Abstract
The importance of local knowledge as a relevant information resource for ecosystem conditions has recently been the focus of sustainable ecosystem management. However, the accuracy of economic evaluation based on local knowledge regarding ecosystems has not yet been discussed, despite most activities in human society, including ecological conservation, being monetarily mediated. This study reports the correspondence between the economic value estimated by the fisher community and the analyzed environmental factors in the marine areas sectioned for oyster farming in Japan. At the study site, community-agreed usage fees for the area sections showed a gradient from the inner to the outer part of the bay. Our numerical modeling showed that the gradient of the economic value correlated with oyster feeding efficiency, indicating that a better location for feeding was empirically evaluated at a high price by the local fisher community. This suggests that the economic evaluation based on the local knowledge was biologically reasonable and could be a reliable information source for the aim of the area use in the study site.
Highlights
The sustainability of fisheries production has become an important subject worldwide (Eigaard et al, 2014)
As most human activities are mediated by money, it is important to determine how accurate those living in a particular location recognize the economic value of that ecosystem when it is utilized for any industry
Is the economic evaluation by local knowledge scientifically reliable? We focused on oyster farming as an ideal research target to answer this question
Summary
The sustainability of fisheries production has become an important subject worldwide (Eigaard et al, 2014). Few studies have discussed the link between recognized economic value based on local knowledge and actual ecosystem quality. The easiest value that the local ecosystem user can recognize is a consumptive value by the direct use of an ecosystem In fisheries, this might be affected by the number of fish produced from the target ecosystem (Guerra et al, 2017). The economic value of oyster production in this farming style is considered as the direct use value of the consumptive use of the target ecosystem resources. We believed oyster farming would be a good target to determine the validity of the empirical economic evaluation based on local knowledge of successful fisheries management. We researched the link between the value of the marine sections recognized in the target community and the ecosystem conditions in oyster farming in a village in Japan. This case study reports that the fishers’ local knowledge can be a source of reliable information for understanding an ecosystem in terms of fisheries management
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