Bass, 1986).
Building upon the Polynesian experimental navigation promoted by
Finney (1994) and others, archaeologist and ehnohistorians have pon-
dered on the nature of Austronesian colonization of near and remote
Oceania by ancient marine voyagers, and concomitant terrestrial-
marine environmental impacts (e.g., Kirch and Green, 2001). Other
research on navigational systems and exchange networks has included
an analysis of prehistoric Western North American Chumash navigation
and the development of social complexity (Arnold, 1995), and the study
of the South China Sea interaction and trading spheres since the Iron
Age (Hung et al., 2013) among a vast literature on the subject. Eth-
nographic and ethnohistorical accounts of seafaring and trade networks
also comprises of a large literature including the work Ammarell (1999)
on the conceptualization and application of navigational knowledge
among the Bugis of Indonesia; Feinberg's (2003) work on Anutan
Polynesian navigation and culture and society, and Agius (2012)
combination of various sources of evidence to build an ethnographic
account of seafaring and its persistence in the Arabian Gulf and Oman
over the last century and a half.
In recent novel research, Thomson et al. (2014) have utilized the
DNA of ancient Polynesian chickens to better understand navigational
pathways of human colonization around Oceania. Similarly, Thorsby
(2016) has used genetics to investigate the unrecorded human inter-
population prehistoric encounters and concomitant genetic, linguistic,
and cultural relations between Native Americans and Pacific Islanders.
In other parts of the world, for instance, the Danish NOW project has
integrated the work of archeologists, anthropologists, and biologists to
understand ancient resource use patterns and human movements across
the Artic over thousands of years (NOW Project, 2017).
2.3. The historical ecology of fisheries and seascapes (HE)
Marine historical ecology has shown how pre-historic and historic
human exploitation of particular resources have transformed the
ecology of particular regions, and mounting historical ecological evi-
dence suggest that humans have radically reduced the numbers of large
marine mammals and other fish and invertebrates across most coastal
and marine ecosystems in the planet (e.g., Roberts, 2010). In a seminal
collaborative research between fisheries and archaeological scientists,
Jackson et al. (2001) showed that human fisheries overexploitation of
super abundant fisheries resources has led to serious modifications of
marine ecosystems through trophic cascade effects. In other work,
Sáenz-Arroyo et al. (2006) used the accounts of travelers to reconstruct
the size distribution and abundance of marine fauna in the Gulf of
California, Mexico, between the 16th and 19th centuries. Their analysis
shows that categorizing the accounts of missionaries, adventurers, and
others as anecdotal and overblown is erroneous and that such knowl-
edge of past richness is necessary to reflect on the trajectories of species
abundance and for setting the right management targets for their pre-
servation and recovery today. Similarly, McClenachan (2009) uses
photographic archives of recreational fishers in Key West, Florida to
show a drastic decrease in mean size and weight of targeted species
between 1956 and 2007.
At a larger scale, Braje et al. (2017) used a combination of methods
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Biological Conservation 236 (2019) 223–235
to study the deep history of human-environmental interactions in is-
lands across Polynesian, the Mediterranean, California, and the Car-
ibbean. They suggest that human ecological impacts of primary and
secondary colonization not always resulted in island ecological de-
gradation, and that understanding the asymmetric progression and
transformation of ecological niches across islands spatio-temporally can
better guide conservation efforts today.
Promising areas of research include the work of Kittinger et al.
(2015) who employ interdisciplinary research to suggest ways of: (1)
recovering endangered species and ecosystems, (2) managing and
conserving fisheries, and (3) educating the public about historical
changes in the environment. Other research in understanding the nor-
malization of changing human perceptions of resource abundance, or
shifting baselines (see Pauly, 1995), can explain why people are ac-
cepting of the ongoing and irreversible loss of terrestrial and marine
biodiversity.
2.4. Contributions to marine conservation
Basically, marine archaeology provides lessons from the past, which
are fundamental to grasp local and regional human-environmental in-
teraction trajectories. This knowledge can inform present day marine
conservation strategies for building resilience in vulnerable human and
ecological communities that are experiencing rapid ecological change
(as this has also occurred in the past). In terms of navigational research,
understanding ancient and present pathways for human movements
and trade is important for conceptualizing the socio-economic path-
ways of marine resource use and exchange, and the concomitant im-
plications of this knowledge for conservation in the past, the present,
and into the future. Finally, conceptualizing the marine historical
spatio-temporal variability of resources in the context of human ex-
ploitation can unmask the trajectory of conceptual shifting baselines
and assist in restoring and managing aquatic resources more efficiently
now and into the future. Evidence indicates that intimate knowledge of
cultural and ecological history, from ancient to recent events, is im-
portant to develop successful conservation projects today. This is illu-
strated by McClanahan and Omukoto (2011) who show the relevance of
comparing pre-European colonization historical and modern fish cap-
tures in Kenya for the purpose of designing marine conservation pro-
grams in the region. In another context, failing to grasp the historical
complexity of indigenous marine tenure rights and their evolution over
time when designing marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Solomon
Islands, or in Oceania more generally, is a recipe for conservation
failure. Various projects in the region have collapsed due to, in part, a
lack of grasping the historical complexity of indigenous tenure rights by
conservation practitioners (see Aswani et al., 2017).
3. Ecological and economic behavior in marine environments
Conceptualizing human micro- ecological and economic behavior in
coastal marine ecosystems is of fundamental importance for their
conservation.
