Elsevier

Marine Policy

Volume 37, January 2013, Pages 165-175
Marine Policy

Enhancing the agency of fishers: A conceptual model of self-management in Australian abalone fisheries

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2012.04.015Get rights and content

Abstract

Encouraging sustainable behaviour among fishers is an increasingly popular, but poorly understood approach to fisheries management. While examples of self-management and co-management offer some insights, there is a need to develop a better account of how diverse factors interact to affect behaviour. This paper explores factors contributing to variation in levels of self-management in five Australian abalone fisheries, using data from interviews, management workshops and surveys. A conceptual model of fishery self-management is developed from these data. Of central importance were the groups’ capacity to cooperate and their perceptions of the state of the resource. These factors were, in turn, influenced by a range of other interrelated conditions. In particular, management forums needed to be perceived by industry members as fair and open, helping to build trust. Trust was built and eroded through feedback loops, meaning mechanisms for monitoring and enforcement were essential. As industry groups struggled with self-enforcement, this was a key area where government provided support. Leaders were also central to these interactions, creating relationships, bearing costs and guiding decisions. The study demonstrates the complexity of such systems and highlights the diverse opportunities for policy makers and managers to improve fishery outcomes.

Highlights

► Examined factors affecting self-management in five Australian abalone fisheries. ► A groups’ ability to cooperate and their views of the resource are central. ► Other factors and processes interact to shape these key variables. ► This includes fair management, trust-building, government support and leadership. ► Factors linked in a conceptual model of fishery self-management.

Introduction

The top-down management of fishery resources by centralised governments is increasingly being complemented by alternative governance mechanisms [1], [2], [3]. Rather than coercing compliance, managers and policy-makers are instead trying to encourage fishers to act sustainably of their own volition: to be resource stewards rather than regulated exploiters [4], [5], [6]. This approach has obvious potential economic, ecological and social benefits. However, crafting policies that effectively encourage sustainable behaviour remains problematic [7], [8]. Cases in which resource-users work together to manage the resource, either independent of government (self-management) or with varying degrees of government support (co-management) [9], may provide useful insights in this regard.

Examples of self-management and co-management show that resource-users, at least sometimes, accept short-term costs in the interests of long-term sustainability (e.g., [10], [11], [12]). A range of studies and reviews identify factors, such as property rights, group size or monitoring systems, that appear to facilitate this behaviour (e.g., [13], [14], [15]). However, though much is now known about what factors may support sustainable co-management and self-management systems, there is little understanding of how they interact to influence behaviour [16], [17].

Some authors list more than 30 factors as ‘important’ to the success of co-management and self-management arrangements, with many of these overlapping or contingent on others [13]. Some recent studies have sought to identify the relative importance of different factors [17] but, without an understanding of how they interact, it is difficult to devise effective policy interventions to improve fishery performance. Developing a more integrated account of interactions between factors, and of processes through which they influence behaviour, is crucial to understanding and improving these systems.

This paper explores factors contributing to variation in levels of self-management across five south-eastern Australian abalone (Haliotis spp.) fisheries. Previous work has shown that levels of self-management in these fisheries correlate with perceptions of trust and cooperation, provided there is potential for improving the resource [18]. However, the ways in which other factors fit with this initial insight is not understood. Commencing with a set of factors that have been highlighted in earlier studies, this paper asks: (1) How those factors vary between the five abalone fisheries? (2) How those factors might be organised as a conceptual model of performance? and (3) What lessons emerge for policy development?

The relative ‘success’ of each of the five fisheries is taken as the degree to which resource users implemented self-management practices that promote resource sustainability—the stewardship behaviour discussed above. In other studies, particularly in quantitative analyses, researchers have often linked ‘success’ to evaluations of the resource condition (e.g., [15], [19]). While this is ultimately of interest, such variables are so often subject to extraneous and confounding factors that it becomes difficult to determine the effect of management, particularly with limited temporal data and small sample sizes [20]. In contrast, the current assessment directly indicates the extent to which resource users incur short-term costs in the interests of sustainability—precisely what managers and policy makers are trying to encourage.

The next section of the paper describes the fisheries and the extent of self-management within each. Methods and results follow, with the latter reporting ways in which the five fisheries vary with respect to factors identified as potentially important to self-management. Seven of these factors are measured using a quantitative survey of fishers’ perceptions. In discussion, the paper integrates these results into a conceptual model of fishery performance that highlights key factors and dynamic relationships. Lessons from the fisheries are summarised in the conclusion, which suggests some approaches to promoting and encouraging sustainable behaviour among resource-users.

Section snippets

Resource dynamics and the need for self-management

Abalone are highly-valued marine gastropods found in shallow reef habitat around the world [21]. Divers harvest abalone by hand, requiring only small boats and simple equipment. In the five Australian abalone fisheries examined here, commercial fishers, to varying degrees, have adopted self-management practices over and above rules specified by government managers. These practices include area-based size and catch limits, reductions in total catch, area closures and data collection programs.

The

Methods

Qualitative data were collected from semi-structured interviews (n=76) and observations of management workshops (n=21), as detailed in Gilmour et al. [18]. Interviews were done between September 2008 and April 2009 and were coarsely structured around industry-based management practices, including perceptions of how well those practices were working and why. Candidates were contacted through a process of snowball sampling [28], greatly aided by the assistance of well-connected industry members.

Key differences between the fisheries

Respondents from the SACZ expressed less concern about the condition of their fishery than did respondents from the other four groups (F4,107=3.16, p=.017; Fig. 2). This confirms observations from workshops and interviews that, in contrast to stakeholders from the other fisheries, stakeholders from the SACZ did not consider that there was a pressing need to adopt additional management measures. Respondents perceptions of trust and social cohesion also differed among the five cases (F4,116=18.

Discussion—Towards a conceptual model of fishery self-management

Fig. 9 presents a conceptual model of self-management. It is based on the data and analyses reported above together with insights from the resource management literature. Factors contributing to self-management are organised as three concentric groups, where those with the most direct impacts are shown centrally and those with the least direct impacts are shown peripherally. Relationships between factors are indicated by letters. These relationships are described briefly in Table 7 and are

Conclusions

Understanding what supports and encourages sustainable resource use is a key challenge for natural resource managers and policy makers. In this study, abalone fishers who cooperated most effectively, and thought that a benefit would flow from improving the resource, were the most proactive in implementing self-management initiatives. However, as summarised in Fig. 9, these two characteristics were themselves shaped by a broader set of interacting factors. It is this more complex picture that is

Acknowledgements

The authors sincerely thank the industry members, government managers and fishery scientists who participated in this research. Of particular assistance were Geoff Ellis, Vincent Gannon, Harry Peeters, John Smythe, Michael Tokley, Duncan Worthington, Harry Gorfine, Jeremy Prince and Stephen Mayfield. The primary researcher was supported in part by Fisheries Research and Development Corporation project no. 2005/024 and the University of Melbourne.

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