Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Endangered Whales Still Get Tangled In Fishing Gear: Let’S Change The Way We Approach The Problem, Tora Johnson

Maine Policy Review

The Gulf of Maine lobster industry has been roiled by conflict over whale entanglement for decades. With fewer than 350 North Atlantic right whales remaining, federal regulators are again seeking to implement new measures to protect them from tangling in fishing gear, while the lobster industry faces myriad challenges. My 2005 book Entanglements examined the complex and fraught debate between whale advocates and fishermen. Each side believed the other was inherently evil, greedy, and unduly powerful. Of course, the truth lay somewhere between. Between them were the brave souls who went to sea to wrestle fishing gear off of entangled …

What Gives Me Hope, Heather M. Leslie

Maine Policy Review

The commentary focuses on the author's experiences over the last several years in Maine where she has conducted research, mentored students, and collaboratde with diverse community partners on a number of projects focused on shellfish fisheries co-management and other community-led resilience projects in coastal Maine.

Including The Human Dimension Into Resilience Planning For Maine’S Lobster Fishery, Katherine Maltby, Katherine E. Mills

Maine Policy Review

The American lobster fishery is one of the most valuable in the US but is being affected by climate-driven shifts in lobster availability, impacting people’s ability to harvest the resource and sparking broader adaptation challenges. Since the late 1990s, lobster landings in the Gulf of Maine (GOM) have climbed to record levels while those in Southern New England (SNE) have experienced significant declines. The experiences of SNE lobstermen during these declines can offer important lessons for both individual lobstermen and communities in the GOM, where lobster abundance is currently at high levels but facing future uncertainty given continuing climate trends. …

Using Photovoice To Navigate Social-Ecological Change In Coastal Maine: A Case Study On Visibility, Visuality, And Visual Literacy, Kevin P. Duffy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Media representations of the environment support specific cultures of viewing that can create expectations about how to observe social-ecological interactions in everyday life. While public perceptions may appear, in some cases, to reflect these normative representations, more critical and participatory approaches to environmental research and management have begun to complicate these representations as they are negotiated through intrapersonal, interpersonal, and group communication. Working from a visual cultural approach that interrogates issues of visibility, visuality, and visual literacy, this dissertation theorizes how coastal residents represent their own observations and experiences of environmental change through photography and what impact their views have …

Integrating Local Ecology And Human Dimensions To Understand A Tidally Dynamic Ecosystem In Downeast Maine, Gabriella Marafino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Coastal community resilience requires connecting people with useful information that reflects their needs and interests and empowers them to make informed marine resource decisions. In this thesis, I explore how to effectively integrate disparate data from different disciplines and sources to make information more useful and usable at federal, state, tribal, and local levels in order to support more holistic and integrated management. To accomplish this, I draw on different types of knowledge and approaches, including Western science, local ecological knowledge, traditional ecological knowledge, and citizen science, to incorporate the social perspective and community values for holistic marine resource management. …

From Wilderness To Timberland To Vacationland To Ecosystem: Maine’S Forests, 1820–2020, Lloyd C. Irland

Maine Policy Review

The 200 years since Maine statehood span a series of changing metaphors used by people to understand the forest and its values: the forest as wilderness, as timberland, as vacationland, and as ecosystem. These metaphors have succeeded each other over time, but broadly speaking, they all persist to one degree or another. These ways of viewing and using the forest can conflict or can come to uneasy truces, but new developments can revive the tensions. Public policy is always well behind the shifting needs as timberland comes to be seen as vacationland and vacationland as ecosystem. Further, conflicts between different …

Social-Ecological Heterogeneity Shapes Resilience Of Small-Scale Fisheries: An Interdisciplinary Analysis Of The Mexican Chocolate Clam Fishery In Loreto, Mexico, Kara E. Pellowe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

All benefits provided by natural systems are embedded within coupled social-ecological systems (SESs). Fisheries are clear examples of SESs: through fishing, humans affect ecosystem structure and functioning, and in turn, receive benefits, including sustenance, employment, and cultural value. Resilience, the ability to maintain structure and function in the face of change, is key to sustaining the social and ecological components of fisheries-related SESs and their interactions. Many factors contribute to resilience, including heterogeneity. By identifying heterogeneity in these complex systems, we are better able to understand the capacity of fishery-related SESs to adapt to change, and contribute to management that …

Battle Over Black Bears: Investigating Perceptions Of The Black Bear Hunting Referendums In Maine, Francesca A. Gundrum

