Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 13
  • Journal Article
    Can Partnerships and Community-Based Conservation Reverse the Decline of Coral Reef Social-Ecological Systems?
    (2014) Frey, James Barclay; Berkes, Fikret
    "The marine aquarium trade has played an important role in shaping the ecological state of coral reefs in Indonesia and much of the Asia-Pacific. The use of cyanide by ornamental fishers in Buleleng District, Bali, in the 1980s and 1990s has resulted in a precipitous decline in the ecological health of reefs. Cyanide-free harvesting techniques were introduced after 2000, along with reef restoration measures. This paper examines social and ecological processes in the fishing village of Les, Bali, in ending the use of cyanide and the resulting ecological restoration. An emphasis on conservation-development (with livelihood objectives) was important in securing interest and cooperation across stakeholder groups. Adaptive approaches to governance and knowledge co-production were also important. The strategy used at Les is now being exported to other communities across Indonesia, and provides a promising example of a marine resources-based conservation-development initiative that may be implemented at other, similar communities."
  • Journal Article
    Exploring Social Capital in Chile's Coastal Benthic Comanagement System Using a Network Approach
    (2012) Marin, Andres; Gelcich, Stefan; Castilla, Juan C.; Berkes, Fikret
    "Comanagement success relies on the proper administration of resources and on the capacity of users to establish and maintain positive social relationships with multiple actors. We assessed multifunctional relationships of small-scale artisanal fisher organizations engaged in a coastal benthic resources comanagement system in Chile to explore bridging and linking social capital, using an egocentric network approach. The formal leaders of 38 small-scale fisher organizations were surveyed to investigate (1) similarities and differences in social capital among fisher organizations and regions, and (2) possible effects of social capital levels on comanagement performance. Results show that the best performing fisher organizations are those with higher levels of linking and bridging social capital. Positive and strong correlations exist between linking social capital levels and comanagement performance variables. Importantly, fisher organizations considered to manage resources successfully consistently presented high levels of linking social capital, irrespective of variability in bridging social capital. Using egocentric networks allows understanding actors’ differences in the comanagement social structure, thus providing critical insights for improving comanagement systems."
  • Conference Paper
    An Evaluation Framework for Adaptive Co-Management: Towards Commons Governance in an Uncertain World
    (2015) Trimble, Micaela; Berkes, Fikret; Johnson, Derek; Lázaro, Marila; Medeiros, Rodrigo P.; Plummer, Ryan
    "Adaptive co-management is an important governance innovation because it recognizes that social-ecological resilience requires attention to changing and diverse livelihoods and the divergent capacities and power of different groups to engage in governance. Even though this is a growing research field, efforts to evaluate the process of adaptive co-management and the relationship between goals and outcomes have been scarce. Building on existing efforts, and drawing also from the field of public participation, we propose a formative evaluation framework for adaptive co-management, which focuses on its operation and the connections between process features and outcomes. The framework consists of four components and two evaluation approaches. The components of the evaluation framework are as follows: (i) Setting (ecological, social and social-ecological, institutional, external drivers); (ii) Process (participation, relationship building, social learning); (iii) Outcomes (social capital, social learning and adaptation, decision making) and (iv) Effects (ecological, social and socio-ecological). Methodologically, the two evaluation approaches integrated in our framework are conventional-constructivist and participatory or collaborative. This framework is being refined as we implement it in two case studies, one in Uruguay and the other in Brazil. We analyze how the twofold evaluation framework for adaptive co-management, aiming at improving practice, informing policy, and building capacity, may be a catalyst for collaboration and adaptation. The proposed framework may be transferable to other governance / management approaches involving multiple actors (e.g. community, government, non-government)."
  • Conference Paper
    Solutions to the 'Tragedy of the Commons': Sea Urchin Management in St. Lucia, West Indies
    (1990) Smith, Allan H.; Berkes, Fikret
    "Possible solutions to the commons problem have rarely been investigated systematically by the use of biological data on the sustainability of the resource. The edible sear urchin (Tripneustes ventricosus) resource of St. Lucia is highly prized but vulnerable to over-exploitation because of its shallow water distribution. We examined sustainability in three study areas. The resource was depleted in the study area in which access was free and open. It remained sustainable in the other two areas in which there were access controls. In one case, the area was under government control as a marine reserve, a measure that enjoyed local support; in the other, there was a locally practiced 'closed season' and community-based management of access into the bay. The results indicated that both government controls and informal, community-level controls can lead to successful resource management outcomes."
  • Working Paper
    Fisheries and the Prisoner's Dilemma Game: Conditions for the Evolution of Cooperation among Users of Common Property Resources
    (1987) Berkes, Fikret; Kence, Aykut
    "Recent studies using Prisoner's Dilemma framework have led to a theory of cooperation based on repeated encounters and the development of reciprocity. The theory is applicable to a diversity of disciplines and has implications fort he use of common property resources such as fisheries, i.e. what are the conditions under which the users of a fishery resource will cooperate to avoid, what some consider, the inevitable 'tragedy of the commons'? The Prisoner's Dilemma approach helps formalize some of the recent theoretical developments on conditions of successful common property use. In particular, it offers insights regarding the importance of probability of encounter among users, development of reciprocal relations among them, the number of users in an area and the degree of crowding, heterogeneity of user groups, the importance of local residency, and the supply-demand characteristics of the resource."
