The Closing of the Frontier

Abstract

John G. Butcher has written a book that aims to give a detailed account of the development of marine fisheries in Southeast Asia over a period of about 150 years. Needless to say, it is an overwhelming task. The region covers some of the world's leading fishing nations, each of which is a large and complex region of extensive maritime activities-countries like Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. From the perspective of "pushing forward the frontier," the author has given himself a leitmotif to guide him through countless varieties and local developments. His main focus in every case study is the reaction of fish resources to the pressure placed upon them by commercial fishing activities. In other words, the book has a main axis consisting of subjects [fishermen], objects of desire [marine resources], and the relation between the two in the form of constant ingenuity in the search for new resources and fishing methods.

A gender lens on women’s harvesting activities and interactions with local marine governance in a South Pacific fishing community

“…1) was largely dependent on fishing as its major economic activity. Located near to some of the most productive fishing grounds in the entire country (Butcher 2004;Spoehr 1980), Coron was an important site for larger vessels based elsewhere in the Philippines that came to fish there and as a desirable 'frontier' settlement for fishing and farming migrants from other islands suffering from poverty and exploitation of natural resources (Eder 2009;Fabinyi 2014). Important fisheries operating around Coron from the 1960s to 1990s included the anchovy lift net fishery and several small-scale fishing activities, including hook and line, fish traps, net fishing and spearfishing (Fabinyi 2014).…”

Florida's HR Reforms: Service First, Service Worst, or Something in Between?

“…Other factors include public pressure on government to become more responsive to consumers, the notion that good management should be imported from the private sector, and the growing sense that technology will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public service operations. 49 The political process also increases pressure to act. Peters 50 terms the pressures "conviction politics," a new prism through which government and its activities are viewed.…”

Environmental fixes and historical trajectories of marine resource use in Southeast Asia

“…Migration of small-scale fishers to coastal locations such as Palawan and Mindanao increased rapidly in the postwar period, partly in response to better fishing conditions (Eder 2008). Butcher (2004) and Christensen (2014) describe how for the fisheries of Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific respectively, exploitation followed a three-stage process: from the advent of industrial fishing, to its subsequent expansion across the region, to the 'closing of the frontier' involving 'stagnating or declining harvests as the limits to growth are reached' (Christensen 2014: 22).…”

“…Aquaculture and tourism are two more recent forms of marine resource use that have flourished as fixes to the problems of marine resource decline, allowing capital to continue to accumulate. Versions of these three fixes represent dominant trends for coastal livelihoods in much of Southeast Asia (Butcher 2004;Fougères 2008;Marschke and Betcherman 2016).…”