Co‐management in Latin American small‐scale shellfisheries: assessment from long‐term case studies

Abstract

Co‐management (Co‐M), defined as the sharing of management tasks and responsibilities between governments and local users, is emerging as a powerful institutional arrangement to redress fisheries paradigm failures, yet long‐term assessments of its performance are lacking. A comparative analysis of five small‐scale Latin American shellfisheries was conducted to identify factors suggesting success and failure. In Chile, Uruguay and Mexico Co‐M produced positive effects, including stabilization of landings at low levels, increase in abundance, CPUE, unit prices and revenues per unit of effort, and reduced interannual variability in several fishery indicators, particularly in landings. Co‐M was successful because it was mainly bottom‐up implemented and accompanied by‐catch shares (spatial property rights and community quotas). By contrast, Co‐M implementation was unable to prevent the collapse of the Galapagos sea cucumber fishery, as reflected by a decrease in abundance and CPUE. Negative effects were also observed in the Galapagos spiny lobster fishery during Co‐M implementation. However, recovery was observed in recent years, reflected in a stabilization of fishing effort and the highest CPUE and economic revenues observed since the beginning of the Co‐M implementation phase. The combined effects of market forces, climate variability and a moratorium on fishing effort were critical in fishery recovery. We conclude that Co‐M is not a blueprint that can be applied to all shellfisheries to enhance their governability. These social–ecological systems need to be managed by jointly addressing problems related to the resources, their marine environment and the people targeting them, accounting for their socioeconomic and cultural contexts.

Climate change influences on abundance, individual size and body abnormalities in a sandy beach clam

“…Immediately before the occurrence of mass mortalities (years 1990− 1994), the fishery was governed by a co-management mode and a set of operational precautionary measures that assured low harvesting levels (Defeo 1996, 1998, Defeo et al 2016. Therefore, fishing pressure could not be invoked as a putative factor of the observed trends, as in other cases when the concurrent effects of climate and harvesting have been observed (e.g.…”

Co-governance of Small-Scale Shellfisheries in Latin America: Institutional Adaptability to External Drivers of Change

“…These include: (1) the adoption of exclusive access rights (e.g., TURFs) and selfenforcement mechanisms to prevent over-exploitive fi shing practices; (2) the fl exibility of institutions to adapt management measures to prevent the impact of climatic drivers, based on the availability of sound scientifi c knowledge; (3) the development of participatory rebuilding strategies, including the implementation of decision rules to restrict harvest; and (4) the entrepreneurial capacity of cooperatives to adapt their trading strategies to the changing global fi nancial trends, thus preventing the impact of unfavorable market conditions and mitigating the bargaining power of middlemen within fi sheries' value chains. The implementation of these solutions have produced several benefi ts, including (Castilla and Defeo 2001 ;Sosa-Cordero et al 2008 ;Defeo et al 2014 ;McCay et al 2014 ): (1) improved sense of ownership and stewardship, which in turn promote legitimacy, acceptability and compliance of regulations; (2) optimization of data collection methods, minimization of confl ict and strengthening of long term strategic planning processes; (3) the creation of multilevel social networks, i.e., legal, political, and fi nancial frameworks that enhance sources of social and ecological resilience (Adger et al 2005 ); and (4) enhancement and stabilization of bioeconomic indicators such as population abundance, CPUE and economic revenues. These successful results were recognized by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), which certifi ed the spiny lobster fi sheries from the central zone of Baja California and the Sian Ka'an and Banco Chinchorro Biosphere Reserves in 2004 and 2012, respectively.…”

“…Although there is an increasing understanding of the factors that determine the success and failure of co-governance arrangements in Latin America (Castilla and Defeo 2001 ;Sosa-Cordero et al 2008 ;Gelcich et al 2010 ;Gutiérrez et al 2011 ;Defeo et al 2014 ;McCay et al 2014 ), there is still a poor understanding about how this governance mode responds to different types of crises, and how these responses are shaped by past experiences and by the particular features of the governing system and the system-to-be-governed. Such knowledge is important to understand how co-governance institutions and actors learn, self-organize and respond to diverse climatic and human drivers, as well as to design policies aimed at maintaining or increasing resilience in small-scale fi sheries (Adger et al 2005 ;Badjeck et al 2009 ).…”

An ecosystem approach to small-scale co-managed fisheries: The yellow clam fishery in Uruguay

“…Although the institutionalization of EAF into the national fisheries policy is not a necessary and sufficient condition for its implementation, long-term political support would facilitate a proper EAF inception and development [15]. Indeed, many successful small-scale fisheries (SSFs) have chased, analogously, the fundamental steps of EAF development and implementation, although its principles have not been included formally in their management plans.…”

“…Indeed, many successful small-scale fisheries (SSFs) have chased, analogously, the fundamental steps of EAF development and implementation, although its principles have not been included formally in their management plans. In Latin America there are many examples of comanaged SSFs [13,15,16], but examples of SSFs that have formally implemented an EAF coupled with a Co-M scheme (hereafter EAF/ Co-M) are scarcely documented [10].…”