Paper 19 Disc

FISH and FISHERIES, 2000, 1, 257271

Ghoti

Ghoti papers
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Ignore fishers knowledge and miss the boat

Robert E Johannes1, Milton M R Freeman2 and Richard J Hamilton3
1

R.E. Johannes Pty. Ltd, 8 Tyndall Court, Bonnet Hill, Tasmania, Australia. 2Canadian Circumpolar Institute, G213

Biological Sciences Bldg, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. 3Marine Science Department, University of
Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.

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Abstract
We describe five examples of how, by ignoring fishers' ecological knowledge (FEK),
marine researchers and resource managers may put fishery resources at risk, or
unnecessarily compromise the welfare of resource users. Fishers can provide critical
information on such things as interannual, seasonal, lunar, diel, tide-related and
habitat-related differences in behaviour and abundance of target species, and on how
these influence fishing strategies. Where long-term data sets are unavailable, older
fishers are also often the only source of information on historical changes in local
marine stocks and in marine environmental conditions. FEK can thus help improve
management of target stocks and rebuild marine ecosystems. It can play important
roles in the siting of marine protected areas and in environmental impact assessment.
The fact that studying FEK does not meet criteria for acceptable research advanced by
some marine biologists highlights the inadequacy of those criteria.

Correspondence:
R E Johannes, R.E.
Johannes Pty. Ltd, 8
Tyndall Court, Bonnet
Hill, Tasmania 7053,
Australia.
Tel.: +61 36229
8064
Fax: +61 36229
8066
E-mail: bobjoh@
netspace.net.au

Keywords traditional ecological knowledge, fisheries management, research

methodology

Introduction
Over the past two decades the study of communitybased management or co-management of marine
fisheries has expanded rapidly. There is now an
extensive literature on the subject. Books, for
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example, include Ruddle and Akimichi (1984),

Ruddle and Johannes (1990), Cordell (1989),
Pinkerton (1989), Chou et al. (1992), Pomeroy
(1994), Dyer and McGoodwin (1994), White et al.
(1994), Pinkerton and Weinstein (1995). But efforts
by researchers to seek out systematically and help
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put to use fishers' knowledge concerning their

marine resources have not kept pace, as indicated
by the contrastingly sparse literature on this subject.
We know, for example, of only one published book
(which is almost 20 years old) that is focused entirely
on marine fishers' knowledge (Johannes, 1981).
This seems to reflect doubt about the value of such
knowledge (e.g. Neis 1992; Ruddle 1994; Mackinson
and Nttstad 1998). Is such doubt warranted?
A fisheries management debacle brought about in
part by the refusal of biologists to take fishers'
knowledge seriously was the north Atlantic cod
fishery's collapse. One sign of its imminence was the
warning of inshore cod fishermen that spawning
stocks on their fishing grounds had become alarmingly low (Neis 1992; Finlayson 1994; Pinkerton
and Weinstein 1995; Harris 1998; Kurlansky
1998). The consequences of ignoring this and
related warnings are too well known to need
reiteration here.
But one example does not establish the general
value of fishers' ecological knowledge (FEK). If it is
valuable for marine biologists and fisheries managers, then there should be more examples of the
folly of dismissing or overlooking it. And there are.
Here we present five less well-known examples of
how fisheries biologists and marine resource managers erred, sometimes with serious practical consequences, by ignoring fishers' and marine hunters'
knowledge of their prey and its environment and
the influence of this knowledge on fishing strategies.
All our examples concern small-scale artisanal
fisheries. We had hoped to include some case studies
from large-scale industrial fisheries in this article,
but the examples we are aware of are too complex
to distil into the kind of brief accounts we present
here. For literature on FEK in such fisheries see Neis
(1992, 1998), Eythorsson (1993), Mackinson and
Nttstad (1998), Hall-Arber and Pederson (1999),
Baelde (in press), Neis and Felt (in press).
Underestimating the effect of tuna bait
fisheries on reef fisheries
The skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis, Scombridae)
fishery is the largest and most commercially
valuable fishery in Solomon Islands, accounting
for roughly 40% of that country's foreign earnings.
Most of the catch is made using the traditional poleand-line method, a technique that relies on live
baitfish (engraulids, clupeids, apogonids, atherinids
and caesionids). Once a fishing vessel locates a
258

