4 posts tagged with "Common Pool Resources"

Locally managed marine areas (LMMAs) are often recommended as a strategy to achieve conservation and fisheries management, though few studies have evaluated their performance against these objectives. We assessed the effectiveness of eight periodically harvested closures (PHCs), the most common form of management within Fijian LMMAs, focusing on two outcomes: protection of resource units and biodiversity conservation. Of the eight PHCs, only one provided biodiversity benefits, whereas three were moderately successful in protecting resource units (targeted fish biomass). Protection of resource units was more likely when PHCs were harvested less frequently, less recently, and when total fish biomass in open areas was lower. Our findings further suggest that monitoring, enforcement, and clearly defined boundaries are critical, less frequent harvesting regimes are advised, and culturally appropriate management incentives are needed. Although PHCs have some potential to protect resource units, they are not recommended as a single strategy for broad-scale biodiversity conservation.

Large marine protected areas are increasingly being established to meet global conservation targets and promote sustainable use of resources. Although the factors affecting the performance of small-scale marine protected areas are relatively well studied, there is no such body of knowledge for large marine protected areas. We conducted a global meta-analysis to systematically investigate social, ecological, and governance characteristics of successful large marine protected areas with respect to several social and ecological outcomes. We included all large (>10,000 km2), implemented (>5 years of active management) marine protected areas that had sufficient data for analysis, for a total of twelve cases. We used the Social-Ecological Systems Meta-Analysis Database, and a consistent protocol for using secondary data and key informant interviews, to code proxies for fisheries, ecosystem health, and the wellbeing of user groups (mainly fishers). We tested four sets of hypotheses derived from the literature on small-scale marine protected areas and common-pool resources: (i) the attributes of species and ecosystems to be managed in the marine protected area, (ii) adherence to principles for designing small-scale marine protected areas, (iii) adherence to the design principles for common-pool resource management, and (iv) stakeholder participation. We found varying levels of support for these hypotheses. Improved fisheries were associated with older marine protected areas, and higher levels of enforcement. Declining fisheries were associated with several ecological and economic factors, including low productivity, high mobility, and high market value. High levels of participation were correlated with improvements in wellbeing and ecosystem health trends. Overall, this study constitutes an important first step in identifying factors affecting social wellbeing and ecological performance of large marine protected areas.

The management and governance of shared stocks have long been identified as a challenge to achieve long-term sustainability in fisheries. This is the situation of fisheries in the Amazon basin, a region shared by nine countries. This paper provides an overview of the social-ecological outcomes and management implications of sharing fish stocks among countries with different public policies, taking the valuable Amazonian ornamental silver arawana (Osteoglossum bicirrhosum) trade as a case study. Specifically, it (i) presents and discusses the policies of Colombia, Peru and Brazil for the silver arawana fishery, and how these are conducive for the successful management of this shared transboundary fishery; and (ii) analyzes the market for the ornamental silver arawana and how it affects the ability to sustainably manage the fishery. The interplay between the multiple environmental, economic and social dimensions involved in the ornamental silver arawana fishery affects the sustainability of this species even in Brazil, where this fishing is forbidden but still illegally caught by Colombians and Peruvians. Among the factors that make fisheries policies inefficient in this region are: (i) incongruent policies between the countries and institutions with low organizational capacity to accomplish the established policies; (ii) environmental heterogeneity of Amazonian aquatic systems, which requires local and adaptive measures; and (iii) complex socio-economic relationships in the live-fish trade business. Legally binding efforts to reduce problems derived from shared fish stocks are an urgent need and should be addressed by the multilateral organizations created for the Amazonian sustainable development.

Management of common-pool natural resources is commonly implemented under institutional models promoting devolved decision-making, such as co-management and community-based management. Although participation of local people is critical to the success of devolved commons management, few studies have empirically investigated how individuals’ participation is related to socioeconomic factors that operate at multiple scales. Here, we evaluated how individual- and community-scale factors were related to levels of individual participation in management of community-based marine protected areas in Indonesia. In addressing this aim, we drew on multiple bodies of literature on human behaviour from economics and social science, including the social-ecological systems framework from the literature on common-pool resources, the theory of planned behaviour from social psychology, and public goods games from behavioural economics. We found three key factors related to level of participation of local people: subjective norms, structural elements of social capital, and nested institutions. There was also suggestive evidence that participation was related to people’s cooperative behavioural disposition, which we elicited using a public goods game. These results point to the importance of considering socioeconomic factors that operate at multiple scales when examining individual behaviour. Further, our study highlights the need to consider multiscale mechanisms other than those designed to appeal to self-interested concerns, such as regulations and material incentives, which are typically employed in devolved commons management to encourage participation. Increased understanding of the factors related to participation could facilitate better targeting of investments aimed at encouraging cooperative management.