Browsing by Author "Brook, Ryan K."

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Evaluating Local Rules and Practices for Avoiding Tragedies in Small-Scale Fisheries of Oxbow Lakes, Southern Bangladesh
(2015) Al Mamun, Abdullah; Brook, Ryan K.
"One of the key issues facing fishery managers, policy-makers and researchers has been acknowledging local institutions and rule systems for managing common pool resources. In this paper, we discuss local institutions and rule systems of community fisheries from two oxbow lake Fisheries in Southern Bangladesh. Both of the fisheries have been under private and state management systems resulting in different management outcomes. Control of fishers and stocking for production enhancement have been key management options of the lakes, but progress has not been satisfactory due to higher associated costs of management and uneven resource benefits distribution. On the other hand, community fisheries have focused on sharing benefits, controlling access, avoiding conflict and maintaining ecosystem health. Community fisheries have been managed through local rules and management practices above and beyond government regulations. Taking community fisheries in Bangladesh as a model fisheries and examining local rules as an effective means of controlling fisher access to a common resource, we explore here the impacts of local rules that have had different levels of governance outcomes in relation to state and private systems. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews (40 individuals) and group meetings (one for each site covering 15–20 individuals). Reviews of secondary records also support the analysis. Findings of this study highlight the advantages of local rules and also raise questions about how differential property rights and lack of negotiation power of local communities have constrained the success of community fisheries. At the group level, the capacity of local fishers to make their own rules and implement them locally is a critical factor for community fisheries systems."
Ignoring the Elephant in the Room: The Carbon Footprint of Climate Change Research
(2009) Brook, Ryan K.
"Despite some ongoing raving from a fringe minority of attention seekers and professional refuters funded by the oil companies, most scientists now accept that climate change is a reality and that human activity is the root cause. Many scientists have worked tirelessly to ensure the science is solid, and each new study contributes to understanding the big picture. In all of this, scientists should be immensely proud. Global efforts to convince the general public that climate change is a reality and that our collective actions need to change have been much less successful. Perhaps this failure stems from the misguided notion that climate change is really only an environmental issue, not a social problem."
Multiple Governance and Fisheries Commons: Investigating the Performance of Local Capacities in Rural Bangladesh
(2016) Mamun, Abdullah; Brook, Ryan K.; Dyck, Thomas
"This study presents a post-facto evaluation of the local capacity development processes used under co-management of fisheries and other resources of southern Bangladesh. It answers the question of how supportive were the capacity development tools used in implementing co-management. An 18 month study was conducted and six cases were investigated to understand the approaches to co-management programs used to develop local capacity. Founded in pragmatism and viewing co-management through a governance lens, a comparative case study method was used that combined both qualitative and quantitative research approaches for data collection and subsequent analysis. This study provides empirical evidence that co-management programs have applied a number of strategies (e.g. human resource and economic development) to enhance local capacities. However, these strategies have achieved mixed results with regard to developing governance that supports livelihoods. Training provided to develop human resources and economic capacity were not useful for fishers or had little lasting effects on fisheries development due to poor monitoring and a disconnection with the needs of local users. This study concludes that comanagement can facilitate local capacity but in order to realize the full potential of this approach we must address the issues of inappropriate technologies for training, the financial barriers to fishers with low cash income, and uneven power relationships among stakeholders, to create an enabling environment for effective modern governance of the fisheries commons. Our findings indicate a needs based approach to capacity building is needed in order to support the livelihoods of local users through co-management."
On Using Expert-Based Science to 'Test' Local Ecological Knowledge: A response to: Gilchrist et al. 2005. 'Can Local Ecological Knowledge Contribute to Wildlife Management? Case Studies of Migratory Birds'
(2005) Brook, Ryan K.; McLachlan, Stephane M.
"The challenges and opportunities of incorporating information collected through scientific studies with the experience-based knowledge of resource dependent communities have been the focus of numerous studies. However, there are relatively few examples in which ecological science and local knowledge have both been successfully incorporated to provide meaningful input into resource management. In their recent article in Ecology and Society, Gilchrist et al. provide a thorough evaluation of Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) using expert-based ecological studies often referred to as 'western science.' Although we applaud their recognition of the value of and desire to promote LEK, it is unfortunate that they use expert-based ecological data as a 'test' to determine the 'reliability' of LEK. Even though the authors indicate their wish to use the two different approaches to identify 'constraints and limitations of both approaches,' they fail to discuss the assumptions, limitations, or constraints of the ecological studies that they use. We do not take issue with their ecological studies; we presume they are of the highest quality. However, to assume that the ecological studies are error free and without any bias or limitation is perhaps somewhat misguided, albeit an assumption that many scientists still make. Indeed, Freeman (1992) provides examples in which conflicts occurred in the Canadian Arctic between LEK and expert-based science over aerial surveys of bowhead whales in the Beaufort Sea and caribou in what is now Nunavut, where local perceptions of the state of these wildlife populations were initially considered 'unreliable' but were resolved when biases in ecological studies were corrected using local knowledge. These case studies illustrate the limitations of ecological research and monitoring, and provide a cautionary tale against accepting them as 'truth.'"