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Human dimensions of wildlife is an emerging discipline that seeks to understand the complex relationships between people, wildlife, and their conflicts and/or interactions (Decker, Riley, & Siemer, 2012). Human dimensions utilizes several tested theoretical frameworks to investigate these complexities, such as cognitive hierarchy theory and wildlife value orientations (WVOs). Both of these theoretical frameworks were examined in this study, which investigated the content of news media during controversial American black bear (Ursus americanus) hunting referenda in Maine, and key stakeholder perceptions of black bear management. Maine is the only state that allows hunters to take a black bear over bait, …

Navigating Wilderness And Borderland: Environment And Culture In The Northeastern Americas During The American Revolution, Daniel S. Soucier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the evolving interactions of nature and humans during the major military campaigns in the northern theatre of the American War for Independence (1775 – 1783) as local people, local environments, and military personnel from outside the region interacted with one another in complex ways. Examining the American Revolution at the convergence of environmental, military, and borderlands history, it elucidates the agency of nature and culture in shaping how three military campaigns in the “wilderness” unfolded. The invasion of Canada in 1775, the expedition from Quebec to Albany in 1777, and the invasion of Iroquoia in 1779 are …

Marine Research In Focus: Counteracting The ‘Myth Of Dry Feet’ In Dutch Planning For Flood Defense, Kristen Grant

Maine Sea Grant Publications

Coastal residents and towns need strategies to address climate change and its effects on sea-level rise, shoreline erosion, and coastal flooding. Extreme weather events can cause millions of dollars in damage and threaten coastal ecosystems and local economies. The Building a Resilient Coast project seeks to provide stakeholders with easy access to information to facilitate planning for climate and hazards impacts.

Envisioning Recovery: A Social-Ecological Systems Analysis Of Maine’S Co-Managed Sea Urchin Fishery, Kimberly L. Ovitz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Maine’s sea urchin resource has provided a critical source of income and cultural value to resource harvesters across the state, yet in the absence of adequate governance mechanisms, the urchin resource quickly succumbed to overharvest and persisting stock decline. Following collapse, the urchin fishery transitioned to an advisory co-management system characterized by increased collaboration between urchin harvesters and resource managers. As collaborative dialogue and decision-making continue, fishery participants are collectively envisioning a more sustainable future for this important natural resource.

This master’s thesis explores Maine’s urchin fishery as a complex and coupled social-ecological system (SES) and documents harvester and scientist …

Public Shoreline Access In Maine: A Citizen’S Guide To Coastal And Ocean Law, John Duff, Liana James, Victoria Labate

Maine Sea Grant Publications

Getting to coastal waters in Maine can sometimes be a challenge, for despite the state’s 5,400 miles of mainland and island shoreline, only about 12% is in public ownership. Yet the public does have longstanding, although limited, rights to support traditional coastal uses along privately owned shoreline. In addition to the rights to “fish, fowl, and navigate,” members of the public have a variety of other means to secure access to shoreline areas and ocean waters. With more people attracted to Maine’s coastline for a variety of uses, it is important to understand the range of access rights that accommodate …

Role Of Dignity In Rural Natural Resource Governance, Tora Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dignity is “an internal state of peace that comes with the recognition and acceptance of the value and vulnerability of all living things” (Hicks, 2011, p. 1). Dignity is a crucial element in effective governance arrangements. This study applies dignity theory, and related theories of natural resource governance and environmental communication, to understand and overcome barriers to effective governance of common pool resources in rural communities. Chapter 1 reviews relevant literature on natural resource governance and develops a theoretical framework for dignity. Chapter 2 applies dignity theory to a contentious comprehensive planning process in a small Maine town in order …

Mobility In The Mangroves: Catch Rates, Daily Decisions, And Dynamics Of Artisanal Fishing In A Coastal Commons, Christine M. Beitl

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

This paper integrates institutional theories of the commons with insights from geography and human behavioral ecology to explore the spatial and temporal dynamics of artisanal fishing in Ecuador’s coastal mangrove swamps. The focus is on the cockle fishery commons characterized by a mixture of formal institutional arrangements and an informal division of fishing space that partially influences fisher decisions about where and when to fish. Individual decisions are further explained to a certain degree by the patch choice model since fishers often move on to new grounds when their catch rates fall below average. These optimizing strategies requiring rotation within …

Navigating Over Space And Time: Fishing Effort Allocation And The Development Of Customary Norms In An Open-Access Mangrove Estuary In Ecuador, Christine M. Beitl

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Fisheries are increasingly understood as complex adaptive systems; but the cultural, behavioral, and cognitive factors that explain spatial and temporal dynamics of fishing effort allocation remain poorly understood. Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a visualization tool, this paper combines catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) and ethnographic data about the Ecuadorian mangrove cockle fishery to explore patterns in fishing effort and the social production of fishing space. I argue that individual decisions about where, when, and how to fish result in spatial and temporal patterns in effort allocation, ultimately regulating open-access fisheries that typically operate on a first-come, first-serve basis. These emergent patterns …

