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Updated: May 16, 2026
07:57
Necropsy-based Wild Fish Health Assessment
Published on: September 11, 2018
Assessing social-ecological feedbacks in small-scale fisheries
Leandro Castello1, Adriana Guimarães Abreu2, George Christopher Brooks3,4
1Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA. leandro@vt.edu.
Ambio
|May 14, 2026
Summary
Small-scale fisheries (SSF) sustainability requires integrating fish population dynamics with fisher behavior and governance. This new approach diagnoses SSF challenges by linking social and ecological factors for adaptive management.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Fisheries Science
- Social-Ecological Systems Analysis
Background:
- Small-scale fisheries (SSF) support millions globally but face sustainability challenges.
- Existing assessment frameworks inadequately capture complex social-ecological dynamics.
- Conventional fisheries management and social-ecological systems research remain siloed.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose an integrative diagnostic approach for assessing small-scale fisheries sustainability.
- To explicitly link fish population dynamics with fisher behavior and governance theories.
- To provide a replicable, interdisciplinary framework for diagnosing SSF sustainability.
Main Methods:
- Developed an integrative diagnostic approach linking ecological and social dimensions.
- Applied the approach to co-managed arapaima fisheries in the Amazon Basin.
- Analyzed multi-scalar social and ecological interactions driving sustainability.
Main Results:
- The approach successfully captured reciprocal feedbacks between fish populations and fishers.
- Key drivers of sustainability in Amazonian arapaima fisheries were identified.
- The framework bridges ecological and social dimensions for a holistic assessment.
Conclusions:
- The integrative approach offers a novel way to diagnose SSF sustainability.
- It identifies critical leverage points for supporting adaptive governance.
- This framework is applicable across diverse small-scale fisheries contexts.
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