Buen Hombre Presentations

Item Type Presentation

Authors Stoffle, Richard W.

Download date 14/04/2018 02:49:11

Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/292955

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Threats To Buen Hombre And

The Emergence of Solutions

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North Coast from air

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Coastal Marine Ecosystem

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Buen Hombre – a 100 years of adaptation

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Solid Families in a Fragile Environment

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Although Adapted Today, 50 years ago they dried up their only water

sources

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BH – A Traditional Community BH is a traditional community – its culture and society reflect where they live, and the environment is partially dependent on the continuation of their presence and control over this coastal ecosystem.

The people of BH have extensive ecosystem knowledge of the sea and coastal mountains.

There is a sense that the village has a territory that it owns.

The people of the village want to remain and have their children use the village in future.

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Knowledge Fishers study the sea – will often not fish just to watch the fish.

Fishers fish daily

Fishers make most of their equipment

Fishers could identify all fish and coral types in books brought to test for this knowledge

Fishers knew most of the plants in “Marine Plants of the Caribbean: A field Guide” (Littler 1989)

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Sea Weed and Shells

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Territory BH, like other old coastal villages have a clear definition of where their fishing areas begin and end.

These traditional boundaries are mutually recognized and respected among fishers from villages of equal size.

Traditional fishing boundaries are either not recognized or not respected by urban fishers

Legally, the nation-state holds title to all coastal waters out to 200 miles – no waters are owned.

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Multi-generational Attachment

The people of BH have been here 100+ years and do not want to live elsewhere.

Until recently a fisher or farmer could expect their children to following in the same profession in the same village.

Some people do leave and must leave.

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Environmental Adaptations Some things are not caught in the sea

Gravid females

Undersized fish

Some things are not done on the land

Removal of mangrove

Charcoal production on steep slopes

Village Organizations – regulate behavior

The Breathing Village

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Village Organization as Adaptation

Developmental cycle in the fishermen association

Novice

Apprentice

Expert

Beached

Association can regulate fishing behavior because it controls sales [ice]

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Fishermen Association

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The Breathing Village As Adaptation

Climate – varies in regular cycles Wet years good crops, water for animals and people come home or remain home

Dry years poor crops, no water for animals or people, and as much as ¾ of village population leaves to live temporarily with relatives elsewhere.

Episodic Events – like hurricanes blow down some types of homes but not waddle and daub ones. People may leave for relatives until the home is rebuilt

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Other Places To Go

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Threats To Traditional Adaptation

Sea Harvesters from outside

Climate change

Outside Relatives

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Sea Harvesters Urban business sponsored

Conducted by young men, most of whom cannot swim much less have been initiated into a Fisherman Association

Use illegal fishing gear Drags the bottom killing coral and grass

Kills the little fish – by catch

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Sea Harvesters: Men and Boys Caught in The Act

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Climate Change Although the Breathing Village provides an adaptation when drought is a year to two, longer periods also threaten the interior villages who lose the capacity to absorb outside family members.

Wells in neighboring villages go dry and they begin to lose crops, thus breaking the adaptive exchange relationships between them and the people of BH

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Outside Relatives The breathing village requires members of each family or extended family to go away. They can do this by being simple lone migrants to somewhere else and sitting up their own households or they can marry out into other already established households

Outsider relatives are expected to stay away, but recently some have come to BH set up large homes, and begun to fish. These people use equipment like large power boats and diving tanks are taking the big fish – brood stock

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How Do You Control Uncle?

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Solutions – Reducing Threats The people of BH partnered with external scientists to document the strengths of their traditional adaptations

They eventually were recognized by the government as being the best managers of their coral reef system and given the legal right to confiscate illegal fishing gear.

The forest threats from farmers intruding from the crest of the mountains were dampened by this recognition and increased social/political status of the village.

National and international eco groups began to support the role of BH in preservation

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Partnership Beginnings

Smithsonian Institution’s Marine Systems Laboratory – Making the Blue Revolution

Follow-up Analysis and laying the foundation for future studies

NASA – Climate change studies

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Blue Revolution US AID sponsored effort to conduct the R&D stage of assessing algae growth cages in the coral reefs. Algae would be fed to some marine animal and a valuable product would be produced – Mariculture (Aquaculture in the Sea).

