Conceptualizing and Operationalizing Social Resilience within Commercial Fisheries in Northern Australia

Abstract

How can we tell whether resource-dependent people are socially resilient to institutional change? This question is becoming increasingly important as demand for natural resources escalates, requiring resource managers to implement policies that are increasingly restrictive on resource users. Yet policy changes are frequently made without a good understanding of the likely social and economic consequences. Knowledge of the resilience of resource users to changes in resource-use policies can assist in the design and implementation of policies that minimize the impacts on people while maximizing the sustainability of ecosystem goods and services. Despite the appeal of resilience as a framework for sustaining human-environment relations, there has been a distinct lack of explicit application of the concept by naturalresource managers. In response, we build on general resilience theory to develop a conceptual model of social resilience for resource-dependent users. We test and refine the operational virtues of the model using the commercial fishing industry in North Queensland. Detailed surveys of individual resource users provide data on historic response, expected well-being, and capacity as a basis for assessing resilience. We find that the response of fishers to generic yet anticipated change events is determined by four key characteristics: (1) perception of risk associated with change; (2) perception of the ability to plan, learn, and reorganize; (3) perception of the ability to cope; and (4) level of interest in change. These responses represent relative measures of the likely response of resource users to prospective changes in resource policy that affect the way in which the resource is used or accessed.

Satisfaction with fishing and the desire to leave

“…Our results and those of others strongly support that the decisions fishers make are not driven solely by economic considerations, but rather are driven by a mix of factors that may include their level of attachment to fishing, family considerations and lifestyle considerations, among others. While well recognised in fields that examine how best to support successful adaptation of fishers to change (e.g., Marshall and Marshall 2007), this understanding of fisher motivations is rarely applied to understanding the decision to exit fishing-even though this decision may be a positive adaptive response to change in the industry.…”

“…Others, however, have found a direct link between a declining status of commercial fishing and a corresponding decline in fisher's reported well-being (Smith and Clay 2010), such that at some point a desire to leave may develop. Marshall and Marshall (2007) suggest that there are wide variances in individual fisher resilience and adaptive capacity based on their confidence in their skills and ability, their coping ability and their ability to assess risks.…”

Gender and Adaptation Practices to the Effects of Climate Change in Bahi and Kondoa Districts Dodoma Region, Tanzania

“…Perception on climate change was measured by using indices of four climate change indicators (increased rainfall variation i.e. increased rainfall unpredictability and irregularity; increased temperature; strong wind; and drought) formed from Likert items (Marshall & Marshall, 2007). Inferential analysis involved chi-square test at p < 0.05 level of significance, employed to determine association between the variables; and corrected Rao-Scott chi-square (χ c 2 ) that was used to determine association between variables for the multiple response answers (Lavassani, Movahedi, & Kumar, 2009).…”

‘Subjective resilience’: using perceptions to quantify household resilience to climate extremes and disasters

“…Perhaps the best way of ensuring accurate assessment of subjective resilience is to build on the growing number of approaches and frameworks (see Marshall and Marshall 2007;Marshall 2010;Choptiany et al 2015;Nguyen and James 2013;Grothmann and Patt 2005;Seara 2014;Lockwood et al's 2015), as well as those from wider related fields, and ensure that the lessons learned from their applications are shared, taken forward and further refined. Above all, maintaining the diversity of methods and approaches that range in complexity, scope and focus will be important in gaining a more holistic understanding of resilience.…”

“…Survey methods to investigate levels of 'social resilience' have also attempted to determine sets of subjective explanatory variables, including perceived levels of risk and perceived capacities to cope, plan, learn and organise (Marshall and Marshall 2007;Marshall 2010;Seara 2014). Similarly, Lockwood et al's (2015) psychometric approach to adaptive capacity and personal resilience study is notable for its systematic process of identifying base survey questions.…”