An Oral History Study Of Fishermen On Changes In Marine Fishery Resources

Marine fishery resources have not only attracted attention as an important source of nutrients for mankind,but more importantly,the resources themselves carry strategic missions such as becoming a marine power and building a marine community with a shared future.In this era of complicated,high—risk and international marine environmental governance,we must attach importance to multiple thinking.It is an important breakthrough to discuss the changes of marine fishery resources from the bottom logic of fishermen.Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China over70 years ago,China’s marine fishery resources have changed in such a large range,a fast speed and a wide range of influences that cannot be ignored.For example,the authoritative data reflecting these changes include China marine Ecological Environment Bulletin,China Ecological Environment Status Bulletin and Ecological Environment Statistical Annual Report,which may have many problems such as short retroactive monitoring period,different data monitoring indexes and lack of data continuity.It is an important way to solve the shortage of primary data to recall the oral history method and express daily details.Based on the characteristic of marine fishery resource change and the sample requirement of oral history,Dongji Town,Putuo District,Zhoushan City,Zhejiang Province was taken as the case point.Twenty elderly fishermen with rich fishery production experience and island life practice were selected as oral objects,and through participatory observation and the formulation of scientific oral interview outline,we strive to have a comprehensive understanding of the island.Following the date and characteristics of memory traceability,the "multiple evidence method" is adopted to demonstrate,based on the oral historical materials of fishermen on the changes of marine fishery resources as the original,supplemented by local records and various documents for mutual verification.Zhoushan Fishery Records and Putuo Fishery Records are the reference points.Based on the theory of cultural memory and the theory and framework of the regional system of human sea relationship,this paper explains how fishermen understand the changes of fishery resources and explores how the rules and causes of the changes interact with social factors.Firstly,the basic rules of changes in marine fishery resources are summarized from the oral data of fishermen,and the subjective feelings of fishermen are discussed from eight aspects,such as resource types,quality,spatial distribution of sea area,changes of fishing season,fish varieties,fish prices,fish dishes and update of fishing technology.Based on this evolution law,the mutual adaptation relationship between the evolution of fishing mode and marine fishery resources is further demonstrated,which shows that the production technology replacement and production law change caused by the transformation of fish population resources,and the marginal benefit of technology application is dominated by the marine natural law.The factors of resource change discussed by fishermen include not only the transformation of production system and the replacement of production factors,but also the change of fishery resources habitat.The comparison between large yellow croaker and hairtail illustrates that the decline of large yellow croaker is a combination of overfishing and its own genes and body size.The deterioration of seawater quality and marine garbage have become the main culprits of habitat change of fishery resources.The transformation of livelihood and the characteristics of ocean flow have increased the difficulty of management.Secondly,fishermen resort to misery in the process of dictating structural changes in fishery resources.There are two ways to construct the "collective memory" of suffering,one is life narrative,the other is space reconstruction,which also integrates production tools,folk songs,colloquial words and other specific elements.The decline of fishery resources has not become the fundamental cause of fishermen’s suffering,but the compulsory intervention of political power and the weakening of their social status are the key to "no fish to catch",which is specifically manifested in the structural contradiction of fishermen’s pension security and the sustainable plight of fishermen’s livelihood.At the same time,fishermen,according to the way and degree of suffering,make themselves independent from another social group of farmers "suffering people",expanding the social attribute of suffering from gender commonality and difference.Finally,from the aspects of the creation subject of fishermen’s paintings and their oral description of the connotation of the works,it shows that fishermen’s paintings are a field for fishermen to resolve their suffering.This "romantic imagination",like the simplification of traditional beliefs and rituals in islands,is influenced by multiple factors such as changes in ways of making a living and construction of power discourse.The oral description of fishermen’s life practice presents the production and life logic of "fishing-complaining-painting fishing".The micro-subject returns to the study of marine environmental issues,which can provide a new reference way to understand the change of human sea relationship.