A playful shift: Field-based experimental games offer insight into capacity reduction in small-scale fisheries

Abstract

Understanding how to effec tively and efficiently reduce fishing effort is a marine conservation imper-ative, given falling catches, degrading coastal systems and burgeoning human populations. Globally,studies into understanding who may leave a fishery, and why, have tended to be survey based, offeringimportant but limited insights into exit behavior. At the same time attempts to introduce alternativelivelihoods to fishing communities in developing countries often fail, and fishers are hostile to efforts toimplement regulatory restrictions on their fishing activities. This paper argues exploring shifting be-haviors through quasi-experimental field games offers inroads to this dilemma. Firstly, such games cantriangulate with both observational and survey-based data to deepen understanding of how and whyfishers may exit the fishery. Secondly, face-to-face interaction and stakeholder participation areimportant for improving natural resource management, and are facilitated by games. I illustrate thesepoints using the example of ReefGame, played in multi-stakeholder workshops with small-scale fishersacross the Philippines. Characterizing players as ‘shifters’, ‘intermittent shifters’ and ‘non-shifters’highlights how non-economic considerations, meso-economic contexts and desires for the next gener-ation to have ‘ a better life’ can inform more responsive and effective fisheries management. At the sametime, the game offers structured opportunities for scientists, managers and fishers to interact, buildingtrust and understanding between them Show more