Abstract
We report on a rapid and practical method to assess social dimensions of performance in small-scale and industrial fisheries globally (Social Wellbeing in Fisheries Tool (SWIFT)). SWIFT incorporates aspects of security (fairness and stability of earnings, benefits of employment to local fishing communities, worker protection, and personal safety and health in communities associated with fisheries); flexibility (including opportunity for economic advancement); and the fishery’s social viability (including whether the fishery is recruiting new harvesters and diverse age classes of workers, whether women’s participation and leadership in global production networks are on an upward trajectory.). We build on resilience research by conceptualizing wellbeing in terms of security, flexibility, and viability, and assessing wellbeing at individual, community, and system levels. SWIFT makes social performance measures more broadly accessible to global production networks, incorporates an everyday understanding of wellbeing for people involved in the seafood industry, and helps put social sustainability into measurable terms that are relevant for businesses.
Highlights
As trends toward fair trade and corporate social responsibility (CSR) continue in many areas of food production, seafood consumers and organizations promoting ecological sustainability have shown growing interest in social wellbeing within global seafood production networks [1,2,3,4]
In the seafood industry, increasing attention has been paid to human rights frameworks in relation to global production networks in the academic literature [7,8], seafood trade conferences [9,10], and industry-led initiatives [2]
The rapid method we propose, Social Wellbeing in Fisheries Tool (SWIFT), uses criteria that are appropriate for both industrial and small-scale fisheries
Summary
As trends toward fair trade and corporate social responsibility (CSR) continue in many areas of food production, seafood consumers and organizations promoting ecological sustainability have shown growing interest in social wellbeing within global seafood production networks [1,2,3,4]. Seafood industry firms need tools to understand and help improve the everyday wellbeing of people working in their global production networks, and consider their future prospects. Researchers engaged in social assessment work as a way to understand how and why individual and community wellbeing was declining in historically-strong small-scale fishing regions [12,13], and to meet the needs of a wider movement toward ecosystem-based management approaches that integrate people into the fishery systems concept [14]. It is argued that social-ecological systems that effectively sustain human wellbeing are better prepared to adapt and transform in response to change [19]
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