Skip to main content
Disciplines
Automotive Business IT + Informatics Construction + Real Estate Electrical Engineering + Electronics Energy + Sustainability Insurance + Risk Finance + Banking Management + Leadership Marketing + Sales Mechanical Engineering + Materials
Events
DE
EN
Books
Journals
Topic Page
Marketing
Start single access now
Access for companies
EXTENDED SEARCH
Log in
Top
Published in:
Big Questions About Sustainability and Viability in Small-Scale Fisheries Read chapter Read first chapter

2019 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

17. The Embrace of Liwa Mairin: Lobster Diving and Sustainable Livelihoods on the Nicaraguan Miskito Coast

Author : Miguel González

Published in: Viability and Sustainability of Small-Scale Fisheries in Latin America and The Caribbean

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Log in

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config
loading …

Abstract

This chapter seeks to explore the governance challenges associated with lobster diving on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. Driven by external market pressure, commercial lobster diving has become a dangerous activity for Miskito men due to the inadequate equipment used by indigenous divers, the precarious working conditions under which they operate, and the environmental effects that this fishery has on the resource base. Against the backdrop of relatively recent and progressive domestic legislation promising to prohibit lobster fishing through diving, current policy debates are delaying meaningful actions to protect Miskito divers and the livelihoods of coastal communities that depend on multiple target fisheries. The chapter contends that the governance and viability of the lobster fishery would be better served through a combined strategy of law enforcement mechanisms, human rights protections, responsible labor-capital practices, and the careful consideration of alternative livelihoods for fishing communities.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 102.000 Bücher
  • über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
  • Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 390 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe




 

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Versicherung + Risiko




Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now
previous chapter Analyzing Fishing Effort Dynamics in a Multispecies Artisanal Fishery in Costa Rica: Social and Ecological System Linkages
next chapter Collaborative Coastal Management in Brazil: Advancements, Challenges, and Opportunities
Footnotes
1
After 1990 licenses to the privately owned (national and foreign) industrial fleet increased significantly. In addition, the government that took office in 1990 lifted the ban on lobster diving which had been issued by the Sandinista government in 1984 (Metzoff and Schull 1999: 10).
 
2
Miskito people working in commercial lobster fishing are employed in a diversified labor structure: canoes operators, divers (approx. 3200), crew, operators of collection centers, and pikineras which are women who act as intermediaries by advancing cash to divers in return for a preferential purchase of lobster which is later commercialized in local markets.
 
3
Brenda Brenes, Division of Planning, INPESCA, e-mail communication, September 29, 2016
 
4
The exploitation of both species Strombus gigas and Isostichopus fuscus is being done under a regime of annual quotas.
 
5
The hospital in Bilwi houses the only hyperbaric chamber that exists in Nicaragua. According to the hospital authorities the chamber needs to be replaced since it has been used since the early 1990s and therefore is dated. Medical personnel assigned to operate the chamber also believe that the hospital provides an indirect and unpaid insurance to the industrial fleet since it treats divers who have suffered decompression accidents while working at sea for private owners of the fleet.
 
6
For instance, media reports have mentioned that the industrial fleet takes divers who have suffered accidents to their own villages in order to receive traditional medicinal treatment.
 
7
The communal judge of Sandy Bay, a coastal village in which diving is perhaps the most common form of employment for men, in 2010 reported that 100 local divers had been left with permanent neurological sequelae due to various forms of accidents suffered while working at sea.
 
8
Law 613 Ley 163, Ley de Protección y Seguridad para las Personas Dedicadas a la Actividad del Buceo was passed by the National Assembly on February 7, 2007, and published in La Gaceta, Diario Oficial, No. 12 January 17, 2008. Later on, a reform postponed the prohibition of commercial diving: Law 753 published in La Gaceta, Diario Oficial No. 35, February 22, 2011.
 
9
Some private owners of the industrial fleet, along with the Union of Miskito Divers of the RAAN (SIBUMIRAAN), have challenged the law in court with limited success.
 