school of surface tuna, live baitfish are thrown into

the sea in order to keep the tuna on the surface and
within range of the fishers.
The baitfish are caught on islanders' customarily
defined fishing grounds, usually in shallow inner
lagoon areas. The Western Province contributes
more than half the country's baitfish catch. Here,
traditional reef owners who open their reefs to bait
fishing receive royalty payments. The tuna fishing
company also provides many jobs to local islanders
working on its fishing fleets and at the large fishprocessing factory in the province.
Many Western Province villagers contend that
baitfish are an important food item in the diets of
predatory fish that make up a large part of their
subsistence catchcarangids (jacks or trevally),
sphyraenids (barracuda) and scombrids (tuna and
tuna-like fishes). They maintain, moreover, that
these fish become very scarce in areas of the lagoon
where commercial bait fishing is intense. This belief
is sufficiently strong to have caused several communities in Western Province to prohibit commercial bait fishing in their customarily defined reef
areas (Aswani 1998; Hviding 1996).
In the mid-1980s, the Solomon Island Government asked the Australian Centre for International
Agricultural Research (ACIAR) to fund research to
investigate this claim. Accordingly, from 1986 to
1989, a team of marine biologists funded by ACIAR
examined the issue in Western and Central Provinces. Their research addressed three questions: (i)
which baitfish species are important to the commercial bait fishery, (ii) which predator species feed
on baitfish, and (iii) which of these predators made
up important components of subsistence and
artisanal fisheries (Blaber et al. 1990a, b).
To determine the relative importance of various
species in the bait fishery, the team studied catches
from a number of bait fishery fleets. Major baitfish
predators were determined by examining the gut
contents of potential baitfish predators. The importance of baitfish predators to the subsistence
fisheries was estimated by carrying out fishing
competitions among traditional fishers in Roviana
and Vonavona lagoons. Twenty-eight species were
identified as major baitfish predators, with most
being scombrids, carangids, sphyraenids, lutjanids
(snappers) and serranids (groupers).
By comparing these data with fishing competition
data, researchers concluded that the impact of the
bait fishery on the subsistence fishery was likely to
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dators found to be the major consumers of baitfish

formed only a small proportion of the catches of the
artisanal and subsistence fisheries; they were almost
never taken, the data indicated, by droplining, the
dominant subsistence fishing practice (Blaber et al.
1990a, b).
Based on these conclusions, provincial and national
government officials saw no need to investigate the
issue further nor to consider implementing expensive
bait fishery management plans. It was assumed that
the main reason bait fishing had become an issue at
all among subsistence communities was conflict
over who got royalties rather than genuine
environmental concerns.
Fieldwork carried out in 199697 by Hamilton
(1999) in Roviana Lagoon, Western Province, refutes
the above conclusions. This research was part of a
larger project on fish ecology and indigenous subsistence practices. Although the impact of bait fishing
was not addressed directly, it soon became apparent
from catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) data and local
ecological knowledge about baitfish predators, that
Blaber et al. (1990a, b) had seriously underestimated the importance of baitfish predators in the
subsistence fishery in Roviana Lagoon.
Hamilton's survey, carried out between midAugust and late October 1997, recorded day- and
night-time catches from subsistence fishers across
all lunar stages. A total of 51 fishing trips was
documented, representing 438 h of fishing time.
The survey revealed that barracuda were a dominant component of subsistence fishers' catches. The
barracuda species (Sphyraena jello and Sphyraena
putnamiae, Sphyraenidae) made up 56.4% (424.3
kg) of the total catch by weight (Hamilton 1999).
By contrast, in ACIAR's fishing competitions in
Roviana Lagoon neither species formed more than
1% of the catch (Blaber et al. 1990a: table 2). This is
a striking underestimate of the importance of these
sphyraenids in the subsistence fishery. Moreover,
one of theses sphyraenids, S. putnamiae, was
reported by ACIAR team to be a major baitfish
predator in the Solomon Islands. (Blaber et al.
(1990b) also reported that S. jello was not a major
baitfish predator, but their conclusion was based on
the stomach contents of a single specimen.)
The discrepancies between Hamilton's 1997
CPUE results and those of Blaber et al. (1990a, b)
are a consequence of three flaws in the methods the
latter used to estimate the subsistence catch. These,
in turn, were due to a failure to adequately
investigate fisher's knowledge and the consequent
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temporal and spatial fishing patterns prior to

designing the research.
1 The seasonal nature of fishing for baitfish
predators was not considered. Local fishers report
that a defined barracuda season runs from late
August until the end of December. During this time,
a large proportion of men's fishing effort is directed
towards catching these fish. The fishing competitions carried out by ACIAR in Roviana Lagoon were
held in July 1987 and January and August 1988.
The July 1987 and January 1988 competitions fell
outside the barracuda fishing season, and the
August competition may also have fallen outside
of this season if it was carried out during the first
half of August
2 The nocturnal nature of most barracuda fishing
was not considered. All fishing competitions conducted by the ACIAR team in Roviana Lagoon were
conducted over single days between 06.00 hours
and 15.00 hours (Blaber et al. 1990a). This
accounts for the virtual absence of sphyraenids, as
local fishers catch the great majority of these fish at
night (Fig. 1).
3 The lunar periodicity of fishing for baitfish
predators was not considered. Local fishers organise
their fishing activities according to a traditional
lunar calendar that they use to predict the movements, aggregations and feeding behaviour of target