3.1. The behavioral and evolutionary ecology of marine foragers (HBE)
Human behavioral ecology (HBE) uses an evolutionary theoretical
framework to study the relationship between human behavior and an
existing ecological context for recognizing the ultimate causes of
human behavior. In a marine context, optimal foraging theory (OFT)
models have been used to understand human foraging propensities in
marine diet breadth (food choices) (e.g., Thomas, 2007) and patch
choice (habitat selection) (e.g., Aswani, 1998; Sosis, 2002) to measure
foraging behavior and possible (or not) incipient resource management
and conservation implications. They have also been used to gauge the
foraging practices of past cultures in an archaeological context, as
Kennett (2005) has done to reconstruct Chumash diet and foraging
S. Aswani
strategies in the Channel Islands, California or Nagaoka (2002) for
prehistoric subsistence change in New Zealand.
Research on artisanal fishers has used foraging theory to study the
spatial mobility of Ecuadorian shellfish foragers and relate their re-
source patch rotation not only to sustainable resource use but also to
the maintenance of common property institutions (Beitl, 2015). Alvard
and Nolin (2002) have examined subsistence sperm-whale hunting and
discovered that cooperative behavior among fishermen yielded a higher
per capita caloric return than fishing individually, and hence hinting at
the causes for the evolution of cooperative hunting among human
marine foragers. Approaches like Cost Signaling Theory (CST) have also
been used to show how hunters in Meriam, Torres Strait (Australia)
“signal” their underlying abilities as hunters, risk-takers, and leaders by
generously giving away their turtle hunts in public feasting and waiting
for no reciprocation by their friends and kin (Bird et al., 2001). Other
evolutionary approaches have dealt with resource provisioning in
maritime contexts but have not relied in behavioral models per se to
understand human activities. Henrich and Henrich, 2010) have used
cultural evolutionary models to show that many Fijian food taboos held
by pregnant women are for marine species that are toxic, and examine
familial transmission of this knowledge to explain patterns of Fijian
social learning and resource management consequences.
Current areas of research in this field are expanding rapidly in-
cluding: (1) a closer rapprochement between HBE and evolutionary
biology (Nettle et al., 2013) for a more complete understanding of
human adaptations in marine environments and behavioral variance in
diverse ecological contexts (e.g., tropical, temperate, artic) and (2) the
use of more rigorous sampling, data collection, and statistical techni-
ques to test predictions of forging models like the Marginal Value
Theorem (MVT) that are yet to be rigorously tested with marine for-
agers. This kind of research can help to develop innovative and rigorous
methods to better understand the spatial mobility, fishery economic
strategies, and responses to the alteration of food webs (e.g., resulting
from climate change and overfishing) of fishers.
3.2. Experimental economics in fisheries (EE)
Experimental economics in fisheries is used to study cooperative
behavior in the collective management of small-scale fisheries. For in-
stance, Aswani et al. (2013) examined the effect of various socio-eco-
nomic variables (e.g., age, education, ethnicity, occupational status,
etc.) in prompting cooperative behavior among fishers in the Roviana
Lagoon, Western Solomon Islands. They employed a Public Goods Game
(PGG) to understand people's propensity to cooperate or not in a si-
mulated common property fishing context. Similarly, Lopez et al.
(2012) used various “framed” field experiments in fishing communities
in the Colombia Caribbean to gauge whether cooperative behavior was
more or less likely to occur in the context of imported “regulatory
pressure” or “pro-social emotions,” with the latter being found to be
more significant than the former. Revollo-Fernández et al. (2015) re-
searched gender roles and propensity to cooperate in resource man-
agement in coastal fishing communities of Baja California, Mexico.
Using various game theory laboratory and field experiments, the au-
thors revealed that women had a greater proclivity to cooperate in
fisheries management than men when sanctions and social reprimands
were announced in the experiments, thus suggesting the important role
of women in resource management.
Future research in this new field will have to develop more realistic
tools/methods to understand the cooperative behavior and social in-
terconnectivity of actors and institutions in fisheries governance at
local, regional, national, and international scales.
3.3. Contributions to marine conservation
Marine human behavioral and evolutionary ecology research can
explain the underlying causes of human behavior in resource use and
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Biological Conservation 236 (2019) 223–235
foraging cooperative behavior (beyond cultural ideas and perceptions),
and this type of detailed micro-ecological information, which is rarely
collected, can really inform the design of marine resource management
and conservation projects locally (see Heinen, 1992). For example, in
my own work, we have imported research results of an OFT analysis of
fishing behavior (Aswani, 1998) into a GIS database for visualizing the
spatio-temporal mobility of foragers, and in turn, using such informa-
tion for designing spatio-temporal MPAs that protect marine stocks (in
part) while having the least negative effect on food security and live-
lihoods (see Aswani and Lauer, 2006; cf. Aswani et al., 2017 for un-
derstanding problems with conservation work in Melanesia). In a si-
milar context, Sanchirico and Wilen (2001) have used bioeconomic
modelling to understand the spatial mobility and dynamics of fishers,
and shown how such knowledge can assist in marine reserve design and
creation. Experimental economics in fisheries, on the other hand, can
diagnose stakeholders' propensity to cooperate (or not) under different
institutional arrangements, particularly as people are subjected to the
pressures of environmental and climatic change. Understanding local
cooperative strategies, or lack thereof, are of great importance for
predicting the success or failure of any management or conservation
program. This has been illustrated by Barnes et al. (2019) who have
recently shown that cooperation (through communication regarding
gear use, fishing locations, etc.) between competitors enhances con-
servation outcomes across a number of regions in the world.
4. Socio-cultural behavior in marine environments
Research in this area include a wide span of research that is relevant
to marine resource use, management, and conservation including
fishing ethnographies, coastal and marine tourism, the political ecology
of fishing and aquaculture, and coastal food and livelihoods security
and sovereignty.
