Fisheries Development and Fisheries Dependent Communities in Portugal: Socio-Economic Change and Strategic Planning
António Moniz,
Ilona Kovács,
Duarte Vicente and
Ana R. Ramos
MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany
Abstract:
The socio-economic subsystem encompassing fisheries may be defined as including not only the harvesting sector but also several related activities occurring both upstream (shipbuilding, gear manufacture) and downstream (processing, distribution and trade). But these closely interrelated economic activities can also be set within a much broader system which would include the ecological, institutional and political influences which frame economic behaviour. The value of this broader conceptualisation is that it treats fisheries not as an isolated and independent economic activity but as part of a more holistic and complex system. This broader perspective is of particular significance when attempting to examine the concept of regional dependence. The socio-economic subsystem for fisheries is dominated by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). And Peniche emerges as one of Portugal’s most important fishing ports whether measured in terms of the volume of landings or the total numbers of fishermen. It also has one of the highest levels of fisheries dependence of all coastal municipalities in Portugal with over 20% of its workforce currently engaged in fisheries related employment, faces a daunting and uncertain future. The social fabric of fisheries dependent communities also suffers serious damage; once again, the technocratic approach to management has no solutions to offer. It is essential, therefore, to turn away from the existing approach and to develop instead new forms of intervention; in short, to provide a new vision. This implies change not only to the policy process but also in the attitudes of the social actors and in the preoccupations of fisheries related research. An integrated approach is required based on participative action and the development of an integrated information network.
Keywords: fisheries; socio-economic system; Peniche; Portugal; dependent communities; policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J48 Q22 Q32 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000-02, Revised 1999-03
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Published in David Symes (ed.): Fisheries Dependent Regions, London, Fishing News Books (2000): pp. 143-153
Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/7154/1/MPRA_paper_7154.pdf original version (application/pdf)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:7154
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().