Title
Usage and coordination of governance principles to address proximate and distal drivers of conflicts in fisheries commons
Author(s)
McClanahan, T. R.
Published
2024
Publisher
Conservation Biology
Published Version DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14178
DOI for Open Access preprint or postprint version of article

Available as Open Access After 09/12/2024
10.5281/zenodo.10014605
Abstract
Better understanding of marine resource conflicts and how they are resolved through governance and restrictions should help to restore underperforming fisheries. For example, how and where stakeholders access information about problems, status, and management, should influence their governance approaches and restriction choices. However, problems and solutions have the elements of both local proximate and larger scale distal processes. Solutions, therefore, require accessing, implementing, and coordinating information and actions at multiple scales. Perceptions of fisheries conflicts and their causes were identified by 179 households while 16 management committee key informants were asked about their means of mediation in six diverse Kenyan small-scale fisheries locations. These sites varied in human development and demographic contexts but had notable similarities that reflected respondent's focus on localized, direct, or proximate fishing conflicts. Top listed problems included limited space, disagreement about gears, poor resource condition, and local inadequate benefits. Top listed sources of information were local household and community sources with considerably less connection to distal problems and solutions. When key informants were presented with generic fisheries problems and choices of common's governance solutions, they selected a limited number of local community focused solutions. For example, informants chose to mediate conflicts between neighbors with community meetings rather than formal national institutions. Therefore, distal solutions were likely to be perceived as ineffectual, possibly due to difficulties with polycentric coordination. However, widespread overfishing arises from overarching distal processes not fully amenable to local solutions. Therefore, a focus on local action is expected to limit the ability to address distal problems. These include conflicting values, demographic changes, supportive governance frameworks, emerging technologies, resolving conflicting local rules, fair between-group enforcement, temporary shortages of fish, and inter-community border and rule disputes. We recommend improved coordination and integration of information and institutions to simultaneously address both proximate and distal common's problems.
Keywords
Africa; community-based management; common-pool resources; good governance; Ostrom principles; small-scale fisheries

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