Science, Faculty of
Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute for
DSpace
UBCV
Kalikoski, Daniela C.
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
University of British Columbia
Fisheries are often referred to as a common pool resource (CPR) in which exclusion is difficult and resource use involves subtractability. In the estuary of the Patos Lagoon, Southern Brazil, artisanal fisheries management has faced a crisis which brought forth a co-management regime, represented by a Forum, to manage fisheries CPRs. The objectives of the thesis were to analyse the implementation of the Forum arrangement and to recommend ways to strengthen the comanagement process. The analysis centred on the evaluation of the process of decision making for joint use; the role of science and local knowledge in institutional learning; and the congruence between environmental institutions and the conservation of fisheries CPRs. Methods of investigation involved literature review, document analysis, open-ended interviews, closed-ended survey, and participation at the Forum meetings. The Forum represents a move towards a sharing of responsibility and authority on local fisheries management supported by government decentralisation policy. Different stakeholders are now locally involved in the governance of artisanal fisheries in the region. However, the devolution of power to fisher communities is still hampered by the weak involvement of fishers in the Forum and by external influences at government levels. The creation of the Forum has attempted to minimise the problem of fit between institutions and resource conditions. Mismatches still persist, particularly in the definition of access boundaries to resource use, in the design of harvest practices adapted to environmental characteristics, and in the lack of a broader systemic approach to fisheries management. In this context, this study proposes a larger role for fishers knowledge in the comanagement regime, given its potential contribution to the design of sustainable fishing practices for the region. Accomplishments were observed. The Forum has had important outcomes and gained legitimacy. Small-scale fisheries management has become a more transparent process in which management rights have become explicit and openly discussed. The Forum represents a transition in resource management paradigms towards one that is more participatory, in tune with the functions of ecosystems and based on social mechanisms that facilitate the exchange of knowledge and information necessary to build a resilient socialecological system.
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THE FORUM OF THE PATOS LAGOON: AN ANALYSIS OF CO-MANAGEMENT ARRANGEMENT FOR CONSERVATION OF COASTAL RESOURCES IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL. by D A N I E L A C. K A L I K O S K I B. Sc., University of Rio Grande, 1993 M.Sc , University of Rio Grande, 1997 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE F A C U L T Y OF G R A D U A T E STUDIES (Program of Resource Management and Environmental Studies) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH C O L U M B I A May, 2002 © Daniela C. Kalikoski, 2002 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of 12. € >^ T2fS>oo-<~c^ >-\e> <y r-**c*S Q . ^ C \ ^ n u v ^ o ^ The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada DE-6 (2/88) Abstract Fisheries are often referred to as a common pool resource (CPR) in which exclusion is difficult and resource use involves subtractability. In the estuary of the Patos Lagoon, Southern Brazil, artisanal fisheries management has faced a crisis which brought forth a co-management regime, represented by a Forum, to manage fisheries CPRs. The objectives of the thesis were to analyse the implementation of the Forum arrangement and to recommend ways to strengthen the co-management process. The analysis centred on the evaluation of the process of decision making for joint use; the role of science and local knowledge in institutional learning; and the congruence between environmental institutions and the conservation of fisheries CPRs. Methods of investigation involved literature review, document analysis, open-ended interviews, closed-ended survey, and participation at the Forum meetings. The Forum represents a move towards a sharing of responsibility and authority on local fisheries management supported by government decentralisation policy. Different stakeholders are now locally involved in the governance of artisanal fisheries in the region. However, the devolution of power to fisher communities is still hampered by the weak involvement of fishers in the Forum and by external influences at government levels. The creation of the Forum has attempted to minimise the problem of fit between institutions and resource conditions. Mismatches still persist, particularly in the definition of access boundaries to resource use, in the design of harvest practices adapted to environmental characteristics, and in the lack of a broader systemic approach to fisheries management. In this context, this study proposes a larger role for fishers knowledge in the co-management regime, given its potential contribution to the design of sustainable fishing practices for the region. Accomplishments were observed. The Forum has had important outcomes and gained legitimacy. Small-scale fisheries management has become a more transparent process in which management rights have become explicit and openly discussed. i i The Forum represents a transition in resource management paradigms towards one that is more participatory, in tune with the functions of ecosystems and based on social mechanisms that facilitate the exchange of knowledge and information necessary to build a resilient social-ecological system. ii i Table of Contents Abstract i i List of Figures vii List of Tables ix Acknowledgments xi Dedication xi i i Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Theoretical Framework to study the Forum of Patos Lagoon Co-management System in the Southern Brazilian Coastal Zone 10 2.1. The Conceptual Framework 10 2.2 Analytical Framework to study the Forum Co-management in the estuary of Patos Lagoon 15 I. Decision making for joint use : 16 1.1. Representation and power relationships 16 1.2. Regulation 17 1.3. Legal recognition and legitimacy 18 II. Science and Institutional learning 19 II. 1. Role of science and local knowledge 19 11.2. Precautionary approach 20 11.3. Adaptive learning 21 III. The problem of fit 22 III. 1 Clearly defined boundaries and the roles 22 III.2. Congruence between management rules and local resource conditions 23 III. 3. Collective choice arrangements 23 Chapter 3 Methodology 25 3.1. Introduction 25 3.2. Semi-structured in-depth interviewing 31 3.3. Document review 35 3.4. Participation in the setting and direct observation of the Forum meetings 36 3.5. Survey 39 Closed-ended survey sample population 41 3.6. Ethical issues as they pertain to the study and the researcher's role in the process 46 iv Chapter 4 Case Study 50 4.1 Resources and Human Activities in the Estuary of Patos lagoon 50 Human activities and impacts on fisheries CPRs 55 Institutions that mediate the use of CPRs and ecosystem 60 Chapter 5 Adjusting to change: the crafting of co-management arrangements towards decision making for joint use in the estuary of Patos Lagoon 66 5.1. Introduction 66 5.2. The Forum of Patos Lagoon - an initiative towards a co-management arrangement 67 5.3. The Forum of Patos Lagoon - structure and process 69 5.4. The role of government in the Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management arrangement 77 5.5. The role of fishers communities in the Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management arrangement 85 Fishers participation in the Forum of Patos Lagoon 86 Representation of fishers interest 88 Representation of fishers interests by Fishers Colonies 104 5.6. The Forum and its relationship with other activities in the coastal zone 107 5.7. Concluding remarks 109 Chapter 6 The changing role of local and scientific knowledge in the management of artisanal fisheries resources 117 6.1. Introduction 117 6.2. Fishing practices and ecosystem resilience 121 The fishing calendar 121 Changes in fishing practice and resource conditions 125 6.3. Management lessons from traditional practices '. 137 6.4. The changing role of fisheries knowledge in management 141 6.5. Fishers knowledge role in co-management 152 Chapter 7 The fit between institutions to ecosystems 164 7.1. Introduction 164 7.2. Misfits between institutions and the CPRs 165 The challenges of defining rights to fisheries CPRs 165 The congruence of management rules and CPR conditions 174 Harvest technologies and environmental characteristics 175 Fishing calendars 177 Limiting excess exploitation of resources 179 Deficient monitoring and enforcement 180 The lack of a systemic view 183 7.3. The Driving forces 187 v Chapter 8 Conclusions: The Forum of Patos Lagoon: local lessons, national challenges and implications for conservation of natural coastal resources 196 8.1. On the choice of an integrative framework for the analysis of the Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management 196 8.2. Moving towards shared governance in the estuary of Patos Lagoon 198 8.3. Empowerment through local knowledge - a mechanism for conservation 200 8.4. Sustainability on resource management: the institutional fit 202 8.5. Reflections on the Forum of the Patos Lagoon co-management system 205 References 212 Appendix I Interviews - Elites of the Estuary of Patos Lagoon 230 Appendix II Semi-structured open ended interview 233 Appendix III Survey - Closed Ended 249 VI List of Figures Figure 2.1. Conceptual integrative framework for linking social and ecological systems in resource management research 12 Figure 3.1. Stages and methods applied in the research journey 25 Figure 3.2. Map of study area and location of Fishers Colonies 43 Figure 4.1. Location of the Patos Lagoon estuary in Southern Brazil 50 Figure 4.2. Artisanal fisheries landings in the estuary of Patos Lagoon 53 Figure 4.3. Four phases model of fisheries resource dynamics in the estuary of the Patos Lagoon and coastal areas 55 Figure 5.1. Frequency of participation of institutions representatives in 43 Forum meetings between 1996 and 2001 74 Figure 5.2. Proposed length of mullet fishing season by fishers of the Colonies Z l , Z2, Z3 and Z8 95 Figure 5.3. Proposed length of croaker fishing season by fishers of the Colonies Z l , Z2, Z3 and Z8 96 Figure 5.4. Proposed length of catfish fishing season by fishers of the Colonies Z l , Z2, Z3 and Z8 97 Figure 5.5. Proposed length of shrimp fishing season by fishers of the Colonies Z l , Z2, Z3 and Z8 98 Figure 6.1. Levels of analysis of traditional ecological knowledge 119 Figure 6.2. Percentage of respondents that consider the shallow coastal area as important fishing ground, and that are involved in the fishery for marine shrimp during the winter 131 Figure 6.3. Positioning of stownets according to fishers 133 Figure 6.4. Fishing calendar of artisanal fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon and coastal waters during the 1960s and 1990s 138 vii Figure 6.5. Four phases model of the dynamics of fisheries CPRs in the estuary of Patos Lagoon 140 Figure 6.6. The effects of changes in property rights and institutions on socio-ecological resilience 142 Figure 6.7. Landings from fisheries in the Patos Lagoon and coastal areas 145 Figure 7.1. Fishers compliance with the rules regulating artisanal fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon 181 Figure 7.2. Reponses to survey question of who should be responsible for enforcement and monitoring of fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon 183 vin List of Tables Table 2.1. Criteria proposed for the analysis of co-management in estuary of Patos Lagoon 24 Table 3.1. Steps taken in data organization and analysis 30 Table 3.2. Artisanal fisheries communities surveyed in the estuary of the Patos Lagoon 42 Table 4.1. Summary of biology and life-cycle of main artisanal fisheries resources in the estuary of Patos Lagoon 52 Table 4.2. Characteristics of three types of fisheries sharing fish CPRs in southern Brazil 56 Table 4.3. Distribution of the main fisheries resources exploited by artisanal fisheries (these species compose over 90% of total artisanal catches, IBAMA) 58 Table 4.4. Evolution of governance system and fishing technologies in use in the estuary of Patos Lagoon and coastal waters 62 Table 4.5: Summary of norms and decrees controlling the use of CPRs in different aquatic environments 65 Table 5.1. Institutions that compose the Forum of Patos Lagoon according to its statute and their attributions in environmental management 71 Table 5.2. Positive and negative impacts of higher level institutions on the Forum co-management 84 Table 5.3. Results of survey questionnaire by Fisher Colonies. Numbers represented as percentage of total responses (n) 87 Table 5.4. Results of survey questionnaire applied to fishers that participated at least once in the meetings of the Forum of Patos lagoon 90 Table 5.5. Responses to questions of how fishers agree with the fishing calendars defined by Decrees 171/98 and 144/01 94 Table 5.6. Responses to question of how fishers agree with the rules defined for artisanal fisheries in the estuary and coastal waters 100 Table 5.7. Responses to question of how fishers agree with fishing closure 100 ix Table 5.8. Rank of importance of the main achievements of the Forum of Patos Lagoon according to fishers 101 Table 5.9. Ranking of management priorities according to all artisanal fishers interviewed in the estuary of Patos Lagoon 102 Table 5.10. Representation of fishers interest by the Fishers Colonies 105 Table 5.11. Rank of importance of fishers representatives 106 Table 6.1. Ranking of fishing gears according to the level of impact on the ecosystem and resources as perceived by fishers 135 Table 6.2. Comparison between selected principles of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (FAO, 1997) and adjustments to local fisheries management suggested by small-scale fishers 154 Table 6.3. Comparison between two opposite perceptions about the need for management of artisanal fisheries 155 Table 6.4. Small-scale fishers compliance with the management rules for the estuary and coastal waters based on survey results 157 Acknowledgments Professor Les Lavkulich, has been my mentor since I became a visitor student at U B C while I was finishing my masters and dreaming to be a Ph.D. student at RMES. He showed me which pathway a good environmental scientist should seek throughout her/his career. I was blessed to have him as a supervisor! He always encouraged me to follow my own ideas, even when he disagreed with them, and always guided me when I got lost. With his support I was prepared to face the challenges of doing a Ph.D. and I knew I would succeed. Professor Lavkulich I will be forever thankful to you. I will be always thankful to the members of my supervisory committee Terre Satterfield, Mike Healey and Tony Dorcey for their guidance and invaluable inputs to my work. They were crucial to the quality of my thesis, they helped me to keep focused and showed me how to work with a real interdisciplinary team. It was a joy to work close to them. Special thanks go to my University examiners Professor Ken Hall and Professor Tim McDaniels and to my external examiner Professor Bonnie McCay. Professor Tim O'Riordan, although not formally a member of my supervisory committee, has had a tremendous influence on my work since the day I attended his talk at U B C . He assisted me ever since that day and my work would not have been the same without his help. These acknowledgements cannot begin to repay his help. Special thanks go to Professor Fikret Berkes for his input on my project when I met him at the Conference of Common Pool Resource in Indiana. His work has been crucial to my career development as an interdisciplinary environmental scientist. I am also thankful to Cristiana Seixas for the insightful discussions during the development of my thesis. My sincere thanks go to Professor Milton Asmus (FURG), my mentor and friend, who had influenced my entire professional career. For many of my accomplishments I thank him. Special thanks go to Professor Norton Gianuca (FURG) for his support when I was at FURG. Many thanks go to the students that helped to do my field work: Mateus, Macae, Ronaldo, Tati, Marcia, Andre, Pauline, Lilian, Ramon, Francine and Lara. Also I am very thankful to the drivers from FURG, specially Seu Nelson and Itamarajiba that even on strike drove us to the fishing villages to conduct the survey. Special thanks go to Lesie and Beth at IRE. During my period in Canada I had the chance to meet some of the people that became my very best friends. Without them life in Vancouver would not have had the same flavor. Liliana Rodrigues, Steve and Caroline, Andreia Esteves, Anne Marie, Paola Deda, Helen Pigott, Vanessa Timmer, Raul, Atsuko, Ying, Melanie, and Suzanne. And while I was doing my field work in Rio Grande I was blessed with the help and warm of my Brazilian friends: Marta, Pati, Tina Soares, Tina, Dani, Pato, Bir, Mauricio and Marga. Thank you all for your love, help and friendship. xi This thesis was supported by U B C Hampton Award and by the Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Rio Grande do Sul (FAPERGS/Brazil). Although many people were very important to my work, without the help and support from the Forum of Patos Lagoon representatives and the fisher communities of the Patos Lagoon, this work would not exist, in particular Vinicius, Seu Pitanga, Hamilton, Prof. Enir (Neca) Reis, Adriane, Joao, Claudio Costa, Seu Carlinhos, Seu Leao, Rosangela. I thank for their support, knowledge shared and kindness which made this work so pleasant to be realized. If this work can be of some value for them I feel that great part of my mission would be fulfilled. Even i f I acknowledge my father every second of my life it still not be enough to thank him for all his love, friendship and support - he is always there for me. The most invaluable support came from my husband, Marcelo. A l l the rewards and congratulations I receive for my Ph.D. I share with him. Without his help, guidance, love and patience this thesis would have been impossible to be done. No words (even in Portuguese!) can express my thanks to you. I cannot finish these acknowledgements as I will never have the chance to thank my mother as she left this life so suddenly and so soon. Without her love and support I would not have started my Ph.D. To her, my father and my husband I dedicate this work. xn Dedication I dedicate this thesis to the Forum and fisher communities of the estuary of the Patos Lagoon, Southern Brazil xin Chapter 1. Introduction The notion of the commons will forever remain central to environmental science. It is a concept that binds humanity to the planet and to its current and future generations. Caring for the-commons is an act of individual stewardship and collective trusteeship. It is the very essence of being "whole", the fundamental basis of interdisciplinarity" (O'Riordan and Jordan, 2000,487). This study focuses on the co-management of fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon - an institutional arrangement to deal with the sustainability of this kind of natural resource. The theoretical framework is drawn from an array of literature dealing with common-pool resources (McCay and Acheson, 1987; Ostrom, 1990) in which the exploitation by a given user directly affects the availability to other users who are difficult to exclude (Berkes, 1989, 7). In the last decades, facing the failure of conventional resource management systems, several researchers have been investigating the links between social systems and ecological systems in order to improve natural resource management (Berkes and Folke,1998; Holling et al, 1998, 342-362). As a result, an emphasis on institutions and property rights as the mediator of the interaction between society and nature has become crucial in resource management (Ostrom, 1990; Hanna and Munasinghe, 1995). Fundamental to understanding the complexities of resource management is the fact that people form institutions (rules and rights) around the resources they exploit (North, 1990). The term institution is used here to mean the "set of rules actually used (the working rules or rules in use) by a set of individuals to organize repetitive activities that produce outcomes affecting those individuals and potentially affecting others" (Ostrom, 1992) and that guide management (Ostrom, 1990). Institutions play a pivotal role in environment/human relationships (Young, 1999). The importance of understanding institutions stem from the fact that "they are often 1 behind the causes of environmental problems and hence they play an important role in solving these problems1" (Young, 1999, 5). Findings in the common pool resources literature suggest that most environmental problems [such as the tragedy of the commons] may be seen as problems of failure to control access to the resource, and to enforce internal decisions for collective use (McCay and Acheson, 1987; Fenny et al, 1990). Deficient institutional arrangements frequently cause large-scale environmental problems, such as severe depletion of living resources which result from unrestricted access to global commons, or air and water pollution occurring as externalities of the use of privately owned resources (Young, 1999, 5; O'Riordan and Jordan, 2000, 487-90). Conversely, institutional arrangements play a role in solving environmental problems, as in cases where international regimes intensions are intended to prevent environmental problems, such as the destruction of stratospheric ozone (Young, 1999; O'Riordan and Jordan, 2000, 499-504) or promoting the creation of limited-entry regimes to avoid the ravages of unsustainable harvesting of living resources (O'Riordan and Jordan, 2000). In this sense the development of a common-property theory (McCay and Acheson, 1987; Berkes, 1989; Ostrom, 1990; Bromley, 1992; Hardin, 1968; 1998; Ostrom et al, 1999; Berkes et al, 2001 ) has been extremely relevant to understanding the social dimension of management systems and its inter-relationship with the biophysical environment. Also relevant has been the literature on co-management theory, or power-sharing between government agencies and non-government groups (Pinkerton, 1989; Jentof and McCay 1995), as well as the field of participatory research (Campbell and Salagrama, 1999; Berkes, 2000; Jentoft, 2000; Dorcey and McDaniels, 2001; O'Riordan, forthcoming), whereby scientists and fishermen and other community members collaborate in various dimensions of fisheries research and management. In recent decades, the above mentioned body of theory of common-pool resources (CPRs) has 2 integrated ecological, historical, socioeconomic, and political factors (Berkes and Folke, 1998). Such interdisciplinary studies have enabled researchers to understand the factors and draw new insights about problems and conditions to favor sustainable use of common-pool resources, looking at changes of arrangements and how crisis has been adapted to over time (McCay and Acheson, 1987; Ostrom, 1990; Jentoft and McCay, 1995; Ostrom et al, 1999; Seixas, 2000; Steins et al, 2000; Jentoft, 2000). In the estuary of the Patos Lagoon, located in the Southern Brazilian coastal zone, artisanal fisheries are going through a tragedy of the commons. Fisheries resources are decreasing sharply compromising the livelihood of more than 10,000 small-scale fishers. The crisis in artisanal fisheries reflects the overall mismanagement of coastal resources, as will be illustrated in the thesis by examples of over-exploitation of many fisheries resources which has resulted in loss of biodiversity, poverty and loss of cultural identity of fisheries communities. Triggered by the failure of past historical institutions to manage these resources, new institutional arrangements were established in the area in 1996, redefining the rules and rights, to manage the resources. This new arrangement is represented by a forum, a co-management arrangement - the Forum of Patos Lagoon. This Forum is composed of different stakeholders involved with the governance of coastal resources in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. The purpose of the creation of the Forum was threefold: (1) to discuss and develop alternative actions to mitigate and/or resolve the problems of the fishers and the crisis in the artisanal fisheries sector, (2) to recover the importance of artisanal fisheries, and (3) to share decisions to address problems more effectively. 