Model stream 1: Ecosystem damage, food insecurity Articles will present empirical data and discuss the cause and effect of poverty and resource degradation based on the various case studies. Is it true that small-scale fishers contribute to resource degradation? If yes, what are the causal factors and mechanisms involved? The articles will draw on the literature on common property resources and food security.
Model stream 2: Coping with povertyArticles will analyze the ways in which fishing people are dealing with resource degradation and poverty. How do they perceive and cope with environmental risk? Under what conditions do they succeed or fail? The articles will present socio-economic data and draw on the literature of social capital, material (man-made) capital, networking and community development.
Model stream 3: Integrated coastal zone management, ecosystem based managementArticles will focus on the role of government, property rights, legal frameworks, and management institutions in ecosystem-based resource management. Empirically the articles will evaluate previous and current management initiatives. How effective have these initiatives been? What problems are occurring? How have fishers been able to resolve conflicts over scarce resources between communities and between small-scale and large-scale fishing? What explains their success or failure? Theoretically, the articles will draw on literature about issues such as co-management, marine protected areas, community-based management, indigenous human rights. Model stream 4: Empowerment and community-based co-management Articles will address the enabling role of management systems and their ability to build capacity and social capital as coping technology. We will draw on literature on empowerment, social capital, sustainable livelihoods, and local ecological knowledge. Management will here be seen from the perspective of the community, i.e. from the bottom-up, and data will be generated from interviews with male and female fishers, fishing households, community leaders/elders.
Model synthesis: The vicious circle of poverty:The edited volume will synthesize POVFISH findings and generate theories on poverty alleviation and environmental degradation, i.e. covering the entire model. Can the vicious circle of poverty be broken and, if yes, how? Which factors and mechanisms - political, institutional and otherwise - provide food security/safety and economic growth/development within safe ecological limits? Here our ambition is to contribute to the general discourse (also within the auspices of United Nations/FAO) on poverty alleviation and small-scale fisheries by stressing the social and institutional issues involved. If community development and resource management must go hand in hand, how can one strike a balance? Is it possible "to eat the cake and have it too"?
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