Mapping place names matters for small-scale fisheries management

Fishers’ territorial knowledge encompasses a diverse array of ecological, technical, experiential, and learning knowledge derived from local environmental and sociocultural contexts. In this study, we used a transdisciplinary framework to shed light on place names in the context of small-scale fisheries through a case study in Madagascar. First, we jointly monitored fishing boat trajectories based on GPS tracking and recorded the vernacular names of fishing sites in a coral reef fishery from May 2018 to April 2019. This data was used to assess the spatial extent of each fishing site based on core, intermediate, and wide delimitations. Second, a focus group discussion survey was conducted to ascribe thematic meanings to the fishing sites. A total of 570 fishers (totaling 15,904 fishing trips) using five gear types were surveyed in eight communities. We identified 391 fishing sites,  311 of which (79.5%) were mapped. Overall 362 place names (92.6%) were interpreted and categorized according to visual geographical features (n=213), biodiversity (n=93), and maritime uses (n=56). The spatial extent of fishing sites varied significantly: core, intermediate, and wide delimitations ranged from 0.07 to 3.2 km2, 0.07 to 6.3 km2, and 0.07 to 11.5 km2, following spatially-explicit fishing distribution patterns. Most fishing locations (63.3  of the total fishing area) were associated with multiple place names, particularly in heavily-targeted areas, while place names were typically cited by less than 1% of the fishers. This proof of concept has shown that boat movements and vernacular names, recorded simultaneously throughout an extensive monitoring survey in a coral reef fishery, effectively capture the rich and varied individual fishers’ representations of the coastal and nearshore marine areas in Madagascar. Our findings suggest that georeferencing place names is relevant for addressing spatial data limitations in small-scale fisheries and facilitating informed decision-making processes as part of sustainability research.