Exploring fisheries dependency and its relationship to poverty: A case study of West Sumatra, Indonesia Richard J. Stanford a, b, * , Budy Wiryawan a , Dietriech G. Bengen a , Rudi Febriamansyah b , John Haluan a a Institut Pertanian Bogor, Bogor, Indonesia b Universitas Andalas, Limau Manis, Padang 25163, Indonesia article info Article history: Available online abstract Like many nations Indonesia is pressing ahead with a marine spatial planning process intended to bring coherence to marine management. As a contribution to this, broad scale oceanographic surveys are being undertaken at considerable cost to the tax payer. While the desire to deepen understanding of the marine environment is admirable, the limited social and economic component of this process is regrettable. Ironically, these socialeeconomic data are routinely collected and it is the process of inte- grating these data that is missing. As a step in the right direction, this paper outlines a simple meth- odology using socialeeconomic statistics consistently collected by government agencies and applies it to one coastal province of Indonesia, West Sumatra. Two indices are developed to map fisheries depen- dence and incidences of poverty amongst fishers at three spatial scales. Using census data of employ- ment and poverty across all economic sectors, incidences of poverty amongst fishers are placed in the wider poverty context in order to begin to answer the question of whether ‘fishery truly rhymes with poverty’ using empirical data. This study identified the following trends; 1) that the number of fishers in a state of poverty is increasing, 2) fishing together with crop farming are the two sectors in which in- cidences of poverty are greatest, 3) there is no significant correlation between high fishing dependency and high proportions of poverty amongst fishers, 4) there is a significant correlation between agricultural dependence and total percentage poverty in coastal communities and 5) there are inverse correlations between the strength of other economic sectors and poverty in the agricultural sector. Implications for poverty alleviation initiatives and policy recommendations are briefly discussed. The methodology described in this paper is instantly applicable to the ongoing implementation of the national marine spatial planning program. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Ninety-five percent of the world’s fishers are small-scale oper- ators and more than ninety percent of these are found in devel- oping countries (FAO, 2007). Small-scale fisheries have the potential to generate significant profits, prove resilient to shocks and crises, provide employment, alleviate poverty and meaning- fully contribute to food security for millions of people (Allison and Ellis, 2001; Andrew et al., 2007; Castilla and Defeo, 2005; FAO, 2003; Kent, 1997; Thorpe et al., 2006). Despite this, they often referred to synonymously with poverty (Cunningham, 1993; Macfadyen and Corcoran, 2002) with an implicit understanding that poverty equals fisheries and fisheries equal poverty (Béné, 2003). This “conventional wisdom on poverty in fisheries” (Copes, 1989) is based on the premise that fisheries are an open access and common pool resource. The logic follows that this allows more people to enter the fishery, leading to overexploitation and impoverishment of the community (Gordon, 1954; Hardin, 1968). In the ‘good times’, short-term economic surpluses in the fishery provide an incentive for labour to move from lower paid jobs in other economic sectors into the fishery (Cunningham, 1993). Even where there is no economic surplus in the fishery, labour may continue to be attracted into small-scale fisheries both in response to short-term shocks and natural disasters (Machena and Kwaramba, 1997), or as a long-term livelihood strategy for the landless poor (Bailey and Jentoft, 1990). Combined with increased mechanisation, as demonstrated off the coast of South India * Corresponding author. Institut Pertanian Bogor, Bogor, Indonesia. Tel.: þ62 8126657720. E-mail address: rzstanford@gmail.com (R.J. Stanford). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ocean & Coastal Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ocecoaman 0964-5691/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2013.08.010 Ocean & Coastal Management 84 (2013) 140e152