Indigenous knowledge in the beach seine fisheries in Sri Lanka: An indispensable factor in community-based fisheries management.

Abstract

Small-scale fishing overtheglobeisbasedprimarilyon fisher indigenousknowledge(IK),accumulated through manygenerationsofcloseinteractionsbetweenpeopleandthenaturalworld.Community- based beachseine fisher communitiesofsouthernSriLankawerestudiedthroughstandardethno- graphic methodstoascertainthetraditionalmethodinusing fishers’ IK, andexploreempiricallythe accuracy inusingthosemethodsdistilledfromthetraditional fishers. Studyrevealedthat,interalia, traditional fishers useIKtopredictthecommencementof fishing season,andidentifyandquantifythe species compositionoccurringattheir fishing territory.Tentraditionalmethodsthosewhichare important foridentifyingandquantifyingthe fish schoolweredistilled.Exploredmethodsfrequently used bytraditional fishers werebasedonthechangesofseawatercolor(folkoceanography)andthe behaviourofseaterns(Sterna sp.). Traditional fishers’ responses onfrequencyofutilityofexplored methods inday-to-day fishing activitieswereinaccordancewiththe findings oftheempiricalstudy. Moreover,principalcomponentanalysis(PCA)revealedthatPCscoreloadingin fishers’ expectationand fishers’ realization hadapositivesignificant relationship(r¼0.814, po0.001).Thisindicatedthat traditional fishers’ expectationoncompositionandquantityof fish schoolarrivingat fishing territory (ex-ante) isaccurateandreliableattherealization(ex-post). Assuch,thereexistopportunitiesto fisheries co-managementforthecoastal fisheries inSriLanka,incorporating fishers’ indigenous knowledgeinresourceexploitation.