Socialscape Ecology: Integrating social factors into spatially-explicit marine conservation planning

Conservation planning is the process of locating, configuring, implementing and maintaining areas that are managed to promote the persistence of biodiversity. In this review, we analyze the ways in which social processes have been integrated into Marxan, a spatially explicit reserve design planning tool. Drawing on 89 peer-reviewed articles published 2005-2020, we analyze the ways in which human activity, values, and processes are spatialized in the environment; something we call socialscape ecology. To quantify this, we used nine categories including three count categories (social costs, targets, and parameters) and six rank categories (reliance on proxies versus direct observation, integration of temporal change, inclusion of sea tenure, analysis across scale, provisioning analysis, and stakeholder participation). We show that remarkably little change occurred over time across eight of the nine categories. One exception to this was an increase in number of studies that integrated temporal variation in their analysis. Ultimately, we argue that greater attention to and integration of social processes and variables into Marxan will improve marine managers’ understanding of not only the ecological but also the social, cultural and political processes that influence the social and ecological success of marine conservation efforts.

The Mediterranean culture of fishing: Continuity and change in the world of Jewish fishermen, 1500–1929

This essay discusses the maritime Jews and their changing role in the fishing occupation in the Mediterranean sea. The first part presents the trends in historiography regarding the Thessalonikian Jewish fishermen in Ottoman and Post Ottoman periods. The second section explores the maritime world of Jewish fishermen in Ottoman Thessaloniki between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries. We will establish the cultural identity of the Jewish fishermen, which expressed itself in Thermaikos Bay. The third part depicts the reasons for the collapse of the Jewish sea tenure in Greek Thessaloniki, especially between the years 1922-1924, and continues to describe one of the responses; the settlement of several fishing families in Acre (in Mandatory Palestine). Their experience in the new environment was short (1925-1929) and we will investigate the linkage between their cultural marginality in the core society to the failure of forming a Jewish maritime community in Acre.

SEKE DAN IKAN MALALUGIS di Desa Bebalang, Kabupaten Kepulauan Sangihe, Sulawesi Utara

Coastal society is a group of indigenous people or local people who reside or live in coastal regions and have particular custom in managing its surroundings/row generation to generation. The people manage their coastal resource traditionally and locally; their social structure and activities are still simple. The people have their local wisdom, namely Hak Ulayat Laut, which can conceptually be translated into sea tenure. Hak Ulayat Laut is a form of communal marine resource management. The traditional local wisdom can be manifested in social values, custom norms, ethics, system of belief, traditional site planning, as well as tools and environment-friendly simple technology. The fishing community of Bebalang Village, Sangihe Islands Regency, is a group of indigenous people who have their local wisdom in maintaining and using marine resource. The local wisdom is manifested in a traditional institution which manages the usage of the available natural resources. In the institution there are a number of rules concerning the usage of marine resource as well as the applicable technology and territorial-operating borders. Besides that, the people of Bebalang Village uphold the law regulating the catching of malalugis, a species of kite fish. They catch malalugis by using seke, bamboo-woven traps. The traps appear like bubu, but they have bigger sizes.

Integrating indigenous ecological knowledge and customary sea tenure with marine and social science for conservation of bumphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum) in the Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands

Indigenous ecological knowledge and customary sea tenure may be integrated with marine and social science to conserve the bumphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum) in the Roviana Lagoon, Western Solomon Islands. Three aspects of indigenous ecological knowledge in Roviana were identified as most relevant for the management and conservation of bumphead parrotfish, and studied through a combination of marine science and anthropological methods. These were (1) local claims that fishing pressure has had a significant impact on bumphead parrotfish populations in the Roviana Lagoon; (2) the claim that only small bumphead parrotfish were ever seen or captured in the inner lagoon and that very small fish were restricted to specific shallow inner-lagoon nursery regions; and (3) assertions made by local divers that bumphead parrotfish predominantly aggregated at night around the new moon period and that catches were highest at that time. The research supported claims (1) and (2), but did not support proposition (3). Although the people of the Roviana Lagoon had similar conceptions about their entitlement rights to sea space, there were marked differences among regional villages in their opinions regarding governance and actual operational rules of management in the Lagoon. Contemporary differences in management strategies resulted from people's historical and spatial patterns of settlement across the landscape and adjoining seascapes, and the attendant impact of these patterns on property relations. This was crucial in distinguishing between those villages that held secure tenure over their contiguous sea estates from those that did not. Indigenous ecological knowledge served to (1) verify that the bumphead parrotfish was a species in urgent need of protection; (2) explain how different habitats structured the size distribution of bumphead parrotfish; (3) identify sensitive locations and habitats in need of protection; and (4) explain the effect of lunar periodicity on bumphead parrotfish behaviour and catch rates. Secure customary sea tenure identified locations best suited to bumphead parrotfish management programmes, with a greater likelihood for local participation and programme success. The information was used to establish two marine protected areas in the region for bumphead parrotfish conservation.