students/nhaggan | UBC Fisheries Centre

Nigel Haggan (E-mail)
MSc, MA, BA (Dublin)

Nigel Haggan is a consultant in marine ecosystem science, policy and management and a PhD student at UBC Fisheries Centre researching the cultural and spiritual values of coastal ecosystems. Nigel piloted salmon farming in Ireland, spent 14 years developing fisheries programs and policies with BC First Nations and 12 years as a Fisheries Centre Research Associate. Nigel co-initiated and participated in numerous multi-disciplinary projects including the 'Back to the Future' marine ecosystem restoration approach, Just Fish and Coasts Under Stress projects. He is actively engaged in ways to accelerate enrolment of Aboriginal graduate students (http://www.roadshow.ubc.ca/).

Thesis topic: Cultural and spiritual values are those things and qualities that people believe to be sacred, that shape their identity, community and, in a wider sense, their place and purpose in the universe. Cultural and spiritual ecosystem values are notoriously difficult to incorporate in policy and decision-making. My hypothesis is that a small set of common or overlapping values underlie the many different ways in which the sacred is experienced and expressed.

Issue	Research question
People are unwilling to sell, trade-off or even express cultural and spiritual values in dollar equivalents.	Do concepts such as 'total economic value' and 'ecosystem services' provide adequate recognition?
The way cultural and spiritual values are expressed varies dramatically with cultural and ecological context.	What methods might serve to identify common values among a broad range of groups in coastal BC?
Association of cultural and spiritual values with Aboriginal people, minorities or fundamentalists makes them easy to reject as inappropriate in a pluralistic society.	How might common values identified be applied in emerging concepts of marine ecosystem-based management?

Relevance

I see this work as a small but important step towards offsetting the kind of discounting of future benefits that drove Atlantic cod to the edge of biological extinction 15 years ago and threatens Pacific salmon and other species today. More broadly, I believe that the identification and measurement of these values will provide a framework that can be tested and developed within other disciplines.

Selected publications

Haggan, N., Jackson, G.D. and Lacroix, P. (in press) Salmon and Eulachon in Ecosystem Space and time: A Plea for Better Collaboration and Data Integration. In: Challenges for Diadromous Fishes in a Dynamic Global Environment (ed Cunjak, R. et al.) American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, MD.

Lozano-Montes, H.M., Pitcher, T.J. and Haggan, N. (2008) Shifting environmental and cognitive baselines in the upper Gulf of California. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 6(1): 75-80.

Haggan, N., Ainsworth, C., Pitcher, T.J. and Heymans, J.J. (2006) Life in the fast food chain: Où sont les poissons d’antan? Pages 51-74 in: Parrish, C.C., Turner, N. and Solberg, S. (eds) Resetting the Kitchen Table: Food Security, Culture, Health and Resilience in Coastal Communities. Nova Science, New York, 247p.

Haggan, N., Neis, B. and Baird, I.G. (eds) (2007) Fishers' Knowledge in Fisheries Science and Management. UNESCO, Paris, 437p.

Haggan, N. and Neis, B. (2007) The changing face of Fisheries Science and Management. Pages 421-432 in: Haggan, N., Neis, B. and Baird, I.G. (eds) Fishers’ Knowledge in Fisheries Science and Management. UNESCO, Paris, 437p.

Pitcher, T.J., Morato, T., Hart, P.J.B., Clark, M., Haggan, N. and Santos, R. (eds) (2007) Seamounts: Ecology, Fisheries and Conservation. Blackwell, Oxford, UK, 536p.

Haggan, N., Turner, N.J., Carpenter, J., Jones, J.T., Menzies, C. and Mackie, Q. (2006) 12,000+ years of change: Linking traditional and modern ecosystem science in the Pacific Northwest. UBC Fisheries Centre Working Paper #2006-02.

Haggan, N., Narcisse, A., Sumaila, U.R., Lucas, Chief Simon and Turner, N.J. (2005) Pacific Ecosystems, past, present and future: Integrating Knowledge and Values, Anticipating Climate Change. Society for Ecological Restoration International/Indigenous Peoples’ Restoration Network session, Zaragoza, Spain, September 12 - 18, 2005.

Haggan, N. (2000) Back to the Future and Creative Justice. Pages 83-99 in, Coward, H., Ommer, R.E. and Pitcher, T.J. (eds) Just Fish: Ethics in the Canadian Coastal Fisheries. ISER Books, St. John's, 304p.

Haggan, N. (1998) Reinventing the Tree: reflections on the organic growth and creative pruning of fisheries management structures. Pages 19-30 in: Pitcher, T.J., Hart, P.J.B. and Pauly, D. (eds) Reinventing Fisheries Management, Chapman and Hall, London, 435p.