Figure 1 Roviana fisherman returns with a good catch

from an all-night fishing trip for barracuda.
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species (Hamilton 1999). Some carangid species, for

example, were said to concentrate in dense numbers
within Roviana Lagoon around new and full moons.
Fishers specifically target these fish during these lunar
stages. Field observations by Hamilton (1999) designed to test the validity of this information
provided strong statistical support for it. The ACIAR
study, however, failed to take this lunar seasonality
of important baitfish predators into account.
The results of Hamilton's study refute one of the
two main conclusions of Blaber et al. (1990a, b) and
cast doubt on the other. First, the conclusion that
important baitfish predators are almost never
caught via droplining is clearly wrong. The ACIAR
team greatly underestimated the importance of
barracuda in the subsistence catch.
Second, the conclusion that subsistence catch
species do not eat a significant proportion of baitfish is
dubious. An important element of Roviana traditional
knowledge concerns the roles that daily tidal movements and lunar aggregations of baitfish play in
determining the likelihood of capturing baitfish
predators. In short, the conclusion of the ACIAR
team that there is little dependence on baitfish for
food by predators caught in Solomon Islanders'
subsistence fisheries is contradicted both by local
fishers' knowledge and Hamilton's (1999) research.
If, in preparation for their fieldwork, Blaber et al.
(1990a, b) had asked fishers not only where but
also when and for what they fished, they would
have realized the importance of night-time droplining, and found the composition of night catches to
be quite different from that of daytime catches. They
would also have discovered the important influences of both lunar and seasonal periodicity on
catch rates of baitfish predators and timed their
fishing competitions accordingly.
Ironically, in a subsequent study by some of the
same authors into the potential impacts of bait
fishing upon Fijian subsistence and artisanal fishers,
they did recognize the importance of night-time
subsistence fishing, and the conclusions reached
were quite different from those reached in Solomon
Islands (Blaber et al. 1993). The Fiji study showed
that a trophic link between bait fishing and reef
fishing was likely to be strong where droplining
yielded large numbers of carangids and sphyraenids.
In Solomon Islander communities where bait
fishing has been allowed to continue, local fishers
claim that their subsistence catches have progressively declined (Aswani 1997; Hamilton 1999).
Catch data reveals that such declines have indeed
260

occurred (Aswani 1997), but whether or not this

was due to baitfishing has not been determined.
Given the economic importance to the nation's
economy of tuna fishing, and the exoneration of
tuna baitfishing by Blaber et al. (1990a, b) it
appears unlikely that government policy toward the
latter will change soon.
Inuit hunters knowledge proves biologists
underestimate Arctic whale populations
Sustainable use of biological resources has a long
history in the Arctic, based on community-based
indigenous systems of tenure, an extensive traditional knowledge base, and, doubtless, relatively
sparse human populations. However, all Arctic
regions have in recent times come under western
science-based state management systems and experienced increases in human population size. Thus,
for many science-based managers and fishery
biologists, the story that is more often heard today
concerns resource shortage, over-exploitation, and
the danger of species extinction (e.g. Macpherson
1981; Ludwig et al. 1993; Fienup-Riordan 1999).
In some cases, allegations concerning resource
over-use are puzzling to the Inuit, the indigenous
resource users, who, being close to the resources in
question and in good communication with other
resource users, do not perceive these problems.
As Inuit, we have knowledge about animals
vanishing for periods of time. From the Elders, we
know . . . all the [marine] mammals, including
beluga whales are like that. One day there are
many of themso they vanish for a period of
time and come back later. (Simeonie Akpik in
McDonald et al. 1997, p. 6).
Elders say that any kind of animal moves away
for a while but, according to the government,
animals are in decline. To the Inuit, they have
moved, but not declined . . . From what I have
heard, there used to be lots of walrus here. Now
there isn't, but they're not gone. They have just
moved . . . in our community there is a place
called Ullikuluk where there hardly used to be
any walrus. Now, there are many. The government says they became extinct when really they
have just moved. (Peter Alogut in McDonald et al.
1997, p. 46).
Inuit also point out that despite the increase in their
own population numbers, aggregate demand for
local wildlife has declined since earlier times when
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each household supported large numbers of sled dogs

and imported foods were far less available or utilized.
As a result of political devolution following
aboriginal land claims settlements in Canada, the
Inuit user communities have assumed increasing
responsibility for fisheries and wildlife resource
management (Goodman 1999). Co-management is
now widely practised in the Arctic regions of
Canada, and in Alaska, where marine mammals,
rather than fish or crustaceans, remain the most
important dietary, cultural and economic resources.
The information required to ensure the sustainable use of marine mammal stocks, namely, whale
population composition, dynamics and identity, is
both difficult and expensive to obtain. This situation
leads to many instances where management
decisions will be made with highly uncertain data,
often no more than `educated guesses' made by
scientific staff. If such `guesstimates' result in
decisions that cause hardship to local users, and
furthermore, if scientists' findings contradict the
local users' perceptions of the local resource
situation, then management conflicts are inevitable.
As described below, the recent history of Alaska
Eskimo (Inupiat) bowhead whaling illustrates how
traditional knowledge contributed to the resolution
of a serious management and political problem that
developed as a result of imperfect information being
available through a wholly western scientific
approach to understanding whale behaviour and
population status.
The Alaskan bowhead whaling problem
In 1977, the International Whaling Commission
(IWC) was advised by the US authorities that the
bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus, Balaenidae)
population was very small and that an increase in
hunting by Alaskan indigenous whalers was
impeding its recovery (Fig. 2). The IWC responded
by imposing a zero quota on the hunt. The
justification for this whaling ban was state managers' estimate that only between 600 and 1200
bowhead existed, from which hunters were removing 70 or more whales each year. This population
estimate was disputed by the hunters, who claimed
the population was about several thousand bowhead,
a population they claimed would not be compromised by their hunting activities (Freeman 1989).
Government scientists had made their population
estimates by stationing observers on the sea ice in
spring, counting migrating whales as they swam in
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the open-water leads close to the edge of the ice.

