Comparison between all sectors

6.3.6 Comparison between all sectors

Mean input scores for each attribute were calculated for each of the four fishing sectors. The MDS routine was run with these mean scores and plotted as a kite diagram Figure 6.11. In the physical and financial fields vessel and fishing gear owners, scored more highly than crew. Access to credit and a commitment to saving are precursors to securing the capital to own your own boat or gear. Physical ownership in turn normally translates into higher incomes, especially in a context where the catch is distributed inequitably and 50 goes to the owner. It is noteworthy, however, that the pattern of human capital closely follows that of physical and financial capital, with bagan, payang and beach seine owners scoring highest. This is particularly significant because it demonstrates how the human capital aspects of handling money, planning for the future, taking risks and entrepreneurship are vital components of resilient livelihoods and how closely they relate with physical and financial capital. Figure 6.11: Mean livelihood resilience scores for crew and owners for all four sectors of the fishing industry. 20 40 60 80 100 Natural Financial Human Institution al Social Physical Bagan crew Payang crew Seine crew Sampan crew Bagan owner Payang owner Seine owner Sampan owner In the natural field, respondents across sectors perceive that there has been a significant decline in both catches and catch value over the last 20 years. Only 9 of respondents reported that there had been no change in catch volume, with 83 stating the decline had been significant. While all sectors have experienced a decline, the bagan sector has been best equipped to handle this by building larger vessels and taking longer trips. This was reflected in higher scores for the natural field Figure 6.11 caused by the attribu tes ‘state of coastal resources’ and ‘fishing income’. Although several respondents from other sectors spoke enviously about revenues generated for the bagan sector, there are several costs associated with larger vessels and longer trips. Besides high fuel and maintenance overheads, crew have to be committed to the boat, sometimes living far from home for long periods, and have little spare time for supplementary livelihoods. This is observable in the low scores for the attribute ‘state of land resources’. In contrast, the beach seine and sampan sectors scored highly in ‘state of land resources’ because many fishers in these sectors supplemented incomes with rice or other crop farming. However, overall scores in the natural field were lowest in the beach seine and sampan sectors as respondents scored the catch volume and value attributes poorly. Seine netting the same patch of sea from the beach is a highly vulnerable method of fishing because if stocks begin to diminish you cannot move further afield in search of them. Similarly, the small engines on sampan boats restrict fishers from fishing far from their home port so it not surprising that these two methods perceive the effect of declining stocks to be greatest. It is noteworthy that sampan fishers targeting higher value, larger reef species by handlining felt the decline in catches more strongly than those using gillnets. The fact that institutions scored poorly across all sectors was predictable because this had been reported on several occasions by government staff, community leaders and fishers to the author even before this component of research was conducted. These results indicate that institutions are functioning poorly but there is no evidence in, the quantitative aspect of this analysis, that those institutions are favouring some groups over others because low scores are observed across all sectors. It is likely that weak institutional support has a greater impact on the poor than on vessel owners. In the qualitative components of the interviews there were several concerning allegations about nepotism and while the majority of them were general comments one specific case highlighted the situation on the ground. In one of the fishing villages where interviews were conducted, several very poor sangat miskin households were interviewed and, according to them and the government official accompanying them, they had not received any government assistance despite being registered on the poverty census as very poor. Having interviewed tens of people in this location the author was introduced to a small fish trader who had been given a motorbike-truck by the fisheries agency for transporting fish. However this fish trader was not listed as poor in the poverty census. When he was asked how he was able to get this he said that he made a proposal to the local government official and his name was added on to the group who received help. This example is shocking because it shows a complete disregard for the census data, with decisions being made through personal connections rather than on objectively who needs the assistance. Moreover, the government aid that he received was worth 2500US when many genuinely poor families were only getting fish boxes or nets with a value of 100- 200US. Even if this aid had been distributed equitably to the most needy it would still have been insufficient to ensure that all households registered as poor or very poor received something so the fact that he received anything at all is unjust. The irony of this situation is that when he showed the author the motorbike he mentioned that he had not been able to get it formally registered with number plates because he had not yet paid the 50US bribe uang rokok to the fisheries agency extension officer As with the institutional field, the results for the social field show little variation between the sectors. Examples of corruption and nepotism like the above infuriated many respondents yet the majority felt that they were unable to protest. In the social field, for the attribute ‘right to speak out’, 86 of respondents reported that they could not speak out if they or someone else had experienced an injustice. The most common responses argued that by protesting you would not change the result and ran the risk of further repercussions in the future, for example, when you wanted to renew your identity card. It is surprising that social capital scored weakly because Minangkabau culture is closely intertwined through familial relationships. This was in evidence by the story of one bagan owner. He was a former bagan crew member and bought his first second-hand bagan in 1997 from savings. Now he owns 3 large bagans and the business is managed and staffed by his family. The agent who buys the fish is his younger brother, the captain of one of his vessels is one of his more distant relatives and the one who manages the business day-to-day is his son. On certain attributes of social capital such as ‘trust’ and ‘help when a crisis’ he scored highly but on other aspects, for example ‘leadership’ and ‘sanctions rule of law’ he scored those attributes poorly. In his example, bonds of trust built on family relationships created a strong web of social capital yet when he assessed the more distant aspects of social capital that overlapped with institutions he scored them poorly. In an unrelated interview, a bagan crew member attributed identical scores to all the social attributes as the owner of the example above but with one difference. Whereas the owner had said in a crisis his family would help him, the crew member said that in an emergency his family would not help him, he would be on his own. When those two respondents were analysed there was only a minor difference in position on the bad-scale yet their respective social capital security nets were very different. One possibility in future analyses may be to move the attributes ‘right to speak out’ and ‘leadership’ to the institutional field and to develop more social capital attributes that better capture the nuances of those immediate social relationships.

6.3.7 Comparison Between Villages.