On the move: The role of mobility and migration as a coping strategy for resource users after abrupt environmental disturbance – the empirical example of the Coastal El Niño 2017

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102095Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Mobility represents important adaptation strategy to cope with environmental change.

  • Human mobility was studied in the aftermath of the Coastal El Niño 2017 in Peru.

  • Mobility pattern differed between small-scale fishers and scallop farmers.

  • Translocal social networks facilitated movement across different scales.

  • Call for embracing interconnectedness of places into translocal management measures.

Abstract

Individual mobility – moving between and within different geographic regions – represents an adaptation strategy of natural resource users worldwide to cope with sudden and gradual changes in resource abundances. This work traces the recent history of Peruvian small-scale fishers’ migration, and particularly analyses the spatial mobility patterns of resource users along the Peruvian coastline in the aftermath of the coastal El Niño 2017. In February-March 2017, this event caused extraordinary heavy rains and a rise in water temperatures along the coast of northern Peru, inducing negative consequences for the small-scale fisheries and scallop (Argopecten purpuratus) aquaculture sectors, both representing important socio-economic activities in the region. Responses of local resource users to these changes were highly diverse, with a great number of people leaving the region in search for work in fishing and non-fishing activities. With a particular emphasis on the province of Sechura, this work attempts to shed light on how and why migration flows differ for fishers and scallop farmers and to explore future pathways in the context of post-disturbance recovery. About one year after the disturbance event, the small-scale fishery operated almost on a regular scale, while the aquaculture sector still struggled towards pre-El Niño conditions, reflected, for example, in a higher percentage of persons engaging in other economic activities within and outside the region. The results of this study demonstrate the importance of human movement and translocal social networks emerging in moments of crisis and should be considered for future development of long-term management strategies incorporating increasing interconnectedness of places on different scales in the face of future disturbance events. Understanding adaptation strategies of resource users in this particular social-ecological setting will further serve to inform other coastal systems prone to (re-occurring) environmental change by highlighting the diversity of socio-economic and natural drivers that can stipulate mobility and affect adaptive capacity of resource users.

Introduction

Human migration processes are no new phenomena, and have been studied in a range of social-ecological settings along history. Scholars distinguish movement patterns according to its durance and magnitude, i.e. whether it is short-term mobility (for a few weeks), or takes place on a seasonal (e.g. for an entire fishing season), long-term (for several years) or permanent (for several generations) basis (sensu Atti Mama 2006, cited in Njock and Westlund, 2010). Factors influencing and stipulating migration are highly complex and may emerge from the combination of case-specific environmental, social or economic factors in either the current location or the place of destination (Njock and Westlund, 2010), or be the result of negotiations at different sociospatial scales (Hoang, 2011). Distinguishing very strictly between all these categories is, however, often difficult and not necessarily conducive to the understanding of reasons and motives for migration. Movement of humans as well as the flow of both material and non-material resources (e.g. media, information and communication technology) creates connections and networks between places (Levitt, 2001), producing translocal development. Often, migrants engage in circular migration, retaining stakes in the places they had moved from. In the long run, the networks through which migrants and non-migrants interact across space might transform locals into translocals, providing the context and setting for further action (Greiner and Sakdapolrak, 2013). In this context, the term translocality refers to the “emergence of multidirectional and overlapping networks” created through the movement of people and “facilitating circulation of people, resources, practices and ideas” (Greiner and Sakdapolrak, 2013, p. 375).

Fisheries and aquaculture provide direct work to 59.6 million people in the world, and many more depend on related activities (in 2016; FAO, 2018). More than 90 % of this employment is created through small-scale fisheries (SSF) (FAO, 2015). SSF are often highly dynamic, of multi-species and multi-gear nature, with resource users being required to spontaneously adapt to resource dynamics by switching to a different gear type or different target species (FAO, 2015). In the face of increasing scarcity of target species, progressing anthropogenic pressures and global environmental change inducing significant alterations in abundance and distribution of living marine resources, as well as the trade of fish products (Barange et al., 2018), moving towards different regions to cope with sudden and/or long-term changes in resource dynamics represents a viable adaptation scenario for many fishers, though barriers – be it physical, social or economic - to mobility exist. The role of migration in small-scale fisheries has received much attention in West Africa (e.g. Haakonsen, 1991; Overå, 2001; Marquette et al., 2002; Binet et al., 2012; Njock and Westlund, 2010; Atuobi, 2016; Goldbach, 2017), East Africa (e.g. Wanyonyi et al., 2016) as well as South and Southeast Asia (Kramer et al., 2002; Islam and Herbeck, 2013; Goldbach, 2017), but there are also some examples from the Latinamerican context (Bremner and Perez, 2002; Badjeck, 2008; Badjeck et al., 2009).