Scientists believed this technique would provide an
adequate count since they believed that whales,
needing to have access to the surface to breathe,
would all be swimming in the available open-water
areas near the observers. During the spring migration, open water off the north coast of Alaska
commonly occurs where the moving pack ice of the
Arctic Ocean comes into contact with the landattached sea ice. It is at this contact point that open
water occurs from time to time, and where whales
and seals are seen to breathe. Hence the census
observers were placed at points where open water
might be expected to be found. Furthermore, the
scientists believed that the whales did not feed on
their migration to their summer feeding areas to the
east, and that therefore all of them would swim past
any single point only once each season (i.e. that
there would be no movement back and forth in
pursuit of food). Thus no double counting would
occur and consequently their census would be reliable.
The Inupiat whalers challenged the scientists'
knowledge of bowhead behaviour (and hence their
basis for constructing an appropriate census methodology) on several points. Whalers asserted that (i)
bowheads were not restricted in their migration to
these narrow open-water leads, (ii) the period during
which the observers were on the ice did not correspond
to the total duration of the spring bowhead migration,
and (iii) bowheads feed during their spring migration
(and therefore might be swimming in any direction if
encountering a feeding patch).
Whalers knew that if one travelled a hundred
kilometres (or more) beyond the place where the
line of observers stood, one would encounter areas
of open water. Moreover, numerous breathing holes
made by bowhead whales occurred in the unbroken
expanses of sea ice. All these observations indicated to
the local hunters that a census carried out on that
proportion of the whales choosing to migrate within a
limited stretch of open watersometimes less than a
hundred metres widewould inevitably underestimate the total migrating bowhead population.
Another reason hunters considered scientists'
estimates to be unreliable was their knowledge that
Arctic whales (and seals) do not need open-water
areas in order to breathe air. Hunters understood
that the underside of Arctic Ocean sea ice is
decidedly uneven due to repeated rafting occurring
throughout the multiyear life of this ice. This
unevenness allows large pockets of air to be used
by ice-adapted marine mammals. In addition, the
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Figure 2 Hunters processing a bowhead whale during a spring hunt, Alaska.

ice surface is continuously breaking as the pressures

of its sideways movement generate enormous
stresses which can only be relieved by fracturing.
Following such breaks, new ice will quickly form.
For the first day or two, however, the new ice
remains relatively thin compared with the multiyear ice that can be two or three (or more) metres
thick. While this newly forming ice is 20 or 30
centimetres thick or less, a bowhead whale pushing
up against it will cause it to break. Easily identified
breathing holes at these breaks, with characteristic
ice crystals formed by the whales' breath, inform the
hunters that whales migrate over a front that is
potentially hundreds or thousands of times broader
than the area that biologists censused.
The hunters also know that after the observers
leave the sea ice for safety reasons at the end of
May, hunters at a community several hundreds of
kilometres west of the observers continue to see
bowheads moving eastward for some weeks. Indeed,
whalers know that there are three discrete waves of
migrating bowheads, only one of which is partially
262

observed by the government whale census takers.

Without any correction factor being applied to their
sightings, the scientists' estimate of around 1000
bowhead was clearly meaningless.
Following the establishment of the bowhead comanagement regime, whalers' traditional knowledge of whale behaviour and biology was able to
create a more satisfactory scientific research and
monitoring programme on bowhead. As the Chief
Scientist of the Alaskan Eskimo Whaling Commission has observed:
We try to combine local knowledge with scientific
knowledge. Probably the best example of this [was]
in 1981, when we actually took over the counting
process. We then basically designed the whole
research programme around what a few senior
Eskimo hunters told us, and in particular one
man, Harry Brower, Sr. He very carefully took me
under his wing and explained how the animals
move through the ice. [That] didn't make a whole
lot of sense to an ordinary biologist, because our
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viewpoint is `I'm afraid of the ice; I'm sure these

whales are afraid of ice.' But in reality, these whales
are not afraid of ice, and that's the key thing. He
knew it and the rest of us didn't. We have spent
about 14 years of research and many, many millions
of dollars to determine whether or not he was
accurate, and he was right every time. (Thomas
Albert, quoted in Freeman et al. 1998, p. 121).
A Canadian example: the south-east Baffin
beluga problem
A similar disagreement between local hunters and
government scientists occurred in the Eastern
Canadian Arctic in respect to beluga whales
(Delphinapterus leucas, Monodontidae) behaviour
and population numbers (Freeman et al. 1998).
This disagreement was based on biologists' concerns
that a beluga population of about 500 found near
the head of a large sound needed to be given
protection from hunting by local Inuit who removed
about 100 beluga each season from this locality.
However, according to the local hunters, the
group of around 500 whales counted by scientists at
the head of the sound was being constantly replaced
throughout the open-water season by new arrivals,
which in turn were replaced by yet other whales, a
process that would continue until the sound froze
over in the autumn. To the government biologists,
the beluga at the head of the sound appeared
identical, as the scientists were unable to distinguish
between the continually arriving pods. However,
Inuit hunters are able to distinguish different groups
of beluga by their skin characteristics, morphology,
and swimming and diving characteristics. (Thomsen (1993) notes this also for Greenland beluga
hunters.) In addition, hunters pointed out that the
`500' beluga observed in 1990 was (according to
the scientists' reports) somewhat larger than that
observed in 1986, despite about 400 beluga whales
having been taken from this `stock' in the intervening period.
Recent satellite tracking of beluga elsewhere in
the Canadian Arctic (Richard et al. 1997) has given
unambiguous support to the hunters' view that
beluga are not necessarily resident in a single
location throughout the short Arctic summer.
Indeed, it now seems to be established that at least
some beluga move from place to place, often at high
speeds. This new science-based understanding has
caused the biologists to reconsider whether hunters
were targeting a small resident stock, and whether
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beluga sighted at any one time at the head of the

