The integration of social science information into Great Lakes fishery management: Opportunities and challenges

Abstract

Fishery management is increasingly moving toward management that accounts for environmental and social dimensions. Such an approach requires the integration of natural and social science information into planning and decision-making processes. The actual integration of social science information, however, remains limited in many policy and decision-making processes within fisheries. Our study provides insights into factors that influence the intention to use social science information among fishery managers and the actual integration of such information into fishery management. Based on interviews with fishery managers in the Great Lakes, we find that the lack of social science expertise in fishery management agencies leads to multiple negative beliefs and attitudes, and subsequently a low intention to use social science information in decision-making processes. At the same time, the paper finds that more expertise in decision-making tools and basing social science on equal footing with natural sciences within fishery management institutions appears critical to advance the actual integration of social science information in fishery management.

Conservation social science: Understanding and integrating human dimensions to improve conservation

“…Indeed, the social sciences have been applied to understand diverse conservation and environmental management problems including, but not limited to, water governance (Armitage et al, 2012;Bakker, 2012;Curran, 2015), fisheries management (Heck et al, 2015;Symes and Hoefnagel, 2010;Wilson et al, 2013), agriculture landscape management (de Snoo et al, 2013), wildlife management (Clark et al, 2008;Gore et al, 2011;Teel and Manfredo, 2010), avian conservation (Kingston, 2016;Veríssimo et al, 2014), protected areas (Brockington and Wilkie, 2015;Ferraro and Pressey, 2015;Lockwood, 2010), forest management (Agrawal and Gupta, 2005;Allen et al, 2014;Ostrom and Nagendra, 2006;Stanturf et al, 2012) and marine conservation planning (Aswani and Hamilton, 2004;Ban et al, 2013;Cornu et al, 2014). The social sciences have also been used to research conservation and environmental management at all scales from local (Bennett et al, 2010) to regional (Pietri et al, 2015) and global (Fleischman et al, 2014).…”

“…Overviews: (Decker et al, 2012;Heck et al, 2015;Kittinger et al, 2012) Examples: (Decker and Purdy, 1988;Hunt et al, 2013;Manfredo et al, 2003) Policy Sciences The field of policy sciences offers a meta-theoretical framework for analysis of and intervention in the conservation policy processes. This approach is applied to specific policy problems, focusing on that problem's context rather than seeking generalizable solutions.…”

Double-edged sword of interdisciplinary knowledge flow from hard sciences to humanities and social sciences: Evidence from China

“…With the appearance and development of interdisciplinary research fields, the interaction between HSS and HS was gradually emphasized [ 30 – 33 ]. Many studies attempted to explore how HS research or programs learned from HSS, such as analysis methods, management tools and theories, to make it run smooth or grow more socially-robust [ 34 – 36 ]. However, some impediments hinder the participation of HSS with HS.…”

A tale of two communities: Using relational place-making to examine fisheries policy in the Pribilof Island communities of St. George and St. Paul, Alaska

“…We see this as a beneficial, but limiting approach. Recent research indicates that fisheries managers are hampered not only by a lack of knowledge surrounding social science, but also a lack of tools to help them integrate such data into the decision-making process (Heck et al 2015). Managers cannot, for instance, gauge the relative importance of a way of life compared to the value of an endangered species.…”