1977 — 1980 |
Acheson, James |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Social and Cultural Aspects of Fisheries Management in New England Under Extended Jurisdiction |
0.915 |
1991 — 1994 |
Acheson, James |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
The Socio-Economic Organization of Business Activity in Cuanajo, Michoacan, Mexico: a Test of the Theories of the Institutional Economists
This award supports the research of a cultural anthropologist studying small wood-working firms in Mexico. The research will examine a theory of "institutional economics" concerning the costs of transactions within and between firms. The theory predicts that these transactions costs determine the shape and size of a firm, and this projects tests and advances this theory by confronting it with data from small, often family-organized firms in a rural area of Mexico. The theory was formulated to deal with all firms "in the abstract", but with often unconscious bias towards the sorts of large firms one finds in developed, industrialized countries. Confronting this theory with data from small family firms in a less developed country like Mexico will reveal logical inconsistencies and flaws that can be modified to improve its power and generality.
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0.915 |
2005 — 2008 |
Acheson, James |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Maine Forest Landowner Study
One of the most important questions for resource management is, under what conditions will users conserve the resources on which their livelihood depends? This project studies the forest management strategies of different types of forest landowner groups in Maine. Some owners are doing a far better job of managing their forests sustainably than are others. The quality of management practices is a crucial issues at this time, because the rapid depletion of forests is a world-wide problem. Maine is a particularly good laboratory to study forest management issues because it is the most heavily forested state in the country, and a wide variety of management practices are being used. In Maine, the rate of cutting is not sustainable, according to a number of studies. As a result, the amount of land covered with brush and scrub trees has increased greatly, and the amount of acreage in high quality forests has declined greatly. At the same time, Maine's entire forest industry, one of the state's largest industries, is undergoing great changes. Paper mills are being closed, employment is declining sharply, and large tracts of land are changing hands.
This project involves an anthropologist and a forester studying Maine's paper companies, timber companies, forest contractors and small private forest owners. Two different, but complementary, kinds of studies will be done. First, information will be gathered on the forest management practices of a sample of landowners in each of the landowner categories, with emphasis on the paper companies and the private landowners. This information will be gathered using a number of techniques: mail surveys, qualitative in-person interviews, archival research, and direct observations. This study is designed to understand the forest management strategies of these landowners, and the social, cultural, economic and political factors motivating these decisions. Second, the actual state of the forests of these landowners will be evaluated using both field visits and the analysis of satellite images. Information from these studies will be used to test a number of hypotheses which will give us a greater understanding of the behavior of private forest-owners.
Broader implications: This study will enhance our understanding of the factors motivating people in various landowner categories to conserve or over-exploit their forests. Legislators, management agencies, and local communities would be able to act on this information to frame better resource management policies.
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0.915 |
2008 — 2011 |
Acheson, James (co-PI) [⬀] Acheson, Ann (co-PI) [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Evolution of Norms and Conservation Rules in Two Fisheries
Dr. James M. Acheson and Dr. Ann Acheson will undertake research on the processes by which rules to regulate natural resources come into being and the reasons they are followed or ignored. Most renewable natural resources are in a state of decline, including fisheries, grasslands, and forests. One reason is that rules and laws to conserve natural resources often fail to work well. This team of researchers will seek to understand the underlying reasons by studying two fisheries in the Gulf of Maine: the lobster industry, where effective rules have been developed and catches are at record highs, and the groundfish industry (which includes such fish as cod and haddock) where catches are at historic low levels and management appears to be ineffective.
To study how these two management systems evolved, the project has four related components: (1) a study of the current culture and social organization of these two industries; (2) a historical study designed to understand how a conservation ethic arose in the lobster industry, while groundfishermen are just now beginning to try to conserve; (3) controlled laboratory experimental games done with Maine fishermen to explore when people will constrain their own exploitive efforts; (4) an evolutionary game theory model to integrate findings from the other parts of the project. The project will be carried out by an interdisciplinary team of anthropologists with extensive knowledge of Maine fisheries and fisheries policy, and economists with expertise in game theory.
This project seeks to answer two important questions. First, how do norms and rules come into being? Second, what are the factors leading people to conserve or overexploit resources? This research has theoretical importance for social scientists seeking to understand the origins and persistence of social rules and institutions. The research findings also will have practical implications for resource managers, legislators, and policy makers.
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0.915 |
2009 — 2014 |
Acheson, James Wilson, James Steneck, Robert (co-PI) [⬀] Chen, Yong Johnson, Teresa (co-PI) [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Cnh: Fine-Scale Dynamics of Human Adaptation in Coupled Natural and Social Systems: An Integrated Computational Approach Applied to Three Fisheries
The purpose of this project is to gain a better understanding of the way competition between individual fishermen lead to the emergence of private incentives and informal social arrangements that are (or are not) consistent with conservation of the resource. These informal arrangements and incentives are important because they help us understand the extent to which private interests might strengthen or weaken on-going resource management and, consequently, the sustainability of coupled human and natural systems. The broad hypothesis driving the study is that the informal social structure that emerges from competitive interactions among fishermen reflects the particular circumstances of the natural system. In some cases, successful competition requires secretive non-cooperative behavior; in others, cooperation tends to yield better competitive results. These different outcomes have different, and not always obvious, impacts on the feasibility and effectiveness of resource management.
We think of the relevant human social process as one in which individuals compete with one another through time-consuming and costly acquisition of valuable knowledge about a complex resource. To compete successfully, individuals must balance the immediate benefits that come from exploiting knowledge they currently hold with the costly need to explore for new knowledge; additionally, when seeking new knowledge, individuals must balance the costs and benefits of acquiring knowledge through cooperation or through autonomous search. In order to model this kind of competitive process, we employ a significantly modified version of a technique borrowed from computer science called a learning classifier system (LCS). LCS uses a genetic algorithm to mimic the way an agent (here a fisherman) uses his experience to continuously refine his knowledge and decisions about his natural and social environment. The importance of LCS is that it permits simulation of the co-evolving strategic interactions of self-interested fishermen who are only partially informed about the state of the resource they are exploiting and the fishermen with whom they compete.
The problem of understanding these kinds of competitive dynamics is evident in almost all coupled natural and human systems. We apply the approach to a comparative study of three Gulf of Maine fisheries which are characterized by significantly different temporal and spatial dynamics - sea urchins, lobster and cod. Each fishery will be modeled using a biophysical simulator of the natural system and a tightly integrated multi-agent learning classifier system that simulates the learning and interactions of fishermen. The design of each model will be based in part on extensive interviews with fishermen about their knowledge of the dynamics of the fisheries in which they work. We will use these models to explore past and prospective policy problems in each fishery.
Beyond the immediate applicability of these explorations, we expect this project will provide a foundation for the wider use of multi-agent learning models in other coupled systems. Project outcomes will be transmitted regularly to industry and managers.
Principal investigators include economists, biologists, anthropologists and computer scientists. All the PIs have years of experience in the fisheries of the Gulf of Maine and have well developed relationships with individual fishermen and managers. A masters level student in marine policy, a Ph.D. student in computer or marine science and a post-doctoral researcher in computer science will be employed on the project. In addition, the project will develop an undergraduate course in complex adaptive social-ecological systems and a graduate student/faculty workshop in the same area.
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0.915 |