Various species considered, but in DR it was a Mithrax crab [like a King Crab]

BH was chosen as a site based on ecology alone – MSL did not know there was a neighboring village even though adoption was a necessary step

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Family of Head of Fishermen Association – Picking Mithrax Crab

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Close-up of Mithrax Crab

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Blue Revolution 2 Who Will Control the BR

U of Michigan SSA study – funded because local people at the R&D site in Turks & Caicos failed to adopt technology.

Social Soundness Analysis (US AID term for Social Impact Assessment. Was focused on two existing R&D sites in Antiqua and DR. Other sites like one in Grenada were not far enough along to be studied.

#1 Basic Question Poised By the SSA – “Who are the best adopters – fishers or farmers?”

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Blue Revolution 3 A Better Mouse Trap

#2 Basic Question – Why was the T&C experiment not adopted by locals.

MSL argued that it was because they were fishers not farmers – and everyone knows that fishers are hunters of the sea.

MSL assumption was that the mariculture technology was so right that people would beat a path to their door because they “invented a better mouse trap.”

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MSL Main Boat

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Algal Screens in Sea and Being Scientifically Studied

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Findings of SSA Fishers in both sites already keep sea animals in cages and regularly feed them.

Fishers are not hunters – but instead know about the sea and view themselves as protectors of the sea.

Fishers go daily to the sea – thus can be relied on to regularly tend algae screens and grow-out cages

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Findings About MLS Problems Spend too much time on boats, when should have set up R&D and demonstration sites on the land next to the potential adopters.

Did not believe the people knew much about either the crab or the sea, when evidence was local fishers were experts in both.

Lacked a social cultural strategy for incorporating local people and regional marketers into the mariculture. No parallel human science to go with the crab/algae science.

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General Problems with MSL Process

Failure to recognize issues of local and even national sovereignty

Failure to understand history and structure of subsistence fishing.

Failure to understand implications of “occupational multiplicity.”

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Sovereignty The West Indies were created by Europeans nations to serve as their tropical kitchen gardens.

Thousands of East Indies plants and hundreds of thousands of un-free laborers were forcibly brought to these gardens.

This society carved no meaningful social space for the people, so they made a counter culture, society, and language where they could be powerful and valued (Wilson 1973).

Thus few issues are more important to the people of the West Indies than sovereignty – the power to decide for themselves what should be done with themselves and their ecosystems.

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Subsistence Fishing Most outside studies of West Indian economies have focused on cash-labor exchanges related to plantations. It has even been suggested as the “name” for the cultural area “Plantation America”

Mintz (1956) found that subsistence activities like fish were valuable in terms of providing meals, ceremonial obligations, as a means of personal fulfillment, and a way to provide meaning and motivation in the cultural life of the people.

Small-scale or in-shore fishers were initially established as escaped slaves who were allowed to persist because they provided needed protein to the plantation slaves.

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Occupational Multiplicity A term coined by Lambros Comitas (1973) but observed by many scholars as the pattern of always having multiple occupations engaged at one time so that if one were to fail, others would be there for support. Viewed by some economists as inefficient, it is viewed by others as a smart adaptation to a world that is in constant flux and beyond the control of the average person.

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So What Happened to the Mariculture?

The Blue Revolution was sold too soon. MLS staff was stolen away by the world

MLS staff spent much too much time fixing and protecting the study boats

MLS staff was not given sufficient time to work out the thousand and one R&D details needed to actually have a successful demonstration project.

The DR demonstration project – the most advanced one – was stolen by the US Peace Corps and US AID because neither has such a high visibility success in the region much less the DR

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What Happened 2 When the DR project “failed” its failure was blamed on the technology itself and the local people. The former would not work and the latter didn’t understand it according to this story.

An after the fact study, funded by the Population-Environment Dynamics project at the UofM permitted two sets of revisits to BH and interviews with all involved parties. When this was completed a new story emerged.

