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Abstract:
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"A strategy for a group of people who fear that future access to a common resource is endangered, is to create an 'artificial common property' within this resource. The question is whether this strategy forms a sound basis for the sustainable management of this new property and, on its turn, the management of the larger resource.
"In Connemara, Ireland, a group of fishermen felt that the expansion of finfish farms in the local bay resulted in a decreasing catch and an increased number of restricted areas. They initiated a shellfish farming co-operative under the guise of expanding the fishing season and providing the area with employment opportunities through revitalizing the bay's derelict oyster beds. Shareholders' rights on dredging permits are based on a yearly 'voluntary labour' obligation.
"The establishment of this co-operative can be considered as a strategic action. Once the necessary licenses had been obtained and access to part of the sea had been secured many shareholders chucked it. More than two third of them have become free-riders. The necessary work at the oyster resource has been done through a government-sponsored social employment scheme. Shareholders' willingness to sustain the oyster resource has been influenced by (a) conflicting individual interests; (b) the (still) relatively unimportant position the co-op has in the community's socio-economic structure, aggravated by opportunity costs in other areas and the four years' waiting period between labour contributions and first uncertain rewards; (c) the institutionalised reluctance to sanction freeriders; (d) lack of back-up from social coercion mechanisms in community; and (e) external institutions prepared to support the co-op 'in the name of development', but whose well-intended interventions stimulated a reverse process.
"The fishermen may have 'saved' their bay from the finfish farms, but the future of the revitalized oyster resource is uncertain."
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