Let the cats guard the cream

For two decades the idea of fisheries co-management has been advocated, questioned, disparaged and often rejected outright. Among the strongest supporters of this idea have been social scientists, some economists and fishermen. The latter believe that if fishermen aren't involved in the planning, legislating, implementation and enforcement of fishery management it won't work well or will misfire and result in totally adverse consequences.

The pervasive strategy for 20 years has been enforcing 'top-down' management rules. The fishing community sees this as contrary to their knowledge, experience, and common sense. They believe it hurts them materially to the extent that often it drives them out of business or encourages cheating. Bureaucrats, some economists and biologists and the more zealous environmentalists are among the most resolute opponents of the co-management system. They complain that it is difficult to explain to fishermen the intricacies of long-term stock management, and add that fishermen would always follow their short-term interests. In short, it would be like letting the cats guard the cream.

So it is time to look at the evidence and see what co-management has been practised or attempted across a number of fisheries. A useful starting point is 'The Fisheries Co-management Experience: Accomplishments, Challenges and Prospects.*

Co-management means different things in different settings, but is always an evolving process of partnership and power sharing between the authorities in charge, commercial fishermen and other shareholders.

This compilation of work has been done by 19 contributors. The cases described by some of the authors may not meet the formal criteria set by others. Co-management's history, future and theory are discussed with the usual academic generalisations and or with equally academic criticism of generalisations and occasionally obfuscated by sociological gobbledygook.

A dozen Sub-Saharan countries are examined in which international donors and banks have been promoting people's participation in development and resource management. It shows governments perplexed by the idea of sharing power and fishermen suspicious of 'top-down' management. The need to involve the traditional power structures, such as tribal chiefs, and the seasonally nomadic character of some fisheries, present additional difficulties.

Asia

Another analysis covers co-management and community-based coastal resource management in eight Asian countries which recognise centralised fishery management's shortfalls. The Philippines government allows provincial and municipal authorities to limit access in their respective areas and co-operate with people's organisations and NGOs in community-based development and management. In Thailand, a new constitution provides for 'popular participation in natural resource management', through community-based fishery management and allocation of exclusive fishing rights to local organisations and coops.

In Malaysia and Cambodia, there is talk about community involvement. In Indonesia, long-enduring and locally-effective traditional rights and community-based management exist but are not yet officially recognised. A community-based management is the prevailing traditional and officially supported option to be extended over all Laotian fisheries.

In Vietnam, the traditional management system had been depressed by centralist-minded government but is started to revive towards the end of the 20th century. In Bangladesh, there's little co-management. Altogether, the authors think that co-management, which in Asia is the only feasible management mode, could gradually expand.

The picture painted for Europe's common fisheries policy (CFP) is that of 'centralist, bureaucratic and authoritarian style of governance'. A complete antithesis to co-management and a recognised failure. While agreeing to fisheries' representatives in regional bodies, the EU has not generally released its monopoly over policy decisions.

There are however some forms of co-management recorded in the Mediterranean by Spanish Cofradias and French 'Prud'homies', in Holland (for quota management), in the Lofoten Islands, by Polish fishermen in the Baltic, in Atlantic France, around the UK (through Producers' Organisations) and in Norway where the industry holds a strong regulatory position in the management system.

South by North

Apart from the Belize lobster fishery, there seems to be hardly any true and institutional co-management in the South American countries and the Caribbean. There are reports of a few unrecognised self-managed areas as well as various attempts at fishermen's participation and co-operative negotiations.

The Canadian government evidently shuns the concept of parting with power. It agreed with the Cree and Inuit peoples to pursue cooperative research and decision-making, but has been dragging its feet on the transfer of authority. In the Atlantic sea-scallop fishery, licensed enterprises (allocated specific quota shares and paying for monitoring, enforcement, standard and research science) can manage their own harvesting. The contributors for this section suggest this is a sort of informal co-management. A community-based, fixed-gear fishery management in the Bay of Fundy, apart from managing its quota, lacks any decision-making authority. In the USA, where individual states control coastal fisheries, supportive authorities are applying official or practical forms of co-management. This is the case for the Maine, effort-controlled lobster fishery, the tribal-State co-management in Washington State and the rather involved arrangements under the U.S. Pacific Fishery Management Council.

Down under

The book reports no co-management to speak of in Australia. In New Zealand there are several co-management arrangements between fisheries and the government, although the partners avoid using the term. There are some well-functioning co-management schemes in Vanuatu (informal) and in Samoa (formalised).

*Edited by: D.C. Wilson, P. Degnbol and J-R. Nielsen and published in Holland by Kluwer, Dordrech.