Abstract
The Galician small-scale fisheries sector has been experiencing important changes. The presence of a wide range of ecological, economic, social and institutional drivers have forced the statu quo toward new transitions with the potential to generate desirable transformative changes. Sustainability transformations mean that changes fundamentally alter the entire system’s ecological and/or social properties and functions. However, there is a limited understanding of how a transformative change may look in small-scale fisheries, when and by whom it can be triggered, supported, and implemented. To cover this research gap, the objectives of this paper are twofold: to document the current state of the art of Galician small-scale fisheries, and to evaluate the innovations and changes that occurred between 1990 and 2020, to explore whether such changes have scaled-up as seeds of desirable transformative changes and, if not, what obstacles and/or barriers have been identified in the scientific literature. We selected two cases, the Galician shellfisheries and the Marine Protected Area of Fishing Interest Os Miñarzos, to understand when and how profound changes in small-scale fisheries took place. We hypothesize that obstacles for building resilience to consolidate transformative changes once triggered are the still moderate effectiveness of the fisheries management systems, the low progress of incorporation of scientific and traditional knowledge into decision-making processes and policy arenas, the lack of studies about socio-economic contribution to coastal communities and commercialization models, and the presence of persistent ecological and economic drivers hindering desirable transformative changes.
Highlights
Hundreds of millions of people obtain key nutrients and livelihoods from small-scale fisheries (SSF), many of which are fully exploited or overexploited (Selig et al, 2017)
Based on the systematic literature review conducted in this research, our results showed that the main fisheries management systems studied in Galician SSF during the last three decades are -in this order of importance- co-management systems (Freire and García-Allut, 2000; Freire, 2004; Fernández-Boán et al, 2013; Casal et al, 2020; Garza-Gil et al, 2020), total allowable catches (TAC) for those species under the Common Fisheries Policy of the European Union, inputs-effort-outputs for the coastal fleet (Villasante, 2009), the development of a new Marine Reserve of Fishing
In Galician SSF we found that a wide range of actors have been involved in the development of SSF, namely -in this ordership-owners, skippers, fishers, women working on shellfisheries and other roles related to the fishing sector (Otero et al, 2005; Pita et al, 2018), the regional administration, with particular emphasis of the role of technical assistants, managers, and other staff from the Xunta de Galicia (Macho et al, 2013), and local institutions such as fishing guilds or cofradías (Pascual-Fernández et al, 2020; Table 3)
Summary
Hundreds of millions of people obtain key nutrients and livelihoods from small-scale fisheries (SSF), many of which are fully exploited or overexploited (Selig et al, 2017). Sustainability Transformations of Galician SSF (Villasante and Sumaila, 2010), individual transferable quotas (Chu, 2009), vessel and gear restrictions (Selgrath et al, 2019), as well as ad hoc public institutions for enforcement and research (Gelcich et al, 2019). Such efforts and regulations have not always been successful in achieving their objectives (Selig et al, 2017). Worldwide, SSF shares basic tenets including their embeddedness in coastal fishing communities, the multiplicity of targeted species and fishing gears, and a set of common problems and threats (Jentoft, 2020)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