4.1. Ethnographies of fishing communities (EFC)
Current ethnographies, mainly drawn from the anthropology of
fishing communities, include studies on socialization and social re-
production, psychological factors in fishing, identity, class differentia-
tion, gender, cultural heritage and ritual performance, health, and
transnationalism and globalization among other areas of research. Of
relevance to CHE (i.e., for documenting and uncovering proximate level
causation processes, or ‘culture’ in marine ecological contexts), for in-
stance, includes work such as Pollnac et al. (2012) who identify a
number of psychological factors globally (such as notions of ‘adventure’
and ‘self-reliance’) that are related to fishermen's stout reluctance to
exist a fishery even when resource scarcity leads to lowering incomes.
In a different context, Walker's (2001) research on gender differentia-
tion in Ghana fisheries, for instance, shows how well intended devel-
opment projects to empower women actually can have the opposite
effect. Walker describes how loan schemes for women and various
changes in the law have resulted in the breakdown of traditional gender
roles, economic networks, and livelihood strategies; this leading to a
unrestrained exploitation of marine resources.
Cultural heritage has also been an area of research including the
work of Nadel-Klein (2003) who studied the comodization of culture
and heritage in coastal Scotland as communities reinvent themselves to
mitigate the impacts of North Atlantic fisheries demise. Other research
has explored the health effects of HIV-AIDS of fisher folk households in
Africa and SE Asia, and has argued for the need to better understand the
cultural intricacies of HIV transmission in these communities in order to
ameliorate its spread and impact (Allison and Seeley, 2004); human
health an important factor in understanding well-being in human-en-
vironment coastal interactions. In a global scale, anthropological stu-
dies are problematizing issues associated with commodity chains,
markets, and commercialization strategies in fisheries. For instance,
Bestor (2001) studied the activities in Tokyo's Tsukiji seafood market to
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better conceptualize the cultural specificity of a locality (the fish
market) in the context of global flows of capital and commodity chains
in the international seafood trade, which have serious implications for
marine resource management and conservation.
Current research in this area is producing interesting ethnographies.
For instance, Moore (2012) in a maritime multispecies ethnography is
examining the role of lionfish as an alien species introduced into the
Caribbean and how local fishermen are reacting economically and
symbolically to the challenges and opportunities that invasive species
produce both in natural and social spaces. Recently, Pauwelussen and
Verschoor (2017) have proposed the concept of “amphibiousness” to
better conceptualize the local understanding of the interface between
marine foragers and their coral reefs in Indonesia. Such ontological
shift, they argue, can better achieve marine conservation outreach goals
at the interface between science, technology, and society (STS). In a
recent edited volume, Levin and Poe (2017) are examining the multiple
ecological, socioeconomic, political, cultural, and symbolic pathways
that fishing communities are facing to adapt in the context of the An-
thropocene, which is an increasingly challenging epoch, as the human
population continues to swell and the marine environment to rapidly
degrade.
4.2. Coastal and marine tourism (CMT)
The study of coastal and marine tourism is important because this
activity is an economic driver in many coastal nations, and is known to
have pronounced local effects (e.g., Diedrich, 2007; Miller, 1993), with
particular implications for conservation, as both a driver for resource
degradation and preservation. Frequently, these impacts have been
recorded as being socially and environmentally negative (e.g., Wong,
1998), and these deleterious effects are likely to exacerbate with the
looming impact of climate change related processes such as sea level
rise and coastal erosion (Moreno and Becken, 2009).
Other research on marine tourism has examined issue such the re-
lationship between tourism and conservation and resource manage-
ment in coastal Papua New Guinea (West, 2006), the strengthening of
social bonds and trust among communities in Dominica to cope with
rising tourism (Holladay and Powell, 2013), the relationship between
educational programs and local perceptions of tourism in coastal
Thailand (Bennett and Dearden, 2014), and the use of participatory
mapping and GIS to map incipient resource use conflicts and tourism in
the Solomon Islands (Aswani et al., 2015). Current and interesting re-
search in this area includes research on the social and ecological vul-
nerabilities of coastal communities to marine tourism development in
small islands states (e.g., Gough et al., 2010), and studies of human-
cetacean interactive trajectories, and both their deleterious and positive
effects (e.g., Orams, 1997) among other research frontiers.
4.3. The political ecology of fishing and aquaculture (PE)
Political ecology is a useful lens to examine the often asymmetric
relations of power between local actors, involved scientists and con-
servationists, policy makers, and donors, whose competing interests
often affect the outcomes of conservation practices. Scholars using
political ecology have been able to assess why even well-intentioned
management schemes designed with consideration for local stake-
holders (but without a proper assessment of existing power asymme-
tries, among other things) may end up as “social” failures (e.g., Christie,
2004). For instance, Campbell (2007) has used a political ecology fra-
mework for studying asymmetries in power relations between local
stakeholders and outside agents involved in turtle conservation in Costa
Rica, and her research has helped foster the conceptualization of a more
just and stakeholder-centered turtle conservation project in the region.
Other research has examined the relationship between aquaculture
production and mangroves, the unequal access to resources among
stakeholders with the often governmental favoring of industry over
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local stakeholders, and the transformation of local common property
rights in Indonesia (Armitage, 2002).
Novel research includes Le Heron et al. (2016) who present ways to
foster non-sectarian groups of stakeholder who actively remove their
disciplinary and worldview biases for tackling ‘wicked problems’ in
marine conservation. Future research in political ecology will have to
further investigate how local, national, and international stakeholders
conceptualize, identify, choose, or conform (or not) to the im-
plementation of marine regulations and governance systems.
