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Competition, Cooperation, and Learning in the Marine Commons: Implications for Collective Action

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dc.contributor.author Johnson, Teresa R.
dc.contributor.author Wilson, James
dc.contributor.author Acheson, James M.
dc.contributor.author Cleaver, C.
dc.date.accessioned 2010-10-29T20:03:24Z
dc.date.available 2010-10-29T20:03:24Z
dc.date.issued 2010 en_US
dc.identifier.uri https://hdl.handle.net/10535/6535
dc.description.abstract "Success or failure of governance of the marine commons can be traced to the complex interactions of the natural and the human systems. The coupled human and natural system dynamics that generate the preconditions for collective action, especially the adaptive dynamics that lead to the emergence of informal social and economic structure, are not well known. We hypothesize that competitive interactions among fishers seeking knowledge about resource conditions lead to the emergence of dynamic social patterns and informal structures that reflect the particular circumstances of the natural and social system; the scale and mechanisms of those patterns and structures in turn affect the feasibility and effectiveness of collective action and, through that, the sustainability of the natural system. We examine this hypothesis in the context of the Maine sea urchin fishery. Although currently very small, it was a classic gold rush fishery during the late 1980s and the 1990s until the population became depleted and fishable aggregations became sparse. We conducted semi-structured interviews with key informants from the Maine sea urchin fishery to understand the biophysical circumstances in which cooperation might be feasible and that might form the basis for collective action. We find that the biophysical conditions relevant to sustainable processes in the fishery occur at the scale of individual ledges, a much finer scale than current management. In spite of co-management, limited entry, and a number of input control mechanisms the relevant unit in the fishery, the ledge, is still an open access fishery." en_US
dc.language English en_US
dc.subject collective action en_US
dc.subject fisheries en_US
dc.subject learning en_US
dc.subject scale en_US
dc.subject sea urchin en_US
dc.subject marine resources en_US
dc.title Competition, Cooperation, and Learning in the Marine Commons: Implications for Collective Action en_US
dc.type Conference Paper en_US
dc.type.published unpublished en_US
dc.type.methodology Case Study en_US
dc.coverage.region North America en_US
dc.coverage.country United States en_US
dc.subject.sector Fisheries en_US
dc.subject.sector Social Organization en_US
dc.identifier.citationconference Capturing the Complexity of the Commons, North American Regional Meeting of the International Association for the Study of the Commons en_US
dc.identifier.citationconfdates Sep. 30-Oct. 2 en_US
dc.identifier.citationconfloc Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ en_US


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