Assessing information-sharing networks within small-scale fisheries and the implications for conservation interventions

Abstract

The effectiveness of biodiversity conservation interventions is often dependent on local resource users' underlying social interactions. However, it remains unclear how fine-scale differences in information shared between resource users can influence network structure and the success of behavior-change interventions. Using network null models that incorporate a pre-network data permutation procedure, we compare information-sharing networks in a Peruvian fishing community where a trial conservation intervention is underway to reduce the incidental capture of sea turtles (bycatch). We show that the general network structure detailing information sharing about sea turtle bycatch differs from other fishing-related information sharing, specifically in degree assortativity and eccentricity. This finding highlights the importance of assessing social networks in contexts directly relevant to the desired intervention and that fine-scale differences in the information shared between resource users may influence network structure. Our findings also demonstrate how null model approaches developed in the ecological sciences can elucidate important differences between human networks and identify the social contexts which might be more or less appropriate for information-sharing related to conservation interventions.

Assessing information-sharing networks within small-scale fisheries and the implications for conservation interventions

“…This nding indicates that the usual mechanisms that drive information sharing between gillnet skippers in the other shing-related networks (and potentially social networks generally) are not at play in the sea turtle bycatch information-sharing network [40,41]. The lack of discussion about sea turtle bycatch between gillnet skippers with similar levels of bycatch may potentially occur if some gillnet skippers with higher rates of sea turtle bycatch do not realise or appreciate that they have higher bycatch than other gillnet skippers in the community [44]. Indeed, previous research and eld observations from the study site have suggested that shers with higher bycatch rates tend not to put much effort into actively avoiding sea turtles captures unless they are speci cally incentivised to do so (i.e., through the local not-for-pro t's trial bycatch reduction initiative) [33].…”