Green Economy in a Blue World-Full Report

4.2 Governance reform, regulatory frameworks and institutional arrangements Policy and governance reform is key to green growth transition in small-scale fisheries and aquaculture. Good governance is also fundamental for the implementation of new innovations and technologies further discussed below. Recent decades have shown rapid innovation in fisheries management, with governments, market mechanisms and fishers combining to regulate fishing activities and supply chains. This has led to increasing official recognition of the customary marine tenure and the rights of fishers, fish workers and fishery dependent communities to participate in the decisionmakingprocess. There are some success stories that include fisheries managed with a range of institutional arrangements including community-based systems often centred around territorial use rights (Christy, 2000) and state-community partnership arrangements (Charles, 2005; Gutiérrez, et al., 2011). The type of use rights or tenure regime employed and its

success depend on the context and individual characteristics of different fisheries and fishery- dependent communities (Cochrane & Garcia, 2009; FAO, 2011). In the short term, and to increase success, primary fisheries management could be a first course of action. Borrowing from concepts in primary human health care, primary fisheries management seeks to increase social and ecological resilience while encouraging food security and poverty alleviation in small- scale fishing communities. In general terms, rather than requiring detailed and expensive assessments, primary fisheries management that minimizes demands on managerial and scientific capacity may be adequate in the short term to move coastal fisheries towards a sustainable path (Cochrane, et al., 2011). For longer term management, in a green economy context of sustainability, growth and equitable distribution of resource wealth, policy frameworks that draw on concepts of wellbeing and on human rights principles and legislation

in a Blue World

The impact of co-management and key indicators of success

In a study of 130 fisheries under co- management regimes, Gutiérrez, et al., (2011) found that almost 70% achieved all social, economic and ecological objectives as determined by the authors. The strongest attributes contributing to success included the quality of leadership, the presence of individual or community quotas, social cohesion and protected areas. Overall, frequency of success was also strongly correlated to the number of governance attributes stemming from both community and central governance. The results of the study suggest that fisheries co- management regimes with strong leadership and a focus on the problems of both the resources and the people that target them lead to the highest rate of success. Another study by Evans, et al., (2011) suggested that co-management regimes in developing countries resulted in benefits for users as expressed by

key process indicators (participation, influence, rule compliance, resource control and conflict) and outcome indicators (fishery yields, resource well- being, access, household wellbeing and income). However, when the dataset stemming from Philippine fisheries was excluded, the results were not conclusive, creating the need for more extensive and differing approaches to measure the impact of co-management on fishery dependent communities. Even considering data deficiencies and differing measures of ‘success’ both studies suggest that co-management regimes, if established properly and in a wider development context, have the ability to improve resource and resource user indicators. Nevertheless, more regional and global studies are required.

Source: Gutiérrez, et al., 2011 ; Evans, et al., 2011.

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