sound might indeed be a small, habitat-limited
portion of a large and wide-ranging beluga population (Planning Committee 1994).
Inuit Knowledge of beluga in Hudson Bay
A traditional knowledge study of the Hudson Bay
bioregion was recently conducted by indigenous
hunters from 15 Inuit and 12 Cree Indian communities (McDonald et al. 1997). The various published
reports from this extensive study provided detailed
observations on the regions's wildlife and human
impact upon the natural environment. For beluga
whales, the information is interesting because it
challenges the conventional understanding of
scientists on a number of points and has important
management implications.
Scientists believe two discrete beluga `stocks'
occur in Hudson Bay during the open-water season,
the so-called western Hudson Bay stock (believed to
be numerous) and the eastern Hudson Bay stock
believed by state managers and environmentalists to
be so severely depleted by overhunting as to warrant
being listed as a `threatened stock' (WWF 1999).
According to the biologists, all whales summering
in Hudson Bay swim north in order to leave the bay
before it freezes over in October. Inuit and Cree
hunters' knowledge challenges this, because they
often encounter beluga throughout the winter
despite the heavy ice-cover of this vast inland sea.
Further evidence for a substantial wintering
population comes from the observation that
although the first migrating beluga enter the
northern part of the bay in late May and June,
beluga occur in open-water areas that appear
throughout the bay from more than one month
earlier. These sightings occur in river mouths in the
southernmost region and in open water appearing
at the edge of the land-fast ice in the extreme northwestern region of the bay as well as elsewhere
throughout the bay. In addition, after the last of the
migrating whales leave Hudson Bay in October,
beluga are still seen in river mouths in the extreme
south of the bay (McDonald et al. 1997).
Scientists also believe that once they are sexually
mature, female beluga produce calves every third
year and that (like other Arctic animals) these births
are restricted to a few weeks in the summer (Breton
and Smith 1991). However, Inuit in north-west
Hudson Bay (and elsewhere in the Arctic, Freeman,
field notes; Remnant and Thomas 1992; Thomsen
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1993) report newborn calves may be encountered

at any time of the year. This observation has been
independently confirmed by recovery of newborns
(with umbilical cords still attached) taken in midwinter in areas further north in the Canadian Arctic
(Freeman 1968).
Other evidence biologists cite to support their
contention of overharvesting is the lower annual
hunting returns at some eastern Hudson Bay Inuit
communities compared with earlier times.
However, the Inuit point out that beluga are
extremely sensitive to disturbance in these particular areas. And since the number and size of
outboard motors used in the area has increased,
beluga have moved offshore to feed, and are now to
be found outside the effective hunting range. In the
Inuit community of Inukjuak, hunters report that
beluga retreat when a motorized boat approaches to
within three or four kilometres, whereas in the
community of Salluit, hunters observe that beluga
are sensitive to engine noise up to eight kilometres
away. Elsewhere, at the mouth of the Great Whale
River, beluga only appear in the region after boat
traffic virtually ceases at the end of the summer.
Hunters also know that beluga move en masse
from location to location from time to time. The
disappearance of large numbers of beluga from the
east coast of Hudson Bay occurred during the time
Inuit settled into permanent communities and
acquired more boats and larger motors. However,
in the south-western region of Hudson Bay, during
this same time period, the coastal Cree community
of York Factory was relocated far inland. The few
Cree who return each summer to hunt and fish at
their former coastal location, now report huge
numbers of beluga in this area, something that
never occurred in the past when a permanent Cree
community, whitefish net-fishery and attendant
boat traffic existed at that location (McDonald et
al. 1997).
Kiribati bonefish spawning runs almost gone
Bonefish (Albula glossodonta, Albulidae) has been
both the most popular and most important fish in
the reef and lagoon fisheries of Tarawa, an atoll in
the tiny island nation of Kiribati in the equatorial
Pacific. For centuries Tarawa fishermen knew that
on or near every full moon, bonefish formed large
schools at certain invariable locations in Tarawa
Lagoon. They then migrated from the lagoon across
the shallow reef flats and over the outer reef edge.
264