10
In 2016 the government of Nicaragua ratified its commitment towards a “definitive closure” of the commercial lobster fishery through diving while it mandated INPESCA with the task of designing and implementing an “Action Plan” in coordination with the autonomous regional governments. No specific targets or timeline were mentioned in the legislation. Law 923 published in La Gaceta, Diario Oficial No. 48, March 9, 2016.
 
11
The Nicaraguan Ministry of Labor has recently reported that employers do not issue job contracts to divers, and they have also failed to report decompression accidents at sea. The port authority issues departure permission to the industrial fleet without due in situ inspection of safety measures on board. All of the above violate what INPESCA has made mandatory through multiple resolutions. For the 2013 resolution, see INPESCA (2013a).
 
12
An INPESCA technical report submitted to MARENA on June 5, 2013, “recommends” lobster and the coastal shrimp to be classified as “underexploited” species. In response, MARENA approved this recommendation by the end of the same month. Based on this approval, INPESCA issued a resolution that declares lobster and coastal shrimp as underexploited species under the regime of open access (INPESCA 2013b).
 
Literature
Acosta ML (2013) Diagnóstico sobre la Situación del Buceo en la Costa Atlántica. (Unpublished manuscript). Managua, Nicaragua
Acosta ML, Moreno E, Weil D (2002) Condiciones laborales de los buzos miskitos en la costa atlántica de Nicaragua. Oficina Internacional del Trabajo, San José
Adpesca (2003) Anuario Pesquero y Acuicola de Nicaragua 2002. Administracion Nacional de Pesca y Acuicultura del Ministerio de Fomento, Industria y Comercio, Managua
Allison EH, Elllis F (2001) The livelihoods approach and management of small-scale fisheries. Mar Policy 25:377–388CrossRef
Asamblea Nacional de Nicaragua (2007) Ley 613. Ley de Protección y Seguridad para las Personas Dedicadas a la Actividad del Buceo. La Gaceta, Diario Oficial, No. 12. Managua
Baratt DM, Van Meter K (2004) Decompression sickness in Miskito Indian divers: review of 229 cases. Aviat Space Environ Med 75(4):350–353
Bavinck M (2011) The mega-engineering of ocean fisheries: a century of expansion and rapidly closing frontiers. In: Brunn SD (ed) Engineering earth: the impacts of mega-engineering projects. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp 257–273CrossRef
Béné C (2003) When fishery rhymes with poverty: a first step beyond the old paradigm on poverty in small-scale fisheries. World Dev 31(6):949–975CrossRef
Béné C, Friend RM (2011) Poverty in small-scale fisheries: old issue, new analysis. Prog Dev Stud 11(2):119–144CrossRef
Béné C, Merten S (2008) Women and fish-for-sex: transactional sex, HIV/AIDS and gender in African fisheries. World Dev 36(5):875–899CrossRef
Béné C, Lawton R, Allison EH (2010) Trade matters in the fight against poverty: narratives, perceptions, and (lack of) evidence in the case of fish trade in Africa. World Dev 38(7):933–954CrossRef
Berkes F, Mahon R, McConney P, Pollnac R, Pomeroy R (2001) Managing small-scale fisheries: alternative directions and methods. International Development Research Centre, Ottawa
Berkes F, Hughes TP, Steneck RS, Wilson JA, Bellwood DR, Crona B, Folke C, Gunderson LH, Leslie HM, Norberg J, Nyström M, Olsson P, Österbloom H, Scheffer M, Worm B (2006) Ecology – globalization, roving bandits, and marine resources. Science 311(5767):1557–1558CrossRef
Bundy A, Chuenpagdee R, Jentoft S, Mahon R (2008) If science is not the answer, what is? An alternative governance model for the world’s fisheries. Front Ecol Environ 6(3):152–155CrossRef