4.4. Coastal food and livelihoods security and sovereignty (FS)
An important concern in CHE research are issues of food security
and sovereignty among fisher folk around the world, particularly in the
developing world were economic uncertainty and poverty traps are
more profuse (Cinner et al., 2009). Allison and Ellis (2001) propose that
a “livelihood approach,” which examines how fisher folk cope with and
adapt to environmental and economic changes, is needed to better in-
form management decisions in small-scale fisheries around the devel-
oping world. Fabinyi et al. (2017) have also shown how a nuanced
analysis of Philippines fishing communities can unmask the in-
completeness of a discourse about food security and fish abundance,
and shown that policy makers need to better understand the multiple
pathways of trade and peoples socioeconomic networks if marine
conservation and food security is to be achieved in the global south.
Understanding, for instance, the social dynamics of segregated in-
formation networks in the long-line fishery in Hawaii would have fa-
cilitated inter-network communications between different stakeholders,
which would have prevented the by-catch of thousands of sharks
(Barnes et al., 2016).
Other research has dealt with the issue of marine food sovereignty,
or the capacity of small-scale fishers to control the production, dis-
tribution and consumption of marine products in lieu of national or
multinational corporations, and that the rights of small scale fishers are
better protected by governments like in South Africa (e.g., Sowman and
Cardoso, 2010). Recently, for instance, Cisneros -Montemayor et al.
(2016) conducted a global assessment of almost 2000 coastal in-
digenous communities across 87 countries to show the fundamental
importance of marine resources to coastal indigenous communities, and
advocate for the recognition and protection of indigenous knowledge
and production systems to enhance the livelihood sovereignty of these
vulnerable communities. In this context, Barbesgaard (2017) has re-
cently shown that small-scales fishers, whether indigenous or not, are
increasingly becoming politically active to protect their rights and food
sovereignty, as they fight national and international attempts at ocean
grabbing in the name of blue growth.
Present promising research includes venues by which people at-
tempt to secure their food security and sovereignty in small-scale
fisheries (e.g., Fabinyi et al., 2017). Further work will be required to
understand the multiple coping pathways of coastal peoples' as they are
increasingly faced by food insecurity fostered by resource degradation
and the effects of climate change (e.g., global marine hotspots). In this
sense, there is a need to understand the micro-ecological interactions of
fishers and ciguatera poisoning (Ruddle, 1996) to better gauge the
consequences of this dinoflagellate toxin to local health and livelihoods.
Also, attention will need to be given on how social asymmetries (e.g.,
gender, ethnicity, class, etc.) in coastal marine resource dependent
communities influence food security coping strategies among other
subjects.
4.5. Contributions to marine conservation
First, natural scientists often misunderstand the nature of ethno-
graphic work often as a result of different academic languages and
theoretical paradigms between social and natural scientists. However,
ethnographic studies, which often use painstaking qualitative data
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collection methods (e.g., participant observation, open-ended inter-
views, life-histories, etc.) as well as survey/quantitative data for un-
derstanding local processes, can open venues for developing sharing
knowledge networks for better communication between coastal devel-
opers and local communities as well as regional and national authorities
for appropriate and inclusive resource management and conservation.
They can also inform the public of commodity chains, markets, and
commercialization strategies in fisheries to better inform consumers
about the consumption of vulnerable and/or endangered marine spe-
cies. Finally, ethnographies can take a closer look at the effects of cli-
mate change not only on the socio-economic or environmental aspects
of fishing communities, but also on the effects to their social and cul-
tural identity (e.g., sense of place), which have an effect on how people
interact with the environment.
Second, marine tourism research can provide information for de-
veloping tourist initiatives that minimize local conflicts and assists in
ameliorating environmental impacts. Third, political ecology can
identify existing power asymmetries between stakeholders interacting
in any marine resource management and conservation arena, and also
in aquaculture, and show how such differences can lead to marine re-
source degradation or not. That is, it can unmask the various roles of
players involved in environmental use, degradation, and management
for improving resource management approaches and environmental
justice locally, particularly in political contexts where corruption is
endemic. In this context, Finkbeiner et al. (2017) have used political
ecology to critically evaluate the Malthusian narrative in the analysis of
overfishing by the poor and marginalized, and have examined the root
causes of resource degradation (e.g., technology and the unhinged
consumption by developed countries), and suggest ways for using this
knowledge for improving fisheries policies around the world. Finally,
research on coastal livelihoods can furnish information to better protect
vulnerable coastal populations and environments. That is, the public
and policy makers need to understand the multiple coping pathways of
coastal peoples' as they are increasingly faced by livelihood insecurity
and health threats fostered by rouge fleets, resource degradation
through political corruption, and the effects of climate change. This
kind of local livelihood research can assist in global analyses, such as
Béné et al. (2016) research on the connection between local fisheries
and aquaculture with poverty alleviation, which shows that this link is
still inconclusive.
5. Marine knowledge and governance systems
A vast literature that closely intersects with CHE is on human
marine indigenous ecological knowledge and governance systems, and
this work is important for informing the design of marine protected
areas (MPAs) and other marine resource management and conservation
programs locally.
5.1. Marine local and indigenous ecological knowledge (LEK)
Marine indigenous, traditional, and local knowledge (or LEK) has
developed over time as people interact with their natural environment,
and these socially and culturally embedded knowledge systems are
dynamic and co-evolving with social and ecological changes (Berkes,
2015). Research around the world has shown the importance of doc-
umenting LEK for grasping fishers' decision-making processes as they
interact with the marine environment (Johannes, 2002). Marine har-
vesting (and its concomitant environmental effects) is constrained by
the flow of information between fishers and the environment, the
variability of spatio-temporal events, and the asymmetric distribution
of target species across marine environments. For instance, Silvano
et al. (2006) have shown the importance of coastal Brazilian eth-
noichthyology to understand patterns of migration of many commercial
species and attendant fishermen's foraging decisions, and for pairing
that knowledge with scientific research for the management of local
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stocks.
