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'That's Not Right': Resistance to Enclosure in Newfoundland Fisheries
(1995) McCay, Bonnie J.
"The option of quasi-privatization of fisheries, or individual fishery quotas, is one case among many involving the use of market mechanisms to help manage common pool resources. As a Beijer Institute working group has emphasized, it is very challenging to develop market-based systems that not only achieve economic goals such as efficiency but also deal with distributional equity in ways that help foster resource stewardship. This paper reports on recent field research among Newfoundland fishers who are on the verge of adopting privatized fishing quotas but are resisting this change in property rights, as well as those who adopted such a system but with stringent limitations. The case study is part of an attempt to identity the role of 'community' and related social and cultural factors in resistance to enclosure of the commons."
Analyzing Resilience with Communicative Systems Theory an Example from European Fisheries
(2013) Wilson, Douglas C.; Jacobsen, Rikke B.
"The present paper argues that our understanding of the resilience of social-ecological systems can be improved by considering 'communicative resilience' based on Communicative Systems Theory, which focuses on communicative action oriented to achieving mutual understandings. It further argues that it is possible to theorise and analyse resilience within complex social-ecological systems from this communicative perspective in a way that is very different from, but complementary to, agent-based approaches focussed on incentives. The paper presents data from multispecies mixed fisheries in Europe to demonstrate that the implications of institutional rules for SES resilience can be understood and improved upon by examining how institutions help or hinder the development of mutual understandings."
Setting Nets on Troubled Waters: Environment, Economics, and Autonomy among Nori Cultivating Households in a Japanese Fishing Cooperative
(2003) Delaney, Alyne
"Fishing Cooperative Association (FCA) members in Tohoku, Japan cultivate nori seaweed for the personal autonomy and quality of life this maritime-based occupation provides. However, their fishing territories are severely degraded, their occupational income is unpredictable, and their production expenses remain high. Given such uncertainties, more than 85% of the peak FCA nori growers population (1972) made the rational choice (in neoclassical economic terms) to quit nori cultivation. The remaining members made the rational choice (in substantivist terms), to continue this way of life in large part because it enables them to 'not lower their heads' and 'make decisions themselves.' This research, conducted in Shichigahama, Miyagi Prefecture over an 18-month period, employs ethnographic interviews, participant observation, archival research, and a demographic quantitative survey to examine nori growers and their lifestyle. "Research focused on FCA members' use of social ties to gain access to extra-community fishing territories. Since Japanese maritime resources are managed under a common property regime and are not open access, the degradation of fishing territories is problematic. Often, FCA members vote to sell their rights and quit fishing. In Shichigahama, remaining FCA members have instead opted to rent and barter for access to healthy fishing territories. This use of networks and social capital to make use of outsiders' fishing grounds shows a partiality for friendship and horizontal relationships over kinship and hierarchy in this segment of Japanese society. By 'helping one another out' with exchanges of fishing ground areas, FCA members are able to continue working on their own rather than resorting to wage labor and losing their autonomy. "Resource managers and common property theorists often cite Japan as a useful example for developing common property institutions elsewhere. Despite general success, however, Japan suffers from industrialization; this case study provides evidence of the negative impacts of pollution and eutrophication on FCA livelihoods. Yet, the Shichigahama experience also highlights the agency of locals in the management of natural resources. Showing flexibility as they use the informal means of social networking to cultivate nori, these FCA members epitomize the significance of personal autonomy in the lives of Japan's coastal communities."
An Adaptive Organizational Learning Framework for Resilience in Fisheries Co-Management: Based on an Analysis of Fisheries Regimes in Malawi
(2008) Russell, A.J.M.; Dobson, T.
"Due to fish stock declines in Lakes Malawi and Malombe, the Malawian government introduced co-management to replace a central fisheries management regime that lacked local legitimacy. Based on a combination of ethnographic and archival data collected over a three year period, we present analyses of co-management regime 'successes' and 'failures' through a model of organizational learning. Existing local leadership institutions tend to cater to social demands for stability and continuity. As ecological and social contexts evolve, crises develop that these institutions may be unwilling/unable to address. In some cases, governments, communities, donor agencies and NGOs promoted the creation of co-management regimes in direct opposition to existing institutions, causing many co-management institutions to fail. Even where successfully introduced, co-managementregimes' effectiveness may be eroded by rival institutions' attempts to resist the changes imposed, or due to the new institution's own inertia. "We argue that the success of institutional innovations in fisheries regimes is influenced by the awareness of local leaders and extension agents to 'psychological failures' and their in/abilities to address these challenges to adaptive organizational learning processes. Only if local institutions are helped to balance the natural desire for stability with adaptivity to social/ecological change, will co-management institutions be able to achieve resilience. We discuss predictable psychological failures experienced in local fisheries contexts in Malawi, and suggest ways in which NGOs and local Fisheries Department staff should address them. For an agency to succeed in promoting these types of adaptive learning processes at the local level, its field staff must be supported in playing the roles of sensitizers, facilitators, and advisors, addressing locally-relevant needs. Co-management in Malawi poorly addresses the influence of traditional authorities, and the proposed framework can be used to support institutional innovation by fisherfolk stakeholder groups and traditional authorities."
