Artisanal fishers' perceptions regarding coastal co-management policies in Chile and their potentials to scale-up marine biodiversity conservation

No-take Marine Protected Areas (Nt-MPAs) constitute an indispensable tool for biodiversity conservation. Nevertheless, there are other instruments such as marine coastal co-management policy frameworks which may be also considered as tools for conservation or as ancillary conservation instruments. Using focus groups, semi-structured interviews and survey questionnaires we analysed small-scale artisanal fishers' perceptions towards a coastal co-management regime in Chile and the potential to generate capacities and a social setting to scale-up marine conservation. Empirical evidence from the study shows artisanal fishers have indeed been empowered through the coastal co-management experience; however, there exist heterogeneity in their willingness to participate in the creation of Nt-MPAs, mainly determined by occupational mobility. Chilean artisanal fishers strongly support a bottom-up process in the conservation of marine biodiversity, though the need for top-down steering and guidance is also stressed, especially regarding enforcement.     

Expanding fisheries co-management to ecosystem-based management: A case in the Shiretoko World Natural Heritage area,Japan

Fisheries co-management in the Shiretoko World Natural Heritage area was expanded to ecosystem-based management, in which the fisheries sector plays an essential role in management. A marine management plan was drawn up to define the management objectives, strategies to maintain major species, and methods for ecosystem monitoring. A network of coordinating organizations from a wide range of sectors was established to integrate policy measures. Experience from this case could inform ecosystem-based management in other countries where large numbers of small-scale fishers take a wide range of species under a fisheries co-management regime.     

Navigating customary law and state fishing legislation to create effective fisheries governance in India

When customary legal systems exist alongside state regulations, individuals can choose between these different frameworks to support their claims to resources. Research suggests that such framework switching to maximize self-interest weakens and challenges resource management. Multiple legal systems are at work in India's fisheries and this study examines how they work to govern conflict over purse-seine fishing in the Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra State. Through participant observations, interviews and state fishing law reviews, this study finds evidence of strong customary legal systems, operating through local cultural practices, to protect common property rights, equitable access, ethical and ecological concerns. In contrast, state legislation appears weak because it addresses issues of local concern, such as equitable access, at a slow pace and over such a large scale as to be absent. Consequently, multiple legal systems in these fisheries do not create a management challenge that follows a predictable path towards resource degradation. Instead informal, customary rules applied alongside formal state legislation interact in complex ways that create opportunities for effective co-management.     

User participation and institutional change in fisheries management: a viable alternative to the failures of ‘top-down’ driven control?

This article investigates the role and value of user participation in fisheries management. New empirical data on changes in the institutional structure of fisheries management systems is presented by examining the management structure of two Danish fisheries. The analysis focuses on how user participation functions are institutionalized as co-management between administrators and user groups. General lessons for successful user participation in management are deduced. The paper concludes that co-management is able to overcome some of the fundamental problems related to modern fisheries management and that co-management can work as an active and effective management tool rather than as an impediment to efficient management.     

Co-management of coral reef fisheries: A critical evaluation of the literature

In many parts of the world, inshore marine resources are being increasingly managed through collaborative arrangements between communities, governments, civil society and other groups. However, co-management of fisheries has had a mixture of successes and failures. Theorists and applied researchers have suggested a series of preconditions or factors thought to improve the chances of successful common-pool resource management. These include common property institutional design principles and their contextual conditions. Using a variety of web-based English keyword searches, published literature on community-based management and co-management of coral reefs was systematically reviewed with the view of determining if and how studies were evaluating these management systems as well as the extent to which critical aspects of common property theory were investigated and tested. Based on a screening of 600 and full evaluation of 157 journal articles, four measures of ecological conditions and five measures of contextual condition improvement were examined or could be evaluated with the data presented in 38 papers, which examined 49 co-management projects. Fewer than half of the 49 studies met the inclusion criteria of the analyses for documenting key design principles or contextual conditions. Additionally, most projects did not systematically report on contextual conditions, common property design principles and measures of success. The analysis demonstrates the large theoretical and empirical gaps in the evaluation of these management systems and begs for a more scientific, critical and multivariate approach.     