3 Pomeroy and Berkes define fisheries co-management "as the sharing of responsibility and authority between the government and the community of local fishers to manage a fishery" (Pomeroy and Berkes, 1997, 466). As put by these authors: "there is a hierarchy of co-management arrangements from those in which the fishers are merely consulted by the government before regulations are introduced, to those in which fishers design, implement and enforce laws and regulations with advice and assistance from the government" (Pomeroy and Berkes, 1997, 466). Although the spectrum of co-management arrangements varies, the essence of co-management as defined by Pinkerton (1989) is the involvement of fisher's organizations and fishing communities in management decision-making through power sharing: sharing both between government and locally-based institutions, and among differently-situated fishers (Pinkerton, 1989, 3-33). It represents a way to decentralize decisions, delegate rights and roles to community and move towards implementing a joint decision-making process. Much attention has focused around the co-management institutional arrangement as a process of effective commons management (Pinkerton, 1989). However as discussed in Pinkerton (1989) "experiences worldwide indicate that co-management is a difficult process, and problems associated with its implementation are yet to be overcome" (Berkes et al, 1989, 273-289). Results from this body of literature based on theory and practice of common pool resources management and co-management have shown that outcomes of the CPR dilemma are diverse. As put by Castro (2000,1) groups of people facing relatively similar external factors influencing their decisions may have distinct responses according to the local structure of the system. Conservation of natural resources is dependent upon a group of external and internal factors that either support and/or hamper its practice. In this sense, co-management systems case studies may contribute both theoretically and practically to the understanding and implementation of 4 such a process, by revealing the contextual social and ecological dynamics behind these new enterprises and how they affect the ecological resilience of the system as a whole. Studies for evaluating co-management systems as acknowledged by Pinkerton (1989) many times deal with an incomplete co-management system in "the sense that not every management function is shared which theoretically could be" (Pinkerton, 1989, 6). The process of designing and implementing co-management in the estuary of the Patos Lagoon through the Forum of Patos Lagoon is in its infancy and probably represents what Pinkerton identifies as an "incomplete" system that might be (or not) evolving toward more comprehensive co-management. As stated by Pinkerton, the importance of evaluating such "incomplete systems and even analyzing arrested or aborted process systems lies in the possibility to identify the necessary ingredients for a more successful route" (Pinkerton, 1989, 6). This dissertation explores the ecological and social factors that define the barriers and opportunities in the development of local institutions related to resource co-management. In particular, the focus of my analysis is on the fishing co-management process carried out on the estuary of Patos Lagoon through the implementation of the Forum of Patos Lagoon. Establishing a co-management arrangement, as emphasized in the area is not only about institutions, but fundamentally about the new relationships which result from implementing such arrangements (sensu Pinkerton, 1989, 3-33). It implies a commitment of members of the estuarine artisanal fishers communities and the various institutions at different levels, that have a stake in fisheries management, to manage the artisanal activity collectively, through the informal forum that mainly establishes rules and guidelines for the governance of this local important common-pool-resource. The recent interest of the Brazilian government in recognizing this new management device as a way to build a collaborative resource 5 management system (Forum of the Patos Lagoon Statute, 1998) raises questions about the implementation, evolution and possible outcomes of this local institution. The goal of this dissertation is to analyse the process of implementing the local co-management of fisheries, and to determine its strengths and weaknesses. The underlying question of the thesis is: Is the type of co-management, being implemented in the estuary of the Patos Lagoon, creating opportunities for fishing communities to influence their own development and to recover from the destruction of the resource-base so as to allow community-based development? The assumption of the thesis is that a local co-management system has a strong potential to conserve natural resources because co-management enhances social mechanisms for building resilience and allows management practices based on local ecological knowledge and management systems that are consistent with resource and ecosystem conditions (Folke et al., 1998; Seixas and Berkes, 2000). Such a system also provides a cross-scale governance system as it connects local-level management with government-level management (Berkes, 2000). Co-management studies touch on issues related to policy, such as organizational structure (Jentoft and McCay, 1995); the ability of local arrangement to cope with external pressures (Ostrom et al, 1999), the mechanisms to improve fairness and legitimacy (O'Riordan, forthcoming), and the process of integrating different actors in the management system (Pinkerton, 1989; Berkes et al, 2001). Yet it indicates also the difficulties of involving multiple resource use and participation of different user groups in complex political arenas (Pinkerton, 1989; Castro, 2000). A n analysis of the driving forces of past institutional failures in managing resources and an evaluation of the new institutional arrangements (i.e. are they being designed in a way to allow for the sustainable utilization of common pool resources?) was found to be necessary in order to 6 design better management policies for the present and future. Thus the identification of factors that account for successful fisheries co-management can help to prevent future overexploitation of these precious common pool resources, biodiversity loss and to improve maintenance of the livelihood of coastal communities. Specific objectives of the research are: (i) to develop a framework for analyzing the structure, development and implementation of co-management arrangements of common pool resources; (ii) to undertake a case study analysis of the establishment of co-management arrangement in the estuary of Patos Lagoon, RS, Brazil; (iii) to analyze the historical changes in institutional arrangements and the contemporary move toward the conceptual framework of co-management of artisanal fisheries resources, the institutions which are created by co-management arrangements, and the altered relationships or other benefits resulting from these institutional changes; (iv) to evaluate the process of implementing co-management and what, i f any, adjustments are needed; and (v) to recommend ways to strengthen the forum's co-management process and to overcome challenges for the future. The thesis is structured in 7 chapters; following this introduction: Chapter 2 describes the conceptual and the analytical framework for the thesis. This chapter offers a range of the criteria for development of the conceptual and analytical framework for evaluating the implementation of fishery co-management. 7 Chapter 3 presents the methods used to collect and analyze the data. This chapter provides the details of the manner in which the thesis evolved, the steps taken and methods use to conduct the research. Chapter 4 introduces the case study specifically related to the characteristics of the fisheries CPRs, the ecosystem, technology and institutions that mediate the use of the resources. Chapter 5 examines the move towards a more participatory (inclusive and deliberative) governance system in the estuary of Patos Lagoon through the Forum of Patos Lagoon fisheries co-management, to assess how far attempts to incorporate such approaches have worked in the fisheries co-management of the estuary of Patos Lagoon, and to look at what processes are influencing the approach to a participatory management in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. It draws attention to the importance of local institutions in the mix of institutions related to the sustainability of the fisheries CPRs. It was designed to analyze the involvement of local communities and institutions as active participants in fisheries management process and in the crafting of a co-management arrangement. Chapter 6 evaluates the local and practical knowledge held by fishers communities in the estuary of Patos Lagoon and discusses its use and relevance for the Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management as a complement to the scientific knowledge in devising rules and regulations for the management of small-scale fisheries. As such it is based on the following three questions: 1) How has the local social system developed management practices based on ecological knowledge for dealing with the dynamics of the ecosystem in which it is located?; 2) How have these management practices changed over time evolving to the present situation; and 3) What 8 are the current barriers and opportunities to using traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in the Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management? Chapter 7 analyzes how congruent are the environmental institutions to the conservation of the fisheries CPRs and to the maintenance of artisanal fisheries over time in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. It starts with a description of the fisheries CPR and its characteristics that have implications for human use and management. This is followed by a discussion of the institutions that mediate the use of CPRs and ecosystems and the identifiable misfits between institutions and the CPRs. Finally the chapter ends discussing the driving forces behind the misfits and the challenges in relation to the problem of fit between ecosystems and institutions. Chapter 8 summarizes the main conclusions of this study and the implications of this work to fisheries co-management. 9 Chapter 2 Theoretical Framework to study the Forum of Patos Lagoon Co-management System in the Southern Brazilian Coastal Zone 2.1. The Conceptual Framework The thesis assumes that studies in the field of resource management require an approach that is integrative in scope (Berkes and Folke, 1998; Kalikoski et al, 2001). Environmental problems faced worldwide have shown that science, and its prevalent paradigm, has not been answering important questions that have been capable of developing sound management policies. As we rely on traditional science (sensu Holling et al, 1998, 342-362) (or in the traditional single sector and single-scale resource management approach to manage human activities or other threats to the environment) we realize that there is a lack of appropriate knowledge to confront and to deal with the real problems of the modern world. Bowler (1992) states that science has been reducing the way to study ecosystems, encouraging a fragmented image of Nature in which the details of everything are studied, but the understanding of the ecosystem as a whole and associated problems are missing. The failures of the science of natural resource management in addressing many of the problems and impacts to coastal resources point to some needed changes. Many critics have highlighted the inadequacy of conventional science to deal with those gaps, as put by Holling et al (1998) "the science that is disciplinary, reductionist, mechanistic and detached from people, policy and politics" (Holling et al, 1998, 345-6). Policy makers, on the other hand, apply pragmatic approaches that frequently result in politically or economically driven decisions that ignore either ecological or social concerns. As stated by Berkes (1989), in the case of many third world countries, scientific management by the state is a myth. Central governments simply do not have the knowledge base, the infrastructure, the budget, or the enforcement capability to manage resources. In some cases where the 10 capability exists, government managers have adopted policies that seem to be a continuation of colonial regimes (Gadgil and Guha, 1992, 140-45). In some cases, the reliance of managers on strictly technical and top-down approaches to deal with environmental problems have excluded, not only scientific information but also the local community and its interests and values from the management process. This has aggravated the situation, putting at risk not only the environment itself but also the whole community that depends on local natural resources. The limitations of current approaches and the debates applied to deal in general with environmental management have raised the need for integrative frameworks that allow research studies in the field of natural resource management to be at the same time, relevant to policy, meaningful to the resources users and provide the best knowledge on ecological attributes on which to base management actions. There needs to be a conceptual framework that allows for the recognition and the integration of the inter-related concepts central to resource management, one that is ecologically based, socially responsible and equitable, and economically viable in both the shorter and longer term, and one that incorporates local realities within the global driving forces. In this context, the conceptual structure of this thesis draws from integrative approaches applied in the study of natural resource management by a variety of authors but most notably from Berkes & Folke (1998), Young (1999) and Kalikoski et al. (2001) (Figure 2.1). 11 Ecosystem V. ) / \ People and technology • V ) ( \ Knowledge V / f ^ Institutions V ) Regional, national and global influences Figure 2.1. Conceptual integrative framework for linking social and ecological systems in resource management research (adapted from Berkes and Folke, 1998) The conceptual framework considers first that natural resources and activities cannot be studied and managed as isolated entities from the ecological and socio-economic systems. This has an important implication for managing common pool resources. It places natural resources in an ecosystem context. Second, it acknowledges the importance of involving communities and their knowledge, and developing a more horizontal and collaborative approach from which environmental management policies can be formulated and implemented, given the recognition of the inability of political and scientific approaches alone to resolve contemporary ecological crises (Holling et al, 1998). Third, it recognizes that institutions play an important role in managing ecosystems because they have the potential to co-ordinate the interrelations between human systems and the environment in a complementary way for both ecological and long-term management objectives. Institutions provide the means by which societies can act on their knowledge and use it to produce a livelihood from their environmental resources (Berkes and Folke, 1998). Finally, it acknowledges that interactions among the four elements (ecosystems, 12 Patterns of Interactions Outcomes people and technology, knowledge and institutions) produce certain outcomes in an ecosystem from which natural resources are managed. These outcomes as put by Berkes and Folke (1998, 15-22): ..." may affect the biophysical environment and/or resource that is being used, which may or may not be sustainable; the functional performance of natural resources and ecosystems that may or may not be damaged, and the societal benefits that may or may not be shared equitably or fairly". A considerable number of studies have been conducted in the field of fisheries in the estuary of the Patos Lagoon, focusing on the one hand on the biology of different species (Castello and Moller, 1978; D'Incao, 1985; 1991; Reis, 1986; Reis et al, 1994; Reis, 1999, among others), and on the other hand on the social system (Asmus,1989; Rodrigues, 1989; Martins, 1998; 1999; Barbosa, 2000). Some have speculated on the impact of human activities on the ecosystem (Vieira et al, 1996; Haimovici, 1997; D'Incao, 1991; Seeliger et al, 1997) and others have studied fisheries management (Reis and D'Incao, 2000). However, these studies usually followed traditional lines of enquiry on resource management and were conducted without looking at the interdependency of social systems and ecological system. Traditionally, as identified in Berkes and Folke (1998), Folke et al. (1998), Young (1999) and O'Riordan, (2000), depending on the focus of the study, "either the social-economic system or the ecological system were taken as a "given" (Berkes and Folke, 1998, 4). As argued by Berkes and Folke (1998, 4): " . . . i f on the one hand, the social systems have been treated as external to ecosystems in most ecological studies, on the other hand, "studies of institutions, for instance, have mainly investigated processes within the social system, treating the ecosystem largely as a black box". As demonstrated by a number of studies in Lee (1993), Berkes and Folke (1998), Ostrom (1990), Young (1999), and O'Riordan (2000) and described by Folke et al. (1998, 1) in the following way: "clearly there is a co-evolutionary nature to the fit between institutions and their environment. It is no longer fruitful to separate humans and nature on the study of natural 13 resource management". As expressed by E. Ehlers in the Preface of the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Science Plan (Young, 1999, 5) "our ability to more effectively manage and adapt our institutions to meet the environmental, economic and social objectives of sustainable development will be one of the most important policy challenges confronting society". Studies that focus their research agenda on these issues can make a significant contribution to helping us meet these challenges. The present study focuses on such interdependence through the understanding of institutions as the mediators of the relationship between society and the environment. Fisheries CPRs in the estuary of Patos Lagoon were over-exploited due to an historical pattern of interaction among human activities and ecosystems mediated by institutions. The desirable future (goal of co-management) is to achieve the sustainability of the resource and the maintenance of the artisanal activity through the creation of a new institutional arrangement that will lead to a different pattern of interaction in the use of resources. The analysis of how this new arrangement (Forum of Patos Lagoon) develops, evolves and is implemented can be most valuable because the lessons from this process could guide not only future development of this arrangement but also future initiatives of this sort. In addition, results of this analysis can enrich the literature on resource management by identifying the possible impediments and opportunities for the development of such arrangements in the local context, thus adding to the development of a theory to common pool resources management and co-management (Pinkerton, 1989; Ostrom, 1990). 14 2.2 Analytical Framework to study the Forum Co-management in the estuary of Patos Lagoon The approach used to develop the analytical framework was based on an iterative process of literature review and field work. Although the literature provides generally accepted principles to be used as foundation for the analysis of complex CPR management, it was necessary to tease out those factors that seem to be most important in the local context. Therefore, in the field work, attention was given to the way actors or institutions construct the collective resource management process and to the internal and contextual factors that shape their adopted action strategies. The literature on the theory and practice of common pool resources and integrative natural resource management (Pinkerton, 1989; Ostrom, 1990; Lee, 1993; Hanna and Munasinghe, 1995; FAO, 1997; Pomeroy and Berkes, 1997; Begossi, 1998; Berkes and Folke, 1998; Folke et al, 1998; Holling et al, 1998; O'Riordan, 1999; Ostrom et al, 1999; Young, 1999; Dorcey and McDaniels, 2001; and O'Riordan, forthcoming) offer a range of principles for designing and evaluating institutional failure and success in common pool resources, co-management systems and integrated resource management. The principles found in the literature, which inform the evaluation framework, are considered important i f not essential factors for the effective management of common pool resources and establishment of co-management arrangements. This work proposes three clusters of criteria that could be used to evaluate and facilitate institutional arrangements for co-management in the estuary of Patos Lagoon (Table 2.1). The clusters are related to I) the process of decision making for joint use; II) the use of knowledge 15 (scientific and traditional) in institutional learning, and III) the problem of fit between institutions and ecosystems. I. Decision making for joint use This cluster draws attention to the importance of local institutions in the mix of institutions related to the sustainability of the fisheries CPRs. It was designed to analyze the involvement of local communities and institutions as active participants in the fisheries management process and in the crafting of a co-management arrangement. As highlighted by Abes (1998) the merits of involving the public in management are that greater participation by user groups in management enriches the regulatory process by providing a broader base of information. Inclusion of the users in the management process increases the legitimacy of the regulations. Increased legitimacy results in enhanced adherence to rules and regulations, which contribute to more efficient management systems (Abes, 1998). Moreover, a co-management arrangement has the potential for cross-scale linkages to connect local-level management with higher-level management (governmental and non-governmental), increasing the recognition and legitimacy of decisions taken at different levels in such a way that actions at one level are supported and not challenged by actors and institutions at another level (Ostrom et al, 1999; Berkes, 2000). Three criteria are used in the analysis of the process of decision making for joint use: 1) Representation and power relationships; 2) Regulation, and 3) Legal recognition and legitimacy. 1.1. Representation and power relationships This criterion for the framework focuses on how well the Forum of Patos Lagoon deals with issues of representation, equal opportunity, respect and support for the participants in the process, accountability, and the presence of mechanisms to deal with conflict-resolution. 