Design trade‐offs in rights‐based management of small‐scale fisheries

Abstract

Small-scale fisheries collectively have a large ecological footprint and are key sources of food security, especially in developing countries. Many of the data-intensive approaches to fishery management are infeasible in these fisheries, but one strategy that has rapidly emerged to overcome these challenges is the establishment of Territorial User Rights for Fisheries (TURFs). TURFs establish exclusive fishing zones for groups of stakeholders, which eliminates the race to fish with other groups. A key design challenge however is setting the size of TURFs-too large and the number of stakeholders sharing them impedes collective action; too small and the movement of target fish species in and out of the TURFs effectively removes the community's exclusive access. Here, we assess the size of 137 TURFs from across the globe in relation to these design challenges. We project that roughly two thirds of TURFs in our sample are already sized ideally to overcome the challenges posed by movement and group size. However, for most of the remaining TURFs, we project that all possible sizes would either be too small to overcome the movement challenge or too large to overcome the collective action challenge. Our results suggest that these fisheries, which target mobile species in densely populated regions, may need additional interventions to be successful. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Nutrient supply from marine small-scale fisheries

“…Successful examples of small-scale sheries governance suggest the value of securing shing rights and empowering local communities [25][26][27] . Strategies that grant shing rights to local communities (such as sustainable-use Marine Protected Areas, Territorial Use Rights for Fisheries, Locally Managed Marine Areas) incentivize management and promote sustainable practices [28][29][30][31] , and thus can promote human health through nutrition. The Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 9 recognizes the importance of securing tenure rights to achieve sheries sustainability.…”

Sustainable-use marine protected areas to improve human nutrition

“…In many cases, these and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) empower local stakeholders and incentivize resource management, while considering local characteristics of the fishery and cultural traditions of coastal communities 34 . Several studies have shown that when communities are empowered and have secure rights to a fishery, there is greater incentive for successful fisheries management yielding nutritional benefits [35][36][37] . However, more research is needed to evaluate how different types of sustainable-use MPAs affect biomass, catch and human nutrition.…”

Ocean Optimism: Moving Beyond the Obituaries in Marine Conservation

“…Fishing controls such as community quotas may also be combined with spatial controls, not only small MPAs but also spatially structured fishing, where each fisher has the right to fish in a certain area [known as territorial user rights to fisheries (TURFs)]. As with other management strategies, the details-for example, TURF size-matter (Viana et al 2018). Success for several Latin American examples has been well documented, such as the loco in Chile, the yellow clam in Uruguay, and the spiny lobster in Mexico (now certified by the Marine Stewardship Council), with success being defined by such factors as larger caught individuals and higher resource abundance, more stable catches and higher catch per unit effort, and higher incomes (Defeo et al 2016).…”