28 

 though the actions of market forces. Government agencies, etc., 

 present the people of coastal areas with substantial economic 

 opportunities . 



A central problem then — perhaps the key problem--is to 

 understand the ability of the people of coastal communities to 

 adapt to a new economic environment including the (highly proba- 

 ble) need to adopt new or unfamiliar fishing technologies. The 

 ramifying effects of such changes throughout the rest of the 

 social system cannot be reasonably assessed until this problem 

 is solved. 



Fishermen can respond to the new economic opportunities 

 presented by extended jurisdiction? a. by adopting new boats 

 and sophisticated fishing equipment, b. by adopting new fishing 

 and marketing strategies. We fully expect fishermen to even- 

 tually use newer fishing gear and exploit new marketing mechan- 

 isms, etc., but it is possible for a person to do one and not 

 the other. Both kinds of innovation are important to understand,. 



The social science literature on innovation and techni- 

 cal change is enormous. However, there are several themes in 

 this literature that have special bearing on the problem at hand, 

 a. When new economic opportunities are presented to the people 

 of a culture, the response to them is typically highly differ- 

 ential. Some people adopt the innovation; other do not. Neither 

 communities as a whole nor groups accept innovations en mass 

 (e.g., Hagen, 1962: chaps. 6 & 7; Kunkel, 1970: 55 f f . ; McClelland, 

 1961; Ryan, 1969: 91 ff .) . 



