Affiliation
Univ Arizona, Peterson Inst Int EconUniv Arizona, Dept Anthropol
Issue Date
2019-03Keywords
fisheries conflictfood security
internally displaced persons
Lake Victoria
social-ecological systems
Metadata
Show full item recordPublisher
RESILIENCE ALLIANCECitation
Glaser, S. M., C. S. Hendrix, B. Franck, K. Wedig, and L. Kaufman. 2019. Armed conflict and fisheries in the Lake Victoria basin. Ecology and Society 24(1):25. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10787-240125Journal
ECOLOGY AND SOCIETYRights
Copyright © 2019 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance. This article is under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt the work for noncommercial purposes provided the original author and source are credited, you indicate whether any changes were made, and you include a link to the license.Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
Civil conflict is the most prevalent form of armed conflict in the world today, but this significant driver of food and income security has been largely missing from studies of fisheries. Fisheries conflict is an example of complex dynamics operating in social-ecological systems. We theorize and document the existence of such a feedback loop between conflict in Uganda and fisheries in Lake Victoria. Civil war in northern Uganda resulted in mass human population displacement, which corresponded in time with increases in fishing effort in Lake Victoria. Subsequent changes in catch of Nile perch, the dominant commercial fishery, sparked armed conflict in the lake itself, at Migingo Island, between Uganda and Kenya. From this case study, we draw seven main conclusions. First, these correlation-based relationships are illustrative but not conclusive and we call for further empirical investigation. Second, the couplings between conflict and fishing subsystems are spatially asymmetric: conflict effects are diffuse in their links to broad changes in the fishery, whereas fishery effects may produce more localized conflict events. Third, and most relevant to conflict scholars, the drivers of fishing effort and catch may originate in different subsystems, but their changes and effects must be analyzed in concert. Fourth, the complex and path-dependent impacts of conflicts on natural resources in general, and fisheries in particular, highlights the urgent need for targeted surveys and more mechanistic understanding. Fifth, the open access nature of fisheries in Lake Victoria may exacerbate instabilities not present in other systems. Sixth, the diffuse and context-specific effects of conflicts on fisheries means models of fisheries management (e.g., stock assessment) should not incorporate conflict as a driver at this time. Finally, countries and their stakeholders should focus on diversification in employment for short term coping mechanisms during conflict as a means of short-circuiting the conflict-fisheries feedback loop.Note
Open Access JournalISSN
1708-3087Version
Final published versionSponsors
U.S. Army Research Office under the Minerva Initiative of the U.S. Department of Defense [W911NF-09-1-007]; National Science Foundation Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems [1358861]ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.5751/es-10787-240125