Coastal Management Fall 2017
2017 Coastal Opinions – Fisheries
By Brittany Wilson, Jacqueline Green and Shandi Noble
Alaskan fishery harvests tons of fish. In 2016, seiners harvested nearly 10,000 tons of full herring.
(Goodrich 2016)
INTRODUCTION
Global History of Fisheries
Fisheries involve the harvesting of any living aquatic organism from our oceans (Heidbrink 2014). By the middle of the 19th century, some of the fishery resources had already declined by alarming amounts in the Northeast Atlantic, spurring many disputes regarding the reason behind this decline (Royce 1985). In 1871, The U.S. Commission on Fish and Fisheries was created by Congress to investigate, promote, and preserve the fisheries of the Unites States (NOAA 2006). This ultimately sparked an environmental awareness for living marine resources extracted by humans. This is America’s oldest conservation agency formed to specifically “protect and preserve the fish of the coast of the United States (NOAA 2006).” Spencer Fullerton was the first head of the commission, and he explored factors affecting the fisheries including ecology, habitat and physical oceanography, The commission emphasized the importance of understanding the science and significance behind these natural resources.
Although fisheries have been around for hundreds of years, the management is often partly understood by the general public. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Fisheries and Aquaculture Department has statistical databases that are available for the public, however, people do not necessarily have knowledge about that. It is important to further educate and understand management policies regarding fisheries.
Overview of Current Situation
The FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department stresses its management control efforts on fishing capacity, fishing effort and allocation of catch quotas and temporal/spatial access to resources (FAO 2017). Reliable statistics are required to make efficient policies and plans regarding our coastal resources.
Currently, our fish stocks have been declining despite various fishery regulations and management plans. We surveyed the general public’s opinion on various climate change related topics, including the harvesting of California’s coastal resources and fishery regulations in Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los Angeles Counties in Fall of 2017.
Our Hypothesis:
- People who believe California fisheries are more abundant than 60 years ago, tend to be less knowledgeable regarding fishing regulations and management
- People who believe California fisheries are more abundant than 60 years ago, tend to have more conservative views.
Relevant Survey Questions
There were six questions included in our survey that were relevant to our analysis regarding fisheries.
Those six questions were:
RESULTS
Figure 1
Out of 1,452 respondents, 63% said we are taking too many fish, 15% said we are not taking too many fish, and 22% of surveyors were unsure.
Figure 2
Out of 1,473 respondents, 5% said that nature plays a bigger role in influencing coastal resources, 56% said that humans play a bigger role, 38% said both are influencing factors, and 2% said neither are factors.
Figure 3
Out of 1,447 respondents, 24% said that we are doing a good job managing the coast, 35% said that we are not doing a good job of managing the coast, and 41% of surveyors were unsure.
Figure 4
Out of 1,452 respondents, 14% said that CA fisheries are healthier and more abundant now than they were 60 years ago, 39% said they are not healthier now, and 47% were unsure.
Figure 5
Of 1,396 respondents, 6% said that commercial fishing is overregulated, 23% said that it’s regulated about right, 25% said that commercial fishing is under regulated, and 47% were unsure
Figure 6
Of the 205 surveyors who think that fisheries are more abundant now than 60 years ago, 53% had heard of seasonal closures, 40% had heard of size limits, 15% had heard of gear restrictions, and 27% had heard of Marine Protected Areas.
Figure 7
Of the 205 surveyors who think that fisheries are more abundant now than 60 years ago, 13% think that commercial fishing is over-regulated, 12% think that commercial fishing is regulated about right, 37% think that commercial fishing is under-regulated, and 30% of these surveyors were unsure about fishing regulations.
Figure 8
Of the 205 respondents who think that fisheries are more abundant now than 60 years ago, 11% think that nature is the biggest factor in influencing coastal resources, 41% think that humans are the biggest influence on coastal resources, 28% think that both influence coastal resources, and 0.5 think that neither are responsible.
Figure 9
Out of 530 respondents who said they were liberal, 26% said that they believe fisheries are more abundant. Out of 231 respondents who said they were conservative, 8% believe fisheries are more abundant.
INTERPRETATION
Figure 1: The majority of the population seems to understand that we are taking too many fish from the sea
Figure 2: A very small percentage of people think that nature is playing a larger role in influencing coastal resources than humans do. Almost the entire population understands that humans do have a large impact on our coastal resources whether or not they think nature plays any role.
Figure 3: While the majority of the population think are not are unsure if we are doing a good job managing our coast, more people think we are not than people who think we are.
Figure 4: Although almost half of the population was not sure if our fisheries are healthier now than they were 60 years ago, more people said they were not healthier than people who said they were.
Figure 5: Although almost half of the population is unsure whether or not our fishing regulations are over or under regulated, half the population thought it was either regulated right or under regulated meaning a very small percentage thought that our fishing regulations were over regulated.
Figure 6: Out of the 14% of people who thought that our fisheries are healthier and more abundant now than they were 60 years ago, almost all of them have heard of seasonal closures and size limits but significantly less have heard about MPA’s and gear restrictions.
Figure 7: Out of that same 14% who think our fisheries are healthier and more abundant now than they were 60 years ago, a small percentage think that fishing regulations are over regulated
Figure 8: Out of that same 14% who think our fisheries are healthier and more abundant now than they were 60 years ago, about the same amount of people who think our regulations are over regulated think that nature has a larger influence on our coastal resources than do people.
Figure 9:Out of that same 14% who think our fisheries are healthier and more abundant now than they were 60 years ago, the majority of them had more liberal views
The general public’s knowledge about fisheries is very scattered. The majority of the population does not know much about the health of our marine fisheries, but the ones that do know that they haven’t been managed well and are not in pristine health. It is clear that the or people who think that the fisheries are more abundant now than they were 60 years ago are less knowledgeable about the state of our fisheries. They are also less knowledgeable about fishing regulations and management strategies.
The Pew Survey of U.S Public Opinion concluded that political views do play a role in environmental opinions, but does not define it. They found that overall, Republicans had less trust in scientific information regarding climate change. To see if the results regarding fisheries were similar to the Pew Survey, we looked at the percentage of liberals vs. conservatives who believed that our fisheries are healthier and more abundant now than they were 60 years ago. In our results, we saw that out of the people who thought that the health and abundance of our fisheries were better, the majority of them had more liberal views. This could be because this was just a survey of coastal counties in California rather than all of the United States. This does not indicate that people who have more liberal views are less knowledgeable about our fisheries rather that political view does not influence knowledge of the California coast.
Key Takeaway :
People who believe that our fisheries are healthier and more abundant now than they were 60 years ago seem to be less knowledgeable about gear restrictions and Marine Protected areas but tend to know what size limitations and seasonal closures were. Political view does not seem to influence whether or not people understand the health and management strategies of our marine fisheries.
REFERENCES:
Blackford, Mansel. “Fishers, Fishing, and Overfishing: American Experiences in Global Perspective, 1976-2006.” Business History Review, Harvard Business School, 1 Jan. 1970,.
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). 2010. The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture.
Funk, Cary. Kennedy, Brian. “The Politics of Climate”. Pew Research Center. 4 Oct. 2016.
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). 2017). FIsheries Monitoring.
Heidbrink, Ingo. 2014. “Whaling, Fisheries and Marine Environmental History in the International Journal of Maritime History.” International Journal of Maritime History, Sage Publications.
Goodrich, Bethany. 2016. Chasing the herring spawn on Sitka Sound. Alaska Dispatch News
NOAA. 2006. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. History of the National Marine Fisheries.
Royce, William. 1985. The Historical Development of Fisheries Science and Management. Lecture.
