Small Scale Fisheries Analysis in A Sustainable Development Perspective

An international symposium devoted to Research and small-scale fisheries (Durand, Lemoalle, Weber, 1991) in Montpellier (France) in 1989 came from increasing evidence that “the complexity of small scale fisheries calls for applying knowledge from many fields in combined studies that can take advantage of a whole range of information”. Has this assessment changed twenty years later? The references to sustainable development and to socio and bio-ecological diversities have highlighted the relationships between small-scale fisheries and natural, economic, social, cultural, and institutional aspects. In this paper we exemplify such interactions in different small-scale fisheries contexts in relation with poverty and food security issues. We question the consequences of different types of fleet dynamics in terms of adaptability, vulnerability and resilience of harvested ecosystems, and the impacts of the regulation systems on fishing communities. More generally, we question the paradigm of sustainable self-regulated small-scale fisheries. Finally, with references to several worldwide case studies and ecosystems we provide a description of the diversity of small scale fisheries, of the frameworks used to represent them, and of associated sets of relevant indicators used in monitoring and management programs. This presentation may be a first step toward a revisited pluri-disciplinary research framework for small-scale fisheries. This could be based on a research network built in order to produce and mobilize knowledge from a more comprehensive set of small-scale fisheries case studies.