Emerging customs: Small-scale fishing practices in Aceh, Indonesia
2015
Quimby, Barbara
Off the western coast of Sumatra among the islands of Pulau Banyak, fishing is the primary occupation for the men of Haloban. They are self-described “traditional” fishers, using low-tech gear and small boats to catch fish, octopus, lobster, and other sealife in the nearby coral reefs and mangroves. Women also regularly venture out into the deep mud of the mangroves to collect clams. Their efforts to extract livelihoods and subsistence from the reefs take place in an open-access commons with few formal institutions or enforcement mechanisms to regulate resource use. While explicit regulations and customary limitations on fishing in the coral reef commons are lacking, Haloban fishers improvise some common etiquette and practices that are adaptable to the shifting context.This case study presents Haloban fishers' use of the commons as situated practices, unarticulated and embedded within a complex social–ecological system. These practices reflect fishers' understanding of, and relationship with, their environment, and may represent a nascent form of local “rules-in-use”, informing behavior without direct social mechanisms for enforcement. This paper presents research collected using ethnographic methods, including participant observation at sea. As NGOs and government agencies work to craft management plans that share use of the reefs with tourism and conservation, a better understanding of actual resource use and fishing practice may inform more nuanced, adaptable, and truly “local” community-based management.
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