Using Structured Decision-Making Tools With Marginalised Fishers to Promote System-Based Fisheries Management Approaches in South Africa

Abstract

Fishers, and the communities they support face a range of challenges brought on by complexity and uncertainty in their social-ecological systems (SESs). This undermines their ability to achieve sustainability whilst hampering proactive planning and decision-making. To capacitate fishers to apply risk aversion strategies at smaller scales of operation and for managers to apply inclusive management approaches such as the ecosystem approach to fisheries management (EAF), a better understanding of the relationships and interactions in marine SES must be developed. At the same time, the EAF requires the inclusion of multiple stakeholders, disciplines and objectives into decision-making processes. Previous work in the southern Cape with fishers, identified drivers of change. Building on this previous research, and using causal mapping, fishers mapped out drivers of change in an iterative process in a problem framing exercise which also highlighted hidden drivers of change and feedback loops. To explore the relative importance of key drivers of change with participants, weighted hierarchies as well as a Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) were developed. By identifying and highlighting these hidden system interactions a more integrated systems view has been facilitated, adding to the understanding of this fishery system. Drivers identified in the weighted hierarchy were consistent with those identified in the causal maps and previous research, of interest is the relative weighting attributed to these drivers. Whereas the weighted hierarchies emphasised the political dimensions, group work already indicated the range of perceptions, reflecting the considerable uncertainties in this SES. While methodologically challenging at first, the individual approach behind the BBN construction yielded a better reflection of the diversity of views and a better balance of political, economic and climate dimensions of drivers of change. We show how, by using SDMTs, the most disenfranchised community members can engage meaningfully in a structured process. As structure is crucial to management processes, the research shows that where the appropriate groundwork, capacity building and resourcing takes place, disenfranchised stakeholders can be integrated into formal management processes; fulfilling a key requirement of an EAF.