Journal
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE-HUMAN AND POLICY DIMENSIONS
Volume 37, Issue -, Pages 79-91Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.01.005
Keywords
Access; Adaptability; Commercial fishing; Licenses; Gulf of Maine; Resilience
Categories
Funding
- Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions at the University of Maine
- Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
We describe how the evolution of the licensing system for commercial fisheries in Maine has progressively limited the ability of both fishers and the State to respond to changing environmental circumstances. Over the twenty-five year period from 1990 to 2014 new licenses were created at the rate of about 0.6 per year. The changes that have occurred have not been the result of a strategic policy agenda that was set to decrease fishers' access, but rather the consequence of multiple decades of policy interventions that have sought to improve the socioeconomic and ecological productivity of individual fisheries. However, the cumulative effect has limited the flexibility of individual fishers and created strong economic interests that are incompatible with shifts towards ecosystem-based management. We use this finding to contribute to the literature on resilience, with a specific focus on the relationship between adaptive management and sustainability. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available