Other researchers are also incorporating LEK into GIS databases to
document and better comprehend fishers' marine cognition and spatio-
temporal resource use and access, and to use this knowledge to build
partnerships with local communities for marine resource conservation
(e.g., Stoffle et al., 1994). For instance, researchers have used partici-
patory GIS for demarcating and cataloguing Miskito Indians reefs in
Nicaragua (Nietschmann, 1995), and to produce habitat maps with
Grenadine Islands fishing communities that were informative to re-
source managers (ecologically valuable) and which represented local
perceptions of habitat use and distribution (Baldwin and Oxenford,
2014). Other work has mapped local perceptions of environmental and
climate change in Madagascar, and evaluated how these perceptions
are influenced by markets, religion, and NGOs among other forces
(Lemahieu et al., 2018)
The inclusion and empowerment of LEK for enhancing resource
stewardship (through such measures as MPAs) and for building resi-
lience to human generated environmental and climate change has
gained prominence (e.g., Alexander et al., 2011; Narchi and Price,
2015). In this context, researchers have increasingly examined the
match between LEK and scientific knowledge for gauging their corre-
spondence, and practical applicability to management and conservation
in a rapidly changing environment, and for empowering local and in-
digenous communities (e.g., Garcia-Quijano, 2007). Other current areas
of research include growing calls for the documentation, inclusion, and
empowerment of LEK for enhancing resource stewardship (through
such measures as Marine Protected Areas [MPAs]) and for building
resilience to natural disasters and to human generated environmental
disturbances and climate change (e.g., Mercer et al., 2010). Other re-
searchers have examined the relationship between LEK (as “rules of
thumb”) and the selection of marine habitats and preys across spatio-
temporal variability, or as suggested by Peloquin and Berkes (2009),
discerning the way fishers deal with multiple variables at multiples
scales during foraging.
New research is also looking at the erosion of marine LEK and its
consequences. For instance, Patankar et al. (2015) have shown the
rapid decline of traditional authority and marine management (in-
clusive of local knowledge) in the Nicobar Archipelago (India) six years
following the 2004 tsunami has resulted in institutional decline locally.
This calls for the urgent attention not only to LEK documentations but
also for helping coastal small-scale and indigenous communities to
empower their knowledge systems vis-à-vis uninterested governments
and predatory fisheries multinationals.
5.2. Marine territorial systems and co-management (MTS)
Like the study of knowledge systems, research on the sub-theme of
marine territoriality has a long standing tradition and includes a vast
literature in anthropology and human geography alone (e.g., Kishigami
and Savelle, 2005). Generally, these systems are informal or formal
means by which coastal people and communities' appropriate sea space
to limit resource use and access using a wide range of territorial stra-
tegies (Ostrom, 2009). Past and present attention has focused on the
role of customary marine/sea tenure (e.g., Hviding, 1996), informal
(e.g., Durrenberger and Pálsson, 1987) and formal Territorial User
Rights in Fisheries (TURFs) (e.g., Gelcich and Donlan, 2015), and the
role of small-scale fishers' organization, e.g., cooperatives (Jentoft,
1989) or cofradías (Bavinck et al., 2015), in co-management for reg-
ulating the access and use of marine resources in open or common
property systems.
Oceanic customary sea tenure systems are generally inclusive tribal
territorial domains that often extend from island mountain peaks across
the lagoons and reefs and into the open ocean. Research has shown that
these are context-dependent and historically situated customary rights
over sea space designed to control the use, access to, and transfer of
marine resources through various strategies (see Cinner and Aswani,
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2007). In SE Asia, studies include research topics such as the interplay
between customary and national laws in fishery conflicts and the
adaptation of marine tenure in the design of marine protected areas,
including work in Indonesia (Adhuri, 2013) and the Philippines (Weeks
et al., 2010).
Other areas of research on marine common property and open ac-
cess resources have been the study of the development of informal and
formal territoriality in artisanal and commercial fisheries. For instance,
Acheson's long-term research (Acheson, 2003) has shown how after
decades of informal territorial strategies for “capturing the commons,”
Maine lobster fishermen have been able to politically and formally
activate some state-sanctioned regulations for controlling the lobster
fishery, while simultaneously maintaining informally, and often
through illegal means, control of their lobster fishing grounds. Simi-
larly, Begossi (1995) has shown how informal ownership of fishing
spots at Búzios Island, Brazil has been used to regulate territorial in-
terloping by outsiders. Other researchers have focused on government
sanctioned formal TURFs, and these have been characterized as effec-
tive for managing invertebrate resources and small-scale fisheries. In
South America, for instance, research in Chile, Mexico, and Brazil have
shown that TURFs can be successful socially and biologically at sus-
taining coastal fisheries (e.g., Gelcich and Donlan, 2015). Similarly,
other research has been social and political investigations on the de-
velopment of co-management systems across the world (e.g.,
McGoodwin, 1995; Pinkerton, 2011). Today, an array of co-manage-
ment regimes exist with different control balances and management
strategies among different stakeholders, and are less or more successful
at creating sustainable fisheries and fishing societies (Sen and Nielsen,
1996).