Butcher JG (2004) The closing of the frontier – a history of the marine fisheries of Southeast Asia c. 1850–2000. KITLV Press, Leiden
Central American Commission for the Environment and Development (CAED) (2005) Trans-border Biosphere Reserve Project: social and indigenous evaluation. CAED, Managua
Christie P, Simmons B, White N (2000) CAMPLab: the coastal area monitoring project and laboratory. In: Christie P, Bradford D, Garth R, González B, Hostetler M, Morales O, Rigby R, Simmons B, Tinkam E, Vega G, Vernooy R, White N (eds) Taking care of what we have: participatory natural resource management on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. CIDCAIDRC, Ottawa, pp 99–126
Chuenpagdee R (2011a) World small-scale fisheries: contemporary visions. Eburon, Delft
Chuenpagdee R (2011b) Thinking big on small-scale fisheries. In: Christensen V, Maclean J (eds) Ecosystem approaches to fisheries: a global perspective. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 226–240CrossRef
Daw TM (2008) Spatial distribution of effort by artisanal fishers: exploring economic factors affecting the lobster fisheries of the Corn Islands, Nicaragua. Fish Res 90:17–25CrossRef
Dennis PA (2004) The Miskitu people of Awastara. University of Texas, Austin
Eide AH, Bavinck M, Raakjaer J (2011) Avoiding poverty – distributing wealth in fisheries. In: Jentoft S, Eide AH (eds) Poverty mosaics: realities and prospects in small-scale fisheries. Springer, Dordrecht/London, pp 13–25CrossRef
FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations) (2005) Increasing the contribution of small-scale fisheries to poverty alleviation and food security, FAO technical guidelines for responsible fisheries. no. 10. FAO, Rome
FAO (2010) The state of world fisheries and aquaculture 2010. FAO, Rome
FAO (2011) Report of the FAO workshop on governance on tenure for responsible capture fisheries. FAO, Rome
Ferreira LL, Donatelli S, Reis A Jr (2002) Análise Coletiva do Trabalho de pescadores-mergulhadores de lagosta brasileira, Ministério do Trabalho e Emprego. Delegacia Regional do Trabalho, Natal
González M (2011) To make a life in Marshall point: community empowerment and small-scale fishery. In: Jentoft S, Eide A (eds) Poverty mosaics. A better future in small-scale fisheries. Springer, New York, pp 275–308
González C, Jentoft S (2010) MPA in labor: securing the pearl cays of Nicaragua. Environ Manag 47(4):617–629CrossRef
Hostetler M (2005) Enhancing local livelihood options: capacity development and participatory project monitoring in Caribbean Nicaragua (doctoral dissertation). York University, Toronto
INPESCA (Instituto Nicaragüense de la Pesca) (2012) Anuario Pesquero y Acuicola 2011. INPESCA, Managua
INPESCA (2016) Anuario Pesquero y Acuicola 2015. INPESCA, Managua
Jamieson M (2007) Contrato con los dawanka y procesos productivos entre los miskitos de las comunidades costeras de la RAAS. Wani 56:15–25
Jentoft S, Chuenpagdee R (2009) Fisheries and coastal governance as a wicked problem. Mar Policy 33:553–560CrossRef
Jentoft S, Eide A (2011) Poverty mosaics: realities and prospects in small-scale fisheries. Springer, New YorkCrossRef
Kooiman J, Bavinck B, Jentoft S, Pullin R (2005) Fish for life: interactive governance for fisheries. Amsterdam University Press, AmsterdamCrossRef
Lagueux CJ (1998) Marine turtle fishery of Caribbean Nicaragua: human use patterns and harvest trends (doctoral dissertation). University of Florida, Gainesville
Lagueux CJ, Campbell CL (2005) Marine turtle nesting and conservation needs on the south-east coast of Nicaragua. Oryx 39(4):398–405CrossRef
