Theoretical Framework
Studies about poverty in small-scale fisheries often begin with one of two premises: Either people fish because they are poor; or fishers are poor because they fish. The former reflects a strongly held perception about fishing as an “occupation of the last resort,” which may still be true in some areas, but is now much less applicable given the generally poor state of the fisheries. With the rapid development in coastal areas, shellfish gathering and fishing without a boat or with a non powered boat is becoming less subsistent. Certain investment is often required to obtain boats and gears that would enable fishing to take place in this increasingly competitive environment. In the case of Thailand, poor people from rural areas migrating to the coasts in search of fishing livelihoods will also need to compete with legal and illegal foreign migrant workers from the neighboring countries who are willing to work harder for lesser wages. As will be shown in this study, new entrants to the fisheries find success when supported by existing social networks.
Related to the latter premise, Béné (2003) referred to it as the old paradigm centered
on the “poverty-environment” nexus that links overexploitation and resource depletion with poverty. While this may be true, he suggested that the investigation about poverty in fisheries should be broadened to consider the “socio institutional” dimensions, which may underlie the real causes of poverty. This call for the understanding of rules, norms, principles, institutional arrangements, social organizations, and other aspects of social and institutional relationships aligns well with the interactive governance framework (Kooiman et al. 2005) that we draw upon in our examination of the Thai small-scale fisheries.
This framework posits that poverty needs to be understood in the context of the inherent and constructed qualities of the system-to-be-governed (e.g., the fisheries resources and the fishing communities), the governing system, and their interactions. The concept of “fish chain” (i.e., pre-harvest, harvest, and post-harvest) (Kooiman et al. 2005) is also useful in the examination of where in the system poverty arises; and of how fishers cope with the challenge. As earlier discussed, ecosystem degradation is an issue in Thailand that contributes to poverty in small scale fisheries. The causes of such degradation, as well as the socio-political conditions of the fishing communities are, however, multi-faceted and could be linked to poverty in several ways, including poverty-averting potentials.
As we began this project to research poverty, it became apparent that our earlier observation that small-scale fishers were generally poor and in need of assistance from the government (Juntarashote and Chuenpagdee 1991) may no longer be valid. Thailand is among the majority of countries in the world that fall under the “medium” category of the United Nations “Human Development Index,” which takes into consideration life expectancy, education attainment, and adjusted real income (UNDP 2000). According to the statistics from the Ministry of Interior (MOI 2008), the 2006 poverty line for the country was 41 USD/month/person,1 with a higher average of 50 USD/month/person for urban areas, and a lower average of 38 USD/ month/person for rural areas.
Based on unofficial records and casual conversations with several fishers along the coasts during the exploratory phase of the research, we learned that the average household income of small-scale fishers is about 298 USD per month (gross income), or a net income of about 179 USD per month. For a family of four, this level of income (about 45 USD/month/person) puts them slightly above the 2006 national poverty line, and also above the average net income for the country (about 43 USD/ month/person). Additionally, the data suggests that small-scale fishers do much better than people in non-fishing occupations in other rural areas whose average net income is estimated at about 26 USD/month/person.