Design trade-offs in rights-based management of small-scale fisheries |
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Authors: | Daniel F Viana Stefan Gelcich Erendira Aceves-Bueno Becky Twohey Steven D Gaines |
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Institution: | 1. Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106 U.S.A.;2. Center of Applied Ecology and Sustainability (CAPES) and Center for the Study of Multiple-Drivers on Marine Socio-Ecological Systems, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Av Libertador Bernardo O'Higgins 340, 8331150 Santiago, Chile;3. Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Marine Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106 U.S.A. |
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Abstract: | Small-scale fisheries collectively have a large ecological footprint and are key sources of food security, especially in developing countries. Many of the data-intensive approaches to fishery management are infeasible in these fisheries, but a strategy that has emerged to overcome these challenges is the establishment of territorial user rights for fisheries (TURFs). In this approach, exclusive fishing zones are established for groups of stakeholders, which eliminates the race to fish with other groups. A key challenge, however, is setting the size of TURFs—too large and the number of stakeholders sharing them impedes collective action, and too small and the movement of target fish species in and out of the TURFs effectively removes the community's exclusive access. We assessed the size of 137 TURFs from across the globe relative to this design challenge by applying theoretical models that predict their performance. We estimated that roughly two-thirds of these TURFs were sized ideally to overcome the challenges posed by resource movement and fisher group size. However, for most of the remaining TURFs, all possible sizes were either too small to overcome the resource-movement challenge or too large to overcome the collective action challenge. Our results suggest these fisheries, which target mobile species in densely populated regions, may need additional interventions to be successful. |
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Keywords: | collective action fish mobility socioecological systems territorial use rights for fisheries TURFs acción colectiva derechos de uso territorial para las pesquerías movilidad de peces sistemas socio-ecológicos TURFs 渔业领地使用权 (TURFs) 集体行动 鱼类的移动 社会生态系统 |
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