Doctoral Dissertation Research: Assessing the Effects of Tourism Development on Small-Scale Fisheries

该项目将分析旅游业向沿海农村地区的扩展如何改变与小规模渔业有关的人与环境相互作用和生计的动态。由于小型和非正规性质，小型渔业几十年来一直受到忽视，随着人们对它们的社会经济重要性和生态影响的了解加深，小型渔业越来越受到关注。在农村沿海生态系统中，小规模渔业往往是当地人口生计、蛋白质和微量营养素的主要来源，也可能是海洋资源利用的主要形式。在全球范围内，它们占全球渔业产量的三分之一，并提供50%的海产品供人类消费。小型渔业不成比例地集中在低收入地区，这些地区的孤立和贫困加剧了它们对沿海社区的重要性，而高度的资源依赖和有限的环境管理使生态系统容易受到过度开发。在许多这些地区，旅游业被视为可持续发展的途径，希望新的生计机会将提高社区的社会经济福祉，减少对自然资源的压力。尽管有这种发展的潜力，但研究越来越多地表明，这些生计转变的社会经济和生态影响差异很大，造成保护和发展规划与实际社会和环境成果之间的脱节。了解旅游业如何影响沿海社会生态系统的机制，将使政府、管理人员和社区能够预测旅游业发展的积极和消极影响，并更好地准备从战略上减轻或抵消负面影响。该研究将调查替代生计的可用性如何改变捕鱼行为;游客的涌入如何改变对海鲜的需求和当地消费;以及这些变化如何影响社区和家庭的社会经济地位和粮食安全并影响海洋资源。虽然该研究项目将侧重于哥伦比亚的案例研究，但该研究将为处理包括美国在内的许多其他国家的旅游业影响提供新的见解和方法。这项研究将在哥伦比亚太平洋沿岸的八个社区进行，这些社区正在通过旅游业的发展而改变。这些社区有着相似的社会文化遗产，并存在于一个相互关联的生态系统中，但旅游业发展的程度和性质不同，因此可以对旅游业发展的生计转变以及社会和生态后果进行并排比较。访谈，观察和档案研究将被用来建立在以前的实地考察，以上下文，澄清，并探讨定量家庭调查分析中出现的关系的因果关系。

This project will analyze how the expansion of tourism into rural coastal regions is changing the dynamics of human-environment interactions and livelihoods related to small-scale fisheries. Overlooked for decades due to their small and informal nature, small-scale fisheries have increasingly garnered attention as their socio-economic importance and ecological impact is better understood. In rural coastal ecosystems, small-scale fisheries are often a primary source of livelihoods, protein, and micronutrients for local populations and can be the dominant form of marine resource-use. Globally they account for up to a third of global fisheries catches, and provide 50% of the seafood caught for human consumption. Small-scale fisheries are disproportionately concentrated in lower-income regions where their importance to coastal communities is amplified by isolation and poverty, and high resource dependence and limited environmental management make ecosystems vulnerable to over exploitation. In many of these areas tourism is viewed as a pathway for sustainable development, with the hope that new livelihood opportunities will elevate the socioeconomic wellbeing of the community and reduce pressure on natural resources. Despite the potential for such development, research increasingly shows that the socio-economic and ecological implications of these livelihood transitions vary widely, creating a disconnect between conservation and development planning and actual social and environmental outcomes. Understanding the mechanisms of how tourism affects coastal socio-ecological systems will enable governments, managers, and communities to anticipate the positive and negative impacts of tourism development, and be more prepared to strategically mitigate or counteract the negative aspects. The project will also contribute to the training of a doctoral student.This research will investigate how the availability of alternative livelihoods changes fishing behavior; how the influx of tourists changes the demand for and local consumption of seafood; and how these changes affect community and household socio-economic status and food security and impact marine resources. Although this research project will focus on a case study in Colombia, the research will provide new insights and approaches for dealing with tourism's impacts in many other countries, including the United States. The research will be conducted in eight communities on the Pacific Coast of Colombia that are being transformed through tourism development. These communities share similar sociocultural heritage and exist within a connected ecosystem, but differ in the extent and nature of tourism development, allowing for a side-by-side comparison of the livelihood transition and social and ecological consequences of tourism development. Interviews, observation, and archival research will be used to build upon previous fieldwork in order to contextualize, clarify, and probe the causality of relationships that emerged in the analysis of quantitative household surveys.