Research frontiers in this topic are rapidly moving in various di-
rections. For example, various authors have examined ways of com-
bining different customary and modern territorial arrangements for
developing hybrid governance and co-management systems(e.g.,
Aswani and Ruddle, 2013), community-based marine protected areas
networks (e.g., Weeks et al., 2010), and disaster management plans
using LEK (e.g., Mercer et al., 2010) as examples. For instance, Weeks
and Jupiter (2013) have illustrated how Fiji's approach of combining
traditional systems of coastal tenure management and modern co-
management systems has become a successful model for marine con-
servation to be followed by other Island states. Gelcich and Donlan
(2015) have been tracking the evolution of relatively young territorial
systems such as formal TURFs and co-management systems in South
America to gauge their resilience to socioeconomic changes, surges in
resource scarcity, the effects of climate change, and other socio-
economic and biophysical fluctuations. In regions where customary
systems have never been recognized or even properly recorded, such as
in a post-apartheid South Africa, researchers are documenting tradi-
tional tenure systems and finding ways to bridge them with current
municipal, regional, and national legislation to improve rural liveli-
hoods of coastal peoples (e.g., Sunde et al., 2013). Finally, Pauwelussen
(2015) expanding on Wilson's (2006) work has shown the mismatch
between social and biological interconnectivity in the context of tra-
ditional Indonesia marine trade networks and the designation of marine
conservation.
5.3. Marine protected areas and social and ecological impacts (MPA)
Researchers have not only been interested in the ecological impacts
of MPAs, but also the social and economic ones. For instance, in a wide
analysis of marine and terrestrial protected areas, West et al. (2006)
examine globally the political processes in the implementation and
governability of protected areas that often result in people's displace-
ment from the land and sea, conflict and violence, and asymmetric
power relationships, and reflect on how protected areas shape people's
lives and living spaces. These kinds of analyses are extremely important
because they show that issues of social and economic equity are of
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paramount importance in people's concerns of MPAs and their con-
comitant acceptance, or not, of management (Blount and Pitchon,
2007). This is demonstrated in Christie's (2004) research in Philippines
and Indonesia coastal communities, which shows that MPAs that have
been deemed to be biologically successful in the short term are in fact
social failures—a situation that threatens the aimed long-term biolo-
gical success of MPAs. Simply, if people don't cooperate conservation
targets cannot be achieved, and as pointed out by Ferse et al. (2010)
local peoples need to be seen as allies and not enemies, and properly
integrated into community-based natural resource management plan-
ning and monitoring, as there is no other option.
Current and growing areas of CHE inquiry of MPAs include interest
in the social and economic impacts of MPAs and how they intersect
with ecological ones, including such factors as food security, health,
resource rights, employment and income opportunities, and community
organization and cohesion (Mascia et al., 2010). Others, like Jentoft
et al. (2012) have also examined how people's perceptions of the social
and economic impacts of MPAs in Spain structure their acceptability or
not of these management regimes, and call for a critical evaluation of
peoples' cultural perceptions of MPAs to better guide their design and
implementation process. Similarly, Bennett and Dearden (2014) have
shown that most communities in Andaman Coast of Thailand have a
negative perception of MPAs resulting from their views of negligible
economic, subsistence, and governability benefits.
5.4. Contributions to marine conservation
Documenting and understanding local knowledge systems can allow
for ways to better integrate LEK and Western science for building cul-
turally sensitive ways of designing and implementing natural resources
management and conservation policies locally. This is particular
poignant because the repercussions of ignoring LEK (whether one be-
lieves that it is useful for conservation or not) have grave consequences,
as both biological and cultural (biocultural) diversity are inter-
connected (Maffi, 2005), and are fundamental for both ecosystem
health and human adaptive resilience to stochastic and anthropogenic
driven climatic and environmental change. On the other hand, under-
standing local governance systems can lead to a nuanced understanding
of variability in tenure systems and assist in the creation of co-man-
agement or hybrid marine management systems (e.g., CMT-Ecosystem
Based Management [EBM]) for more environmental successful and so-
cially just conservation programs.
Failure to understand the nature of local tenure systems and the
complexity of polycentric and nested tenure rights has led to marine
conservation problems in Melanesia in (e.g., Foale and Manele, 2004;
Aswani et al., 2017). Finally, a critical study of MPAs stakeholders can
uncover how indiscriminately applying conservation policies can result
in people's displacement from their adjacent marine territories, possible
conflict and violence, and asymmetric power relationships between
different stakeholders (e.g., tourist service providers and local fishers).
This kind of case study research can assist in the study of MPAs in
various regions of the world, as Pollnac et al. (2010) have shown that
rule compliance and concomitant ecological benefits are often asso-
ciated with a complex combination of socio-economic and political
factors rather than merely to enforcement and/or MPA rules. Thus a
CHE analysis of MPAs can help the public and policy makers to ame-
liorate conflicts and, more generally, for creating MPA networks that
carefully integrate local knowledge and governance systems into MPA
design.
6. Marine interactions in complex adaptive systems
In the last two decades' complex adaptive systems thinking under
the umbrella of socio-ecological systems (SES) theory has grown in
many social and environmental sciences. As mentioned, CHE shares
many concepts with SES but differs in its units of analysis, theoretical
S. Aswani
scope, and field research methods. Nevertheless, because SES is inter-
ested in the interaction between natural and social processes operating
at diverse spatio-temporal scales, it intersects with CHE in many ways
and needs to be included in this discussion.
6.1. Marine socioecological systems (MSS)
SES research is often conducted by multidisciplinary teams and
often relies on modelling tools for its analysis. For instance, Österblom
et al. (2013) use model-based scenarios to couple human and marine
systems to better forecast management actions in the future to sustain
marine socioecological systems. In another example, Cinner et al.
