Achieving coordination of decentralized fisheries governance through collaborative arrangements: A case study of the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve in Mexico

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2020-07-01

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© 2020 Elsevier Ltd Decentralization of fisheries management in Mexico has created overlapping state agencies without clearly defined responsibilities. This has generated a management dilemma for national fisheries enforcement, due to ambiguity in implementation and legislation among agencies. Through a case study in the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve, in the Yucatan Peninsula, we explore how local actors have addressed problems resulting from the implementation of these decentralized policies. We focus on local Community Surveillance Committees to understand how cooperation occurs at the local level to enforce fisheries regulations. Through a systematic review of fisheries policies in Mexico, we describe the political context to understand the implications of decentralization. The first author conducted ethnographic fieldwork from 2013 to 2017 in three fishing communities and attended meetings with actors involved in local fisheries management. As part of fieldwork, 42 in-depth interviews with fishers and representatives from state agencies were conducted. Using a polycentric approach, we look beyond the performance of individual fishing cooperatives to focus on the relationships among governance actors. We found factors strengthening the Sian Ka'an surveillance system are local actors' capacity to create rules, their relative autonomy from the government, and the existence of more than one decision-making center. We highlight that ambiguity in the implementation of decentralization also enabled local actors to be innovative and fill gaps in the national fisheries policies enforcement system, through diverse configurations of institutional arrangements. In this case study, those arrangements are the result of a constant process of social innovation and improvement in the fishery's organization.

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10.1016/j.marpol.2020.103939

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Méndez-Medina, C, B Schmook, X Basurto, S Fulton and A Espinoza-Tenorio (2020). Achieving coordination of decentralized fisheries governance through collaborative arrangements: A case study of the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve in Mexico. Marine Policy, 117. pp. 103939–103939. 10.1016/j.marpol.2020.103939 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/20606.

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Basurto

Xavier Basurto

Professor of Sustainability Science in the Division of Marine Science and Conservation

I am interested in the fundamental question of how groups (human and non-human) can find ways to self-organize, cooperate, and engage in successful collective action for the benefit of the common good. To do this I strive to understand how the institutions (formal and informal rules and norms) that govern social behavior, interplay with biophysical variables to shape social-ecological systems. What kind of institutions are better able to govern complex-adaptive systems? and how can societies (large and small) develop robust institutions that provide enough flexibility for collective learning and adaptation over the long-term?

My academic and professional training is based on a deep conviction that it is through integrating different disciplinary perspectives and methods that we will be able to find solutions to challenging dilemmas in natural resources management, conservation, and environmental policy. Trained as a marine biologist, I completed a M.S in natural resources studying small-scale fisheries in the Gulf of California, Mexico. Realizing the need to bring social science theories into my work on common-pool resources sustainability, I earned an MPA and a Ph.D. in Management (with a minor in cultural anthropology) from the University of Arizona and under the supervision of Edella Schlager. Following I spent two years working with Elinor Ostrom, 2009 co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, at the Workshop for Political Theory and Policy Analysis of Indiana University. Methodologically, I am familiar with a variety of quantitative and qualitative approaches and formally trained to conduct Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA or more recently fsQCA), that allows among other things, systematic comparisons of middle range N sample sizes and address issues of multiple-causality.


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