One to several days later, after having spawned, the

fish would migrate back into the lagoon (Catala
1957). This has changed. Until recently, fisheries
biologists did not fully appreciate the seriousness of
these changes.
Many small islands are arranged in a semi-circle
around Tarawa Lagoon. Most of them support one
or more villages. Lying immediately adjacent to
some of these islands are the shallow, narrow passes
used by the bonefish on their spawning migrations
to and from the lagoon. Johannes and Yeeting (in
press) gathered the following information on these
migrations in 1992, mainly by interviewing fishermen (Fig. 3)
Since the 1960s, causeways built across reef flats
in order to link some islands had blocked five
bonefish spawning migration routes. Two spawning
runs had been destroyed by fishermen who flocked
at full moon to the passes used by the migrating fish
to intercept their runs with gillnets, which had been
introduced to these islands in the 1960s.
Nevertheless, recruitment of larval bonefish into
the lagoon had remained high enough to support a
fishery that was supplying about 20% of the shallow
water fish consumed by the 26 000 people who
lived on the atoll in the early 1990s, according to
government Fisheries Department statistics.
Johannes and Yeeting's interviews took them
progressively further from the district centre. At
each village they were told of the complete loss of
nearby bonefish spawning runs. It was only when
they reached the remotest island in the atoll chain
in North Tarawa that they were told of one, stillexisting bonefish spawning run that occurred near
by. For as long as anyone could remember, this run
had formed unfailingly every month of the year. But
in recent years the run had been heavily exploited
by fishermen from throughout the atoll. Concurrently, it had been declining markedly in size and
had not been seen at all for the previous few months
according to local fishermen. If bonefish larvae
recruiting to Tarawa Lagoon were now dependent
on this one bonefish spawning run (this has not
been established; there could be some recruitment
from other atolls in the region), the most important
shallow-water food fishery in these waters was
in jeopardy.
The Fisheries Department had been aware that
certain spawning runs of bonefish had been
depleted or blocked before Johannes and Yeeting's
interviews. But the Department was unaware of the
possible imminent demise of the last known run,
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Figure 3 Interviewing fisherman

on Tarawa Atoll, Kiribati, in the
equatorial Pacific.

despite their having recently carried out extended

interviews with many more fishermen than Johannes and Yeeting (in press) interviewed. The
reasons for their lack of awareness of the situation
are instructive.
Their interviews were conducted with randomly
selected fishermen. The problem with this approach
is that the great majority of the fishermen in this
developing country, with its very high birth rate,
were very young; they had scant knowledge of the
past history of the fisheries in which they were
engaged. The most knowledgeable fishermen about
the state of bonefish stocks some decades ago were,
naturally, the old ones, many of whom did not even
fish any more and thus did not qualify for the
Fisheries Department interviews. Johannes and
Yeeting, on the other hand, sought out and
interviewed older fishermen, especially those with
local reputations as experts. Their sampling was
thus deliberately non-random.
A second problem was that the Fisheries Department interviewers used a questionnaire. This
approach is appropriate for obtaining information
on predetermined subjects. But it is inappropriate for
uncovering information on important subjects about
which the compiler of the questionnaire is unaware.
Such subjects arise often in poorly documented,
small-scale, artisanal fisheries. Thus, even if some
fishermen interviewed by the Department had been
able to comment on the decline of bonefish spawning
runs, it is doubtful that they would have done so;
there were no appropriate questions in the questionnaire to elicit this information.
After Johannes and Yeeting reported their findings, the villagers of North Tarawa undertook the
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protection of their spawning run of bonefish with

neither official sanction from the Fisheries Department nor their interference. Their efforts seem to be
paying off; in 1999 they reported that the catch-perunit-effort and the average size of bonefish were
both increasing.
Discussion
Here we have presented examples of local knowledge concerning interannual, seasonal, lunar, diel
and food-related variations in the behaviour and
movements of marine fishes and mammalsknowledge well known to indigenous fishers but often
ignored by fisheries biologists and managers. Such
knowledge is passed from generation to generation
of fishers and influences the nature, timing and
location of their fishing. Such information is critical
to biologists in, for example, designing appropriate
catch-sampling strategies. The Roviana case illustrates that a sampling programme that does not
take into consideration temporal variations in
species availability and consequent fishing patterns
may be a failure.
In developed commercial fisheries, FEK includes
the above elements (e.g. Neis 1992; Neis et al.
1999), but other factors are also important. Market
constraints and technology changes, for example,
can have major influences on fishing behaviour and
on fishing knowledge itself, and these have important implications for management issues such as
the scientific interpretation of catch statistics (e.g.
Hilborn 1985; Neis 1992; Sarda and Maynou 1998;
Hall-Arber and Pederson 1999; Neis and Morris
2000; Baelde, in press). But as Baelde (in press)
265

