Principal objective and sub-goals
This project aims to map out the effects that environmental insecurity and degradation has on poverty and food security and vice versa. We question how poverty can be alleviated while also maintaining a healthy eco-system and we will study how fishers in poor communities cope individually and collectively with maintaining sustainable livelihoods through periods of resource crisis. A particular focus will be on the institutions that exist at various levels and a particular focus will be on those that enable collective action. Especially we will investigate their capacity for poverty alleviation, resource stewardship, and empowerment of the poor. Although our main locus will be in the south where poverty in small-scale fisheries are most widespread, the management challenge is general and there are also relevant lessons from crises-ridden communities in the north.
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Project summary
 In this project we question how poverty can be alleviated through ecosystem-based management of natural resources. Alleviating poverty sometimes requires strategies which are inherently in conflict. This is particularly the case in economies based on natural resources. As one seeks to reduce poverty, one risks aggravating it. For instance, in fisheries and coastal communities poverty is commonly related to overuse and resource degradation of natural resources. Poverty is both the cause and effect of unsustainable fisheries and coastal economies. Poor fishing people have no other available alternative than to continue their environmental destruction. For fisheries and coastal management, this involves a dilemma: As one aims to develop a fishery, one may undermine its very basis. Fisheries development and management must therefore go hand in hand. Poverty alleviation must occur within safe ecological limits, i.e. be sustainable. Otherwise poverty will be sustained if not amplified. We will study how poor communities in 11 different countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, Central America and North America cope in order to maintain sustainable livelihoods through periods of resource crisis, and what conditions are essential to secure resilience at individual, household and community levels. A particular focus will be on government and civil society institutions for collective action that exist at various scales. This will include their capacity for poverty alleviation, conflict resolution and resource stewardship. The project will draw on, and contribute to "sustainable livelihoods theory", "governance theory", "rural development theory", "integrated coastal zone management" and "ecosystem-based management". These theories emphasise socio-cultural and institutional issues concerning rural development, such as coping strategies, social and ecological resilience, empowerment, social capital and trust.
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