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What Happened 3 Because the mariculture appeared to be succeeding, the MLS was removed from the project taking all of the outside science, expertise, and experience with them.

Instead, US AID and Peace Corps took over the project. Unfortunately just wanting a positive development project was not enough. Soon there were no outsiders attached to the project.

So the DR government sent an agriculture extension agent to “run.” the mariculture project.

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A Senior Fisherman – One of Those

Who Kept the Project Going

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What Happened 4 The DR agricultural agent liked living on the former MLS boat and the fishermen of BH continued to operate the project without funds or guidance.

All went ok until the agent decided to take the project – screens, cages, and his boat out to the sea-ward side of the second reef. He did so over the warning of the fishers.

A storm came up and destroyed the project.

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Signs of Failure – But Who’s

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NASA and A New Partnership

Interest in Global Climate change and coral reef bleaching stimulated the funding of a large scale, interdisciplinary study to understand the relationships between coral reef change and local preservation actions.

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Two years of extensive studies involving:

Cultural anthropology

Soil and plant science

Climatology

Marine biology

Coastal Ecology

Demography

Remote Sensing and Analysis

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Studying Together

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Sea Harvesters: Scientifically Studied and GIS Marked

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Ethnographic Studies

Being GPS-ed

Being Dove

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Team Work Soil Science

Marine Ecology

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Team Work 2

Climate

GIS

Fish

Ecology

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Team Work 3 Head of Woman’s

Association

Wife, Fisher,

Farmer, Mother

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Findings Change images demonstrated that portions of the coral reefs near BH had bleached over a 5 year period.

Bleaching was directly associated with Ocean harvesting by urban teams using illegal gear.

Tourist related activities

The coral reefs remained the same where local fishers were able to prevent intrustion by others

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Changes to East of BH

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Changes In Front of Hotel

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Solution The DR government was informed of the findings and asked for mediated meetings with local fishers.

A DR-based eco group served as facilitator and eventual proponent of co-management

Anthropologists and marine biologists centered the discussion on large remote images that documented the changes.

The argument was made for local BH fishers and their organization being managers of their specific marine territory.

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Solution 2

DR government gave local fishers the right to identify illegal fishing, confiscate illegal gear, and take illegal fishers to DR coast guard station.

BH fishers and community was held up nationally and internationally as a positive example of a successful local conservation effort.

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Not Solved Tourists continue to move farther and farther away from the hotel looking for pristine places to swim.

Industrial fishers from China and elsewhere move even closer into DR waters

Outside family members remain too powerful to be controlled by BH fishermen association or the village itself.

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References Comitas. Lambros 1973. Occupational Multiplicity in Rural Jamaica. In Work and Family Life: West Indian Perspectives. L. Comitas and D. Lowenthal (eds.) Pp. 157-174.

Littler, D. S. et al. 1989. Marine Plants of the Caribbean: A field guide from Florida to Brazil. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Rubino, M. and R. Stoffle 1990. Who Will Control the Blue Revolution? Economic and Social Feasibility of Caribbean Crab Mariculture. Human Organization 49(4): 386-394.

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References 2 Stoffle, R. 1986. Caribbean Fishermen Farmers: A Social Assessment of Smithsonian King Crab Mariculture. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.

Stoffle, R., D. Halmo, and B. Stoffle 1991. Inappropriate Management of an Appropriate Technology: A Restudy of Mithrax crab Mariculture in the Dominican Republic. In Poggie, J. and R. Pollnac (eds. ) Small-Scale Fishery Development: Sociocultural Perspectives. Kingston, RI: International Center for Marine Resource Development, University of Rhode Island.

Stoffle, R., D. Halmo, B. Stoffle, A. Williams, G. Burpee 1993. An Ecosystem Approach to the Study of Coastal Areas: A Case Study from the Dominican Republic. In G. Ness, W. Drake, and S. Brechin (eds.) Population-Environment Dynamics: Ideas and Observations. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

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References 3 Stoffle, R., D. Halmo, T. Wagner, and J. Luczkovich 1994. Reefs from Space: Satellite Imagery, Marine Ecology, and Ethnography in the Dominican Republic. Human Ecology 22(3): 355-378.