[Coral-List] New paper on anglers & advice wanted for social science

Kelly Heber Dunning kellyheber at gmail.com
Mon Jun 1 10:14:12 EDT 2015


Jim, re: the second part of your email. My small set of experience as a
social scientist working on reefs is in the Coral Triangle, not the
Caribbean, but over there, local resource user stakeholders on the ground
never identify the problem statement formulated here (everyone says to do
reef sustainability, but where's the $$?). I think we as westerners tend to
think in these terms in regards to LDCs, but if you're working with local
resource user stakeholders, I have often seen this to not be their biggest
issue or concern.

Instead, I think the more interesting pathways to desirable reef ecological
outcomes for stakeholders across scales lies in institutions for collective
action, and contextual factors (proximity to markets and so on) explored by
Arun Agrawal and Elinor Ostrom (among many many others) in institutional
theories for collective action [for resource management].

Though I am talking about local resource user-type stakeholder
institutions, based on your stated interests, you may want to explore
institutions for regional financial flows aimed at sustainable reef
outcomes. COREMAP-CTI and the GEF/UN/national government partnership
financial model going on over in Indonesia and Southeast Asia would be a
neat regional financial institution to examine in your dissertation for
comparison's sake.

Best of luck!

On Sun, May 31, 2015 at 2:47 PM, Jim Harper <Jim at harperfish.com> wrote:

> Two things: 1) Having presented a similar study at the recent meeting of
> the Association of Marine Laboratories of the Caribbean, I’m please to
> present my first reviewed paper in open access:
>
> The New Man and the Sea: Climate Change Perceptions and Sustainable
> Seafood Preferences of Florida Reef Anglers
> http://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/3/2/299
>
> Abstract: Florida Reef stakeholders have downplayed the role of
> anthropogenic climate change while recognizing the reef system’s
> degradation. With an emphasis on recreational anglers, a survey using
> contingent valuation methods investigated stakeholders’ attitudes about the
> Florida Reef, climate change, and willingness to pay for sustainable and
> local seafood. Angst expressed about acidification and other climate change
> effects represents a recent shift of opinion. Supermajorities were willing
> to pay premiums for sustainably harvested and especially local seafood.
> Regression analysis revealed trust in seafood labels, travel to coral
> reefs, political orientation, place of birth, and motorboat use as strong,
> direct predictors of shopping behavior, age and environmental concerns as
> moderately influential, and income and education as surprisingly poor
> predictors. Distrust of authority may motivate some stakeholders, but new
> attitudes about climate change and the high desirability of local seafood
> offer potential for renewed regional engagement and market-based incentives
> for sustainability.
>
> 2) With plans to start a social science Ph.D. this year, I’d like advice
> on how / what to address for Caribbean reef sustainability. Researchers
> love to say it’s necessary, but I can’t foresee how it will be funded and
> otherwise enabled to be effective.
>
>    Jim W. Harper
>
> Resume: http://www.harperfish.com
> M.S. in Environmental Studies ’14 (M.A. ’96)
> Miami mobile: 786-423-2665
>
>
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>



-- 
PhD student
MIT Environmental Policy and Planning
www.kellyheber.com


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