16 Attempts at local management also need to pay attention to the difficulties faced whenever artisanal fishers interests conflict with other interests and activities such as port and industries. The problem of the fishery is in this case beyond the scale of traditional fisheries management. It is often pointed out that government resource managers are reluctant to share authority (Pomeroy and Berkes, 1997). As pointed out by these authors: ..."many managers have well considered reasons to be skeptical about local-level management. Unless governments and decision makers, who implement government policies, can be convinced of the desire and the ability of users to manage themselves, not much progress can be made in co-management. To convince managers that local-level management is possible, part of the responsibility falls on the resource users themselves. The ability for self-management, in turn, partially depends on the ability of the local community to control the resource in question" (Pomeroy and Berkes, 1997, 467). The establishment of partnership makes co-management a strong alternative to manage resources under complex conditions, multiple interests, and power imbalance situations. Because co-management is a middle course between government and community-based management, this characteristic makes co-management a stronger arrangement to deal with complex, multi-user systems such as the estuary of the Patos Lagoon. 1.2. Regulation Institutional behavior is not defined only by its intentions, political rhetoric, and the policies that it enacts, but also largely by the extent to which these policies are implemented. No matter how a particular institutional arrangement intends to behave, its behavior may be restricted by the fact that it has weak or insufficient institutional capacity. Monitoring constitutes an important component of regulation and a vital source of feedback in the management process. The efficiency of this source of feedback (who monitors resource conditions and how) is increased 17 with the inclusiveness and accountability of the resource users (Ostrom, 1990, 88-102). Regulation is not only enforcement or monitoring of rules, but the whole process from designing rules that match resource/ecosystem conditions to the compliance and enforcement of such rules and the application of graduated sanctions. It also relates to the definitions of the role of the different actors in maintaining the regulation. If one knows that there is no structure for federal governmental agencies to implement the rules, then other strategies such as involving the fishers into the monitoring or devising agreement among different institutions may help to minimize the problem. These are key issues (that sometimes are considered nuances) that may help or hinder the sustainability of fisheries CPRs management (Ostrom et al, 1999, 278-282). They represent the context base, the reality that has to be understood as part of the management structure and the institutional empowerment of the management process. As proposed by Ostrom (1990, 99): "the problems of monitoring and sanctions are minimized and co-management operates more favorably when decisions on the use of fisheries resources are made involving fishers in the design of management rules, to be enforced by individuals who are local appropriators or are accountable to them, using graduated sanctions that define who has rights to withdraw units from the CPR and that effectively restrict appropriation activities given local conditions". 1.3. Legal recognition and legitimacy Legal recognition refers to the extent of government recognition that allows for the rights and legitimacy of resource users to organize their own rules to manage the resources without being challenged by government officials. Rights are meaningless unless practical mechanisms exist to ensure they are recognized. This emphasizes the importance of a coherent integration between different levels of governance. If actions taken locally are not truly recognized and legitimized by the responsible federal agencies this fact can jeopardize any local initiative. Legitimacy also includes the question of how well the designed rules within the Forum fully represent the interests of local fishers as a whole (Ostrom, 1990; Pomeroy and Berkes, 1997; Ostrom et al, 1999; Berkes, 2000). 18 II. Science and Institutional learning The capacity of forecasting the impacts and consequences of resource use is limited in ecosystems that are open and dynamic. Under such uncertain conditions the management of CPRs must use caution in evaluating the risks of decisions, search for actions that are at the same time robust to the sources of uncertainty and informative, and the institutions must be designed to cope with external surprises and adapt to a changing environment (a characteristic of resilient systems) (Dorcey and Hall, 1983; Lee, 1993; Holling et al, 1998; O'Riordan, 2000; Berkes et al, 2001). Information and knowledge are essential for this institutional 'learning'. This cluster was guided by the analysis of how the different types of knowledge are used in the management of CPRs, the role of scientific and folk knowledge, and how the institutions have been crafted to be resilient through the use of knowledge and the implementation of precautionary principles and adaptive learning. I L L Role of science and local knowledge "An important function of co-management involves data gathering and analysis" (Pinkerton, 1989, 15-16). Pinkerton (1989) suggests that improvements in co-management arrangements occur when data gathering and analysis combine multiple sources of information and knowledge, as for example, from scientific expertise and local traditional ecological knowledge. As demonstrated by Berkes and Folke (1998, 1-22) it is recognized that the knowledge held by fishers in many areas of the world, especially in traditional societies in which such knowledge accumulates by cultural transmission, may be extremely detailed and relevant for resource management. One of the strongest aspects of fisheries co-management that differentiates it from other models of participatory management is the knowledge of the environment that fishers 19 have. Indeed, as put by Pomeroy and Berkes (1997, 467) "it is the complementarity between such local knowledge and scientific knowledge that makes co-management stronger than either community-based management or government management". Considering the key role that science has received in policy making, the adopted scientific paradigm will have an influential role in helping or hindering the integration of these different forms of knowledge in institutional learning. Conventionally, positivist-reductionist science was seen as providing the necessary facts for policy makers to interpret and upon which to base management decisions (O'Riordan, 2000). With the observed natural resources management crisis worldwide, conditions were created that were conducive to a redesign of management systems and to a science compatible with pluralistic ways of thinking (Berkes, 1999). Rather than being conceptually closed, this pluralism can include non-conventional scientific knowledge about specific ecosystems as well as non-conventional perspectives in interpreting that knowledge (Berkes, 1999; O'Riordan, 2000). II.2. Precautionary approach Fisheries present characteristics of complex systems, with a wide range of interactions among diverse objectives, among ecological, economic and social components, and among species in an ecosystem. This complex array of interactions often precludes certainty when forecasting outcomes of management decisions. To be successful, fisheries co-management must take the complexity of the system and the underlying uncertainties and risks into account when making decisions. It has been suggested that the most appropriate way to account for these characteristics is by implementing the precautionary principle (O'Riordan and Cameron, 1994; 20 FAO, 1995; FAO, 1996b; Young, 1999; O'Riordan, 2000). The precautionary principle, by emphasizing the need for conservation of natural resources, contributes an important function to co-management development because it presents opportunities.to prevent the destruction of the resource base which communities depend upon for their livelihood. The implementation of this principle as suggested by (O'Riordan, 2000, 23) asks for care and caution to any decision through a focused and creative public participation in the management process, leaving room for ignorance, that is, avoiding taking action when the long term effects of it are unknown, analyzing the worst case scenario, identifying the most vulnerable people and ecosystems, and ensuring that the possible victims have a say in the final outcomes, "shifting the burden of proof from the victim to the developer" (O'Riordan, 2000, 23). II.3. Adaptive learning Crisis in resource management, such as those caused by fisheries depletion, seems to be a necessary condition for social learning leading to a re-design of management systems (Gunderson et al, 1995). Flexible social systems that proceed by learning-by-doing are better adapted for long-term survival than are rigid social systems that have set prescriptions for resource use (Lee, 1993; Holling et al, 1998; O'Riordan, 2000). Adaptive learning measures the ability of co-management institutions to receive and to respond to environmental feedback, through mechanisms for generation, accumulation and transmission of knowledge, flexibility to change rules accordingly, and a time frame to revise regulations (Berkes and Folke, 1998, 10-11; Holling et al, 1998, 356-9). It also measures the ability of institutions to learn how to better implement co-management, through mechanisms that improve participation of resource users in decisions, or the representation of their interests, increasing trust among participants (Dorcey and McDaniels, 2001; Berkes et al, 2001). 21 III. The problem of fit The problem of fit draws attention to the match between institutional arrangement and the fisheries CPRs and related ecosystems. It directs particular attention to sources of institutional mismatches in the definition of boundaries and the rights to fisheries CPRs, the congruence of management rules with the sustainability of local resources and the extent to which individuals who use, study and manage the resources can be involved in the rule making process. As emphasized by Folke et al. (1998) and Young (1999) it is important to make explicit the fact that institutions will be more effective when they match the biophysical domain in which they operate. The problem of fit relates to how well institutions fit into the environment they supposedly protect. The better the match between the characteristics of the institutions themselves and the characteristics of the biogeophysical system with which they interact, the more effective the institution will be. HI. 1 Clearly defined boundaries and the roles As put by Ostrom (1990, 91) "as long as the boundaries of the resources and or the individuals who can use the resource remain uncertain, no one knows what they are managing or for whom". If this is not well defined and established it will be difficult to maintain life support systems and resources users livelihood. By defining boundaries for the common pool resources and rights for exclusion, resources users are more likely to benefit from their efforts to manage the resources (Ostrom, 1990; Pinkerton, 1989; Begossi, 1998; Folke et al, 1998; Pinkerton, 1999; Young, 1999; Begossi, 2001). 22 111.2. Congruence between management rules and local resource conditions As discussed by Ostrom (1990, 92) and demonstrated by different studies, in addition to closing boundaries, it is important to define rules limiting the appropriation of common pool resources (Pinkerton, 1989; Ostrom, 1990; FAO, 1995; FAO, 1996a, Folke et al, 1998 and Young, 1999; Begossi, 2001). This criterion refers to established rules regarding how much, when, and how different resources can be harvested, how well these rules fit the characteristics of the resources, and how flexible and adaptable the rules are to changes in resource conditions (sensu Pinkerton, 1989, 6). 111.3. Collective choice arrangements A co-management arrangement provides an opportunity for communities to influence their development through their participation in the governance system (Pinkerton, 1989, 7-26). As put by Ostrom (1990, 93): "...institutions will be better able to tailor their rules to local circumstances, if most individuals who directly interact with the environment and are affected by the rules can participate in the decisions regarding the use of the resources" (see also Jentoft and McCay, 1995; Jentoft, 2000). 23 Table 2.1. Criteria proposed for the analysis of co-management in estuary of Patos Lagoon. Analytical criteria References /. Decision Making for Joint Use 1.1. Representation and power relationship 1.2. Regulation 1.3. Legal recognition and legitimacy II. Science and Institutional Learning II. 1. Role of science and local knowledge II.2. Precautionary approach II.3. Adaptive learning ///. Problem of Fit III. 1. Extent to which boundaries and roles can be defined III.2. Congruence between rules and local resource conditions III.3. Existence of collective choice arrangements Pinkerton, 1989 Pomeroy and Berkes, 1997 Dorcey and MacDaniels, forthcoming Duffy et al., 1998 Pinkerton, 1989 Ostrom, 1990 Pinkerton, 1989 Ostrom, 1990 Pomeroy and Berkes, 1997 Ostrom et al, 1999 Berkes, 2000 Dorcey and Hall, 1983 Pinkerton, 1989 Lee, 1993 Holling et al, 1998 O'Riordan, 2000 O'Riordan, forthcoming O'Riordan and Cameron, 1984 F A O , 1995 F A O , 1996b Young, 1999 O'Riordan, 2000 Lee, 1993 Gunderson et al, 1995 Berkes and Folke, 1998 Folke et al, 1998 O'Riordan, 2000 Dorcey and McDaniels, 2001 Berkes et al, 2001 Pinkerton, 1989 Ostrom, 1990 Begossi, 1998 Folke et al, 1998 Young, 1999 Pinkerton, 1989 Ostrom, 1990 FAO, 1995 F A O , 1996a Folke et al., 1998 Young, 1999 Begossi, 2001 Ostrom, 1990 Jentoftand McCay, 1995 Jentoft, 2000 24 Chapter 3: Methodology 3.1. Introduction This chapter describes the steps taken in the research journey that led to the definition of the focus of the study, the development and application of the analytical framework and the methods used to conduct the research. The research journey followed a design that linked qualitative and quantitative data obtained in an iterative fieldwork and literature review (Jick, 1979; Payls, 1992; Creswell, 1994; Maxwell, 1996; Strauss and Corbin, 1997) (Figure 3.1). PROBLEM DEFINITION Defining a problem in I C Z M Observation and participation Literature review Selected in depth in Forum meetings interview Figure 3.1. Stages and methods applied in the research journey. 25 The first stage in the journey was the definition of the research problem. Two criteria were used to select the problem. First, a case study that could at the same time add to theory and be related to policy-relevant issues in natural resource management. Second, the major interest was to look at the field of coastal zone management, more specifically to the understanding of the human dimensions of managing coastal resources. The definition of the focus of the study was drawn from a preliminary analysis of the main problems in the field of coastal zone management, specifically the problems affecting the Patos Lagoon in the southern Brazilian coastal zone. An extensive literature review, document analysis of coastal zone management issues in Brazil and particularly relevant to Southern Brazil were conducted along with open-ended elite interviews to help shape the understanding of the general issues of natural coastal resource management, both theoretically and practically. Elite interviewing is an interviewing strategy that focuses on a particular type of interviewee. Elite individuals are considered to be the influential, the prominent and the well-informed people in an organization or community and are selected for interviews on the basis of their expertise in areas relevant to the research (Marshall and Rossman, 1995). The elite interview was conducted at this first stage with 22 people that have a stake in the governance of the estuary of Patos Lagoon (a list of interviewed stakeholders and questions are presented in the Appendix I). These interviews were conducted in August, 1998. The purpose of the interviews was to identify the problems as perceived by the stakeholders. Specific topics focused on issues such as the identification of environmental problems; main social, environmental and economical concerns for the area; perspectives of future development; the actual process of management and its constraints, and; the conditions of natural resource base. From these interviews the important aspects of the problem as perceived by the stakeholders were incorporated into the thesis framework as a first step in planning the research agenda. This first 26 field reconnaissance may be characterized as getting in touch with the problems in the area as perceived by the different stakeholders. Elite interviews according to Marshall and Rossman (1995, 83-4), often contribute insight and meaning to the interview process because they are well known and influential people in the realm of ideas, policies and generalizations and have knowledge and large experience in the area. Besides, in this case they were able also to report on organizations' policies, past histories, and future plans from a particular perspective. By conducting literature reviews, field visits and elite interviews with the different stakeholders in the estuary of the Patos Lagoon the importance of the field of integrated community-based management of coastal resources became clear, because of its relevance to natural resources management in the Patos Lagoon and the general lack of an information base about the field of community-based management. Specifically, the crisis in artisanal fisheries was identified to be an important and critical issue from its socio-economic and cultural importance, its relation to poverty and the risk of loss of cultural identity of fisheries communities. Therefore, the focus of the case study was narrowed to an analysis of the practical attempt to reverse a crisis in a coastal resource management regime through the implementation of a co-management arrangement (Forum of Patos Lagoon) of artisanal fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon in the southern Brazilian coastal zone. The analysis of the institutional arrangements of small-scale estuarine fisheries represented a rich case study presenting the elements necessary to derive principles that can add to natural resource management in Brazil, specifically to the theory of common pool resources (CPR) and co-management. The recognition of this local reality as a result of both local and global pressure has resulted in the focus on the evolution of governance structures. In the case of the Patos Lagoon this reality has brought forth a co-management regime, the Forum, and an innovative 27 institutional arrangement to deal with the issues of sustainability of local fisheries CPRs that has wide application. It is one of the first attempts to implement a co-management framework. This is a recognition of traditional ways of management that are largely entrenched by the whole range of user groups of the resources and by those involved in the decision making process. It also represents a move from a centralized top-down management approach to one that envisages a form of community-based management. It has all the elements for contributing to the theory of integrated resource management and to the local practice of resource management on the ground. Besides, it illustrates a mismanagement of common pool resources that have socio-economic and environmental consequences that triggered a local management crisis due to: (i) the socio-economic and cultural importance of fisheries for the region and the relatively high economic importance of this activity for the regional economy; (ii) the collapse of fisheries, which represents one of the major socio-ecological disasters in the coastal zone (e.g. poverty, loss of biodiversity, loss of cultural identity), and (iii) management in the estuary of Patos Lagoon is going through a series of recent institutional changes, moving from an historical top-down approach towards a more participatory management systems of artisanal fisheries. It represents, therefore, a first attempt to implementing a more community-based approach to local management. The design of the instruments of the second stage of the research was done in an iterative and as a complementary process within the approach of participatory action research (Atkinson and Hammersley, 1994; Reason, 1994). Characteristics of action research include a full collaboration between researcher and participants in posing the questions to be pursued and gathering data to respond to them. To address the real and emerging issues of the design and implementation of the Forum of Patos Lagoon, the second stage of my research involved three steps: (i) a reconnaissance of the field work through observation and participation of the Forum 28 meetings, (ii) a preliminary assessment with selected open-ended, semi-structured interviews. The iterative process of linking field work data from steps i and i i and the review of the literature led to (iii) the design of the analytical framework of the thesis that was applied in the next stage of the research to the case of the Forum co-management in the estuary of Patos Lagoon (Figure 3.1) [The analytical framework along with the selected criteria is presented in detail in Chapter 2]. The third stage of the research can be characterized as the stage of Immersion in the field setting (Figure 3.1). This stage was guided by the developed analytical framework and previously derived research questions which helped the researcher to determine what situations to observe, whom to interview and what to ask at this stage. Attention was given to how well the framework helped to understand the performance of the co-management framework and to predict its outcomes, namely the creation of mechanisms and/or barriers that could turn (or not) the use pattern of small scale fisheries resources into one more ecologically sustainable and socially equitable. Specifically I was interested in understanding the driving causes of the identified problem and the move towards an innovation in the institutional arrangement to deal with and solve the problem, identify areas that can be influenced and see the consequences of the policy intervention for the establishment of a co-management arrangement in the Patos lagoon. At this stage, the data collection was time consuming and it required a large amount of time in the field setting to collect the data, interpret it and analyze it. The field work was conducted from April 2000 to October 2001. Data were obtained from primary and secondary sources. The primary sources of data were (i) participation in the setting and direct observation of the Forum of Patos Lagoon meetings, (ii) in-depth semi-structured interviews with the Forum of Patos Lagoon participants, and (iii) the application of a quantitative survey in small-scale fishers 29 communities. Supplemental data were obtained from secondary sources. They included analysis and review of written documents and documenting historical transformations of the institutional arrangements. There are at least two good reasons for dealing with different sources of information: 1) the supplementation of gaps in the information base in each specific substantive and procedural theme and 2) the minimization of weaknesses inherent to the application of any single inquiry method through the triangulation of the data (Marshall and Rossman, 1995). The following sections describe in more detail the structure and procedures adopted in each of the main research methods used in this study. Table 3.1 provides a detailed description of the steps taken in the organization and analysis of data obtained in the different stages of the research. Table 3.1. Steps taken in data organization and analysis. Qualitative data Making notes in the field, tape recording interviews and transcribing field notes Editing: correcting, extending or revising field