(2012) have proposed the use of Ostrom's (2009) diagnostic framework
for understanding the conditions that cause problems or create oppor-
tunities in the governance of small-scale coral reef fisheries. Regulatory
efforts in marine ecosystems have separated ecological and social dy-
namics failing to account for the integrated essence of human-nature
systems, and the effects of key synergies and trade-offs such as the
ecological legacies of historical livelihoods and ocean/land uses (Berkes
et al., 2008). The following decade will see the burgeoning of SES ap-
proaches to analyze and model human interactions in marine ecosys-
tems. Recent research is already analyzing the social and economic
factors that result in differences in people's ideas and perceptions of
ecosystem services (e.g., Hicks and Cinner, 2014), using participatory
modelling and scenarios approaches to estimate trade-offs between
morally incommensurable values (or “taboo” trade-offs) in tropical
fisheries (e.g., Daw et al., 2015: 1), and gauging perceptual asymme-
tries in peoples estimations of environmental and climatic change
(Ensor et al., 2018).
6.2. Environmental and climate change and coastal vulnerability (ECC)
The study of environmental and climate change and associated
coastal vulnerability is often framed under SES theory (e.g., Cinner
et al., 2012), albeit not all CHE research on this topic is couched in this
framework. Current CHE concerns include understanding the inter-
connectedness of social, economic, and political systems with ecological
ones, and to identify the cultural factors and processes which make
adaptation to these transformations more or less likely, and which make
people's experiences to climate change multifaceted (e.g., Crate and
Nuttall, 2016). For instance, Lazrus (2012) proposes a framework to
study population responses to climate change in small islands that ex-
amines local knowledge and concomitant agency to adapt to change,
local perceptions of risk and vulnerability, and issues related to en-
vironmental justice, equity, and power. Others have used archaeology
(e.g., Morrison and Addison, 2008) and ecological anthropology (e.g.,
Berkes and Jolly, 2002) to analyze longitudinal responses of marine
harvesters to climate change.
6.3. Proximate and distal drivers of resource use (PDD)
Am emerging area of research in SES is understanding the role of
proximate and distal drivers in marine resource use and management, or
the importance of direct impacts, such as overfishing vis-a-vis those
which have indirect effects, such as governance structures or global
markets, on marine ecosystems (Cinner and Kittinger, 2015). For in-
stance, Hicks et al. (2016) have examined a number of distal social
drivers (e.g., new markets, technological innovations, etc.) that can
lead to ecosystem shifts across a number of marine environments, and
suggest ways to identify these social drivers as early indicators of im-
pending resource degradation for better policy designation. Similarly,
Brewer et al. (2013) show how Solomon Islands reef fisheries, parti-
cularly vulnerable species, are significantly impacted by population
growth and foreign markets. In new research, Forster et al. (2017) ex-
amine differences among stakeholders in their perception of the effect
of proximate and distal drivers on Caribbean coral reefs, and highlight
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the importance of analyzing perceptual social data for better resource
management.
6.4. Contributions to marine conservation
SES research can conceptualize dynamics and causal flows in cou-
pled human and natural coastal systems at various spatial, temporal,
and organizational scales, and this knowledge can help design man-
agement regimes that better respond to climate and environmental
change hazards and opportunities (in some case). Detailed CHE studies
can help to better understand lower scale processes and hence enhance
a SES analysis as it is scaled up to regional, national or international
scales (i.e., feed into SES analyses more accurate localized social and
ecological data). In the context of climate change and vulnerability
research, CHE can show how local and indigenous peoples around the
world experience and respond to climate change, and this again can
feed into SES analyses. This can furnish a broader understanding of how
climate change affect household food security, well-being, and health
among other topics (e.g., Crate, 2011), and allow for developing
adaptive marine conservation response plans that include local world-
views, perceptions, and concerns. Finally, understanding the role of
proximate and distal drivers can provide better information regarding
the actual causes of marine resource degradation and this, in turn, may
better inform policy for marine conservation.
7. Discussion
Coastal human ecology (CHE) as defined in this paper is an ap-
proach that crisscrosses various disciplines and themes to study human
behavioral, cognitive, and cultural coastal adaptations, and also ex-
amines human driven ecological, socioeconomic, and political trans-
formation of coastal and nearshore marine ecosystems. Simultaneously
CHE studies how and why these environmental adaptations and trans-
formations themselves reciprocally affect individual and human system
behavior (i.e., anthropogenic environment feedback loops). Indeed,
most of the CHE research presented in this paper pertains to tribal,
artisanal, and small-scale industrial fisheries because studying large-
scale global industrial fishing poses a number of methodological and
theoretical challenges for CHE, which are not intractable as demon-
strated by studies in urban human ecology, but CHE is better suited for
scaling down and examining local processes. Yet a lococentric approach
is fundamental if there is to be any hope for concrete conservation
actions and outputs, as global treaties and conservation targets (e.g.,
Convention on Biological Diversity [CBD]) are failing given the rapid
recorded decline of all Earth's ecological systems (Ripple et al., 2017).
CHE is not a panacea for marine conservation, but a fine scale approach
to discern the nuances of socioeconomic, political, cultural, and eco-
logical interactive processes. In addition, there is no concrete empirical
evidence (beyond case studies) to demonstrate that what I call CHE is
more effective than other approaches for informing marine conserva-
tion. Yet, given that hundreds of millions of people still depend on
artisanal fisheries and that the most biodiverse ecosystems, such as
coral reefs, are found mostly in undeveloped regions, resorting to re-
search approaches and tools that can more realistically describe re-
sident human-marine interactions to inform conservation does not seem
to be that farfetched.