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states, ``scientists generally have only a limited

practical knowledge of fishing gear characteristics
and of the many factors that influence fishing
behaviour and fishing success.'' Simply planning
fisheries policy with representatives of the fishing
industry (often, ``its least enlightened subsector''
(Pauly et al. 1998)) seldom addresses such issues
adequately. ``The fishers and fishery workers, who
have the most intimate knowledge of the industry,
are generally not asked to participate in management decisions'' (Pitcher and Power 2000; see also
McGoodwin 1990).
Local knowledge might be assumed to have little
relevance to stock assessment (e.g. Hay et al. 2000).
But no formal long-term data sets exist for most
artisanal fisheries and some industrial fisheries. In
their absence, older fishers' experience can be
invaluable, as our Kiribati example shows. And as
the Arctic whale examples reveal, indigenous
hunters can also be valuable sources of knowledge
on interannual variations in animal numbers and
distribution patterns. Their experience is a caution
to biologists not to assume too hastily that declining
numbers of animals in an area indicate a long-term
population decline. As Crampton (1991, p. 68) said,
``Western scientists should not criticize what they
see as unsubstantiated judgements in native science
that are based on several generations of experience,
when they are speculative about their own judgements based on few measurements made over a
short time-scale.''
When biological resource users argue that
resources are more abundant than biologists think,
the latter tend to assume that the claims of the
former are self-serving or based on wishful thinking.
Sometimes this may be true. But biologists have a
responsibility not to dismiss such claims before
investigating carefully what lies behind them. When
scientific observations and fishers' observations
concur, this increases our confidence in both. And
when they diverge, both should be re-examined. In
the case of hard-to-observe animals, as the whale
fishery examples show, crude quantitative assessments made by biologists were highly misleading
until they were revised in light of hunters'
empirically based knowledge of whale behaviour.
Natural resource users may be the first to observe
depletion. Here too, as the Kiribati example (as well
as the collapse of Canada's Atlantic cod fishery)
demonstrates, taking such perceptions seriously
may prove vital to the future of the resource.
Fishers can sometimes tell us what is not there any
266

more, as well as what is (see also Gobert 1996;

Ames 1998; Neis et al. 1999).
Rigidly structured questionnaires are sometimes
used by biologists in the belief, perpetuated in too
many graduate schools, that, if they are not
collecting data that can be analysed statistically,
they are not doing worthwhile research. But
whereas rigorous quantitative research methodologies are powerful tools, they are the wrong tools for
collecting important types of environmental information, as the Kiribati example demonstrates.
Questionnaires designed for statistical analysis
are appropriate in natural resource management
research where objectives are clear and circumscribed. But where researchers are canvassing
general environmental knowledge, as in some of
the examples discussed here, inflexible questionnaires are no substitute for less formal interviews
designed to give the informant the opportunity to
lead the interviewer (see also Neis et al. 1999). To
restrict ourselves to such methodologies may limit
our perceptions and needlessly restrict the scope of
our studies; it is presumptuous to assume we know
all the important questions.
Local marine environmental knowledge can also
play important roles in the siting and managing of
marine protected areas and in environmental
impact assessment (Johannes 1993). Both require
mapping the distribution of marine resources. Fishers often know far more than biologists about the
locations of critical habitats such as spawning
grounds (e.g. Johannes 1981; Ruddle and Akimichi
1989; Ames 1998; Neis et al. 1999; Johannes and
Hviding, in press), feeding areas (Hamilton 1999)
nursery areas (e.g. Johannes and Ogburn 1999; R.
Steneck, cited in Hall-Arber and Pederson 1999),
seabird aggregation sites (e.g. Nakashima 1993) or
areas where narwhals can avoid natural predators.
Some know that during particular seasons, certain
otherwise unremarkable islets or coastal sites also
become critical habitats, such as rookeries for
seabirds (e.g. Johannes 1981; Nakashima and
Murray 1988), nesting beaches for sea turtles,
egg-laying sites for sea snakes, egg-releasing beaches for land crabs (e.g. Johannes 1981) or areas
where polar bears hibernate (Brody 1976).
Those who doubt the value of local marine
ecological knowledge may find evidence to reinforce
their doubts if they simply interview fishers at
random. We do not search at random when we
want specialized advice in other contexts; we seek
out experts. Likewise, biologists should seek out
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fishers with local reputations as experts. Usually

they are among the older fishers (e.g. Neis et al.
1999); sometimes they are the only sources of
information on the history of their fisheries, the only
direct links with the marine environments and fish
stocks of times past (e.g. Freeman 1997; Pitcher and
Pauly 1998; Hay et al. 2000). In artisanal fisheries
older women are often the best sources of knowledge about fish and invertebrates gleaned from the
intertidal zone (e.g. McGoodwin 1990; Hviding
1996; Johannes and Hviding, in press).
Fishers' knowledge, like scientists', is fallible (e.g.
Johannes, in press). It should therefore be treated
with similar scepticism and tested wherever practical. Field studies, as carried out, for example, by
Nakashima and Murray (1988) and Johannes et al.
(1999), are often appropriate to determine if marine
animals migrate or aggregate when and where they
are said to. As noted above in connection with
beluga whales, tagging studies may be appropriate
when descriptions of animal movements are at
issue. Genetic studies may be appropriate when
fishers assert that stocks are more subdivided than
scientists assume (e.g. Neis 1998) or that a fishery
managed on the assumption that only one species is
involved really includes two or more species similar
in appearance but different in management requirements, e.g. crabs in the genus Scylla (Johannes
1991; Keenan et al. 1998). In addition, certain
types of questions can be used to gauge the likely
reliability of an informant (Johannes 1981). It
should be kept in mind that fishers' observations
may be correct and instructive even when their
assessment of the meaning of these observations is
in error (e.g. Johannes 1981).
In our experience, gathering fishers' knowledge
cannot be done effectively if simply pursued
incidentally while doing conventional biological
research. Time should be dedicated explicitly to
the activity. It may be only then that fishers will be
convinced that their knowledge is being taken
seriously, and thus respond more helpfully to
researchers' questions. We need also to guard
against treating this knowledge simply as disembodied information, but should involve its possessors
as partners in our biological research (e.g. Johannes
et al. 1999) as well as in management.
To accomplish this, biologists need either to
develop social skills and attitudes that do not always
come easily to those who have been taught to study
ecological systems as if people were not intrinsic
components (e.g. Ward and Weeks 1994; Palsson
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1998), or they need to involve others in their work

