Tracy
Van Holt, University of Florida, tvanholt@ufl.edu
(Presenting)
A mosaic of agriculture, cattle ranching, urban areas, forest plantations, and one of the world's few temperate rainforests is home to over 500 small-scale fishers in the Valdivian region of Chile. Land cover change over the past 20 years has impacted the fishers as health of the loco shellfish (Chilean Abalone) is associated with land cover/use and roads offer greater access to markets. The changing environment highlights the contrast between the success of fisher organizations and associated fishers in garnering high prices for their products which is both socially and ecologically dependent. This study builds on the theoretical anthropological framework of the "skipper effect," which addresses why some fishers catch more fish than others, given equal knowledge, experience, and equipment. In this study, we used profit or sale price rather than catch per unit effort as a measure for success. Ecosystem characteristics such as shellfish health, ecological integrity of the seascape, road connectivity, and landscape characteristics were included in addition to traditional skipper effect measures of knowledge, experience, and material factors. We surveyed over 300 fishers in 12 fishing cooperatives in southern Chile about their success and analyzed the trade offs between social and ecological factors. This work may give insights towards integrative research on resource management in linked social-ecological systems.