8.1 Institutional issues for specific stakeholder groups
8.2 Devolution of decision-making
8.3 Conflict management
8.4 Local power structures and equity
Any intervention which affects the ways in which people use resources will generally have to deal with a set of institutions and decision-making mechanisms which play a role in deciding how those resources are used. Where such institutions do not exist, fisheries managers may well have to consider developing them, particularly where fisheries management is concerned. This means developing institutions capable of establishing and enforcing regulations, resolving disputes between stakeholders in the resource and distributing access rights to users. Local institutions, or the decision-making mechanisms associated with them, are often the principal point of contact between the people affected by new developments or regulations and the managers and administrators who developed them. Therefore, it is crucial that they are properly understood.
Institutional analysis carried out by sociologists has to look at: the purpose of institutions their sphere of influence and decision-making power their membership who they represent their internal mechanisms for reaching decisions or deliberating problems how they enforce decisions how they are viewed by members and non-members their history
8.1.1 Gender issues
Women are commonly under-represented in traditional institutions and decision-making mechanisms which deal with natural resource use. But decisions regarding the ways in which resources such as fisheries are used will commonly affect women as much as, or even more than, men.
Fisheries managers need to be aware of women's level of participation in both community and household decision-making. Where predominantly male institutions make decisions about resource use and management, the extent to which these decisions also take women's needs and priorities into account has to be checked. Spheres of community and household life where women do have control over decision-making need to be identified and possibly built upon to improve women's participation in local institutions.
8.1.2 Age issues
Whereas women are frequently under-represented in community decision-making, older people in the community may play a disproportionately important role. The social and cultural role of "elders" is often of key importance when decisions about fisheries resources are being discussed.
Differences in the attitudes to institutions between old people and younger people have to be appreciated as they can seriously affect the extent to which decisions regarding fisheries exploitation will be observed.
Attention needs to be paid to the representation of children's special needs in decision-making as they are very unlikely to play an active, direct role.
8.1.3 The community
Successful fisheries interventions will frequently depend on the degree to which communities can be engaged in a proper analysis of resource use and fully involved in any decisions which are taken. However, the "community" is frequently far less homogeneous than it appears to outsiders. Where disparate and conflicting sets of interests are not taken into account, management systems can break down through lack of consensus. Strong leadership which is able to create consensus around key decisions plays an important role in many traditional communities and the extent to which existing leaders are able to mobilise the community has to be understood.
Similarly, the often complex interaction of different institutions, both within the community and outside, can seriously affect the success of management measures. If the relative importance of different formal and informal institutions, their spheres of influence and their participants are not properly known, the boundaries of participation in fisheries management decisions cannot be clearly set.
Analysis of existing and proposed institutions requires an in-depth understanding of the groups of stakeholders involved - their social and cultural make-up, their needs and priorities, and their history of using the resource. In some cases, such as that from Micronesia illustrated in Box 14, traditional institutions may exist which regulate exploitation of fisheries resources. Where these are intact, formal fisheries management institutions from outside the community, such as government departments, might concentrate on strengthening existing mechanisms rather than introducing new ones.
Even where such institutions already exist, the functions which they are perceived to perform by different groups of people both inside and outside the community needs to be properly understood before they can be incorporated into fisheries development strategies. People's perceptions of institutions, and their purpose, will affect the extent to which those institutions' involvement in fisheries regulation is "acceptable". In the Pacific, many traditional institutions may introduce measures, such as tabu on fishing, which have a significant management impact, but this impact may not be the primary purpose or intention of those mechanisms. The assertion of territorial claims by clans or individuals, the demonstration of the power of individual leaders or the fulfilment of ritual functions are often the priority issues at stake. Attempts to substitute one set of priorities with another will not always be acceptable to local people or effective in practice.
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BOX 14 Coastal lagoons in Yap, and other Carolinian islands,
traditionally fall under a variety of systems of customary tenure which have, in
the past, effectively controlled the levels of exploitation of the marine
resources they contain. The tabinaw or estates which form the
basic socio-political unit in Yap and the basic unit of land ownership, extend
to areas of lagoons used for fishing. Access to, and exploitation of, marine
resources is given to specific communities in accordance with their position in
the hierarchy of local communities (chiefly villages, allied to the chief,
"common" villages, servant communities and serfs). More elaborate methods of
fishing and wider access rights are the exclusive preserve of "higher" groups
while lower-ranking villages have limited access to smaller areas using simple
fishing methods. The use of different types of fishing techniques is supervised
by fishing masters. In some cases, specific marine species are regarded as the
property of people of a particular rank. The close links between fisheries
access and position in the social hierarchy is of key importance in the
maintenance of the system. Current formal plans for coastal resource management
in Yap specifically aim to support and strengthen these traditional systems of
tenure and marine management which have weakened as fisheries technology has
changed and patterns of marine exploitation have shifted. |
A careful analysis of the sort of management measures already in use in the community and how these measures are perceived by local people, can be very important in understanding what is feasible in terms of fisheries management.
8.1.4 The household
The household is itself a key institution and the roles played in making decisions within the household have to be analysed and understood. Often important decisions regarding individual households or their members may be taken by people outside the "household" as it has been normally defined. Tribal chiefs, heads of clans or lineage groups or relatives from either the male or female line may be responsible for making particular decisions within the household.