Fact or fiction? Assessing governance and co-management of Marine Reserves of Fishing Interest in Cedeira and Lira (NW Spain)

A large number of the marine protected areas (MPAs) designated in Spain have been proposed by public authorities or conservation NGOs in conjunction with their own administrations and other social and economic stakeholders. The only examples to date of MPAs proposed by fishing interests – the fishermen and their organizations – are located at Cedeira and Lira, two small communities in North West Spain. These fishing interests have been involved in these two proposals from the start, including design and development, as well as internal awareness-raising. However, 5 years from the outset, both marine reserves have failed to meet the conditions and essential requirements of a successful fisheries management system. This paper evaluates how the artisanal fishing sector has been identified with the idea of sustainability; and how the role and power relations of the Galician regional administration acquired both the key institutions of co-management and their associated functions which have conditioned the consolidation process of these marine reserves.     

Hana Pa'a: Challenges and lessons for early phases of co-management

This case study provides in depth analysis of an early phase of natural resources co-management, rule making. Co-management involves shared management responsibility between resource users or community groups and governmental agencies, and is recommended as a key management approach for nearshore marine resources. This article explores collaborative rulemaking based on traditional management practices for a small, rural nearshore Hawaiian fishery important for local subsistence. Legislation mandated the state of Hawai‘i's natural resource management agency work with community residents to co-create and enforce rules for the fishery. By selecting a model case in which rule making has taken seven years longer than predicted, despite the presence of many established enabling conditions, this study elucidates new factors for consideration in early phases of co-management. These include legal uncertainty regarding statutory mandates, the role of bridging organizations in capacity building, cross-generational leadership development, and connection of the co-management rule-making process to the target geography. Through in depth analysis of a model collaborative rule making effort and the delays it faced, this research reveals new critical challenges while also offering suggestions to address them to build lasting collaborative capacity in other fledgling co-management efforts.     

Who and what is to be involved in successful coastal zone management: a Thailand example

Successful coastal zone management (CZM) requires the participation of five sectors: local people, government authorities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), scientists and investors. NGOs must play an important role in providing the opportunities for all sectors to meet and talk with each other. All the parties involved should have the chance to express and exchange their opinions. They should be able to discuss the problems they are facing and how they would like them to be solved. When all needs and problems have been discussed scientists or academics could then provide their expertise in formulating the CZM plan. The plan should reflect all the needs each sector has expressed as well as mitigation measures for implementation. Such- a co-management process should result in a satisfactory and sustainable CZM plan. This plan should be monitored and revised whenever it is seen fit. This is the pattern that Thailand is experiencing.     

Angling management organizations: integrating the recreational sector into fishery management

This paper examines ways to reduce conflicts and improve the sustainability and value of marine recreational fisheries by fully integrating the recreational sector into the management of fisheries. One possibility involves a novel approach, here called angling management organizations (AMOs), which combines three of the more pervasive and promising trends in fishery management worldwide—management devolution, strengthened harvest rights, and co-management. AMOs are community-based organizations that are designed to conform to seven basic principles of integrated fishery management, which are described below. AMOs are loosely related to rights-based producer organizations in commercial fisheries, and are expected to strengthen resource stewardship, reduce enforcement and monitoring costs, alleviate management conflicts, and produce greater long-term net economic benefits in recreational fisheries. The other organizational structures considered here, including the management status quo, do not conform to all seven principles and are not expected to be as effective as AMOs.     

A tenuous triumvirate: The role of independent biologists in Chile's co-management regime for shellfish

Fisheries co-management is usually defined by shared decision-making between fishers and the state. Chile's co-management regime for shellfish differs from the norm by incorporating a third party: independent biological consultants. This paper evaluates Chile's system and compares three-party co-management to two-party systems. It finds that consultants fulfill functions absent in two-party co-management, such as playing an intermediary role between fishers and the state, and also perform certain functions better than either of the other two entities involved, such as acting as a credible and objective source of information. It then discusses ways to perfect Chile's system, such as stepping up knowledge transfer activities so as to further empower fishers.     