notes Coding: attaching key words or tags to segments of text to permit later retrieval Organizing the data by the framework criteria Storage: keeping text in an organized database Search and retrieval: locating relevant segments of text and making them available for inspection Data linking: connecting relevant data segments with each other, forming categories of information Writing reflective commentaries on some aspect of the data, as a basis for deeper analysis Content analysis: counting frequencies, sequence or locations of words and phrases Quantitative data Coding data: attaching numbers to answers of the questionnaire Database construction: entering codified data into a spreadsheet; adding comments made by fishers to the questions to aid the interpretation of answers Tabulating the data by framework criteria Correlating and comparing tabulated data Data analysis Conclusion drawing and verification: aiding the analyst to interpret displayed data and to test and confirm findings Hypothesis building: developing systematic, conceptually coherent explanations of findings Isolating the criteria patterns, commonalities and differences and taking them out to the field work in the next wave of data collection Gradually elaborating a small set of generalizations that cover the consistencies discerned in the database Confronting those generalizations with a formalized body of knowledge in the form of constructs, principles and theories Drawing the barriers and bridges for the implementation of the co-management and extracting some lessons from the case study to the theory and practice of implementing co-management arrangements 30 3.2. Semi-structured in-depth interviewing As pointed out by Marshall and Rossman (1995) in-depth interviewing is a data collection method largely used in qualitative studies. It can be classified as a "conversation with a purpose" (Kahn and Cannel, 1957:149). The method allows the researcher to explore a few general topics and to help uncover the participant's meaning and perspective, but otherwise respects how the participant frames and structures the responses (Mason, 1996; Kvale, 1996). Semi-structured interviews provide some structure to the interview while at the same time allowing for the flexibility to follow leads and to go in unanticipated directions (Bernard et al., 1994). The most important aspect of the interviewer's approach concerns conveying an attitude of acceptance - that the participant's information is valuable and useful with a fundamental assumption that the participant's perspective on the phenomenon of interest should unfold as the participant views it, not as the researcher views it (Marshall and Rossman, 1995). The main strength of the application of open-ended interviews is related to its usefulness in gathering a wide variety of data across a larger number of subjects quickly. However data are time consuming to analyze. Issues such as lack of cooperation, lack of comprehension and unwillingness to participate may represent limitations and weaknesses of the method and researchers should be aware of these when conducting field work (Gorden, 1992). In this case study, the fact that the researcher was from the selected case study area and familiar with the language and culture as well as having key contact persons helped to minimize these weak aspects and strengthen the research study. Interviews were done through the face-to-face method. A total of 48 interviews were conducted each ranging from two to three hours. The interviewees included the representatives of the Forum of Patos Lagoon and knowledgeable fishers, fishers wives, the presidents of the Fishers Colonies, a local middleman, an elderly fisher that also worked as a law enforcement agent, the 31 director of the Port of Rio Grande, researchers from the university, public officials, the head of the environmental agency IBAMA/Brasilia, and an elderly industrial fisher. In addition, several fishers and other stakeholders were informally interviewed during the breaks in the Forum meetings and during the field work. Immediate interview follow up was used several times in the research to clarify issues and doubts identified during the transcription and analysis of data. The sampling strategy was based on an attempt to cover the full region (be representative of all the communities of the estuary of Patos Lagoon), all gear sectors, and different age groups (to look at how convergent/divergent they are) (see section on survey sample population). The sampling population interviewed was very heterogeneous, ranging from people without any formal education (illiterate) and low political power to people with high level educational degrees and high political influence in the decision making process at different levels of governance of natural coastal resources. Therefore the wording of the questions was adapted accordingly and a process of revisiting the wording was employed to ensure that the questions were appropriate for the interviewee's professional and educational background as well as positions held. The interviewees were asked permission to use a tape recorder to register the information. With one exception all interviews were recorded and transcribed. In the case that the permission for the utilization of a recorder was denied the interviewer took notes. In reporting the findings, interviews highlights were chosen based on the content of the quote, and to summarize the major points consistent with the framework. Also quotations' were used to illustrate and bring the local dialogue into perspectives of the various groups. ' Quotations were edited for clarity (i.e. pauses and interjections removed) and translated by the author from Portuguese (Brazilian). 32 The selection of the Forum of Patos Lagoon participants that were interviewed was done through a list of the past and current elected representatives. The list was obtained from the secretariat of the Forum. Each one represented the 21 institutions involved in the management of fisheries CPRs or related activities within the coastal area of the Patos Lagoon, such as the Port Authority. Interviews were conducted with both frequent and infrequent participants. For the last group the questions were slightly different, focusing on issues concerning the causes that caused them not to fully participate and/or quit attending the meetings (Appendix II). The interview was mainly conducted at interviewees' locations to facilitate respondents schedules, although two were conducted at the researcher's office at the University of Rio Grande due to the interviewee's preference. The respondents were first contacted during the Forum of Patos Lagoon meeting or by phone, acknowledging that they were selected as a potential respondent in the research project and were asked about the feasibility of conducting an interview. The objective of initial contact was to provide a clear explanation about the project stating (1) the objectives of the study, (2) the background and qualifications of the interviewer, (3) the name of professors, universities and agencies involved, (4) the importance of using the interview for the development of the research project, (5) a clear explanation about why they were selected as a potential respondent, (6) the importance of their collaboration, and (7) the possible benefits to them by accepting to participate in the interviews. Interviews were also arranged during the researchers observation of the Forum of Patos Lagoon meetings. The interview followed the following questionnaire profile (1) identification of the key issues to be addressed; (2) preparation of two or three introductory soft questions, to promote a relaxed 2 The U B C Ethics Committee approved the interview and survey instruments. 33 bond between researcher and the interviewee, (3) the substantive questions, and (4) to close the interviews, some background information was asked. The substantive questions were structured in three main clusters (Appendix II) on which information was needed to analyze the process of implementing the co-management arrangement through the Forum of Patos Lagoon and followed the criteria devised by the analytical framework (Chapter 2). The first cluster of questions related to issues of Decision making for joint use and focused on investigating the structure and function of the Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management system (Appendix II; sections A.II, A.IV, A .VI , B.I, B.II, C, D.II, D.IV, D.V). Issues of participation, equal representation of the different interests, power relationships, legal recognition and legitimacy were addressed along with evaluating the key institutions that govern the resources as well as the social organization for co-ordination, co-operation, rule making and rule enforcement. This is addressed in Chapter 5 of the thesis. The second cluster of interviews focused on investigating the combination of traditional and scientific knowledge for improving the management of the fisheries CPRs (Appendix II; sections A.I, A.II, A.III, D.I, D.II, D i l i , D.IV). Questions focused on how the local social system has developed management practices based on traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) for dealing with the dynamics of the ecosystem in which it is located; the social mechanisms behind these management practices, the process of changing/breaking the management system over time to the present situation, and the current barriers and/or mechanisms to the use of T E K in the fisheries CPRs management. Interviews were conducted with researchers from the University of Rio Grande, officials from I B A M A and artisanal fishers. In addition, two 34 ethnomapping interviews were performed with knowledgeable fishers. A key element in these interviews involved the construction of local maps of traditional fishing grounds, including information on depth, gear type, species fished, seasonal shifts, and changes in annual cycles over the course of individual fishing careers. Information obtained in T E K interviews, specially those related to the history of changes in fisheries technology and landings, were complemented with data contained in archival and other historical, and scientific documents. This subject is addressed in Chapter 6 of the thesis. The last cluster of questions focused on investigating the fisheries CPRs and their characteristics; the boundaries and use rights and limits to the CPRs; the formal and informal institutions that mediate the use of CPRs and their ecosystem (rules on paper and rules in use); the identifiable misfits between institutions and the CPRs, and the main driving forces behind misfits (Appendix II; sections A.I, A.III, A . V , B.II, D.I, D.II, D.III, D.V, D.VI, D.VII). In other words, analysis of the problem of the small scale fisheries CPRs in the light of the use and transfer of the local knowledge to the established level of institutions that mediate the use of the resources. This is addressed in Chapter 7 of the thesis. 3.3. Document review Participant observation, interviewing and quantitative survey were supplemented with the gathering and analyzing of documents. The gathering and analyzing documents were linked to the research questions developed in the framework of the study. The specialized approach called content analysis entails the systematic examination of the content of various kinds of documents being examined (Marshall and Rossman, 1995). The analytical framework provided the criteria for guiding the content analysis in the review of documents. In this thesis attention was given to the history of fisheries CPR management in the estuary of Patos Lagoon and the evolution of 35 institutions responsible for the governance of these resources. Meetings' minutes (including the Forum meetings' minutes), local newspapers, policy statements, laws and decrees, archives, and statistical databases from diverse national profile sources such as data gathered from the former (SUDEPE) and current (IBAMA) Federal Environmental Agency were all examined to complement the data obtained from the other sources. 3.4. Participation in the setting and direct observation of the Forum meetings In the Forum of Patos Lagoon, decisions related to the management of small-scale fisheries CPRs are made. Participant observation was the complementary method used to evaluate the practice of implementing the Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management process (Creswell; 1994; Maxwell, 1996). Participant observation was used as one method to allow the researcher to cross validate data from interviews and to fully observe the dynamic of the meetings and the behavior of participants (which were selected to be interviewed) in the Forum of Patos Lagoon. Participation in the meetings of the Forum was done from November 1999 to February 2000 (for the second stage of the research, Figure 3.1) and from April 2000 to October 2001 (for the third stage of the research). This provided an excellent laboratory for studying the negotiation dynamics of the Forum of Patos Lagoon and the process of devising the decisions for the governance of the small-scale fisheries CPRs. The same criterion employed in the semi-structured interviewing was adopted as part of the framework to evaluate the Forum of Patos Lagoon meetings. Therefore, information gathered from interviews, the survey, documents and bibliography were possible to be validated and complemented by direct observation on the study site. Participant observation is considered by different authors as an important tool for qualitative research and its use is strongly recommended (Creswell, 1997; Miller and Dingwall, 1997; Marshall and Rossman, 1995). 36 In the case of this research, participant observation allowed the researcher to hear, see, and begin to better understand the participants' perspectives. It was an immersion in the Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management process and a way to analyze how the principles proposed by the Forum of Patos Lagoon mission statements were indeed being implemented in practice. Through participant observation, the researcher learned about behaviors and the meaning attached to these behaviors. During this study, participant observation was also found to be an efficient way of building trust between the researcher and the people to be interviewed because through the participation of the meetings the researcher became known by the participants and familiar with the important issues at hand. This created a bond between the researcher and the target population of the study, which improved the quality of the data gathered. Observation can range from highly structured, detailed notation of behavior guided by checklists to more holistic descriptions of events and behavior (Marshall and Rossman, 1995). The analytical framework used to conduct the interviews provided the criteria to observe the Forum of Patos Lagoon meetings. Issues of representation, power relations, channels of communication, interests, conflicts, inputs from the parties related to management decisions were all observed and compared with data provided by the interviews and survey. Establishing a co-management arrangement in the area is not only about institutions, but fundamentally about new relationships which resulted from implementing such arrangements for the local governance of fisheries CPR. Participant observation was found to be an excellent way to identify the Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management actors and to examine the relationships among them, and to compare how people talked about some issues when they were asked during the interviews and how they behaved in a complex arena of decision making regarding the same issues. 37 Cross validation between expressions of values and behaviors was possible and found to be key to identify the dynamic of the co-management process. During the interviewing the different actors expressed what they think and during the focused observation of the Forum meetings it was possible to check the data provided by in-depth interviews and verify how they acted upon the discussed issues. This allowed an insight on how negotiation and tradeoffs were done, who talked to whom, how interests and agreements were reached. Observation was used to discover the complex interactions in natural social settings. The importance here is that the researcher was able to check analytic themes and to see i f the move towards accomplishing a process of shared governance was being achieved by the Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management in practice, as it was evolving, how participants interacted with each other, the role of science within this process and how this process has changed the regulation of small-scale fisheries management and became legitimized by other levels of decision making and by the involved actors. The notion of fairness and the existence of a mechanism to assure equal rights and empowerment of the local people are key issues for successful co-management systems. These were able to be verified as well. Important here was to pay attention to how well the Forum was achieving what it had proposed to achieve. It was also a way to understand the process of negotiation among participants and understand the obstacles and venues that might impede/facilitate the effective implementation of the co-management process. During observation, I noticed the great potential for implementing co-management in the estuary. On the other hand, I witnessed also the substantial challenges, and experienced together with the participants the frustrations in overcoming problems. Engaging in a co-management process is not an easy task and some obstacles might impede the effective participation of local communities, and the incorporation of their interests in the decision making process. Observation and survey made it possible to check how these matters were 38 being considered by the implementation of co-management arrangements and at the same time avoiding that decisions end up being driven mainly by groups with strong economic and political power. 3.5. Survey Open-ended and semi-structured interviews, along with document analysis, field observation and literature review, were complemented with a quantitative closed-ended survey (Fowler, 1993; Singer and Stanley, 1989). Why link qualitative and quantitative data? In this particular case the linkage enabled confirmation or corroboration of data via triangulation; providing richer detail on the theme of the thesis that supported its discussion and conclusions (Creswell, 1994). The survey (closed ended questionnaire) was designed after reviewing documents, conducting the participant observation in the field and applying and analyzing the in-depth semi-structured interviews. Important issues raised during the interviews and during the Forum of Patos Lagoon meetings were turned into objective closed-ended questions that could be asked to a larger number of fishers communities. The objective of the survey was very specifically related to the small-scale fisheries management. Questions were related to issues of representation of the Forum of Patos Lagoon, that is, how well the Forum represents fishers interests and how well it is supported by the small-scale fishers community. Also questions were related to issues of rules, rules compliance and enforcement (e.g., how fishers agree with the rules, how they feel the rules should be expressed according to their knowledge of the local resources conditions and environment) to capture fishers knowledge regarding the management of the resources. This was a way to counteract the knowledge of fisheries regarding fishing seasons and regulations with the official institutions that mediate the use of the resources, and check i f there is a 39 consensus about the fisheries regulations that were created by the Forum of Patos Lagoon. The questionnaire can be found in Appendix III. The design of the questionnaire was done in an iterative and complementary process between researcher and fishers where the researcher counted on the help of fishers to elaborate the questions. Before the completion of its final version, the questionnaire profile to be used in the survey was evaluated by some small scale fishers from the different municipalities that are representative of the fishing communities of the estuary of Patos Lagoon. They provided inputs to the questionnaire both in terms of content materials and language formats in order to guarantee that the questions were clear, understandable and of interest to the target population. Once this process was completed and adjustments were made to the questions, the pre-testing of the questionnaire was done (Fowler, 1995). The questionnaires were applied by a team composed of the researcher and 9 undergraduate students of the Federal University of Rio Grande (FURG). The students were selected based on previous experience in conducting surveys. Students were trained to conduct the survey. The training involved three focus groups where the students were introduced to the theme of investigation, taught about the necessary background information and given several reading materials to acquire the required knowledge to conduct the survey. Simulation of survey application was first conducted in the laboratory where all students simulated how to conduct the survey (i.e. how to approach the fishers, what kind of background information they should provide; how to ask the questions). Simulation of possible difficult situations that could be faced such as lack of cooperation, and unwillingness to participate were also tested. During the simulation of survey application, an evaluation was done by both researcher and students to identify and become fully aware of weaknesses and strengths of the exercise, and thus to make 40 sure that everybody was ready to go to the field. Several survey pre-testing exercizes in the field were conducted in the fishers communities and analyzed to eliminate any problems prior to the beginning of the real survey. The data gathered with the pre-testing were discarded. Closed-ended survey sample population The target population of the survey was small scale fishers from the different localities of the estuary of the Patos Lagoon. Artisanal or small-scale fishing is characterized by the use of simple fishing gears, and small boats (less then 10 m long) without any shelter, and with 2-3 men aboard. According to FAO (1975) small scale fisheries involve hard work and are performed by fishermen with a low income, use of simple fishing gears, with a considerable level of production, low political influence, social mobility and financial dependency that maintain them subservient to political economic decisions and to restrictions imposed by those that buy their production. In regard to their main activities, the fishers of the estuary of Patos Lagoon can be divided into exclusive and non-exclusive fishing communities. The exclusive ones rely entirely on the fisheries activity for living. The non-exclusive ones dedicate themselves also to other activities either developing a parallel activity to fisheries or developing another activity during the fishing closure. Some work as farmers and others work as employees in urban activities in the estuary (Madureira and Habiaga, 1989). Small-scale fishers group themselves in small communities along the estuary of the Patos Lagoon, which are spatially organized in four Fishers Colonies (Colonia de Pescadores) (Table 3.2; Figure 3.2). The Fisher Colony is a professional organization of fishers of a given municipality, which is legitimized by the Federal Constitution as one form of working union. Although affiliation to the Colonies is compulsory there are fishers (illegal or underage) operating in the estuary that are not registered in any Colony. The survey was conducted with 41 623 fishers at the fishing communities of the municipalities of Rio Grande (Colony Z l ) , Sao Jose do Norte (Colony Z2), Pelotas (Colony Z3) and Sao Lourenco do Sul (Colony Z8), following the above mentioned typologies to guarantee a full representation of the different communities (Table 3.2). Table 3.2. Artisanal fisheries communities surveyed in the estuary of the Patos Lagoon. Fisher Colony Locality Community Fishers registered in Colony Total (registered and non-registered) Z l Rio Grande Bosque,Vila Sao Miguel, Jocquei Club, 2 a Seccao da Barra, Henrique Pancada, Embratel, 4 a Seccao da Barra, Ilha dos Marinheiros, Pesqueiro, Torotama, Marambaia 159 197 Z2 Sao Jose do Norte Sao Jose do Norte, 5 a Seccao da Barra, Praia do Norte, Vi la Nova, Cocuruto, Pontal, Passinhos, Varzea, Capivaras, Retiro, Ponta Rasa, Povoacao da Barra 189 210 Z3 Pelotas Colonia Z3 - arroio sujo 116 124 Z8 Sao Lourenco do Sul Bairro N.S. Navegantes, Bairrinha 85 92 Total 549 623 42 Figure 3.2. Map of study area and location of Fishers Colonies (source Asmus, 1989). Due to a lack of an adequate sampling frame (there is no updated list and registration about the whole group of fishers in the estuary of Patos Lagoon) the sample population was selected through the snowball technique (Henry, 1990; Creswell, 1994; Czaja and Blair, 1996). This method permits the development of a more directed study when one wants to analyze a special population and still obtain a representative sample. In this case, the main small-scale fishing villages along the estuary of Patos Lagoon were first identified based on information obtained 43 from the different sources, including (1) members of the Fishers Colonies, (2) officials from C E P E R G / I B A M A where fishers obtain their license permit, (3) the captain of the ports where fishers have to register their boats; (4) the pastoral of fishers that work directly in the field; (5) the researchers from the university; (6) the participants of the Forum of Patos Lagoon meetings; and (7) fishers. Suggestions in recruiting respondents were obtained also when the survey process started. These sources were used as a point of reference in identifying the target population to which to apply the survey. The timing to conduct the survey followed a careful analysis about the best period of the year and the appropriate time of the day for the survey to be carried out. The chosen period to conduct the survey with fishermen was from June to September 2001. This period of the year was more appropriate to conduct the field work as most fishermen were not allowed to work due to the official closure period within the estuary of Patos Lagoon. Therefore most of them were at their villages fixing their nets which allowed us to spend several days conducting the survey. A n average of 10 questionnaires per interviewer were completed in a full field work day. The communities were visited several times. Whenever possible the schedule for the survey was arranged in advance. In most cases, however, previous arrangements were difficult given the fact that most respondents do not have a contact phone. In this case the researcher had a contact person (e.g. fisher and/or fishermen wives) in each community that either introduced us to the fishers or arranged a place where the survey was to be conducted. The contact person proved to be important to obtain good data. Also the researcher had spent more than one year in the field and was accepted by the fishing communities and they were very receptive and interested in the theme raised by the research. 