who possess them. Here the participation of social
scientists acting as cultural brokers is often valuable
and sometimes essential, especially where mistrust or
even hostility between government resource managers and resource users has resulted in difficult
communication. Biologists and resource users alike
cannot be expected to understand attitudes born of
values and perspectives of which they are unaware.
Someone who is well known to a community and
familiar with its culture and historical patterns of
resource use, as well as the culture of researchers
and managers, can be critical in bridging the gulf
and re-establishing useful dialogue between them.
This was the case in the south-east Baffin beluga
whale example described above.
The limits of our experience tend to set limits on
our understanding of resource-use systems. It is
useful not only to listen to experienced local resource
users, but also to fish or hunt with them where
logistics and ability permit. Sometimes only then will
critical issues emerge (e.g. Palsson 1998). This was
the case in the Roviana example given above.
Today many young people in the developing
world receive their education in schools with
Western-style curricula, rather than at the feet of
their elders as in the past. Because most such
curricula tend to ignore local knowledge, they
tacitly imply that it is not worth learning. Where
this perception prevails, valuable stocks of such
knowledge will continue to disappear as the old
people who possess it die, while their descendants,
along with many biologists, ignore it.
Resource managers in some of the cases described
above eventually accepted and acted upon fishers'
knowledge. Some other marine resource managers
and researchers are also actively employing FEK.
The government of Palau, for example, passed The
Marine Protection Act of 1994 based to a large
extent on local fishers' knowledge and advice
(Johannes 1991). The US Army Corps of Engineers
employed the environmental knowledge of local
fishermen extensively in producing marine resource
atlases for a number of islands in Micronesia
(Maragos and Elliott 1985). Calamia (1999) describes a methodology for incorporating traditional
ecological knowledge with geographic information
systems in support of marine resource management.
A marine resource co-management programme
currently under development in Western Samoa
relies strongly on local fishers' knowledge concerning the status of their marine resources (Zann
267

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1999). Fishers' descriptions of possible stock subdivisions among Atlantic cod have prompted a
commitment by researchers to pursue better scientific
understanding of stock components (e.g. Rice 1997).
Note the statement of the government whale
biologist quoted above, that an expert Inuit whale
hunter ``took me under his wing.'' This kind of
humility on the part of a scientist (in this case, one
possessing two earned doctoral degrees), in the
presence of a native expert possessing knowledge
that is in some ways superior to his own, will
remain uncommon, however, until more biologists
accept the value of such knowledge, as well as
methods for studying it, and cease to promote
narrow neo-positivist versions of `the scientific
method' as the only basis for structuring ecological
research (e.g. Pomeroy et al. 1988; Lawson 1996;
Johannes 1998). A major culture shift is needed in
many graduate schools and in some funding agencies,
notably in the US and Australia, before local
ecological knowledgeas well as ecological patterns
in general (e.g. Lawson 1996)are fully accepted as
legitimate objects of scientific investigation.
According to E.O. Wilson (2000, p. 1), ``solid
advances in community ecology will depend increasingly on a detailed knowledge of species and
their natural history, which feeds and drives theory
It follows that community ecology and conservation
biology are in desperate need of a renaissance of
systematics and natural history.'' Hypothesis formulation and testing in studies of animal behaviour
and stock dynamics can only proceed usefully if
enough knowledge of natural history is available to
provide the information necessary to construct useful
hypotheses. For the great majority of species this
information is lacking (e.g. Wilson 2000). Yet among
biologists natural history remains unfashionable.
All the more important it is to recognize that
natural historians par excellence can be found
among expert fishers, hunters and other biological
resource users. Much greater efforts are needed to
record and test their knowledge and to take greater
advantage of the important roles that it can play in
natural resource management. But financial support for such workinexpensive though it is
compared with most modern ecological researchis
exceedingly limited.
Finally, it is worth noting that all of the fishers'
and marine hunters' information described in the
examples discussed above is anecdotal. We wonder
if it is possible for a biologist, after reading these
examples, to continue to support the common
268

assertion that anecdotal information is something

researchers should, in principle, disdain.
Acknowledgements
Photo editing by Les O'Neill, Anthropology Department, University of Otago, New Zealand, and Louise
Bell, CSIRO Marine Laboratories, Hobart, Australia
(Fig. 1 and Fig. 3, respectively).
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