Larson AM, Soto MF, Mairena D, Moreno E, Mairena E, Mendoza-Lewis J (2016) The challenge of ‘territory’: weaving the social fabric of indigenous communities in Nicaragua’s northern Caribbean Autonomous Region. Bull Lat Am Res 35(3):322–337CrossRef
Metzoff S, Schull J (1999) Miskito ethnic struggle over land and lobster: conserving culture and resources on Corn Island. Cult Agric 21(3):10–18CrossRef
Monnereau I, Helmsing AHJ (2011) Local embedding and economic crisis: comparing lobster chains in Belize, Jamaica and Nicaragua. In: Helmsing AHJ, Vellema S (eds) Value chains, inclusion and endogenous development: contrasting theories and realities. Routledge, Abington, pp 178–197
Nietschmann B (1972) Hunting and fishing focus among Miskito Indians, eastern Nicaragua. Hum Ecol 1:41–67CrossRef
Nietschmann B (1973) Between land and water: the subsistence ecology of the Miskito Indians, eastern Nicaragua. Seminar Press, New York
Onyango PO (2011) Occupation of last resort? Small-scale fishing in Lake Victoria, Tanzania. In: Jentoft S, Eide AH (eds) Poverty mosaics: realities and prospects in small-scale fisheries. Springer, Dordrecht/London, pp 97–124CrossRef
Pauly D (2006) Major trends in small-scale marine fisheries, with emphasis on developing countries, and some implications for the social sciences. Mar Stud 4(2):7–22
PNUD (Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo) (2005) Informe de Desarrollo Humano 2005. Las egiones Autónomas de la Costa Caribe. ¿Nicaragua asume su diversidad? PNUD, Managua
Roe HK (2006) Indigenous ecological knowledge and marine resource management: perceptions within a Rama community. In: Gonzalez M, Koskinen A, Jentoft S, Lopez D (eds) The Rama: struggling for land and culture. URACCAN & University of Tromso-Norway, Nicaragua, pp 107–123
Salas S, Chuenpagdee R, Charles AT, Seijo JC (2011) Coastal fisheries of Latin America and the Caribbean. In: FAO fisheries and aquaculture technical paper 544. FAO, Rome
Symes SD, Phillipson J (2001) Inshore fisheries management. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht/BostonCrossRef
Teh LCL, Teh LSL, Meitner MJ (2012) Preferred resource spaces and fisher flexibility: implications for spatial management of small-scale fisheries. Hum Ecol 40:213–226CrossRef
UNDP (United Nations Development Program) (2011) Experiences of titling of indigenous territories. main breakthroughs. UNDP-Caribbean coast program’ preparatory meeting of the conclave of Latin America and the Caribbean. Managua, April 4–6, 2011
Williamson D, Fonseca G (2007) Compendio estadístico de las regiones autónomas de la Costa Caribe de Nicaragua. CIDCA-UCA, Managua
WorldFish Centre/FAO (2005) Towards an interdisciplinary approach to the assessment of small-scale fisheries and its role in food security and poverty alleviation and sustainable resource use: concept note. WorldFish Centre and the FAO FishCode-STF Project, Penang and Rome. http://​www.​fao.​org/​docrep/​009/​a0216e/​A0216E08.​htm. Accessed 26 Feb 2017
Worm B, Barbier E, Beaumont N, Duffy JE, Folke C, Halpern BS, Jackson JBC, Lotze HK, Micheli F, Palumbi SR, Sala E, Selkoe KA, Stachowicz JJ, Watson R (2006) Impacts of biodiversity loss on ocean ecosystem services. Science 314(5800):787–790CrossRef
Metadata
Title
The Embrace of Liwa Mairin: Lobster Diving and Sustainable Livelihoods on the Nicaraguan Miskito Coast
Author
Miguel González
Copyright Year
2019
Book
Viability and Sustainability of Small-Scale Fisheries in Latin America and The Caribbean

Print ISBN: 978-3-319-76077-3

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-76078-0

Copyright Year: 2019

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76078-0_17