44 A l l respondents were approached by acknowledging that they were selected as a potential respondent in the research project and asked about their feasibility of participating in the survey. The survey followed the same procedure employed in the interviews as stated earlier: it started with a clear explanation about the project stating (1) the objectives of the study, (2) the background and qualifications of the interviewer, (3) the name of professors, universities and agencies involved, (4) the importance of using the survey for the development of the research project, (5) a clear explanation about why they were selected as a potential respondent, (6) the importance of their collaboration, and (7) the possible benefits to them by accepting to participate in the survey. A l l questions were asked in the same order and no comments were provided by the survey applicant in order to not influence the respondent answer. The fishers were very keen to participate in the survey. In fact in many communities several fishers asked to participate in the survey. They were eager to talk, to express their knowledge and opinions about the management of the fisheries and usually they came back to us after the survey was conducted and told us how good they felt by talking to us. "7 am so content in doing this survey that I feel light" one fisher said to me. Others said that ''for the first time researchers were asking questions that make a lot of sense to us". Three points were important to this accomplishment: (1) research questions were well developed beforehand, and had the inputs and revision given by contact fishers; (2) participants could perceive the purpose of the questions, in other words, that my interests were similar to theirs, which helped them to buy into the survey; and (3) the researcher devoted a considerable time in the field to build trust with the participants. Fundamental aspects to building trust was the researcher's initial contacts with key local researchers, members of the community and the 45 active participation in the meetings of the Forum of Patos Lagoon and visits to the fishing villages. Yet, I had also tough experiences. There were fishers that were tired of helping researchers because the researchers never did anything for them. One fisher expressed his anger telling us that he would not respond to our questions because every time somebody like us went to the community the end result was some law that worked against them instead of working for them. When this situation happened, I let them talk and then I reinforced the objectives of the research and, most importantly, the limitations of my work and the importance of their collaboration, and how far I could go with the results. I did not promise more than I could do in return for them. Then I gave them the time they needed to think and explained that fishermen participation was very precious to my work and asked again for their collaboration. In all cases, they reconsidered their decision and agreed to participate in the survey. 3.6. Ethical issues as they pertain to the study and the researcher's role in the process As stated by Marshall and Rossman (1995, 71-75), in qualitative study the researcher is an instrument. Whether that presence is sustained and intensive or relatively brief but personal, the researcher enters into people's life and extracts a lot of information that matters to them, raises a lot of expectations and then goes away without notice. This indeed brings a range of strategic, ethical and personal issues. Ethics is an important issue in the management of natural resources because it involves decisions that will influence a wide range of elements that will directly or indirectly affect differently the quality of people's living and the quality of the environment and the maintenance of its integrity. It is important to make explicit the fact that different individuals may have 46 widely varying judgments and perceptions and diverse values that can manipulate management actions. There are no simple solutions to a collective management structure in such a case. Usually decisions cannot please everyone. In some cases of management of natural resources many individuals can be quite disappointed and disagree with the decisions made because they do not fully represent all different interests or their interests. In this sense it is crucial to integrate the understanding of what people think about their own space in order to obtain a participatory approach in natural resources management, because different people have the right to be consulted and express their opinions when management procedures interfere with their lives. Ethics is also about bringing back the results to the ones that contributed to the research. It is important that valid results should be reported back for those who provide the basis and the elements for the research analysis and that could benefit themselves from the produced information. Indeed most of the participants of this research have questioned the results of the research and their accessibility, given the relevance of this research to the management of the fisheries CPRs. Most of the participants of the research (i.e. the members of the Forum of Patos Lagoon, the fishermen) emphasized their interest and the need to report the results back to them. Great numbers of fishermen said: it is not enough to give the results to the Forum members or to the president of the colony because there is a risk of us never getting the results back to the communities. "You have to come to the communities as you did to collect the data and communicate the results to us". One thing that I learned by doing this work is that i f one goes to communities and promise things one has to follow the promise. If you say you will come back the day after, you have 47 either to go or explain why you are not going and when you will go there again. This is part of the trust and credibility building within the communities. And it is the tradeoff that the researcher has to make. If a researcher decides to engage in such kind of projects she/he must be prepared to spend time just hanging out within the community. As pointed out by Marshall and Rossman (1995) the researcher should be sensitive to the need for time to pass, flexibility in their roles and patience because confidence and trust emerge over time through complex interactions. Roles and relationships do emerge in the field and indeed without trust building the research is largely jeopardized. Also it is imperative that the researcher be a good listener. What can be said of this work is that once you get the trust and credibility from the participants they will do whatever they can to help you out. My role in the development of this project is in accordance with the philosophy of participatory research as my interaction within the Forum of Patos Lagoon evolved from a passive to an active participant as the research evolved. As a result of my frequent and intense involvement in the Forum of Patos Lagoon, and as I was always interacting with people during and after the meetings I became an active participant. Also as people in the meetings identified myself as a researcher from the university that was studying the subject that they were implementing they became more confortable with my presence. Therefore, when possible I brought to the meetings some issues raised by my research as both showing some results and putting issues up for discussion; basically raising questions and triggering a discussion about the process of implementing a co-management arrangement in the estuary. It is strongly emphasized that this study does not intend to make judgements about different people values or perceptions, but rather intends to make sure that different positions be included and analyzed to produce sound and inclusive conclusions to the research. It was also stressed 48 that the confidentiality of data will be maintained, preserving the anonymity of informants and therefore does not offer any kind of risks for the participants. Therefore no names were provided during the analysis of the results when quotations were made. 49 Chapter 4. Case Study 4.1 Resources and Human Activities in the Estuary of Patos lagoon The estuarine region of the Patos Lagoon is located in the Southern Brazilian Coastal Zone (Rio Grande do Sul State), an area of the Biosphere Reserve (UNESCO, 1993). With an area of approximately 10,000 km 2 , the Patos Lagoon is recognized as the world's largest choked lagoon, stretching from 30°30'S to 32°12' S near the city of Rio Grande where the lagoon connects to the Atlantic Ocean (Figure 4.1). Figure 4.1. Location of the Patos Lagoon estuary in Southern Brazil. Source Seelinger et al. (1997). 50 The estuarine region encompasses approximately 10% of the lagoon, and is occupied by diverse and abundant flora and fauna. The abundant food resources and protection against predation provided by estuarine shoals makes this region an ideal nursery ground for several commercially important fish species. The estuary is characterized by a shallow body of water (mean depth of 7 meters) with variable temperature and salinity depending on local climatic and hydrological conditions (Castello, 1985). The dynamics of estuarine waters is mainly conditioned by the wind and rain regime with only minor influence of tides. In general in the period from September to April the dominant winds are from NE, N N E and ENE while in the winter period winds from E, S, SE and SW are more frequent. While the first favor the discharge of freshwater and create a low salinity regime in the estuary, the latter force the penetration of salt waters through the estuarine channel and create conditions for a marine regime in the estuary (Moller et al, 1991). The total mean annual precipitation (1200 - 1500 mm) varies strongly from year to year and is mainly related to the path and passage of cold fronts (Klein, 1997). Mean monthly rainfall is highest during the winter and spring (June to October), but a second peak may occur in summer. Interannual variations in precipitation with either a high amount of rainfall or dry periods, seem to be a consequence of the effect on the El-Nino Southern Oscillation cycle on the regional climate (Seelinger et al, 1997). As a general rule years of strong El-Nino events cause flooding regimes in southern Brazil. This phenomena directly influences the amount of continental freshwater runoff and the biogeochemical processes in the estuary and coastal ecosystem (Ciotti etal, 1995). The Patos Lagoon system connects with the ocean via the channel between a pair of jetties, about 4 km long and 740 m apart at the mouth. A l l the estuarine dependent marine organisms 51 enter and leave the estuary through this channel for nursery, reproductive and feeding purposes. Based on the seasonal abundance and movement patterns of organisms, Chao et al. (1985) identified five distinct bioecological categories in the estuary: estuarine resident species, that complete their entire life cycles in the estuarine environment; estuarine dependent marine species, which utilize the estuary as nursery and feeding ground for young but spawn at sea; the anadromous species that enter the estuary to reproduce; and opportunists and occasional visitors, which include more than 50 marine and freshwater fishes. Of the more than 110 species of fish and shellfish species that occur in the estuary, 4 represent important fisheries resources, and have sustained artisanal fisheries activities in the estuary for more than a century. Short descriptions of these species life-cycle and dynamics are provided in Table 4.1. Table 4.1. Summary of biology and life-cycle of main artisanal fisheries resources in the estuary of Patos Lagoon (sources D' Incao, 1991; Reis, 1986; Haimovici, 1997; Vieiraand Scalabrin, 1991). Pink shrimp, Farfantepenaeus paulensis Estuarine dependent species. Adults spawn in shelf waters below 50 m deep, producing demersal eggs that hatch into planktonic larvae. When approaching estuaries the larvae develop a benthic habit settling in shallow areas where they will grow for a few months until reaching the pre-adult phase when they migrate to the ocean reinitiating the cycle. The growing phase in the estuary may last between 4 and 10 months when they reach ca. 7 cm of length. Larvae enter with varying success into the estuary all year round but mainly in the spring and summer depending on environmental forcing of wind and freshwater outflow. Marine catfish, Netuma barba Slow-growing, anadromous species with a calculated life span of approximately 23 years, though adults may occasionally attain 36 years of age and a total length of 98 cm. At the end of the winter the species migrates into the Patos lagoon estuary. Reproduction takes place in early spring in the estuary followed by spawning in the coastal waters. N. barba has low fecundity and after the reproduction the males incubate the eggs for up to 2 months in the bucal cavity. Between spawning seasons, adults disperse over the entire shelf. Croaker, Micropogonias furnieri Species depends on the estuary of Patos Lagoon as a nursery and feeding ground. Croakers spawn during spring and summer in coastal waters under the influence of freshwater runoff from the Patos lagoon. Adults normally migrate into the estuary in September-October and leave the area in December-January. Young and subadult croakers occur throughout the year near the coast and in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. Adults are dispersed over the shelf and migrate from Uruguay to southern Brazil during the fail and winter and towards Uruguay in the summer. Mullet (mainly represented by Mugil platanus Mullet occur year round in the Patos lagoon and adjacent coastal waters. Juveniles are more abundant in the winter and spring in nursery areas of the lagoon. In the fall, adult mullet leave the estuary and initiate their reproductive migration. Spawning occurs in warmer offshore waters at about 27°S between the end of the fall and winter. Eggs and larvae are transported from spawning ground towards the surfzone, followed by long-shore migration to the estuary of Patos Lagoon. 52 The characteristics of species life cycles create a well defined seasonal variability in the diversity and abundance of resources in the estuary and also in the availability of resources to artisanal fisheries. Fisheries landings also present a marked inter-annual variability which seem to be related to the occurrence of strong ENSO events (Castello and Moller, 1978; E. Reis, pers. comm.). By affecting the amount of rainfall in the region these events can directly influence the availability of resources to artisanal fishers in the estuary and thus impact the total landings. O. Moller (pers. comm.) also noted that the frequency of occurrence of strong El-Nino events increased after 1970, indicating the possible occurrence of a climatic regime shift which would characterize yet another scale of temporal variability (inter-decadal) in the ecosystem. This raises the question, yet to be analyzed, of how the combined effect of changes in resources exploitation and management and the climatic regime may have helped exacerbate resources depletion in the estuary of Patos Lagoon after the 1970s. 50000 r 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 Figure 4.2. Artisanal fisheries landings in the estuary of Patos Lagoon (data source SUDEPE and I B A M A ) . 53 The understanding of how the ecosystem is structured and how it changes in response to human impact requires an understanding of the dynamics of ecosystems succession and resilience. Holling (1986, 1992) and Holling et al. (1995) suggested four primary phases in an ecosystem succession cycle which synthesize common features observed in both terrestrial and aquatic systems. The phases are: exploitation, in which rapid colonization of recently disturbed areas by opportunist species occur and lead to a growth in the size of the system; conservation, in which the system slowly accumulates and stores energy and material, and develops a more complex structure until a climax is attained; release, in which the tightly bound accumulation of biomass and nutrients becomes increasingly fragile until it is suddenly released by physical or biological disturbances and unexpected events such as forest fires, storms, insect pests, intense pulses of grazing, etc.; and reorganization, in which physical-biological processes minimize losses and renew the system to become available for the next phase of exploitation. The four phases model considers that the dynamics of ecosystems is organized across scales in time and space around the operation of a small number of nested cycles of exploitation, conservation, release and reorganization, each driven by a few dominant variables (plants, animals and abiotic processes) (Holling, 1992). Examples of regional resource management (Gunderson et al. 1995) also suggest that institutions and societies achieve periodic advances in understanding and learning through similar cycles of growth, production (greatest efficiency), release (crisis) and renewal that shape the spatial and temporal dynamics of ecosystems. Holling's four phases model thus provides a framework that is useful for understanding the relationship between both the dynamics of ecosystems (its structure and change) and the functioning of institutions bound to resilience. Figure 4.3 represents the dynamics of artisanal fisheries CPRs in the estuary of Patos Lagoon by accounting for the four major phases in resources life cycle in the estuary and coastal areas: the phases are exploitation, in which fisheries resources enter the estuarine environment for growth or reproduction purposes, leading to the conservation phase in which resources 54 increase in size and mature. Adults leave the estuary in the release phase to spawn and recruit in the marine environment closing the cycle with the renewal phase. The influence of climatic conditions (and harvest) is conspicuous in the transition from renewal to exploitation phases because of its effect on recruitment success and on the migration/dispersion of resources towards the estuarine environment. Climatic conditions Renewal spawning & recruitment , ^ C -\fish & shrimp enter estuary Exploitation Conservation growth & - ^ ^reproduction •\ \ \ \ V V / / / / y 'adults leave the estuary Release Figure 4.3. Four phases model of fisheries resource dynamics in the estuary of the Patos Lagoon and coastal areas (adapted from Holling, 1986). During the cycle of exploitation, conservation, release and reorganization, biological time flows unevenly. It is slow from the exploitation to the conservation phase, then very rapid to the release, rapidly to reorganization and back to the exploitation phase. Human activities and impacts on fisheries CPRs Prior to the arrival of the first Europeans, diverse native groups occupied the coastal plain where they exploited abundant fish, shellfish and shrimps resources (Vieira and Rangel, 1988). Since 1750 the coastal region became the centre of Portuguese colonization. From the beginning, settlers along the Patos Lagoon margins exploited the abundant fishery resources as a food source. For more than a century the artisanal fishery in the estuarine region provided fish and 55 shellfish products to be exported to the main Brazilian markets, as well as to Uruguay, the United States and several European countries (Von Ihering, 1986). Today about 6,000 artisanal and 3,000 industrial fishers are temporarily or permanently involved in fisheries activities in the estuary and coastal waters off southern Brazil (Seeliger et al, 1997). Artisanal fishers group themselves in small communities along the estuary of the Patos Lagoon (Table 3.2, Chapter 3). The artisanal fishery operates in estuarine and shallow coastal waters. It is characterized by minimal fishing technology (Table 4.2) and, consequently, a smaller fishing power compared to industrial fisheries. Fishers normally own their vessels and work together with their kin. The main types of fishing gears used by artisanal fishers are gillnets, stownets and otter trawls. Artisanal catches accounted for over 80% of the total catches in southern Brazil in 1966. Landings declined from an historical peak of 43,600 tonnes in 1972 to ca. 6,000 in the late 1990s. Today, the main artisanal resources are either fully exploited, overexploited or depleted and catches are close to subsistence levels, with the exception of mullet and shrimps which provide sporadic good economic returns during ideal environmental conditions ( IBAMA, 1995; Reis and D'Incao, 2000). Table 4.2. Characteristics of three types of fisheries sharing fish CPRs in southern Brazil (source I B A M A ; Reis and D'Incao, 2000; Haimovici et al., 1989; Haimovici, 1997). Fishery Artisanal Coastal, semi-industrial Industrial Area Boat size (m) Estuary, marine inshore < 10 Marine inshore and offshore 12-15 Marine inshore and offshore 2 0 - 3 5 Fishers/boat 2 - 3 6 - 8 6 -10 Power (HP) 10-24 90 -120 250-650 Days fishing/trip 1 3 - 4 10-15 Capacity (tonnes) < 10 12-20 20 -120 Main gear types Gi l l nets, trawling, stownets Gil l nets, hook and line Fish and shrimp trawling, gill net, purse seine 56 Characteristic of the resources exploited by artisanal fisheries is that they are present in the estuarine environment only during a small part of their life cycle (Table 4.3). Practically all the artisanal resources also occur in the inshore and offshore coastal areas, and some, such as croaker, weakfish, Argentine croaker and bluefish, have their migratory range crossing international borders. In these areas resources are also exploited by other types of fisheries with distinct technologies and fishing power (Table 4.2). In the early 1980s a coastal gill net fishery became important off the coast of Rio Grande. This fishery is considered semi-industrial because of its intermediate technological characteristics between artisanal and industrial activities (Reis, 1993). The industrial fisheries include boats from Rio Grande and from other Brazilian states that operate off Rio Grande do Sul during specific fishing seasons (Haimovici, 1997). Purse seiners from Santa Catarina (neighbor state) operate in the region during autumn and winter catching mainly pelagic species such as mullet and bluefish, and occasionally demersal species such as croaker and catfish off the mouth of the estuary of Patos Lagoon. A n industrial gill net fishery started operating in 1989 in deeper waters (>50 m) using nets several kilometres long. The main species caught by this fishery are sharks, croaker, Argentine croaker and weakfish. Bottom trawling (pair-trawl, otter-trawl, double-rigg trawl) is the main type of industrial fishing activity in the region. Boats from Rio Grande and other Brazilian states actively participate in this fishery, which occurs all year round in inshore and offshore waters (between 10 and 100 m) targeting weakfish, royal weakfish, Argentine croaker, crocker, sharks and shrimps (Haimovici et al, 1989). 