While the prevailing SES paradigm in environmental studies can
provide a comparatively more holistic approach to studying human-
environmental interaction, CHE approaches are more appropriate for
scaling down locally. Unlike a SES analysis, which often relies on local/
regional/national survey data (e.g., people's perceptions and secondary
rationalizations of past, present or future behavior) to feed its models or
for calculating aggregate indices, most CHE depends on a combination
of qualitative and quantitative methods that painstaking record local
perceptions/attitudes and behaviors over time. This detailed and
longitudinal effort often contrasts with the snap-shot data collection
S. Aswani
Fig. 2. Conceptual qualitative SES model of intermediate complexity incorporating different CHE data for considering 2 spatial areas and links with human systems.
Model can also be constructed as a quantitative model of current ecosystem services losses, and simulate a “post climate change scenario” (projections) for marine
resources in coral reefs (Courtesy of Eva Plaganyi).
methods that are frequently used by SES researchers on rapid visits to
communities and regions. Nevertheless, SES provides a general “big
picture” framework in which CHE studies can be incorporated to better
conceptualize, measure, and/or forecast human-ecological interactions
at various spatial and temporal scales, thus providing more reliable data
for SES models. Integrating CHE data into SES models and analyses also
increases the number of management levers and probability of suc-
cessful implementation of management policies and actions (Plaganyi
per. comm.) (see Fig. 2 for an example). These approaches, therefore,
are complementary.
Unfortunately, the number of CHE researchers is declining for var-
ious reasons. Within the social sciences and humanities this is often the
result of university departments in the Northern and Southern hemi-
sphere focusing on humanistic training and relegating scientific/natural
science and interdisciplinary research to a minor role or to none at all.
What's more, there is a generalized antagonism against ecological and
naturalist thinking when dealing with human beings, which is bizarre
given our scientifically established evolutionary history. As a result,
resource economists and other natural scientists are now viewed as the
bearers of the “social” component or analysis in the understanding of
human-environmental interactions in marine ecosystems (Pauly, 2006).
On the other hand, natural scientists have marginal social science
training and are often not articulate in the details of human ecology,
which is so necessary for understanding local human-environment
coupled processes. In addition, students today regardless of discipline,
are generally unwilling to spend 12 months in the field (for various
socioeconomic and cultural reasons), which is the minimum time that
researchers should spend in the field, as generally understood by senior
CHE academics. A year fieldwork requirement is to observe a full an-
nual cycle and thus be able to capture all the spatio-temporal variation
in human behavior vis-à-vis the marine environment. Regrettably, there
232
Biological Conservation 236 (2019) 223–235
is no short-cut for gaining the necessary detailed CHE data to inform
marine conservation, and universities, donors, and governments need
to invest in long-term CHE research—the best research often being
decadal—if they are to gain useful local data for theory/knowledge
building and for practical and real conservation interventions on the
ground.
To encourage a new generation of committed CHE researchers, in-
terdisciplinary training within the auspices of disciplinary boundaries
will need to intensify. For example, marine science program students
could get simultaneous training in marine ecology and fisheries an-
thropology, while anthropology or human geography students inter-
ested in resource management/conservation and food security could be
trained in fisheries science and management, and marine ecology more
generally. These types of cross-fertilizing engagements, which are al-
ready occurring at various research institutions (although not deeply
enough in my opinion), could happen either through joint inter- and
multidisciplinary training programs, or through co-supervision with
fisheries biologists for social science students, or alternatively anthro-
pologists/human geographers for marine science students as an option.
In essence, both humanities/social science and natural science students
need a broader training to be able to communicate CHE effectively with
scientific and local communities (e.g., communicating science in a
culturally appropriate way), policy makers, and the public more gen-
erally. This is particularly poignant because as pointed out by E. O
Wilson (1998), disciplinary consilience is of fundamental importance to
address current social and ecological problems, and in this respect CHE
is, in principle, well equipped for building bridges between the huma-
nities and natural sciences.
S. Aswani
8. Conclusion
For informing marine conservation, CHE research on itself is not
enough and a wider intervention for conservation will require the in-
tensification of transnational activities such as ocean global scientific
research, marine nature video production, the use of social media, ci-
tizen science and networks, and so forth. However, CHE researchers are
well positioned to build bridges between local worldviews and liveli-
hood requirements and global biodiversity conservation needs.
Environmental social scientists generally are good translators of larger
drivers of planetary environmental change (e.g., globalization, moder-
nization, etc.) and local socioeconomic, cultural, and historical pro-
cesses that define people's ideas and behaviors (Aswani et al., 2018;
Bennett et al., 2017). CHE researchers particularly can use their skills
honed from on-the ground long-term research to scale-up from the local
to the global, as often international and global conservation strategies
are in complete discrepancy with local people's understandings and
objectives. Solving overfishing, ocean acidification, rising sea levels, the
expansion of hypoxic zones and plastics in our oceans will require a
societal effort that neither natural nor social scientists can solve alone,
and international, regional, and local interventions will be needed. In
this sense, CHE researchers through their long-term engagements with
people and nuanced understanding of their social and ecological sys-
tems can provide, in part, the foundational knowledge that is so ne-
cessary for environmental education and to perhaps begin changing our
environmental attitudes for saving the oceans. It is also time to stop
pretending that “big science” and international environmental treaties
alone can solve environmental problems locally. Perhaps we need to
reinvigorate research traditions (e.g., human and culture ecology) that
scale down to uncover micro-ecological and micro-socioeconomic
processes, and using this actionable knowledge to build marine con-
servation programs one at the time (whether governance is community-
based, top-down, or a hybrid), and then use cross-case and cross-cul-
tural examples to scale-up to regional, national, and international in-
terventions.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank Antonietta Jerardino and Andrea Sáenz-Arroyo for
comments on drafts of this paper.
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