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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."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."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."Conference Paper Better Together: Partnership Building in a Brazilian Coastal Protected Area(2008) Almudi, Tiago; Berkes, Fikret; Kalikoski, Daniela"The Peixe Lagoon National Park was created in 1986 in an area of high environmental significance for the reproduction and feeding of several species of endemic and migratory birds. The implementation of this protected area has been jeopardized due to conflicts between the local population and the federal environmental agency responsible for managing it - the recently created Instituto Chico Mendes. The present research was done to explore the advantages and barriers of including the local traditional fishers in the management and conservation of the protected area and its resources. Participant observation, semi- structured interviews and focus group interviews were the methods used for data gathering during four months in 2007. In that period 36 traditional local fishers and 10 officials from organizations with some stake in the National Park were interviewed. Currently 166 traditional fishers have a temporary license to fish inside the protected area. Despite the growing recognition in Brazil of the rights of traditional communities and the role for resource management, the environmental agency continues pressing them to leave the National Park. The creation of a partnership which integrates environmental conservation and sustainable livelihood maintenance could be the solution for current environmental and social issues. Despite numerous barriers for the implementation of a participatory approach, there exist considerable benefits to be gained through the inclusion of the local fisher communities in protected area management."