57 o c IT) j§ ft . a a e a 3 t« o O LO o a> Sr ft o o a o Q J3 M to c « -3 C3 7 T O N >N« 2 8? c Q S .S3 •-m ° 1 3 1 5 1 — O • -.S ON cfl m -—1 E! •S ^ a p a ° S — •8 s a « g C3 | J3 O p g iri 2 u o n LJ o — l -O . J " en •* 3 -< CO Fisheries CPRs also suffer from the human impacts on the coast such as pollution, contamination, dredging and loss of nursery habitats (Seeliger et al, 1997). In the estuarine area of the Patos Lagoon, contamination by organic matter and metals in the water and sediments is caused by urban and industrial drainage, activities linked to the fishing terminals, and the port activity. Alterations in the natural hydrological pattern, and a series of impacts on the salt marshes caused by several human sources have also been reported (Seeliger et al, 1997). Despite its high ecological importance as an area of the Biosphere reserve, the estuary of Patos Lagoon, and its surrounding ecosystems, are under pressure for economic development. The cities of Pelotas (ca. 300,000 inhabitants) and Rio Grande (ca. 180,000 inhabitants) are the most important urban centers in the region. The port and harbor facilities of the city of Rio Grande make the estuary of the Patos Lagoon a geopolitical strategic area within international economic market systems which create strong interests for economic development from the different levels of Brazilian governance (federal and state). This creates opportunities for rapid and intense industrialization and development which in turn initiates different kinds of environmental impacts (Domingues, 1997). Concurrent with the present depletion of fishery resources, natural features such as marshes, riparian forests, wetlands, lagoons and coastal beaches, which have an important role in the maintenance of the coastal ecosystems integrity, are being exploited by conflicting activities and from short-term economic interests. Historically, socio-economic demand has tended to collide with ecological preservation, and increasing human alterations are jeopardizing the health of the coast and the estuarine region of the Patos Lagoon, and thus compromising the quality of life of local communities whose livelihoods depend on coastal resources (Seeliger et al., 1997). The above characteristics, that is, the high mobility and the strong influence of the physical 59 characteristics of the aquatic system and the effects of other coastal activities, makes fisheries one of the most puzzling CPRs (Castro, 2000). Institutions that mediate the use of CPRs and ecosystem The institution with the highest authority for coastal zone management in Brazil is the GERCO (National Program for Coastal Management) that is administered by the Ministry of the Environment. The conditions set forth in the program have to be implemented by each coastal State and Municipality. The program defines the legal aspects for the management of the Brazilian coastal zone, and establishes the basis for the development of regional and local policies, programs and management plans. Estuarine areas, such as the estuary of the Patos Lagoon which are classified as an area of moderate to high environment risk, and of moderate to high actual impacts (MMA, 1996) were defined as areas of high management priority by GERCO. Although fisheries are important coastal resources, GERCO has no mandate over them. The management of fisheries in Brazil is mainly the responsibility of the federal government, which is responsible for assessing the status of the stocks and for setting and enforcing regulations on the use of aquatic living resources. Governmental institutional arrangements for regulating fisheries activities have been changing over the years (Table 4.4). The role of the federal government in marine fisheries management became particularly influential in the mid-1960s with the creation of the Federal Fisheries Agency (SUDEPE) of the Ministry of Agriculture. Later in 1989 fisheries became one of the agendas of the Environmental Agency (IBAMA), a subsidiary of the Ministry of Environment. In 1998 a law was approved to create another department for dealing with fisheries management and the delegation of responsibilities to manage the resources changed once more. According to Dias Neto (1999) 60 such a change represents "one of the most anarchical moments in the fisheries management in the Brazilian history". This anarchical situation is related to the fact that since then, management of fisheries resources is the responsibility of two agencies in two distinct ministries: IBAMA in the Ministry of Environment, and the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture in the Ministry of Agriculture. The main responsibility of the latter is to promote and execute programs and projects to support the development of the industrial fisheries - its main objective is to promote the development of the sector and to manage unexplored fisheries resources. While IBAMA is responsible for executing the national policies for the environment, and particularly for managing endangered and over-exploited species, and encouraging the sharing and decentralization of decisions through co-management and community-based management initiatives. . Its mandate includes conservation and sustainability of resources. The development policies put forth by these two agencies are not only diverse but opposite and conflictive in their approach to resource management. 61 3 O O ID —' £ i ii « CO o _ ca" bfl OH C H J O c o o SP o Cm ^ O <^ O 0> ca T3 3 ^ 3 o o< £ C/3 < C O o3 o B C 60 3 oo _e Is CO O ca X > S « ~ 2 ca <u R" ca B = 60 \ 3 2 ^ <•» 3 H W c 60 o c3 60 ca •S 'S O .S ca (D u c E -a p , ca Q .S 60 e o 00 Is ca 9> so ca 60 b _ ca l l 13 60 . 2 c I s . 2 £P"a3 B 1 | c « c H a d 3 a. T3 c u ca t/5 < 5 m < < a ca ca X I "ca . 2 c n ca 5 o U In terms of property rigfhs, coastal zones are composed of natural resources or ecosystems under different property rights regimes. These include open access, communal property, state property, and private property. Some of the coastal resources, such as fisheries for instance may fall under any of several management regimes, depending where it. is located and harvested, although Patos Lagoon is formally considered a public open access resource by the Brazilian constitution ( M M A , 1998). Given the failure of the above institutional arrangements to sustain artisanal fisheries over time, and benefiting from the current process of decentralization of I B A M A , a new institutional arrangement has been formed to co-manage the local resources in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. The local co-management arrangement referred to as the Forum of Patos Lagoon was set up (1) to organize the artisanal fisheries sector in relation to fisheries administration policies; (2) to prompt partnerships within the sector in order to implement action plans to rebuild the productive capacity of the fisheries resources in the Patos Lagoon; (3) to establish criteria that allow the fishing effort control as one mechanism for rebuilding fisheries resources; and (4) to encourage the collective organization for the support of local sustainable artisanal fishing communities (Forum of Patos Lagoon Mission Statement, 1998). Since the establishment of the Forum, fisheries regulation has been debated redefining rules and rights to local resource use in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. Measures such as fishing effort limit, minimum mesh size, closed season, among others, have been exhaustively discussed and agreed as a first initiative of this co-management arrangement (Decree I B A M A 171/98; Table 4.5). Table 4.5 presents a summary of the laws and decrees that control the use of local CPRs in the different aquatic environments and their location. It describes the established rules regarding 63 how much, when, and how different resources can be harvested, involving management functions such as licensing, timing, location and vessel or gear restriction to prevent over-exploitation (sensu Pinkerton, 1989, 6; 1999, 348), as well as rules to protect critical habitats and water quality from damage to preserve health of the resource. From Table 4.5 one concludes that access to the majority of artisanal fisheries resources is being limited by license control in all areas. The exceptions are the semi-industrial fisheries based on gill-nets and industrial purse seine fisheries for which access to use of the resources is still open. The most common rules on paper are those determining fishing seasons, size limits and the characteristics of fishing gears. The regions differ however in the number of restricting rules - the fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon present the largest number of rules controlling fishing seasons and gear characteristics. Another notable feature shown in Table 4.5 is the absence of management quotas in practically all regions (the exception is a by-catch quota established for deep water species caught by foreign trawlers) and the absence of fisheries management rules defining marine habitat protection. Habitat protection rules for terrestrial ecosystems that are relevant for fisheries CPRs are defined by State and Federal environmental agencies. They set the standards for water quality, rules to prevent water pollution, and to regulate the types of use in estuarine and freshwater systems for protecting critical habitats such as marshes and riparian ecosystems. There are no similar rules for habitat protection in inshore and offshore marine areas. 64 c CD E c o "> 2 W o >> CO '5 < £9 id CU w Q D GO CD E 2 o '> c co 3 cr CO (2 C M u C*H o CD co 3 00 c c o o CD CD I— o <u T3 T3 C CO O 2 CO E o -* s x) o-co Ui X ) t o , M • § P I 2 co , W CO _ i <N CD T3 1) CD 55 2 op '5 ,o •a c 3 . O CO u . U CO £ J u «> S <o X ) E w 00 " 2 0 0 - 2 C IS ^ CO co is « § S SP I — i — 23 - 2 O co to «S £ 3 " S 3 ' •5 oo 3 2 ° I S S | iS CD T * - ' r 3 5 , E > C M O <u cj c <u 00 k-CD > e o o X ! 2 o o 0 0 CO 00 c 1 •5 a S2 a. CD P E -g 1-8-S o "o is c s c o o u u 4 ) CD co co c c CD CD C J < J I D E '*? ^ = J3 a a CO CD O CD ** X ! <D 2 •c 2 CD U CD 2 co X I c «-CD co 2 U 2 O S?n 1 8 SP « j ia E i . S 2 CD > a ° . 5 X ! oo £ s « X ! 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CO CD E 2 E E CO 2 E S ^ to E J 3 E 2 O u T * • co E T 3 2 C8 CD 2 CD 2 2 CD E fish fish E o a. r- C/l o 2 >/•> fn O o sizes O 0 0 E J 3 oo-e x: M - S LB S ° E oo « fi £ -S I CD X CD CO X S 6 3 E E -CD 00 co 2 O 00 ' & 2 U . 'is co co O — co « S3 S > T3 CO O .S 2 , 00 o 3 -a $ 2 2 o ss g ** O - 2 c S — 2 2 co • S cj T3 CS JK CT\ CD O -S O S U. Q . O — • 2 1 0 CO co O JS CD <D g S3 £ 3 ^3 « 2 , CD a" O co 2 <2 4—* C J CO CD O c3 b T3 C - 2 co T 3 2 co CD > O 2 ca s 1 1 CD - 2 O J 3 co H <u £ 2 co to S 3 j « 1 0 2 — X ! 1 3 co ~Z 2 S cr.2 D L b 2 2 cl C J CO - C 2 „ . 2 o "H o fa E l -a. co a 2 _o is o CO g D5 o. Chapter 5: Adjusting to change: the crafting of co-management arrangements towards decision making for joint use in the estuary of Patos Lagoon "... What do you have to do? You will have to learn and think about these new concepts and techniques. Yes, it will take some work. It will involve study and discussion with others. As difficult as it may be, you will have to put aside your biases, whatever they may be about: the behavior of fishers, the behavior of managers, scientific superiority, the corruption of government. If we are to succeed, we must open our minds and refresh our thinking. This sounds transcendental; new directions often are. But what choice do we have? The future of our marine and coastal resources is at stake. People's lives andfutures are at stake. You can make a difference" (Berkes et al, 2001, chapter 9). 5.1. Introduction Central questions of the theory of common-pool resources are related to the erosion, survival and adjustments of community-based management systems and how they can increase ecosystem resilience (Ostrom 1990, Ostrom, 1994, Berkes and Folke 1998). The survivorship and adjustments of local community-based arrangements depend on the ability of local populations and institutions to respond to environmental change in a preservationist fashion. This depends on the ability of the commoners to organize and constantly reshape local patterns of resource use so that they are compatible with the ecological characteristics of the system. In this regard, as the social system becomes more complex, the survival of a more community-based type of arrangement depends on the ability of the users to reshape the institutional design, or re-create new designs, in order to cope with local and external pressures (Castro, 2000). This chapter draws attention to the importance of local institutions in the mix of institutions related to the sustainability of the fisheries CPRs. It is designed to analyze the involvement of local communities and institutions as active participants in the fisheries management process and in crafting a co-management arrangement. Further this chapter examines this move towards a more participatory (inclusionary and deliberative) governance system in the estuary of Patos Lagoon (fisheries co-management of the estuary of Patos Lagoon), to assess how far attempts to 66 incorporate such approaches have worked in the fisheries co-management framework of the estuary of Patos Lagoon, and to look at what processes are influencing the approach towards participatory management. The underlying question of the chapter asks i f the type of co-management, being implemented in the estuary of the Patos Lagoon is creating opportunities for fishing communities to influence their own development and to promote the recovery of the resource-base which can allow community-based developments. 5.2. The Forum of Patos Lagoon - an initiative towards a co-management arrangement The interest in artisanal fisheries management has grown in the last years as governmental agencies and academics focus on the community as "the missing link in fisheries management" (sensu Jentoft, 2000: 53). As stated by Jentoft (2000), the community link has become essential as experience worldwide has shown that "viable fish stock requires viable fisheries communities" (Jentoft, 2000: 53). Diegues (1995) indicates that such an interest has come from unsuccessful experiences in Brazil as a result of governmental policies in managing this sector, as priorities were always given to the industrial fishing sector and to the development of other sectors. For example, general small-scale fisheries communities suffer pressure from unplanned tourism and port development. He points out also that the increased interest in artisanal fisheries comes from the recognition of the great importance of small-scale fisher communities to supply the internal and external market; from the initiatives of non-governmental organizations and the church to empower small-scale artisanal fishers communities through national, regional and local forums that allow fishers to express their desires, needs, knowledge and goals in the governance of fisheries resources. The Forum of Patos Lagoon was created in July 1996 as an institutional response to the crisis of estuarine fisheries resources and the miserable situation that small scale fisheries communities 67 in the estuary of.Patos Lagoon were continuously facing. It represented a first attempt to link coastal fisheries resources stakeholders to the decision making process in the region. The weak fishing season of 1995/1996, which helped trigger local changes in fisheries management, had one of the lowest landing volumes in 50 years (Figure 4.2; Chapter 4). In an attempt to devise social response mechanisms for dealing with changing environmental conditions, the Forum co-management arrangement was established with the premise to adjust management regulations to the functions of ecosystems and to the natural resources with an underlying goal of recovering the importance such activity used to have in the past. The Forum was an initiative of a group of people, lead by the Fishers Pastoral ^Pastoral do Pescador"), the Fishers Colonies and in partnership with the local branch of the Federal Environmental Agency ( IBAMA-CEPERG). The objective was to initiate an action plan to reverse the crisis that artisanal fisheries were facing. This initiative was inspired by the experience of the Fishers Pastoral who work very closely with small-scale fishers communities in Brazil in order to minimize and alleviate communities' social and economic problems (Diegues, 1995). There was a general consensus on the part of the different actors related to fisheries management that, in order to reverse the fisheries crisis, a rearrangement of fisheries management was needed to accomplish a better organization of the sector in relation to management policies (Reis and DTncao, 2000). The representatives of the Forum concluded that through a collaborative partnership among communities and governmental and non-governmental organizations, and using a negotiation-style of decision process that changes could move toward a more productive fisheries (Forum of Patos Lagoon minutes). The participatory management model adopted by the Forum of Patos Lagoon is a co-management type of arrangement. This model was chosen to be applied in the estuary because of a previous experience with the establishment of a local co-management initiative 68 implemented by I B A M A - C E P E R G in 1994 in the Mirim Lagoon (which is part of the Patos-Mirim Lagoon System; Figure 4.1). This initiative represents a local mark in recognizing that effective resource management is a necessary condition for the viability of fisheries communities but most importantly that communities play an important role/contribution to the preservation of healthy fish stocks. The establishment of the co-management of fisheries in the Patos-Mirim system had been facilitated and had been worked as an experiment towards decentralization of decision making under the auspices of the Federal Environmental Agency (IBAMA) as a decentralization program for coastal natural resources management (Sales, 2000), which follows principles highlighted in international environmental regimes such as Chapter 17 of the Agenda 21 and the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (Agenda 21; GESPE, 1997; FAO, 1995; FAO, 1996a; FAO, 1996b). As discussed by Ostrom et al (1999, 278-282) higher levels of government can help or hinder local self-organization. For more than 30 years Brazilian National Policy has defended rights that led to resources over-use and the maintenance of the ultimate control over resources by the government. Alternatively, the decentralization policy adopted by I B A M A , in this particular case, had been key in terms of facilitating and legitimizing local action for small-scale fisheries management, and has largely contributed to a change in the management process. 5.3. The Forum of Patos Lagoon - structure and process The Forum of Patos Lagoon is an informal organization composed now of 21 institutions directly and indirectly involved in decisions that affect small scale fisheries. The structure of the Forum and the process of making decisions within it has changed over time. At the beginning the Forum was composed by the Fishers Pastoral, the presidents of the 4 Fishers 69 Colonies of the estuary, I B A M A , the universities and the State agency for rural research. Meetings were held almost every week when discussions took place focusing on the problems faced by artisanal fishers and how to devise or suggest solutions. The meetings were initially more informal until the participants felt the need to formally institutionalize the organization. A great amount of time was spent discussing the format they would give to the Forum, who should be participating, who should be given the right to vote, and i f the vote is the best way to make decisions at all. The outputs of this process, which took approximately 2 years, were the Forum's statute, mission statement and an action plan to reverse the crisis in the small scale sector. In an attempt to include all the institutions that could possibly be affected and impact artisanal fisheries, a total of 21 institutions representing the main stakeholders on coastal resource management were invited to be formally part of the Forum. Some of the 21 institutions were already represented since the beginning, while others joined the Forum later in 1998 when its statute was finalized. Table 5.1 lists all the institutions that compose the Forum according to its statute, and also their attributes as related to resource management. 