  • Journal Article
    Resource Degradation, Marginalization, and Poverty in Small-Scale Fisheries: Threats to Social-Ecological Resilience in India and Brazil
    (2014) Nayak, Prateep K.; Oliveira, Luiz E.; Berkes, Fikret
    "In this study we examine poverty in local fisheries using a social-ecological resilience lens. In assessing why 'fishery may rhyme with poverty', Christophe Béné suggests a typology of impoverishment processes, which includes economic exclusion, social marginalization, class exploitation, and political disempowerment as key mechanisms that accelerate poverty. We extend his analysis by exploring these four mechanisms further and by intertwining them with processes of environmental change and degradation. Our goal is to understand poverty in local fisheries as a process rooted in social and institutional factors as influenced by ecological dynamics. We argue that understanding poverty will require a focus on the social-ecological system (SES) as a whole, and addressing poverty will mean rebuilding not only collapsed stocks but the entire social-ecological system, including restoring relationships between resources and people. Information from two cases, the Chilika Lagoon on the Bay of Bengal in India, and the Paraty region on the southeastern coast of Brazil, is used to understand how fishery social-ecological systems come under pressure from drivers at multiple levels, resulting in a range of impacts and pushing the system to a breaking point or collapse. We analyze elements of what it takes for the whole system to break down or collapse and push fishers into poverty and marginalization. The Chilika SES has already broken down, and the Paraty SES is under pressure from multiple drivers of change. The two cases help contrast key dynamics in the social, cultural, economic, political, and environmental spheres, for lessons on system collapse and recovery. Rebuilding fisheries may be examined as a process of building and strengthening resilience. The challenge is to make the fishery social-ecological system more resilient, with more flexibility and options, not only within fishing activities but also within a range of other sectors."
  • Conference Paper
    Can Cross-Scale Linkages Increase the Resilience of Social-Ecological Systems?
    (2003) Berkes, Fikret
    "Resilience thinking helps commons researchers to look beyond institutional forms, and ask instead questions regarding the adaptive capacity of social groups and their institutions to deal with stresses as a result of social, political and environmental change. One way to approach this question is to look for informative case studies of change in social-ecological systems and to investigate how societies deal with change. From these cases, one can gain insights and construct principles regarding capacity building to adapt to change and, in turn, to shape change. "A number of examples exist to indicate that cross-scale linkages, both horizontal (across space) and vertical (across levels of organization), speed up learning and communication, thereby improving the ability of a society to buffer change, speed up self-organization, and increase the capacity for learning and adaptation (Lee 1993; Young 1999). This paper will deal with two cases, one involving aboriginal co-management in the Canadian North, and the other, cross-scale management of ocean fisheries."
  • Conference Paper
    Paving the Way Towards Co-Management through Participatory Research: A Case Study with Artisanal Fisheries in Uruguay
    (2013) Trimble, Micaela; Lázaro, Marila; Berkes, Fikret
    "In Uruguay, both artisanal fishers and the State agency in charge of fisheries management (DINARA) have shown interest in seeking co-management arrangements, leaving behind the top-down regime, still prevalent today. Our research is based on a case study in Piriápolis (coastal Río de la Plata), in which a participatory research process among fishery stakeholders (fishers, DINARA, University scientists, NGOs) was facilitated to investigate its contributions to the emergence of co-management. Our findings show that participatory research had an impact on the various faces of co-management: (1) power sharing: power was actually shared during the research process, (2) institution building: a multi-stakeholder group (POPA), with a common vision and goals, was created, (3) trust building: trust among participants increased, (4) process: the process of group formation was considered important by participants, (5) learning: stakeholders learned skills for participation, among others, (6) problem solving: two problem-solving exercises were conducted (POPA started with the problem of sea lion impact on the fishery but ended up addressing the competition from imported pangasius), (7) governance: a diversity of stakeholders of the initial problem identified by fishers participated in the process. These impacts on co-management are indeed useful criteria for evaluating the outcomes of participatory research as a knowledge co-production approach in which resource users participate of the entire research, and whose final aim is community empowerment. When evaluating the process of participatory research, our case study contributed to identifying several criteria that can facilitate co-management, such as: participation of all stakeholder groups of the selected problem/topic; participants' representativeness; involvement of all stakeholder groups in every research stage; independent facilitation; collective decision-making through deliberative and consensus-building processes; and appropriate information management. This research provides empirical evidence to support the claim that participatory research is a strategy to facilitate and improve co-management."
  • Journal Article
    An Investigation of Cree Indian Domestic Fisheries in Northern Quebec
    (1979) Berkes, Fikret
    "Domestic or subsistence fisheries of the eastern James Bay Cree. were studied, mainly in Fort George, by direct observation. These fisheries were characterized by large numbers of participants, low catches per day and per fisherman, but high catches per length of net used, as compared to commercial fisheries. Most stocks appear lightly utilized, but in the vicinity of larger settlements there is evidence that some stocks are overfished. The total catch may be increased by distributing the fishing effort more evenly over a larger area. Fish resource base of the region appears suitable for supporting local economic development with respect to recreational fisheries and native-run commercial fisheries for the local market, as well as maintaining the domestic fishery."
  • Conference Paper
    How to Keep Commons as Commons in the Long Run: Formation and Distortions of Property Regimes in Chilika Lagoon, India
    (2008) Nayak, Prateep Kumar; Berkes, Fikret
    "The paper tries to understand how a regime of de jure ownership of customary fishers is gradually changing into a state of de facto control of non-fishers and outsiders in the Chilika lagoon, a Ramsar site on the eastern coast of India. The paper brings into analysis the historical and current distortions in the access regime of the lagoon. The focus of this analysis is on two processes: one, the shift from a position of legal rights and entitlements to denial of access for customary fishers, and two, from a state of no or thin access to claim of legal rights by the non-fishers. While tracking this changing nature of property regimes in Chilika Lagoon the paper makes two important conclusions. One, commons is not fixed in its own distinct category; rather there often remains a threat that commons can change into other types of property regimes. Two, the immediate challenge is to identify drivers that may cause these changes and even the bigger challenge is how to keep commons as commons in the long run."