State-Property, Communal-Property or Open-Access? The Case of Ibiraquera Lagoon, Brazil

Abstract

"The broad objective of this paper is to investigate the dynamics of institutions and changing resource systems for building social-ecological resilience. Here, I analyze a case study, the Ibiraquera Lagoon fishing management, in Brazil, which has experienced several changes in the social as well as ecological system in the last four decades. In this case study the dynamics of ecological system and social system have different time scale. The lagoons fishing stock and water are renewed two to four times a year due to the lagoons connection to the ocean. On the other hand, the management system has experienced just four major changes in the last four decades. Although the Ibiraquera lagoon has always been legally a state property, in 1960s the lagoon system was de facto managed as a communal property (a community-based management system); from 1970 to 1981, the system was de facto in an open-access condition; from 1981 to 1994 the lagoon was de facto a co-management system (between local fishers and Federal Government); and since 1994 the lagoon has becoming an open-access system again."