70 Table 5.1. Institutions that compose the Forum of Patos Lagoon according to its statute and their attributions environmental management. Institutions Duties Level Port authority - to promote navigation security, defense of the territory and aquatic pollution management - to provide the infrastructure and support for monitoring fisheries management National Fisher Pastoral/CNBB - to foster small-scale fisheries communities social and economic organization National Environmental Police (PATRAM) - to monitor fisheries management and enforce regulation National I B A M A / C E P E R G - to execute the national policies for the environment in order to preserve the environmental quality for the present and future generations - to conserve, enforce and manage overfished and/or depleted resources National Local universities (FURG; UFPel and UCPel) - to promote education and research development in the Southern Brazilian Coastal zone and inland watersheds National Public Ministry - to act as a watchdog for environmental issues and represent the interests of the society as a whole. National S ta teofRS(FEPAM and SAA) - to promote the development of small-scale fisheries activity through financing of activities that promote a rational use of natural resources; income generation and infra-structure, and funds for research by demand. Regional E M A T E R / A S C A R - to provide the link between financial programs supported by the state government and small-scale fisheries priorities - to foster the social organization of small-scale communities Regional Fishers Colonies Z l , Z2, Z3 and Z8 N G O ( N E M A , C E A ) - to represent small-scale fishers' interests within the development of the small-scale fishers sector - to develop an environmental conservationist conscience in the coastal communities through programs on environmental education, planning and monitoring. Local Local Municipalities of Rio Grande, Pelotas, Sao Jose do Norte and Sao Lourenco do Sul - to monitor the environmental quality of the municipality - to identify environmental problems, degraded areas and illegal activities in the municipality and inform the State Environmental Agency to execute and enforce the law Local Fisheries Industry syndicate - to represent fisher's industry sector within the environmental management organizations Local The Forum has two administrative units: the General Assembly and the Board of Directors. The General Assembly, formed by the representatives of the institutions that are part of the Forum, is responsible for the election of the Board of Directors, the discussion of working plans and monitoring the implementation of measures that are expected to benefit fish stocks and related communities (Reis and DTncao, 2000). The Board of Directors manages the Forum and is composed of a President, a Secretary and a Financial committee. Participation in the Forum is voluntary, and each person that serves on the General assembly represents an institution. Invitation letters to participate in the meetings are sent to the heads of the participant institutions which then appoints the person he/she considers most appropriate to represent the institution in the Forum. It has been suggested that this can be a drawback to the process because a completely inadequate person can be selected to participate (Reis and D'Incao, 2000). However, what could be observed from the interviews and from meetings observations is that most of the active participants are sitting there either because they want to participate, or have experience in resource management, or because they feel frustrated with the crisis in the fisheries and believe they can do something to help change the present situation. As put by one of the Forum participants: "I think that the Forum is a big step. For everybody that had accompanied the whole process of discussion knows that it was frustrating because we are part of this organization process...the people do not have the feelings of working ...of siting and discussing the problems with lucidity, with no radicalism and still will take time and we still haven't find a formula to work in group without individualist sentiments, people that participate of the Forum sometimes don't have a clue of what does it mean to work in group. But this is part of the democracy, it is part of this new proposed format, it is the process... the Forum was created as an instrument of a group, a new institution that was created to share, using the different institutions such as the Public Ministry, to defend their interests. What we've done as IBAMA was to create the mechanism of a management model that could be functional with the public participation. The only way to negotiate in management is with the public acceptance. If we implement a top-down model we do not have response" A l l representatives have the right to speak and to vote. Both representatives of Fishers Colonies and Fishers Pastoral were given rights to two votes each, while the other institutions have the 72 right of one vote each. The reason for assigning more votes to the Colonies and Pastoral was to provide more power to the institutions representative of fishers within the Forum. Fishers and public in general can sit in the meetings with no right to vote. Although this is the rule, during the two years of participation of the Forum meetings as an observer it was possible to conclude that they try to accommodate the interests and issues raised by every participant as much as they can, the ones with and without rights to vote. Therefore it is possible to infer that in practice they base their decisions more on a consensus format of decision making than voting. The process of making decisions in the Forum through consensus-building is creating the conditions for legitimacy of the Forum's outcomes among its participants, or meeting the conditions for a "political legitimacy", defined by O'Riordan (forthcoming) as "the shared acceptance of an outcome that may not be liked, but which is tolerated because it is arrived at by means that are trusted and understood". As put by one of the representatives of the Forum, when asked about the process of decision making in the Forum: "It is a bargain process and sometimes you have to make tradeoffs. And during the negotiation process I learned a lot, because we've got to know the people. It is within the dispute, the debate that you clarify to yourself the other people's interests. Therefore it was very important for me to know who were the people I was dealing with. I had to develop some negotiation skills that I did not know that I was able to have. Sometimes you want to give up everything because you do not see the products that you expect and other times you just understand why people act the way they do, you comprehend their motivation behind the process. But at the end of the day I think as a whole the Forum has achieved a negotiation, a consensus even in the identification of its weaknesses part. On the one hand if we have not achieved the complete representation of fisher communities on the other we understood that in a negotiation process you have an umbrella of objectives but at the same time you have to deal with different alternatives and priorities. You give up something at one point but you gain other things and you keep going until you achieve everything you expect. It is a slow process and rarely you gain everything at once. This is part of the game." Not all institutions participate actively at the meetings. Figure 5.1 shows the frequency of participation of the 21 institutions in 43 monthly meetings held between 1996 and 2001. The institutions most frequently present are members of the Board of Directors since the beginning of the Forum of Patos Lagoon including the Fishers Colonies, Fishers Pastoral, E M A T E R and I B A M A . Others, such as universities and municipalities of Rio Grande and Pelotas, also 73 frequently participate at the meetings. Notably, institutions with high decision power or influence such as the Public Ministry, Port Authority and Fisheries Industry Syndicate are rarely present at the meetings. This has been a problem that the Forum will have to deal with in terms of how to bring the institutions that have important implications for management to fully buy into the process. 20 % participation 40 60 80 100 Fishers Colony 72 Fishers Colony Z3 Fishers Pastoral EMATER IBAMA/ CEPERG Fishers Colony Z1 FURG Municipality Rio Grande Municipality Pelotas Fishers Colony Z8 NGOs Municipality S.J. Norte UCPel PATRAM State of RS Municipality S. Lourenco Fishers Union Rio Grande UFPel Port Authority Public Ministry Fisheries Industry Sindicate Figure 5.1. Frequency of participation of institutions representatives in 43 Forum meetings between 1996 and 2001. The lack of involvement of these institutions represents an important weakness of the Forum of Patos lagoon which has been recognized and will be adjusted as they are in a process of revision of the statute to redefine the roles and involvement of each participant institution. The reasons that some institutions do not actively participate vary. The Fishery Industry Syndicate does not 74 participate because it sees its interests conflicting with the proposed goals of the Forum. One of the most important conflicts in the region is between artisanal and industrial fisheries, and the Forum's propositions to restrict access to industrial fisheries is, for instance, against industries' interests and clearly in favor of artisanal fisheries (Chapter 6 and 7). On the other hand, the Port Authority and Public Ministry are impeded from becoming formally involved as a result of their legal mandates. According to the representatives of the Port Authority and Public Ministry, legally these institutions represent the interests of society as a whole and cannot formally take part in the Forum as the Forum deals with a particular interest group, namely small-scale fisheries. In reality, however, the lack of involvement of these institutions reflect, on the one hand, the historical segmented arrangement of institutions dealing with coastal zone management in Brazil, whose mandates have been consistent with a fragmented policy perspective, techno-oriented style, and narrowly-framed management that do not take into account the inter-relationships among coastal activities (Asmus et al, 1999; Kalikoski et al, 2001). On the other hand, it was also noticed that the Forum lacks a mechanism to better inform the role and importance of these institutions for the local co-management initiative and thus to persuade them to buy into the process. The latter reason applies specifically to the Port Authority. The Port Authority does not consider itself directly related to fisheries management but only to issues of navigation safety, and coastal pollution, therefore it has not participated at the meetings. However decisions made by the Port Authority can directly affect the activity of small scale fishers. For instance, the enforcement of safety rules for navigation in coastal waters has created an issue of conflict because artisanal fishers lack the safety devices (which are very expensive) required by Port Authority, so they have been prevented to fish in traditional fishing grounds in the coastal area adjacent to the estuary. It took time for the Forum representatives to reach an agreement with the Port Authority to find a solution that could both meet the safety requirements and be affordable to fishers. 75 The Public Ministry, on the other hand, acts as a watch dog for environmental issues and represents the interests of society as a whole. The Public Ministry cannot legally vote in an organization of this kind. However, being a deliberative institution the Public Ministry can legitimize the outcomes (decisions) of the Forum at higher levels of decision making. Despite the inability of the Public Ministry to formally participate in the decisions of the Forum, it has been working with the Forum when it is necessary, as has been the case in two recent important issues for local fisheries. The first was an attempt to reverse a federal decision that assigned the responsibility for fishers licensing to the Ministry of Agriculture, which jeopardized the efforts of the Forum to regulate local access to fisheries resources and the empowerment of such a local institution (see Chapter 7). The second issue relates to the attempt of the Forum and Public Ministry to challenge the process of environmental impact assessment that approved a project of enlargement of the jetties of the port of Rio Grande (FURG, 2000). The assessment study, which was commissioned by the Ministry of Transportation, failed to account for the impacts of the project on artisanal fisheries in the estuary and also disregarded fishers knowledge as well as the risk of jeopardizing the traditional cultures of small scale fishers of the Patos Lagoon (see Chapter 6). Therefore, although the Port Authority and Public Ministry have neither been frequently at the meetings of the Forum nor participated in the decisions reached within it, they have been supporting the Forum on many occasions when they were called upon. Considering that the Port Authority and Public Ministry locally represent higher level (federal) institutions, their involvement in the Forum can be beneficial for improving the cross-scale linkages between communities and government in the co-management of fisheries, besides creating the conditions to empower the small-scale fisheries sector whose interests have been historically marginalized from management decisions in coastal areas. 76 5.4. The role of government in the Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management arrangement One of the fundamental requirements in establishing a co-management arrangement is the commitment on the part of higher level government institutions to the sharing of power and authority with local government and local fishers and community organizations (Pomeroy and Berkes, 1997). The involvement of I B A M A , the federal institution responsible for environmental management, as an active participant of the Forum of Patos Lagoon since its beginning has created the conditions for establishing a co-management arrangement in the estuary of Patos Lagoon by creating the legitimacy and accountability for this local organization3. IBAMA's policy of increasing the autonomy of local institutions is the government approach to the decentralization process (Sales, 2000), and forums such as the Forum of Patos Lagoon is the adopted model to accomplish this process (in fact other forums are being implemented in two other coastal locations in southern Brazil (H. Rodriguez, I B A M A / C E P E R G , pers. comm.)). The presence of I B A M A in the Forum of Patos Lagoon creates the conditions for achieving a cross-scale linkage where decisions taken at the local level by the Forum have been legitimized and deliberated at the federal level through the creation of policy decrees. As recognized by Reis and D'Incao (2000), the legitimization of Decree 171/98 by IBAMA/Brasilia represented an important step towards the empowerment of the Forum of Patos Lagoon. For the first time formal regulation in the estuary of Patos Lagoon was made through discussions among the interested parties and was made from the bottom-up. According to Reis and D'Incao (2000: 589) Decree 171/98 achieved the following outcomes for fishers and resources: 3 Although I B A M A has been actively participating at the Forum, its future role in the co-management has been debated internally and between the Forum and the federal government. There is a consensus that I B A M A will give up some privilegies as a participating institution within the Forum (right to vote) given its broad legal mandate (environmental management as whole). 77 A four-month closed season for all species (June-September) made fishermen eligible for unemployment benefit. It is the first time that fishermen in the Rio Grande do Sul State (RS) receive this type of benefit paid by National Social Security. To receive the benefit individuals have to be registered as professional fishermen at I B A M A for at least three years. Fishing activity in the estuary of Patos Lagoon is restricted to small-scale fishermen that depend on this activity for a living. For the first time fishermen from the neighbor state of Santa Catarina that used to come every year to exploit pink shrimp during fishing season are prohibited to fish in the area For the first time rules were locally defined to regulate the activity of artisanal fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon and to limit resource exploitation. Other achievements of the Forum that can be highlighted are: Responding to the weak shrimp and mullet fishing seasons of 2001 and the critical socio-economic conditions of artisanal fishers, the Forum of Patos Lagoon proposed to the government of the state of RS the creation of an emergency fund for artisanal fisheries to be supported by the state and federal governments. The emergency fund, which is still being evaluated, is to be used during poor fishing seasons and implemented as a loan to fishers. For the first time the management of fisheries is going beyond the protection of stocks to try to alleviate the socio-economic conditions of fishers. Responding to a demand of small-scale fishers for the enforcement of predatory fisheries, specially in the 3 mile zone, and recognizing the lack of resources of the enforcement agency, the Forum has helped trigger an agreement signed between I B A M A , the Navy, and 78 the Environmental Police (PATRAM) to enforce regulations in the estuary and coastal areas within the 3 mile zone. Although these outcomes represent important steps towards the legitimization of co-management by local and federal authorities, the extent to which these achievements meet fishers interests is a point that deserves attention hence it is analyzed later in section 5.5. While the legitimization of local institutions by I B A M A does apply to the present locality of the estuary of Patos Lagoon, there are other examples in Brazil (such as the implementation of the National Park of the Peixe Lagoon (Madureira, 1997)) where I B A M A has been an obstacle to the involvement of communities in resource management (Diegues, 2000). Thus the importance of understanding the contextual reality in which such arrangements develop. The political momentum in the state of Rio Grande do Sul (RS), with the administration of the Workers Party (PT), has been also working favorably to the Forum co-management of artisanal fisheries with potential for cross-scale linkages between local and state levels of governance. PT stated policies to ensure bottom-up decision making through participatory approaches (such as the participatory budget, and regional forums (Abes, 1998) ) has created space for political representation of a wider range of interests, particularly of small-scale activities which were historically absent in the government of the state of RS. State Government's promotion of regional/thematic seminars, such as the Fisheries Regional Seminar, has provided a participatory space where artisanal fishers, representatives of Fishers Colonies and the Forum of Patos Lagoon discussed issues of representation and small-scale fishers organization, adaptation of regulations to promote a responsible fishery, and alternative solutions for the commercialization of fish products. The ultimate goal of the seminars is the development of a state policy for small-scale fisheries sector through a participatory process of policy building. Parallel to the 79 development of a regional policy for fisheries, the State of RS created the program "RS Rural-Pesca Artesanal" (RS Rural-Artisanal Fisheries) with the objectives to support the development of artisanal fisheries activities and to improve the socio-economic conditions of small scale-fishers communities of the State of RS (F. Brutto, RS Rural, pers. comm.). The program is implemented through different fronts: financing of activities that promote a rational use of natural resources (e.g. use of ecological friendly technologies); income generation and infra-structure (e.g. creation of cooperatives, restoration of boats and gears, among others); and funds for research by demand, where fishers communities or organizations identify problems which will become the focus for research programs funded by the State. The presence of representatives of the State of RS as one of the 21 institutions that is part of the Forum allows a two-way channel of communication between the local level and State government, where the Forum is one of the venues used by the state to discuss regional demands for artisanal fisheries management. The policies of the State government empower the Forum by supporting its actions and creating the conditions for a better organization of small-scale fishers. Despite the increasing local autonomy of the Forum, attempts to deliver a real sharing of resource management power in the estuary of Patos Lagoon have not been fully achieved. The decentralization management policy adopted by I B A M A has taken the form of delegation and not devolution4 (sensu Pomeroy and Berkes, 1997) in the sense that the Forum is consultative (it advises management policies) and not deliberative (it has not the power to implement decisions) because final decisions about small-scale fishers management still have to be approved at the Federal level. The devolution of fisheries management authority from the central government to 4 Delegation is the passing of some authority and decision making to local officials, but central government retains the right to overturn local decisions and can at any time, take these powers back. Devolution is the transfer of power and responsibility for the performance of specified functions from the national to the local governments without reference back to central government (Pomeroy and Berkes, 1997). 80 local level organizations is an issue that is not easily resolved because legislation and policy for co-management are embedded in a broader network of interests, laws, policies and administrative procedures at both national and local government levels. If on the one hand decentralization has been supported by federal (IBAMA) and state (program R S - R U R A L pesca artesanal) government levels, on the other hand there are federal institutions (Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture- DP A) whose political interests have been rather to centralize decisions. As stated earlier since 1998 authority for fisheries management in Brazil has been split between two agencies under the Ministries of Agriculture (Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture -DP A) and Environment (IBAMA). I B A M A became responsible for conservation, enforcement and management of overfished and/or depleted resources, while the D P A was responsible for licensing and development of fisheries for resources still under-exploited. The split of authority between these two agencies does not arise in a vacuum but rather is the outcome of the political economic interests to revamp the incentives for the fisheries industrial sector (Dias-Neto, 1999). "The Ministry of Agriculture has developed over the last 12 month a wide range of actions and initiatives designed to open new opportunities and enhance the growth of the Brazilian fishing industry. For more than a decade fishing and aquaculture were overshadowed by other economic activities in Brazil. This situation is now changing into a situation in which the priority now given to the fisheries sector of the economy is designed to promote the development of protein rich food as well as the expansion of the export capacity of this sector."