Accounts of fishing conflicts have been rising globally, particularly between small-scale and industrial vessels. These
conflicts involve verbal or physical altercations, and may include destruction of boats, assault, kidnapping, and murder. Current
scholarship around industrial/small-scale fishing conflicts theorizes them as a form of resource conflict, where fish scarcity is the
dominant contributor to conflict and competition. Alternatively, conflicts may be driven by spatial competition, concentrating where
there are increased encounters, unrelated to resource status. Current policies to address these conflicts focus on enforcing the separation
of small-scale and industrial vessels; however, this broad spatial separation has yet to be evaluated for deterring conflicts. Here we
employ a novel spatial analysis to estimate the locations of industrial/small-scale conflicts at sea in Ghana, West Africa. Using data
from narrative reports over the period of 1985 to 2014, we combine qualitative information on depth and shoreline indicators to analyze
conflict locations. We find virtually all expected conflict locations (98%) occurred within the zone meant to exclude industrial vessels,
and conflicts concentrated primarily around major ports. Our results suggest conflicts are likely more related to spatial patterns of
vessel presence than patterns of resource use. These findings suggest a critical need for evidence-based and contextual information on
the drivers of fisheries conflicts, rather than continued reliance on assumptions of resource scarcity. They also suggest that nuanced
policies that reduce vessel encounter and clarify exclusive spatial rights may be more important in responding to these conflicts than
approaches designed to broadly separate fleets or increase fish stocks. |
University of Cape Coast