In Peru, internal migration has mainly been driven by rural-urban movement, in particular from the highlands towards urban centers at the coast (Skeldon, 1977; Long, 2008; INEI, 2011; Bastia and Busse, 2011), with the share of population living in urban areas steadily increasing (from 35.4 % in 1940 to 75.9 % in 2007; INEI, 2011). But also international movement from Peru, e.g. towards Italy (Long, 2008) and the US (Bastia and Busse, 2011), was analyzed in the literature. In the 1980’s and 1990’s this movement was likely triggered by the “political and economic instabilities” created through the violent conflict between Sendero Luminoso (the Maoist-inspired revolutionaries) and the Peruvian military, leading to an “exodus of people from the countryside […] to safe rural zones” (Long, 2008, p. 44), mainly from the Andes region or highlands to coastal cities. The present study now brings attention to migration within Peru towards coastal areas, with a particular focus on the Piura region in the north of the country. This region hosts 31.7 % (in 2015; Castillo et al., 2018) of the country's artisanal fleet (i.e. <15m length, 32.6 m3 hold capacity; General Fishery Law 1992 – Law Decree N° 25977 1) and is of particular importance for national coastal economy due to the large number of people depending on fisheries-related activities. The Peruvian artisanal fishery sector is open to any fisher with a valid permit, and the extraction is regulated through minimum mesh sizes for certain gears and minimum landing sizes restrictions for a few species only (Ministerial resolution Nº 209-2001-PE 2), while compliance with rules is low due to a high level of informality and low monitoring capacity of authorities (Nakandakari et al., 2017). Historically, the activity has been highly dynamic due to seasonal and long-term movement of fishers and fish workers following changes in local resource abundances (compare Section 3.2 for details and references). In the past, these movements mainly followed strong El Niño (EN)-induced changes in population dynamics of high valuable fisheries target species such as the Peruvian bay scallop Argopecten purpuratus (e.g. El Niño 1983/84 and 1997/98; Badjeck, 2008; Badjeck, et al. 2009). Since the last strong EN of 1997/98, an ever increasing number of fishers from all over the country moved towards Piura region, gradually transforming the previously open-access fishery into an aquaculture activity, creating a flourishing new sector. From small, rather improvised and informal culture plots used in the beginning of the 2000’s, the aquaculture has evolved to be increasingly formal: Culture areas (so-called concessions) are assigned to small-scale fisher cooperatives (in the following termed scallop farmer) within the large bay of Sechura following a set of legal requirements (for a detailed historic overview compare Section 3.2). Because of this, it was argued that migration and mobility pattern would be hampered in the face of a new external disturbance event (e.g. Badjeck, 2008; Kluger et al., 2019).

This work studies the role of mobility as a coping strategy for small-scale resource users (fishers and scallop farmers) in the aftermath of the coastal El Niño event (CEN) 2017 which has brought drastic rains and subsequent flooding to the region of Piura and heavily impacted fisheries and aquaculture (Kluger et al., 2018). Using a mixed-method (qualitative biographic and expert interviews, qualitative-quantitative surveys) and multi-sited research approach, this work attempts to (1) understand reasons and motives behind movements towards and originating from Sechura from a translocal perspective, and (2) analyze how and why movement patterns differ between the two sectors, introducing a historical perspective. Further, lessons learned are evaluated in order to help formulating regional and national resource management strategies incorporating the migration component through applying a translocal lens.

Section snippets

Environmental and socio-economic setting of the case study Sechura (Piura region)

The Sechura province within the region of Piura in Northern Peru (5.6 °S, 80.9 °W; Fig. 1) is the focus of this work. The large Sechura Bay is influenced by the Humboldt Current Upwelling System bringing cold, nutrient-rich waters from deeper layers to the surface, as well as warmer by equatorial waters from the north (Tarazona and Arntz, 2001). This transition zone produces a highly productive setting during normal upwelling conditions, and as a consequence, the province is home to a diverse

Historic examples of fisher's mobility within the region of Piura

The region of Piura has historic importance, and the name of its principal port Paita (see Fig. 1) as the “entrance door to Peru” (Glave, 1993, p. 497) dates back to colonial times. Due to its position in the north of the country it represented a strategic stop-over for many European sailors – be it crown officials, merchants, whale hunters – before embarking on a difficult journey against winds (from southwest) and currents (flowing from the south to north) on their way south, e.g. to the port

The Coastal El Niño 2017 – effects on fisheries and scallop mariculture

When the Coastal El Niño hit the region of Piura in the first months of 2017, this caused almost a complete die-off of marine benthic organisms (including scallops), with drastic consequences for both the fisheries and aquaculture sectors. On a personal level, some villagers lost their homes, cars, or other assets due to the strong rains and subsequent flooding. In the months following the event, most fishers opted for returning to fishing as soon as they could, adapting their gears to a

Cross-sectoral comparison of movement patterns

The migration patterns analyzed in this study revolve around the effects of the Coastal El Niño 2017 on the small-scale fisheries and scallop aquaculture sector in Sechura Bay. Resource users from both sectors have experienced great economic losses and detrimental consequences for their activity though the overall impact appeared to have been greater for the aquaculture operations (Kluger et al., 2018).

The small-scale fisheries sector has been historically highly variable, due to its

Conclusions

The present study looked at the importance of migration as an adaptation strategy of Peruvian marine resource users in the time following the Coastal El Niño 2017. Observed mobility patterns represented a continuity of a highly dynamic sector and scallop farmers expressed diverse mobility despite being tied to the location of Sechura through the investment in their aquaculture concessions. The analysis of spatial extend of migration urges to consider increasing interconnectedness of places in

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Lotta Clara Kluger: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing, Funding acquisition, Project administration. Henryk Alff: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing - review & editing, Funding acquisition. Eliana Alfaro-Córdova: Validation, Writing - review & editing. Joanna Alfaro-Shigueto: Validation, Writing - review & editing.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This paper was prepared as part of the bilateral MOSETIP project (‘Modelling Socio-Ecological Tipping Points for the Latinamerican center of Scallop cultivation’) financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, MOSETIP 01LC1725A). LK additionally acknowledges funding from the BMBF (Humboldt Tipping 01LC1823D / 01LC1823E), allowing her to follow up on the research through further interviews, crucially enriching the manuscript content. LK and HA would like to thank Ivonne

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