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Introduction 1© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore 1 Introduction There were good fishing seasons. When they felt that it was not [so good] they moved to wherever the catch was good. Because that was only what they were after. Calixto Guxman, reflecting in 1992 on the history of fishing in the Visayas1 The seas of Southeast Asia have long provided humans with fish, shrimps, squids, whales, pearl oysters, sea cucumbers, and a multitude of other animals that they have collected and captured for medicine, oil, jewellery, and, above all else, food. But a profound change has taken place in the relationship between humans and the riches of the sea. Until the early 1900s most of the sea had been barely touched by fishing. When the demand for fish and other marine animals rose or the supply fell, there was always a new fishing ground to exploit and there were very few impediments to moving on to new fishing grounds. By extending the frontier of fisheries, moving on to new fishing grounds and, as part of this movement, exploiting more and more of the diverse ecosystems that make up the seas of Southeast Asia, fishers brought about spectacular increases in the harvest of fish, shrimps, and other marine animals, particularly in the decades right after World War II. By the 1990s, however, nearly all of the three-dimensional sea was being exploited, catches had fallen sharply in many areas, and the freedom to move from one fishing ground to another had been severely curtailed. Tracing and explaining this transformation is the purpose of this book. This history focuses on the act of fishing itself — what is caught, Reproduced from The Closing of the Frontier: A History of the Marine Fisheries of Southeast Asia c. 18502000 , by John G. Butcher (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2004). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.Individual articles are available at Chapter 1 2© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore how it is caught, how much is caught, who it is caught by, and especially when and where it is caught — but we must see this act as part of a complex set of economic relations. “To use a particular type of gear to seek a particular fish”, argues Emmerson, “is to become involved in a unique set of economic transactions that radiate backward and forward in space and time from the place and moment of capture”.2 In one direction, those who capture fish and other forms of marine life operate gear that they have made with their own labour, purchased from their savings, or acquired on some form of credit or that is the property of other individuals or of firms. In the other, these same people must trade or barter at least part of what they catch or receive some sort of payment for their labour, whether a wage, a proportion of the proceeds of the catch, or simply enough food to continue working. Since fishing became increasingly oriented towards the market in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the spectacular growth in catches that is traced in this book must be understood in relation to changes in the processing and marketing of marine products. It was the expanding demand for the products of the sea created above all else by the growth in population but also by the development of transport and marketing systems and changes in the techniques of preserving fish, shrimps, and other marine life that prompted people to produce for the market. Often agents and entrepreneurs of various types were the ones who provided the stimulus, usually in the form of credit. As all this suggests, the history of fishing is in part the story of the interaction between fishing and the wider economy. Indeed, the growth of towns and the expansion of mines and plantations — all with large populations of people not producing their own food — and changes in employment and investment opportunities in the wider economy have all had a bearing on the intensity of fishing. States and, since the late 1940s, international organizations have all influenced the scale and location of fishing. Until recently, fishing, far more than sedentary agriculture, took place beyond the reach and grasp of state powers, and even today the relationship between state and fisher often resembles that between...

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