The Role of a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) in a Co-Management Regime: The Mexican Seri Indians' Case of Study
(2000) Basurto, Xavier; Bourillon, Luis; Torre, Jorge
"In Mexico, the coastal ecosystems that have traditionally been used by local communities for small-scale fishing activities are overexploited, or near to overexploitation. The main causes are: 1) absence of clearly defined fishing property rights; 2) social heterogeneity within fishing communities; 3) failure by governmental agencies to recognize and support the community's organizational efforts; 4) low effectiveness of fishing regulatory tools designed by the government; and 5) lack of reliable biological data of fishing resources. "The Seri Indians' case offers a unique setting among Mexican small scale fishing communities. The Seri Indians are a seafaring tribe that has inhabited the central portion of the Gulf of California for thousands of years. After surviving several extermination wars by Spanish and Mexicans, the Mexican government granted them their own territory in 1975 in order to assure their survival and reduce potential conflicts with other Mexican communities. This territory includes a portion of coastal land, an island, and the coastal waters surrounding it. Only members of the Seri fishing cooperatives are authorized to extract marine resources of this area. According to Mexican laws, marine resources are property of the nation and their management is the federal government's duty, thereby originating a de facto co-management regime between the tribe and fisheries authorities. However, historic conflicts and lack of trust between both institutions often prevents an efficient collaboration towards a better use of marine resources. In this action setting a new local Mexican NGO is successfully situating itself as a neutral institution that can play a decisive role towards a better management and conservation of the tribes natural resources. In this paper we analyze the key factors that positively contribute to the organizations role for a better co-management regimen in Seri territory. We also discuss the possibility of replicating this model in different settings, problems that may arise during implementation, and perspectives for the future of the organization."
The Dilemma of the Nile Perch
(2007) Scholz, Uwe
"Ecolabelling could be a strategy to secure long-term market access of a fishing sector that secures the livelihoods of around 150,000 fishers in the nile-perch fishery."
Aquaculture for Rural Development (ARD) in the Philippines: Privatization vs. Community Property Rights
(2006) Escober, J.E.J.
"In the Philippines, a de facto open-access situation in fisheries persists despite progressive fishery laws in recent years that allocate use of coastal and inland areas between artisanal fishers on the one hand, and commercial capture fishers and aquaculture operators on the other hand. Weak state institutions and lax implementation of laws have gone hand in hand with a threefold increase in the last twenty years in the population of artisanal fishers eking out subsistence from badly degraded fishery resources and coastal ecosystems. "Advocates and practitioners of community-based coastal resources management (CBCRM) in the country have pushed for the adoption of community property rights (CPR) systems that would address open access, bring cost and benefit decisions together, foster sustainable resource use and mitigate socioeconomic inequities in coastal communities. "However, a cause for concern is the gathering momentum in the implementation of the Aquaculture for Rural Development (ARD) program of the government. There has been widespread criticism to this approach among artisanal fishers, which they see as a reprise of shrimp aquaculture expansion that resulted in the clear cutting of mangrove forests from the 1960s to the mid 1990s. "The ARD program is likely to result in more negative externalities, heightened conflict over coastal resources, and increased income disparity and poverty for artisanal fishers and coastal communities. It will induce the entry of opportunistic "investors" interested in short- term financial gains but not in the sustainable utilization of resources over the long term. Thus, it is a looming threat to community property rights regimes that are still in the early stages of development by local fisherfolk organizations and their allied institutions. "In achieving community property rights, it is envisioned that negative externalities will be minimized or eliminated altogether, and the continuity of benefit streams (to the community and society as a whole) ensured in the long run. This framework can be effectively employed in countering trends towards privatization of coastal resources that is likely to accompany the implementation of the ARD program being bruited by the national government. "Amid projections of a slowdown of production growth in capture fisheries, government is putting priority on the establishment of marine aquaculture parks, initially in selected sites across the country but eventually on a widespread basis. Most, if not all, of these areas are within municipal waters and conflict between mariculture operators and municipal capture fishers is expected "To ensure sustainable and equitable management of fisheries and coastal resources, including both capture and culture activities in nearshore waters, municipal fisherfolk should effectively hold preferential use rights to these areas to which they are entitled based on existing laws. Further, any development leading towards the expansion of marine aquaculture must be within the context of comprehensive coastal resource management plans (RMPs), which would include limits to the extent of these areas, zonation of municipal waters, internalization of environmental costs to be borne by mariculture operators, support services for fisherfolk cooperatives engaged in aquaculture and measures such as environmental bonds to operationalize the precautionary principle."
How Deep Are Our Treaties
(2009) Pictou, Sherry
"Faced with the commodification of food and livelihoods in the fishery of Canada's Bear River First Nation, a Mikmaq community displays remarkable resilience."
Planning for a Community
(2006) Nayak, Nalini
"Much is being written and spoken about fisheries management today. There are several areas where fisheries management is being carried out either by coastal communities themselves or with the assistance of governments or other agencies. The approaches differ, depending on the fishery and the community of fishers involved. The Philippines, in particular, probably because of its specific island geography, has a fairly long history of community-based coastal resource management (CBCRM). Some of these approaches have been documented elsewhere, but one of the most illustrated of them is the one documented by Arjan Heinen in the publication under review. As its title elaborates, it is about the theory and practice on CBCRM in Danao Bay, Philippines, facilitated by the Pipuli Foundation."
Captured and Converting: The Institutionalisation of Small Boat Fishing and the Demise of Fisher Self-Management
(1990) Davis, Anthony; MacInnes, Daniel
"In this essay we contend that the traditional self-management practices of Atlantic Canadian fishers, practices reflecting the principles of cooperative self-reliance, occasional solidarity, and informal management of access to and use of ocean resources, are being exorcised through both the direction of fisheries economic development and its companion, federal government fisheries management policy. We employ a secondary analysis of data concerning the socio-economic development of the fisheries, evaluation of fisheries management policy, and the consequent institutionalization of small boat fishers for the purpose of examining and documenting our contention. We argue that small boat fisher institutionalization over the last thirty years has seeded and cultivated a utilitarian rationality that has little reference to or regard for tradition property rights and local-level informal access-management practices."

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