Can formalisation help? The introduction of fisheries co-management in the inshore fisheries of Dingle,Co. Kerry,Ireland

Fisheries co-management is claimed to increase the legitimacy of regulations by allocating management authority to selected users. In this article, experiences from a case study in the inshore fisheries of Ireland involving the establishment of a fisheries co-management system are used to discuss the specific problem of finding an unit to whom regulatory authority may be delegated. Here, the fishers who will benefit from the co-management scheme will also carry the costs, and it is argued that establishment of formal economic liability between those granted management privileges and those excluded can optimise the legitimacy of management authority in fisheries co-management systems.     

Towards a functional typology of small-scale fisheries co-management informed by stakeholder perceptions: A coral reef case study

Co-management has gained significant traction in small-scale fisheries as part of the solution for resolving economic inefficiency, unsustainable harvesting and unequal distribution of benefits derived from fisheries, generating some promising results. Most studies, however, present co-management as the sharing of power between resource users and centralised government, and do not explicitly consider the role of a more diverse set of stakeholders, or what roles different stakeholder types are best positioned to perform. This paper contributes to our understanding of stakeholder diversity by determining, through surveys with 133 fishery stakeholders in Solomon Islands, which stakeholder types are perceived as most suited to particular co-management roles, and which stakeholder types should be collaborating to increase fishery stocks. The effect of respondent socio-demographics, on perceived roles, is tested to explore the value of the role typology. Ten dominant roles were identified across seven stakeholder types, including collaboration and raising awareness, which were perceived to be dominantly the domain of auxiliary stakeholders that are not explicitly recognised in the co-management literature, including NGOs and church leaders. Of the socio-demographic variables tested, only site explained some of the variation in stakeholder roles perceived by respondents. The primary value of the typology lies in its potential to be used as a basis for dialogue on strengths and weaknesses of allocated roles for increasing fish stocks in existing co-management systems.     

Can co-management emerge spontaneously? Collaborative management in Sri Lankan shrimp aquaculture

Shrimp aquaculture in northwestern Sri Lanka shows co-management like features. To understand the reasons behind co-management and to identify the mechanisms by which co-management is carried out, the paper examines shrimp aquaculture operations in three coastal communities using a case study approach. Water from an interconnected lagoon system is the key input for shrimp ponds, but it is also the potential source of shrimp disease outbreaks that threaten all shrimp farms. Farmers try to prevent the spread of disease by co-operating to adjust the timing of water intake and wastewater release. This is done through a zonal crop calendar system which is developed and implemented by a vertically integrated institutional structure with three levels: sub-zonal/community, zonal, and national. Partnerships, overall sharing of power and authority, and learning-by-doing are key features of this collaborative management system. The case shows that adaptive co-management can develop through collaborative problem-solving over time, even in the absence of legal arrangements.     

Enhancing the agency of fishers: A conceptual model of self-management in Australian abalone fisheries

Encouraging sustainable behaviour among fishers is an increasingly popular, but poorly understood approach to fisheries management. While examples of self-management and co-management offer some insights, there is a need to develop a better account of how diverse factors interact to affect behaviour. This paper explores factors contributing to variation in levels of self-management in five Australian abalone fisheries, using data from interviews, management workshops and surveys. A conceptual model of fishery self-management is developed from these data. Of central importance were the groups’ capacity to cooperate and their perceptions of the state of the resource. These factors were, in turn, influenced by a range of other interrelated conditions. In particular, management forums needed to be perceived by industry members as fair and open, helping to build trust. Trust was built and eroded through feedback loops, meaning mechanisms for monitoring and enforcement were essential. As industry groups struggled with self-enforcement, this was a key area where government provided support. Leaders were also central to these interactions, creating relationships, bearing costs and guiding decisions. The study demonstrates the complexity of such systems and highlights the diverse opportunities for policy makers and managers to improve fishery outcomes.     