In some cases the criteria by which representatives of certain households participate in decision-making about resource-use also needs to be noted, as many households from particular sections of the community may be excluded for a variety of social, economic, cultural and even religious reasons, even though they may play important roles in the exploitation of those resources.
8.1.5 The production unit
At the level of production units, a different set of decision-making mechanisms may well operate. Where production units are household-based, as is often the case in traditional fishing communities, there may be close correspondence between household mechanisms and those which govern production decisions. However, the mechanisms governing production are often complex and combine economic motivations with cultural and social norms.
The situation may be complicated by interactions with a variety of institutions governing production procedures including licensing authorities, co-operatives, professional societies or traditional bodies governing occupational groups or castes involved in fisheries. The influence and activities of all these bodies will need to be considered.
Experience with attempts to regulate fisheries through centralised decision-making bodies have met with limited success, even in modern, industrialised fisheries where relatively small numbers of craft are involved and there are mechanisms of representation and consultation in place which help interest groups to make their voice heard.
Where central authority is weak and mechanisms for political and legislative representation are relatively undeveloped, centralised decision-making on fisheries management is likely to be even less effective. Where communities themselves need to be persuaded to play a more active part in development activities or in monitoring and enforcing management regulations, the decisions on management measures may also need to be delegated to lower levels of administration where the management priorities of local people can be more closely reflected in decision-making.
The real suitability of local institutions for taking on a more important role in planning and decision-making has to be assessed in these circumstances. The principal of devolution of responsibility to the lowest possible level of administration, especially where the management of local resources is at stake, can often founder if it is not accompanied by a concerted effort to improve the skills and capabilities of local decision-makers. In addition, the degree of consensus which these institutions command has to be understood, as well as the extent to which they may represent specific sets of interests.
Frequently local-level institutions are dominated by the representatives of particular social or economic groups who may not understand or represent the priorities of those who would be most affected by fisheries management. Local institutions which are to take a role in fisheries management, and possibly in such sensitive issues as deciding the distribution of compensation and preferential access to resources, have to be able to command the respect and trust of all the various stakeholder communities.
Controls on fishing activity or on fisheries access often lead to different degrees of conflict and competition as opportunities to derive benefits from the fisheries resource tend to be narrowed by management measures. Institutions which take on a role in fisheries development, and particularly those involved in fisheries management, have to have mechanisms in place for managing such conflicts and resolving them if they are to be effective.
The consideration of institutional forms which might be able to govern such management therefore has to take into consideration mechanisms for conflict resolution. Once again, in more "developed" societies, there may be existing legal institutional channels which can fulfil this role. But where this is not the case, the mechanisms currently used for conflict resolution have to be identified and analysed. Sociologists will play an important role in identifying existing mechanisms for managing conflict. Traditional institutions, such as customary courts and assemblies, which may be connected with religious institutions in some cultures, may represent valid channels for the resolution of some kinds of disputes. But they may prove inappropriate when dealing with questions of resource distribution and control. Again, sets of vested interest have to be carefully assessed and the spheres of authority of such tribunals clearly understood.
Particularly where there is effective devolution of decision-making processes and where communities are actively involved in the management process, the risks of "capture" of benefits from fisheries development by limited groups of people has to be guarded against. Box 15 recounts an example of how bona fide efforts to devolve the responsibility for resource management and distribution in fisheries can be diverted by local interests.
Clearly, these local interests cannot easily be side-stepped. Attempts by outsiders to direct benefits or control of management processes in ways which are overtly "against the grain" of local power structures can give rise to new conflicts which may undermine any attempts to control resource use. At times this disruption may cancel out any benefits which might have derived from management in the first place.
Where opportunities have been identified for the "redirection" of benefits from the resource to those perceived to be "powerless" or most in need of improved resource access, there is a particular risk of this. It is often easy for outsiders to make judgements concerning who should benefit from fisheries development, but they should be aware that existing distribution of resource access and benefits in any community often represent an equilibrium which may have taken generations to establish. It may not always appear "just" or correct to outsiders but it may be perfectly acceptable and the best option for local people.
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BOX 15 The New Fisheries Management Policy (NFMP) in Bangladesh has
been introduced by the government as a mechanism to control fisheries
exploitation throughout the country by selectively issuing fishing licenses to
"genuine" fishers. It also aims to redirect some of the benefits deriving from
fisheries from the relatively wealthy holders of fisheries leases to the fishers
who actually catch the fish. However, in the face of powerful and
well-established local structures of power and patronage, the new licensing
system has sometimes run into difficulties. On one stretch of the Mahasingh
River in the haor region of north-eastern Bangladesh, the mechanism for
the distribution of new fishing licenses has been "captured" by the traditional
leaseholder family which has controlled fisheries on that particular stretch of
river for generations. The persistence of this traditional system means that a
considerable portion of the benefits from the fishery continue to be captured by
traditional brokers of power and patronage. However, the "benefits" also
provided by this system, in the form of assured markets for fish catch, access
to informal credit and "protection" by one of the most powerful and influential
families in the area, all discourage local fishers from insisting on a more
literal interpretation of the new licensing regulations. |
