Challenges of Mainstream Co-Management in Small-Scale Fisheries Development

Abstract

The contribution of small-scale fisheries (SSF) to nutrition, food security, employment generation, and poverty eradication in the developing world is substantial. Co-management, which is a participatory management approach involving the fishers, state, other stakeholders, and relevant external agents, is endorsed by many practitioners as an effective strategy to address major issues in SSF caused by the increased dependence on ecosystem services, economic globalization, and climate change. In this paper, a systematic literature review with content analysis of selected case studies was employed to explore the challenges to mainstream comanagement in the process of SSF development. Lessons learned from four countries, i.e., Uruguay, Zambia, Timor Leste, and Sri Lanka, have been evaluated. The key objective of this paper is to propose suitable measures to do away with the challenges affecting co-management. The results indicate that number of governance, institutional and socio-economic factors affect the installation and functioning of comanagement platforms. The lack of appropriate policies and legal frameworks to support community engagement and the non-recognition of customary laws of communities by the state is the key governance issues. Institutional issues include feeble community setup, corruption in local organizations that hampers the prevention of illegal and destructive fishing activities, the non-participation of fishers in critical management activities such as the preparation of regulations, monitoring, and environmental management, and the inability of community organizations to adequately represent the interests of communities. Issues such as long-standing conflicts between small-scale fishers and government agencies and between small and large-scale fishers, a lack of instant tangible benefits for fishers, and unsatisfactory adaptation to changing socio-economic and environmental circumstances have been identified as the major socio-economic challenges. Implementing the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries (SSF Guidelines) adopted by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 2014 is recommended as a key strategy to address major challenges to co-management.