BE/CNH: Linking Human Socioeconomic and Marine Ecosystem Dynamics Along the Pacific Coast of Baja California, Mexico

小规模渔业在沿海海洋生态系统中占主导地位，世界上90%以上的渔民从事小规模渔业，每年的海洋捕捞量占世界的一半以上。然而，人们对它们的运作和决策的动态知之甚少。由于缺乏数据，大多数小规模渔业的多物种和多船队性质，以及地方、区域和全球范围内人类机构之间复杂的反馈，现有的渔业模式不适用于大多数小规模渔业。小规模渔业通常开发多种鱼类，流动性有限，在经济驱动因素、文化价值观和管理开采制度方面差异很大。大多数小规模捕鱼集中在生产力和多样性高的沿海地区，如珊瑚礁、沿海泻湖和河口。反过来，这些地点是由近岸海洋环境中的海洋过程和陆海界面发生的交换之间的复杂相互作用维持的。只有同时考虑复杂性的这些不同方面，才能检查可能表征这些复杂和可变系统的更高层次的紧急行为。只有同时考虑不同的生物和社会经济来源的可变性才能解决的关键问题的例子是：(1)面对环境可变性和可变数量和类型的数据，不同的管理系统有多强大？(2)管理执行和用户遵守之间的社会、文化和经济关联是什么？(3)小规模渔业的地方和区域动态对生态系统功能和结构的持久性有何影响？这个研究项目将开始发展一个关于墨西哥下加利福尼亚太平洋沿岸海洋生态系统中小规模渔民、沿海资源及其生物物理环境之间耦合动态的综合理论框架。一个多学科研究小组将通过举办讲习班和初步数据收集活动来开发模型。在第一次研讨会上，研究人员将开始开发一系列随机的生物经济模型，这些模型将底栖生物的生态动态与渔民在空间和时间上明确的社会和经济行为结合起来。在第一次研讨会之后，研究人员将收集和综合现有的物理、生物、经济和人类学数据，以参数化模型并测试模型假设。另外两个讲习班的重点将是制定一个框架，以综合各种模式，其中包括将小型渔业与其生物资源联系起来的复杂相互作用和反馈的子集。这个项目的意义预计有三个方面。首先，它将对小规模渔业与其资源之间的相互作用提供全面的科学理解。其次，它将更好地了解人类对沿海海洋环境影响的驱动因素和后果。第三，下加利福尼亚州是一个生产力和生物多样性极高的地区，目前被认为是国际保护工作的重中之重之一。这项研究将提供一个模型框架，用于预测下加利福尼亚沿海资源的新使用和未来使用的结果，包括该地区人口密度和沿海发展的预期增长，并将开始建立一个更广泛适用于全球小规模渔业的理论框架。除了加强基本的科学认识外，该项目还为研究区域的鲍鱼和渔业管理提供了实际实施的前景。该项目得到了2002年度环境生物复杂性特别竞赛的支持，该竞赛侧重于自然和人类系统耦合动力学。

Small-scale fisheries are dominant actors in coastal marine ecosystems, engaging more than 90 percent of the fishers in the world and producing more than half of the world's annual marine catch. The dynamics of their operations and decision making are poorly understood, however. Scarcity of data, the multi-species and multi-fleet nature of most small-scale fisheries, and complex feedbacks among human institutions at the local, regional, and global scale render existing fisheries models inapplicable to most small-scale fisheries. Small-scale fisheries typically exploit multiple stocks, have limited mobility, and vary widely in the types of economic drivers, cultural values, and management systems regulating extraction. Most small-scale fishing is concentrated in coastal areas characterized by high productivity and diversity, such as coral reefs, coastal lagoons, and estuaries. In turn, these locales are maintained by complex interactions between oceanographic processes in the nearshore marine environment and exchanges occurring at the land-sea interface. Only the simultaneous consideration of these different facets of complexity will allow examination of higher-level, emergent behaviors that are likely to characterize these complex and variable systems. Examples of crucial questions that can be addressed only through simultaneous consideration of different biological and socioeconomic sources of variability are: (1) How robust are different management systems in the face of environmental variability and variable amounts and type of data? (2) What are the social, cultural, and economic correlates of management enforcement and users compliance? (3) What are the effects of local and regional dynamics of small-scale fisheries on the persistence of ecosystem function and structure? This research project will begin the process of developing an integrated theoretical framework regarding the coupled dynamics among small-scale fishers, coastal resources, and their biophysical setting in marine ecosystems of the Pacific coast of Baja California, Mexico. A multidisciplinary group of researchers will develop models through the conduct of workshops and preliminary data-gathering activities. At the first workshop, researchers will initiate development of a series of stochastic, bioeconomic models that fuse ecological dynamics of benthic organisms with spatially and temporally explicit social and economic behavior of fishers. Researchers will assemble and synthesize existing physical, biological, economic, and anthropological data needed for parameterizing models and testing the model assumptions following the first workshop. The development of a framework for integrating models incorporating subsets of the complex interactions and feedbacks linking small-scale fisheries and their biological resources will be the focus of two additional workshops.The significance of this project are expected to be threefold. First, it will provide a holistic scientific understanding of the interactions between small-scale fisheries and their resources. Second, it will provide a better understanding of the drivers and consequences of human impacts in the coastal marine environment. Third, Baja California is a region of extraordinary productivity and biological diversity, currently considered one of the highest priorities for international conservation efforts. The study will provide a modeling framework for predicting the outcomes of new and future use of coastal resources in Baja California, including anticipated increases in population densities and coastal development in the region, and will start building a theoretical framework more broadly applicable to small-scale fisheries worldwide. In addition to enhancing fundamental scientific understandings, the project also offers prospects for practical implementation regarding the management of abalone and fisheries in the study region. This project is supported by an award resulting from the FY 2002 special competition in Biocomplexity in the Environment focusing on the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems.