Coupling scientific and local knowledge for small-scale fisheries management: a study from the Western Indian Ocean

Owing to their long-term and intimate relationship with the sea, small-scale fishers around the 
world have developed deep and rooted knowledge about their coastal and marine environment. 
This rich body of knowledge allows fishers to detect changes in marine species abundance and 
distribution. However, the importance of fishers’ local knowledge for fisheries knowledge and 
management tends to be overlooked or subordinated to fisheries sciences, thus limiting a 
comprehensive assessment of small-scale fisheries (SSF). This is especially the case in the 
Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region, where studies that have woven scientific and fishers’ local 
knowledge together are scarce. This study addresses this gap by exploring the complementarity 
between scientific and fishers’ local knowledge on harvested marine species and their historical 
trends drawing upon two small-scale fishing communities in coastal Kenya (Malindi-Watamu) 
and northern Madagascar (Diana region). We used a mixed method approach, combining 
background local coastal fisheries data for the past 20 years with free listing interviews with 
fishers (n=80 in each site). These interviews consisted of asking fishers to list the main 
harvested marine species they know, and report observed changes in their catches over time. To 
weave scientific and fishers’ local knowledge together, we applied the Multiple Evidence Base 
approach as an integrated analytical framework to explore knowledge pluralism. We found 
evidence of an extensive overlap between harvested marine species reported by scientists and 
fishers. In addition, in the two sites, fishers reported a decline in the abundance of demersal reef 
species that was not documented in scientific data. Importantly, our findings revealed that 
fishers’ local knowledge varied according to different social variables, namely age and ethnicity 
in coastal Kenya and age and gender in northern Madagascar, thus calling for further 
intersectional research in SSF contexts. Through a transdisciplinary approach, this study 
highlights how weaving multiple knowledge systems together can improve our understanding 
of SSF dynamics in the WIO region. The lessons learned from these two regional case studies 
aim to support policymakers and ocean professionals in their action towards sustainable 
fisheries management and conserving, sustainably managing and restoring marine and coastal 
ecosystems in line with the Ocean Action Panels 5 and 1 of UNOC3.