Rethinking Marine Resource Management and the Livelihoods of Artisanal Fishers

Abstract

There are many initiatives, programs and projects based on fishing resource management and improvement of fishing communities. Indeed, all are trying to introduce new forms of fishing as way of improving the marine industry. Nonetheless, there are many things that are either missing or misrepresented in explaining marine resources, especially fishing industry management and subsequent artisanal fishermen’s livelihoods. Because such programs are incompatible and inapplicable, instead of conserving the ocean, they have implications for lives of artisanal fishers and their communities, as the activities displace them so as to access and use the ocean. The study was conducted through qualitative research approach, guided by in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, observation, and documentary review. The participants were artisanal fishers, their leaders and some government officials. The study employing the Harvey’s concept of accumulation by dispossession as a new form of accumulation in the neoliberal era to understand implications of programs, projects, and policies of marine and/or fishing management including the way they dispose as well as provide abysmal poverty to artisanal fishermen.