The illegal exploitation of wild abalone in South Africa has been escalating since 1994, despite increased enforcement, leading to collapse in some sections of its range. South Africa banned all wild abalone fishing in 2008 but controversially reopened the fishery in 2010. This paper formulates a poacher’s model, taking into account the realities of the abalone terrain in South Africa – the high-value of abalone, use of recreational drugs, the prevalence of bribery, and corruption – to explore why poaching has not subsided.

This paper evaluates the feasibility of establishing a Multiple Use Marine Protected Area. The methodology was applied to evaluate three proposed sites in Chile with diverse conservation needs, social stress and poverty levels, and different economic activities (small-scale fishing, heavy industry and mining activities). We use two broad categories for the evaluation: Socio-economic and political-institutional.

Chapter in book "Climate change, fisheries and aquaculture in latin America: Potential impacts and challenges for adaptation (In Spanish)" Editors: Doris Soto and Renato A. Quiñones, FAO Acts of Fisheries and Aquaculture Nº29, 335 pp., FAO, Rome, Italy.

The effect of social capital on the economic performance of artisanal  fishermen organizations that work under a Territorial Use Rights in Fisheries (TURF) system was tested using the social networks approach. The application was based on a sample of artisanal fishers organizations that extract the locally named “loco” (Concholepas concholepas) in Central-Southern Chile. Social networks were measured through organizations’ structural properties and their bonding, linking, and bridging relationships. Economic performance was measured through per capita income.

We study through framed field economic experiment the effects of exogenous changes in abundance levels of a renewable natural resource on compliance individual decisions of users operating under a common property regime and a system of Territorial use rights in fisheries (TURF) considering extraction quotas and external enforcement to detect and sanctions violations.

This paper provides an overview of social science research in the marine environment of South Africa for the period 1994–2012. A bibliography based on a review of relevant literature and social science projects funded under the SEAChange programme of the South African Network for Coastal and Oceanic Research (SANCOR) was used to identify nine main themes that capture the knowledge generated in the marine social science field. Within these themes, a wide diversity of topics has been explored, covering a wide geographic area.

This article analyses the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) performance of fisheries in Iceland, Norway and Sweden during the period 1973 to 2003. We measure TFP growth using real gross value added as output and capital input, labour input and a stock input index based on the major fish stocks. In developed neighbouring countries, we expect rapid diffusion of fishing technology innovations contributing to productivity convergence. In addition, innovations in the public regulation and the industrial organization may also have influenced productivity growth during the period.