Proximity to small-scale inland and coastal fisheries is associated with improved income and food security.

Abstract

Poverty and food insecurity persist in sub-Saharan Africa. We conducted a secondary analysis of nationally representative data from three sub-Saharan Africa countries (Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda) to investigate how both proximity to and engagement with small-scale fisheries are associated with household poverty and food insecurity. Results from the analysis suggest that households engaged in small-scale fisheries were 9 percentage points less likely to be poor than households engaged only in agriculture. Households living in proximity to small-scale fisheries (average distance 2.7 km) were 12.6 percentage points more likely to achieve adequate food security and were 15 percentage points less likely to be income poor, compared to the most distant households. Households distant from fishing grounds (>5 km) were 1.5 times more likely to consume dried fish compared to households living close. Conserving the flow of benefits from small-scale fisheries is important for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals in the region.

Department

Description

Provenance

Subjects

Ecosystem services, Environmental economics, Environmental studies, Socioeconomic scenarios, Sustainability

Citation

Published Version (Please cite this version)

10.1038/s43247-022-00496-5

Publication Info

Simmance, Fiona A, Gianluigi Nico, Simon Funge-Smith, Xavier Basurto, Nicole Franz, Shwu J Teoh, Kendra A Byrd, Jeppe Kolding, et al. (2022). Proximity to small-scale inland and coastal fisheries is associated with improved income and food security. Communications earth & environment, 3(1). p. 174. 10.1038/s43247-022-00496-5 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/26180.

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Scholars@Duke

Basurto

Xavier Basurto

Adjunct Professor in the Division of Marine Science and Conservation

I am interested in the fundamental question of how groups (human and non-human) can find ways to self-organize, cooperate, and engage in successful collective action for the benefit of the common good. To do this I strive to understand how the institutions (formal and informal rules and norms) that govern social behavior, interplay with biophysical variables to shape social-ecological systems. What kind of institutions are better able to govern complex-adaptive systems? and how can societies (large and small) develop robust institutions that provide enough flexibility for collective learning and adaptation over the long-term?

My academic and professional training is based on a deep conviction that it is through integrating different disciplinary perspectives and methods that we will be able to find solutions to challenging dilemmas in natural resources management, conservation, and environmental policy. Trained as a marine biologist, I completed a M.S in natural resources studying small-scale fisheries in the Gulf of California, Mexico. Realizing the need to bring social science theories into my work on common-pool resources sustainability, I earned an MPA and a Ph.D. in Management (with a minor in cultural anthropology) from the University of Arizona and under the supervision of Edella Schlager. Following I spent two years working with Elinor Ostrom, 2009 co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, at the Workshop for Political Theory and Policy Analysis of Indiana University. Methodologically, I am familiar with a variety of quantitative and qualitative approaches and formally trained to conduct Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA or more recently fsQCA), that allows among other things, systematic comparisons of middle range N sample sizes and address issues of multiple-causality.

Virdin

John Virdin

Assistant Professor of the Practice in the Division of Marine Science and Conservation

John Virdin has over twenty years’ experience in studying and advising government policies to regulate human use of the oceans, particularly marine conservation policies to reduce poverty throughout the tropics. His focus has been largely on managing fisheries for food and livelihoods, expanding to broader ocean-based economic development policies, coastal adaptation and more recently reducing ocean plastic pollution.

Virdin directs the Ocean Policy Program at the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability, aiming to connect Duke University’s science and ideas to help policymakers solve ocean sustainability problems. He has collaborated in this effort with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the United Nations Environment Program, as well as regional organizations such as the Abidjan Convention secretariat, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, the Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission of West Africa and the Parties to the Nauru Agreement for tuna fisheries management in the Western Pacific.

Virdin is an associate professor of the practice in marine science and conservation at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment. He co-created and teaches an introductory course for undergraduate students to understand the role of ocean policy in helping solve many of society’s most pressing development challenges on land. 

Prior to coming to Duke in early 2015, he worked for 12 years at the World Bank, where his work led to the development of programs that provided more than $125 million in funding for improved fisheries management in six West African states and some $40 million for fisheries and ocean conservation in a number of Pacific Island states. 


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