Bonnie J. McCay

The Tragedy of the Commons: twenty-two years later

Hardins Tragedy of the Commons model predicts the eventual overexploitation or degradation of all resources used in common. Given this unambiguous prediction, a surprising number of cases exist in which users have been able to restrict access to the resource and establish rules among themselves for its sustainable use. To assess the evidence, we first define common-property resources and present a taxonomy of property-rights regimes in which such resources may be held. Evidence accumulated over the last twenty-two years indicates that private, state, andcommunal property are all potentially viable resource management options. A more complete theory than Hardins should incorporate institutional arrangements and cultural factors to provide for better analysis and prediction.

Social theory and fisheries co-management

Abstract Co-management is a tool of fisheries management that has received much attention in recent years. Although there are great hopes about what it may accomplish, there are also serious doubts, questions and criticisms regarding its general applicability. We believe that many of these concerns are valid ones. However, many of the negative predictions reflect overly narrow perspectives on the role and nature of institutions. Other, no less valid, presuppositions lead to more optimistic hypotheses concerning the outcomes of co-management arrangements. The institutional problems associated with co-management have been analyzed from the perspective of rational choice. We offer another perspective by analyzing these problems from the standpoint of how institutions are embedded in human community.

User participation in fisheries management: lessons drawn from international experiences☆

This paper summarizes the findings of two partly overlapping comparative international projects on government-industry interaction in fisheries management in the seven Nordic countries, the USA, Canada, Spain, France and New Zealand. Fisheries management agencies often rely on inputs from user groups in planning, implementation and enforcement of regulatory systems. User involvement in fisheries management is a controversial subject in most of the countries represented here. Too much or too little involvement seem equally problematic. The issue is not so much if and why user groups should be involved, as how, which is basically a political question. User participation is a means through which users are empowered, and there is always a possibility that some will win while others will lose or be left out entirely. However, the question of how user groups should be incorporated in the management process is also a question of institutional design. In this respect, great diversity is demonstrated in our case studies. This suggests that the question of how users should be involved has many possible answers - none of them easy.

From the bottom up: Participatory issues in fisheries management

“Co‐management”; is among several slogans used to indicate a dissatisfaction with present systems and a movement to more decentralized systems of marine resource management. The authors note the necessary distinction between decentralization and participatory management and use comparative analyses of case studies of fisheries management systems in Scandinavian and North American countries and New Zealand to explore potentials for both decentralization and delegation of authority in fisheries management. The article focuses on issues of representation, domain, and communication in the design of fisheries management systems. It notes the value of the concept of subsidiarity, recently adopted in the process of European integration, and raises the question of sources of more “communicative rationality”; in the social and political processes surrounding fisheries MANAgement.

Systems Ecology, People Ecology, and the Anthropology of Fishing Communities

Ecological approaches within maritime anthropology are reviewed, particularly those concerned with resource management in fisheries and characterized by certain assumptions of systems ecology. The systems ecology approach used in anthropology exhibits certain problems, including the assumption of equilibria, the tendency to restrict analyses to immediate and “natural” environmental relations, and the reification of analytical systems. Under the rubric of “people ecology,” data from research among commercial fishermen of Fogo Island, Newfoundland, are used to explore an alternative that emphasizes people rather than systems as starting points for study, and underscores the role of larger social and political processes in affecting local man — environment relations.

Social and ecological implications of ITQs: an overview

Implications sociales et ecologiques du systeme des quotas individuels transferables pour la gestion des ressources halieutiques. Cette privatisation des droits de peche permettrait de reduire la surexploitation et la surcapitalisation tout en favorisant la regulation par le marche.

Marine Protected Areas and the Governance of Marine Ecosystems and Fisheries

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are spatially defined marine units in which one or more human activities—particularly fishing—are restricted or prohibited. They represent a precautionary and ecosystem-based approach to ocean management (Mangel 2000; Pikitch et al. 2004; Jones 2006). The 1992 Convention for Biological Diversity set a target for 10% of the global marine area to be designated as MPAs by 2010. Progress with designating MPAs is, however, slow, MPAs covering just 1.3% of the marine area and 3.2% of marine areas under national jurisdiction. Consequently, the deadline was recently extended to 2020. Nonetheless, in the past two decades there has been a rapid increase in MPA research and implementation throughout the world. If the governance of MPAs is improved in ways we describe here, MPAs and other place-based approaches will continue to be important tools for the management of marine resources.

ITQs and Community: An Essay on Environmental Governance

Two important new directions in resource and environmental management are increased reliance on market mechanisms on the one hand, and on greater participation by local communities on the other. In fisheries, market-based management is found mainly in the “cap-and-trade” systems known as individual transferable quotas (ITQs). ITQs are effective in achieving certain economic goals but often with undesirable social costs, leading to the view that they are antithetical to community-based management. However, ITQ systems have been adapted to mitigate community losses. In addition, social resistance to ITQs has encouraged the development of innovative programs in community-based fisheries management.

Oyster Wars and the Public Trust: Property, Law, and Ecology in New Jersey History.

Who owns tidal waters? Are oyster beds common holdings or private property? Questions first raised in colonial New Jersey helped shape American law by giving rise to the public trust doctrine. Today that concept plays a critical role in public advocacy and environmental law. Bonnie McCay now puts that doctrine in perspective by tracing the history of attempts to defend common resources against privatization. She tells of conflicts in New Jersey communities over the last two centuries: how fishermen dependent on common-use rights employed poaching, piracy, and test cases to protect their stake in tidal resources, and how oyster planters whose businesses depended on the enclosure of marine commons engineered test cases of their own to seek protection for their claims. McCay presents some of the most significant cases relating to fishing and waterfront development, describing how the oyster wars were fought on the waters and in the courtrooms and how the public trust doctrine was sometimes reinterpreted to support private interests. She explores the events and people behind the proceedings and addresses the legal, social, and ecological issues these cases represent. Oyster Wars and the Public Trust is an important study of contested property rights from an anthropological perspective that also addresses significant issues in political ecology, institutional economics, environmental history, and the evolution of law. It contributes to our understanding of how competing claims to resources have evolved in the United States and shows that making nature a commodity remains a moral problem even in a market-driven economy.

How the participants talk about “participation” in Mid-Atlantic fisheries management

Abstract The present paper asks how participants in the management discourse refer to industry participation. The analysis is based on 173 documents including interviews with participants, transcripts of the meetings of management agencies, articles, letters, memos, and postings on a recreational fisheries Internet chat room. Six groups of interpretations are suggested. “Working Together” draws on the idea that participation means pulling together to make management work. “Source of Accountability” means that because of participation people must be ready to explain their actions. “Mobilization” consists of the ways people talk about participation as mobilizing people who share their management goals. “Distrust” suggests that participation is a source of obstruction to the management process or, conversely, it is the co-optation of the industry by the management system. “Proper Process” suggests that participation should involve open communications or, conversely, that participation comes through proper channels. Finally, “Representation” suggests that participation should mean that the “will of the majority” prevails or, conversely, participation is the activity of those who have established credible claims to speak on behalf of interest groups. The paper outlines each of these categories in detail and provides illustrations. It concludes with a discussion of the relationship between participation and legitimacy.