Community Management of Fishing at Scale: A View From Inside and Outside the Pachitea River Basin, Peru

Abstract

"At a superficial look, the Pachitea river basin gives the impression of being a space 'without' fisheries 'management' (absence of authority, uncertainty, exclusion). Nevertheless, following this general overview, we have observed the presence of institutional arrangements and various community management initiatives that reflect a 'local order for fishing.' This article analyzes the form and the options that such 'local order' has to become a co-management initiative in the river basin. To this end, we have cases located in different scales: low, medium and high areas; the same which have differentiated social and cultural composition and have different management needs (subsistence, commercial, sport and ornamental fishing) from which we explore various fishing management strategies. Without doubt, the decentralization process started years ago in Peru represents to the inhabitants as well as to their local and regional authorities a great challenge for the management of fisheries resources, but also provides a range of opportunities to be exploited to improve the management of fishery resources in the Amazonian area. These are the strategies that are constructed and reconstructed for each case, those that occur in each one of these areas of complex and dynamic socio environment."