The Complementary Niches Of Anthropocentric And Biocentric Conservationists, Malcolm L. Hunter Jr., Kent H. Redford, David Lindenmayer

Publications

A divergence of values has become apparent in recent debates between conservationists who focus on ecosystem services that can improve human well-being and those who focus on avoiding the extinction of species. These divergent points of view fall along a continuum from anthropocentric to biocentric values, but most conservationists are relatively closer to each other than to the ends of the spectrum. We have some concerns with both positions but emphasize that conservation for both people and all other species will be most effective if conservationists focus on articulating the values they all share, being respectful of divergent values, and …

Adding Environment To The Collective Action Problem: Individuals, Civil Society, And The Mangrove-Fishery Commons In Ecuador, Christine M. Beitl

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Research on the commons suggests a more robust understanding of human-resource interactions is needed to strengthen theories about collective action and sustainable governance. I combine ethnographic and fishery data to explore how resource characteristics and institutions influence people’s behavior toward common pool resources in coastal Ecuador. This comparative study of the commons at two levels (mangroves and the cockle fishery) highlights how trust, communication, and social obligation depend on social histories of resource systems and types of collective action problems, largely explaining why local institutions encourage individuals to uphold mangrove forest conservation but have little effect on cooperation in fisheries.

Shifting Policies, Access, And The Tragedy Of Enclosures In Ecuadorian Mangrove Fisheries: Towards A Political Ecology Of The Commons, Christine M. Beitl

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

After decades of mangrove deforestation for the development of shrimp farming, the Ecuadorian state began to officially recognize the ancestral rights of traditional users of coastal mangrove resources in the late 1990s. This article traces the trajectory of coastal policy change and the transformation of mangrove tenure regimes from an implicit preference for shrimp aquaculture to a focus on conservation and sustainable development with greater community participation through the establishment of community-managed mangrove areas called custodias. I argue that while the custodias have empowered local communities in their struggle to defend their livelihoods and environment against the marginalizing forces of …

Cockles In Custody: The Role Of Common Property Arrangements In The Ecological Sustainability Of Mangrove Fisheries On The Ecuadorian Coast, Christine M. Beitl

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Scholars of common property resource theory (CPR) have long asserted that certain kinds of institutional arrangements based on collective action result in successful environmental stewardship, but feedback and the direct link between social and ecological systems remains poorly understood. This paper investigates how common property institutional arrangements contribute to sustainable mangrove fisheries in coastal Ecuador, focusing on the fishery for the mangrove cockle (Anadara tuberculosa and A. similis), a bivalve mollusk harvested from the roots of mangrove trees and of particular social, economic, and cultural importance for the communities that depend on it. Specifically, this study examines the emergence of …

The Maine Woods: A Legacy Of Controversy, Richard W. Judd

Maine Policy Review

In the Margaret Chase Smith Essay, Richard Judd reflects on the history of Maine’s North Woods. He discusses the divergent interests with a stake on the North Woods over the centuries, but notes that there has been a long-standing interest in conservation and in the heritage represented by this vast region.

People In Nature: Environmental History Of The Kennebec River, Maine, Daniel J. Michor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The quality of a river affects the tributaries, lakes, and estuary it feeds; it affects the wildlife and vegetation that depend on the river for energy, nutrients, and habitat, and also affects the human community in the form of use, access, pride, and sustainability. In an age of mass consumerism and materialism, dwindling natural resources and wild spaces, and advanced technology, the ability to make a living and at the same time enjoy the benefits of rural living is increasingly difficult. Using the entire Kennebec River watershed as the scale of investigation with particular focus on the river corridor itself, …

Dickey-Lincoln School Lakes Project Environmental Impact Statement: Appendix C: Social And Economic Assessment, Edward C. Jordan, Roger Creighton

Dickey-Lincoln School Lakes Project

The purpose of this assessment of the social and economic impact of implementing the Dickey-Lincoln School Lakes Project, therefore, is not to flatly predict impacts. Rather, the intent is to provide information and judgments which can help people recognize the potential for changes and take appropriate steps to prepare for, accommodate, and adjust to those changes. Thus we hope that this report's success will be measured by how well it provides information with which local citizens and all others involved in this project can proceed with their planning and decision-making processes.

[Letter From New England Regional Director To Division Engineer, New England Division, U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers], U.S. Fish And Wildlife Service

Dickey-Lincoln School Lakes Project

The results of appraisals conducted jointly by this Service, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, and your agency concerning bald eagle, osprey, peregrine falcon, and great blue heron.