Co-management of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) fisheries

The countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have a relatively poor record of fisheries management and the need to reform fisheries governance is urgent. There is now increasing interest in getting fishers and other stakeholders more involved in management through co-management and community-based management approaches. The purpose of this paper is to examine the potentials of co-management as an alternative fisheries management strategy for the countries in the CARICOM region. Co-management is found to have potential but there will need to be capacity-building and institutional strengthening of fisheries departments, fishers and NGOs to participate in co-management. Pilot projects should be initiated to gain practical experience in co-management.     

On crafting a fisheries co-management arrangement in the estuary of Patos Lagoon (Brazil): opportunities and challenges faced through implementation

This paper aims to analyze a fisheries co-management regime in Brazil. The Forum of the Patos Lagoon, a collaborative partnership among communities, governmental and non-governmental organizations, was established to move fisheries management toward a negotiation-style decision processes. We find that while many successes are evident including the delegation of decision power, greater protection of artisanal fisheries, and greater legitimacy assigned the Forum as a decision-making body, several problems remain. These include conflicting institutional arrangements; minimal recognition of local fishers’ interests as concerns rules established; and less than optimal participation of fishers in the Forum. The paper closes with multiple suggestions for improvements of this co-management regime.     

Sustaining small-scale fisheries with periodically harvested marine reserves

Spatial marine closures are widely employed and advocated for marine resource management and conservation. Temporal, non-permanent, rotational or periodically harvested area closures have been employed across the Indo-Pacific for centuries and are a common measure within contemporary community-based and co-management frameworks. Although prior evidence suggests that periodic closures may confer fisheries benefits for some taxa or in certain conditions, there is little evidence that they are equally effective for the sustainable management of the many types of small-scale fisheries important in the Indo-Pacific. Case studies of periodic closures are reviewed to highlight the variations in target species, harvesting periodicity and fishing pressure that will influence the fisheries management effectiveness of this tool. Fisheries management benefits are observed for short-lived, fast-growing taxa or for a range of taxa in low fishing pressure situations. Stocks declines are observed for long-lived taxa or for a range of taxa if harvesting is intense. It is argued that community-based and co-management policy and action must better account for these factors when promoting and implementing periodic closures for medium- to long-term fisheries management or conservation goals.     

Moral discourse in fisheries co-management: A case study of the Senja fishery,northern Norway

Communication is essential to co-management. This paper examines how the outcome of management processes in a fisheries co-management system in northern Norway depends on communicative interaction between the fishermen. Legitimacy is held as an essential condition for well functioning user-based regulation in the fishery, and is often seen as a result when user-groups are involved in the management process. This paper argues that involving user-groups is not enough for legitimating regulations. Legitimacy also depends on the nature of communication in the decision-making process. In the terminology of Habermas, management institutions having a communicative design that encourages moral discourse would have a higher degree of legitimacy than institutions having an instrumental design. Not only because the decision-making process is emphasized, but also because it has potential to give room for other communities of interests beyond the use of fishing gears. The paper also discusses how fishermen may act communicatively in ways that include normative and moral issues of fisheries management.     

Co-management and “consciousness”: Fishers’ assimilation of management principles in Chile

Chile's new Management Area system delegates management responsibility to organizations of artisanal shell-fishers on the condition that they team with professionally trained marine biologists. A survey of participating fishers in Chile's Fourth and Fifth regions examined four social benefits predicted to result from this type of co-management: (1) improved rapport between fishers and the state, (2) greater awareness among fishers of ecology and the benefits of management, (3) cooperation between fishers and scientists, and (4) unity between fishers. A discussion analyzes the principal benefit encountered—fishers’ newfound “consciousness” of the value of management—within the context of co-management and territorial use rights.