(Pratini de Moraes, Minister of Agriculture, The Brazilian Foreign Trade Magazine, 1999). "The only real conquest in the industry in the last four to five years was the fight to develop fishing in the Ministry of Agriculture, taking it away from the care of the Ministry of the Environment, and there should be no back steps in the vital re-structuring of the management model currently under way" (Vicente Percivalle, President of the National Fishing Industry Council, The Brazilian Foreign Trade Magazine, 1999). Although the DPA is not a participant institution of the Forum (despite numerous invitations from the Forum Board of Directors to establish a communication link with DPA), its decisions 81 are highly influential to the success of the local co-management arrangement. At least two policies adopted by DPA have had a negative impact on the local fisheries management, conflicting directly with the Forum's goals. The first was the transferring of licensing from the local agency of I B A M A to the Ministry of Agriculture's office in the capital of the state (Porto Alegre) affecting attempts to limit entry to the fishery mandated by the Decree 171/98 . The second was the opening of access to foreign factory trawlers to operate in waters off Rio Grande do Sul disregarding the fragile status of the resources and the weak capacity of local institutions to enforce the activity of these boats. As demonstrated by a recent research program assessing fisheries resources in the Brazilian EEZ, most of the important resources in this zone are already being fully exploited and not much surplus production is available for exploitation (Haimovici, 1997). Disregarding the results of the above program and also the interests of local artisanal fishers, licenses were given to industrial foreign trawlers from Asia and European countries to operate in the EEZ of southern Brazil (Forum of Patos Lagoon minutes), therefore increasing the pressure over the already over-exploited resources that are shared by local industrial and artisanal fisheries. This policy was part of the Ministry of Agriculture's Strategic Plan of Action for the Development of Fishing and Aquaculture. "The Brazilian national trawler fleet is now, on average, 25 years old, and can all but be scrapped. In the southern region, where the tradition of ocean fishing already exists, boats are already being modernized. To stimulate the increase in production from 420 thousand tonnes/year to 1 million, the Ministry of Agriculture is going to offer financing to renew the fishing fleet" (Gabriel Calzavara, Director of DPA, The Brazilian Foreign Trade Magazine, 1999). "Ensuring the presence and continuity of Brazilian fishing in the EEZ and in international waters is at the core of the Ministry of Agriculture's new fishing policy for the country, but these objectives will only be achieved with adequate changes to the relevant legislation; [...] revenues from foreign fishing vessels; incentives for the nationalization of the trawler fleet; [...] and stimulating the installation of foreign fishing companies in the country" (The Brazilian Foreign Trade Magazine, 1999). Both impacts increased the misfit between the rules and resource conditions thus putting at risk the sustainability of fisheries CPRs, as will be discussed in Chapter 7. 82 Berkes (2000, 3-12) identified different ways in which higher level institutions have a negative and positive effect on the capability of local institutions to govern and manage local resources. According to the author the mechanisms by which higher level institutions have negative impacts on local institutions include the centralization of decision-making; shifts in systems of knowledge; colonization; nationalization of resources; increased participation in national and international markets, and national-level development projects. The positive effects, which may strengthen or rejuvenate local institutions, include state recognition of local institutions; development of enabling legislation; decolonization and revitalization; capacity-building and local institution-building. Table 5.2 presents a summary for this case study of the main identified positive and negative impacts of higher level institutions (government) on the Forum co-management framework. 83 Table 5.2. Positive and negative impacts of higher level institutions on the Forum co-management Positive impacts Decentralization Increasing local autonomy with the delegation of power from federal to the local I B A M A agency. Model of participatory governance adopted by the state of RS gives more autonomy to local institutions to participate in the process of developing a state policy for small-scale fisheries sector. Legitimization Government legitimization of rules locally designed by the Forum of Patos lagoon through the Decree I B A M A 171/98. Enabling legislation The Forum of Patos lagoon is the model adopted by federal government to accomplish the process of decentralizing natural resource management. This model is being implemented in other coastal areas of RS. Decentralization and legitimacy of local institutions by state and federal governments empowers the Forum of Patos lagoon to influence the governance of small-scale fisheries. Public Ministry is empowering the Forum to better represent the interests of artisanal fisheries sector in the governance of the coastal zone. The role of the Fishers Pastoral, and I B A M A in engaging in the process of building a local institution to elaborate an action plan to revert the crisis in the management of local fisheries CPRs. Since 1998 fisheries management authority at the federal level was split between I B A M A and DPA, jeopardizing the commitment of I B A M A with decentralization. The split of power between federal agencies showed that government management of natural resources involves a complex interplay of political competition among vested interests in conservation and development. Mixed policies of centralization/decentralization is an obstacle to the development of local co-management initiatives such as the Forum. Development policies Development policies to open access of fisheries to international fleets and the incentives to revamp national industrial fisheries threatens the efforts of the Forum to sustain small-scale fisheries activities in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. Lack of integrated or Governance of estuary of Patos Lagoon is still largely sectorial. participatory management of Government policies to port and industrial development are made from coastal resources the top-down disregarding local institutions and communities in their development plans Empowerment Institution building Negative impacts Centralization 84 5.5. The role of fishers communities in the Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management arrangement The proper involvement and representation of artisanal fishers in the Forum is a pre-condition for the design of policies that reflect the interest of communities and are consequently supported by them. The challenge in co-management is how to reconcile local-level rules and government regulation toward improving fishery management (Berkes et al, 2001). One important step for this is to accomplish a legitimacy of the process not only from higher levels of decision making but also from the local levels of resource users. As argued by Jentoft (2000, 142): "...legitimacy should not be anticipated regardless of institutional design of co-management. Co-management may perhaps be the best available solution to the legitimacy problem but it may also, in itself, be the source of disappointments and loss of legitimacy. What if decisions resulting from collaborative and communicative processes produce regulatory outcomes that do not fullfil expectations of user-groups?" Jentoft (2000, 147) concludes that: "the current legitimacy crisis in fisheries management must also be explained by the mismatch between what users see as reasonable and imperative within the local context in which they operate, and what governments regard as rational and efficient from a global perspective". As put by Karl en (2001) sharing management authority among users is not, in itself, a sufficient requirement for creating more legitimate fisheries management systems. The co-management system must also be legitimate on its own premises. The main argument for implementing fisheries co-management systems is the opportunity to provide an institution in which the users are guaranteed input in the management process. Because management decisions are based on user participation, a certain amount of responsibility is handed down to the users which ultimately may lead them to become more conscientious when harvesting the resource. This section is structured around survey results and in-depth semi-structured interviews to analyze the problems related to the representation of fishers interests in the Forum of Patos Lagoon and to understand the mechanisms in place for the participation of fishers in decisions. It looks at the legitimacy of the Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management from the perspective of resource-users. The section examines to what extent fishers communities of the estuary of Patos Lagoon 85 are represented in the Forum of Patos Lagoon, and how are/were they involved in local fisheries regulation. This provides the basis to discuss the question initially proposed: to what extent is the Forum creating opportunities for fishers communities to influence their own development and achieve sustainability in the management of small-scale fisheries CPRs. Fishers participation in the Forum of Patos Lagoon Although the majority of fishers surveyed know the Forum of Patos Lagoon (Table 5.3, question A), few of them have ever participated in the meetings. Of the 623 fishers surveyed, less than one third (156 fishers) have participated in the Forum meetings at least once, and only 3% of the fishers participated in every monthly meeting (Table 5.3, question C). In fact, during my participation in the Forum of Patos Lagoon over 18 months, I noticed the presence of a significant number of fishers at only a few meetings which were held in the communities of Pelotas and Sao Lourenco do Sul (Colonies Z3 and Z8, respectively). The participation of fishers from the communities of Z3 and Z8 is higher than those from Z l and Z2 (Table 5.3, question C), despite the fact that during the 18 months the vast majority of the meetings were held in the Colony Z l , none in the Colony Z2, and only 2 meetings in the Colonies Z3 and Z8 5 . The percentage of fishers from Z3 and Z8 that participated 2 or more times in the meetings is 43% and 56%, respectively, compared to 23% and 12% for fishers from Z l and Z2. One possible reason for this difference is that fishers from Z3 and Z8 are concentrated in a much smaller number of communities than those from Z l and Z2 (see Table 3.2), which would facilitate the exchange of information among fishers and their access to the meeting locations. These differences may also reflect different levels of organization of these communities, which is discussed in more detail in the next section. Note for instance, that one of the most important 5 According to the Forum's Statute the meetings are to be held alternatively in each of the four Colonies. 86 means of information delivery of the Forum is through the Fishers Colonies (Table 5.3, question B) and that Colonies Z3 and Z8 have a higher role in communicating to fishers about the meetings than the other two Colonies (Table 5.3, question B ). Table 5.3. Results of survey questionnaire by Fisher Colonies, responses (n). Numbers represented as percentage of total A) Do fishers know the Forum of Patos lagoon? Z l (n= 159) Z2 (n= 189) Z3 (n= 116) Z8 (n= 85) Not registered (n= 74)) A l l (n= 623) No 26 14 4 7 41 18 Yes 74 86 96 93 59 82 B) How did they hear about the Forum? Radio/TV Newspaper Fisher Pastoral Other Fishers IBAMA Colony Others Z l (n= 173) 28 6 12 29 9 13 3 Z2 (n= 193) 21 4 3 30 2 41 0 Z3 (n= 131) 13 5 2 23 3 53 2 Z8 (n= 80) 5 0 0 15 4 73 4 Not registered 38 8 2 30 2 21 0 (n= 53) A l l (n= 630) 20 4 5 26 4 38 2 Obs: n is different from A because some fishers provided more than one way they know about the Forum. C) How often do fishers participate of the Forum meetings? Never / or 2 >2 Monthly no answer Z l (n= 117) 74 15 8 1 2 Z2 (n= 162) 77 10 2 1 11 Z3 (n= 111) 40 24 19 8 9 Z8 (n= 79) 38 33 23 4 3 Not registered (n= 44) 89 7 2 0 2 A l l (n=513) 63 18 10 3 6 Obs: Only fishers who knew the F O R U M were asked this question. D) Why do they not participate more often? Place Time Travel cost Didn't know Other no answer Z l (n=42) 21 19 5 31 17 1 Z2 (n= 28) 18 39 7 32 0 4 Z3 (n= 75) 15 55 7 23 1 0 Z8 (n= 55) 11 33 5 47 4 0 Not registered 20 0 0 80 0 0 (n= 5) A l l (n= 205) 16 38 6 34 5 2 Obs: n is different from 156 because some fishers provided more than one reason for not participating more often 87 The 156 respondents that participated at least once in the Forum of Patos Lagoon were asked to provide the reasons why they did not participate more often in the meetings (Table 5.3, question D). The two most frequent reasons given by fishers are that the meetings usually occur when they are out fishing or that they didn't know of the meetings in time. A problem related to the latter reason has been noticed during my participation in the meetings. Sometimes the meeting date is changed without notice or it is announced at the last minute, making it difficult to inform every participant. The location of the meetings and the travel cost appear, in this order, as the next reasons for the lack of participation. The meeting place is considered by some communities as an important impediment to their participation in the Forum of Patos Lagoon because the meetings usually occur in the city of Rio Grande and many fishers have to travel long distances from their communities to attend. For instance, fishers from the Colonies Z3 and Z8 live approximately 60 and 140 km from Rio Grande, respectively. Others live in areas not well served by roads and public transport (such as communities in the colonies Z l and Z2). The above results show that few fishers participate in the Forum of Patos Lagoon, and that there are different levels of involvement of fishers among the communities surveyed. The question raised is, therefore, are fishers concerns and interests taken into consideration by the Forum through their representatives, and translated into management actions that are coherent with fishers interests, given their minor participation in the meetings? Representation of fishers interest Two types of questions were asked to evaluate the extent of representation of fishers interests in the Forum. The first type of questions were framed to obtain direct responses from fishers that participated at least once in the Forum meetings about how the Forum is representing them. 88 Results are shown in tables 5.4 and 5.5. From the 156 surveyed fishers that participated in the meetings in all colonies, 38% consider that their interests are represented in the Forum, 31% that they are only sometimes represented, and 31% that they are not represented at all in the Forum (Table 5.4, question A). Most of the respondents, in all colonies, agreed that the Forum is not helping many fishers, and 23% of fishers consider that the Forum does not help them at all (Table 5.4, question B). Table 5.4 (question C) shows that the majority of those fishers that have participated in the Forum of Patos Lagoon feel that they have opportunity to express their concerns during the meetings. However, only 24% of all fishers surveyed consider that the Forum is working towards their needs, in contrast to 36% that think it is not (Table 5.4, question D). It is evident from survey results from each Colony that the Forum is not yet fully representing fishers interests, or working towards their interests, as they would like to see. This is a drawback to the Forum co-management process and the underlying causes of this will be discussed later in this Chapter. 89 Table 5.4. Results of survey questionnaire applied to fishers that participated at least once in the meetings of the Forum of Patos lagoon. Numbers presented as percentage of total number of responses (n). A) Are fishers interests represented in the Forum? No Sometimes Yes Z l (n= 28) 14 36 50 Z2 (n= 20) 40 35 25 Z3 (n= 57) 28 35- 37 Z8 (n= 47) 38 22 40 Not registered (n= 4) 50 25 25 A l l (n= 156) 31 31 38 B) Does the Forum help fishers? No A little A lot Do not know Z l (n= 28) 14 • 64 18 4 Z2 (n= 20) 10 80 10 0 Z3 (n= 57) 30 49 21 0 Z8 (n= 47) 26 49 23 2 Not registered (n= 4) 25 50 25 0 A l l (n= 156) 23 56 20 1 C) Do fishers have a say in the Forum meetings ? No Sometimes Yes No answer Z l (n=28) 25 21 54 0 Z2 (n= 20) 25 35 35 5 Z3 (n= 57) 16 37 47 0 Z8 (n= 47) 15 32 53 0 Not registered (n= 4) 0 75 25 0 All(n= 156) 18 33 48 1 D) Does the Forum works towards the needs of fishers? No Sometimes Yes No answer Z l (n= 28) 18 46 32 4 Z2 (n= 20) 30 40 30 0 Z3 (n= 57) 35 47 16 2 Z8 (n= 47) 51 21 28 0 Not registered (n= 4) 25 50 25 0 A l l (n= 156) 36 38 24 2 Differently from the first set of questions that were applied only to those fishers that went to the Forum of Patos Lagoon meetings at least once, the second set of questions were applied to all surveyed fishers independently of their presence or absence in the Forum. These questions related to how fishers agree with the management rules defined within the Forum. As such, it 90 aimed at evaluating indirectly the representation of the Forum based on the level of agreement between rules on paper and fishers interests and practice (such as the fishing calendar). Table 5.5 and Figures 5.2 to 5.5 show the result of survey questions related to the definition of fishing calendars. Fishers were asked i f they agree or not with the calendars defined for each of the main resources by the Decrees I B A M A 171/98 and 144/01. Figures 5.2 to 5.5 show the results of the question in which fishers were asked to define for themselves the period they think would be more appropriate for fishing each of the resources. In the case of the mullet fishing calendar, most fishers (64%) agree with a season from October to May (Table 5.5), while in Decree 171/98 it was defined from February to May and in Decree 144/01 it is currently defined from October to Apri l 6 . Decree 171/98 was revised based on fishers complaints that it was impossible to have different calendars for mullet and croaker since both resources are fished with similar gears and are present in the estuary during the same period. Fishers requests were taken into account with Decree 144/01. Practically all fishers surveyed in the four Colonies agree with a calendar that includes the month of May (Figure 5.2). That is the month when according to them the largest schools of mullet leave the estuary to reproduce (see Chapter 6), therefore it is the most important month for the fishery. The data also show three different patterns of responses in all colonies: fishers that think the mullet fishing should be kept open all year round; fishers that agree with a season from October to May; and fishers that agree with a short season from around February to May. 6 According to the head of IB A M A / C E P R G S , the month of May was excluded from Decree 144/01 due to a mistake in the edition of the Decree. Actions have been taken to correct this mistake on the time for the 2001/2002 season (H. Rodrigues, pers. comm.; Forum of Patos Lagoon Minutes). 91 As for the croaker fishing season, 71% of all fishers surveyed agree with the calendar from October to February defined in Decree 144 (Table 5.5). The previous calendar, from October to January, defined in Decree 171/98, was revised based on requests made specially by fishers from Colony Z3. Differences among calendars defined by fishers Colonies are evident in Figure 5.3. While many fishers from colonies Z l and Z2 (fishing mostly in the lower and medium estuary) defend the possibility of ending the croaker season as early as December, practically all fishers from Colonies Z3 and Z8 (mostly in the medium and higher estuary) agree on a calendar extending to February, and some defend also the possibility of leaving the fishery open all year round. These differences reflect distinct fishing strategies and territories among artisanal fishers in the estuary of Patos Lagoon which need to be taken into account in the design of rules defining the fishing calendar. The current calendar for this resource seems to be in agreement with these differences and therefore it is well accepted among fishers. In contrast to the rules defined for mullet and croaker, the calendar for catfish is largely opposed by fishers in all colonies (Table 5.5). Over 60% of all fishers interviewed do not agree with the catfish calendar defined in Decree 144 from October to November and from March to May. It is interesting to note as shown in Table 5.5 the significant number of fishers, specially from Colonies Z l , Z2 and Z3, that did not have a formed opinion about the catfish calendar. This lack of knowledge probably reflects the fact that for most colonies (with the exception of Colony Z8) catfish has not been an important fishery resource since at least the early 1980s, when the fishery in the estuary collapsed (see Fig 4.2). The collapse of this fishery and the change in the artisanal fishery system observed since then may have had a consequence on the loss of knowledge about the resource and its fishery (see Chapter 6). Figure 5.4 shows that although some fishers agree with the calendar from October to November and from March to May, a 92 large number of fishers, particularly from Colonies Z l , Z2 and Z8, consider that the fishery should be opened during the winter (June to August). As for the shrimp calendar, 76% of the respondents agree with the season from February to May defined in Decrees 171/98 (Table 5.5). Still many fishers believe the fishery should be open as early as December (Figure 5.5). However, the majority of interviewees agree that the shrimp calendar should be adapted each year according to the resource conditions (Table 5.5), which is in contrast to Decree 171/98 that fixes the opening of the season annually on February 2 n d . 93 Table 5.5. Responses to questions of how fishers agree with the fishing calendars defined by Decrees 171/98 and 144/01. Numbers presented as percentage of total number of responses (n). Mullet (October to May) -No Yes Do not know No answer Z l (n= 159) 28 60 10 2 Z2(n= 189) 37 61 2 0 Z3 (n= 116) 26 74 0 0 Z8 (n= 85) 37 63 0 0 Not registered (n= 74) 20 65 11 4 A l l (n= 623) 31 64 4 1 Croaker (October to February) No Yes Do not know No answer Z l (n= 159) 26 70 2 2 Z2(n= 189) 21 77 1 1 Z3 (n= 116) 32 66 0 2 Z8 (n= 85) 22 76 0 2 Not registered (n= 74) 23 62 7 8 A l l (n= 623) 25 71 2 2 Catfish (October to November and March to May) No Yes Do not know No answer Z l (n= 159) 66 16 16 2 Z2 (n= 189) 62 8 29 1 Z3 (n= 116) 43 21 33 3 Z8(n= 85) 78 16 6 0 Not registered (n= 74) 57 28 13 2 A l l (n= 623) 61 16 21 2 Shrimp (February to May) No Yes Do not know No answer Z l (n= 159) 28 70 1 1 Z2(n= 189) 14 85 1 0 Z3 (n= 116) 22 77 0 1 Z8 (n= 85) 13 86 1 0 Not registered (n= 74) 18 77 1 4 A l l (n= 623) 19 79 1 1 Should the shrimp calendar be adaptable? No Yes Do not know No answer Z l (n= 159) 24 74 2 0 Z2 (n= 189) 22 77 1 0 Z3 (n= 116) 15 84 0 1 Z8 (n= 85) 22 76 0 2 Not registered (n= 74) 31 65 4 0 A l l (n= 623) 22 76 1 1 94 Z1 ft 5 6 7 start month Z3 10 11 12 ft 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 start month 1 to 5 5 to 10 10 to 50 50 to 300 Z2 ft 2 3 4 5 6 7 start month I Z8 10 11 12 ft 2 3 4 5 6 7 start month 10 11 12 Figure 5.2. Proposed length of mullet fishing season by fishers of the Colonies Z l , Z2, Z3 and Z8. The stars in each graph represent the mullet season as defined by Decrees 171/98 and 144/01. The size of the dots is proportional to the number of responses. 95 Z1 12, 11 10 I Z2 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 start month 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 start month Z3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 start month 1 to 5 • 5 to 10 0 10 to 50 50 to 300 Z8 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 start month Figure 5.3. Proposed length of croaker fishing season by fishers of the Colonies Z l , Z2, Z3 and Z8. The stars in each graph represent the croaker season as defined by Decrees 171/98 and 144/01. The size of the dots is proportional to the number of responses. 96 Z1 2 3 4 5 6 7 start month 10 11 12 12 11 10 9 8 7 6[ 5 4 3 2h 1 Z2 • • 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 start month Z3 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ft 1 2 3 4 1 to 5 • 5 to 10 £ 10 to 50 50 to 300 5 6 7 start month is 10 11 12-12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Z8 ft 2 3 4 5 6 7 start month 10 11 12 Figure 5.4. Proposed length of catfish fishing season by fishers of the Colonies Z l , Z2, Z3 and Z8. The stars in each graph represent the catfish season as defined by Decrees 171/98 and 144/01. The size of the dots is proportional to the number of responses. 97 12 , 11 10 1 Z1 12, 11 10 9 Z2 • o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 start month 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 start month 10 11 12 Z3 12 i 11 10 I 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 start month 1 to 5 5 to 10 10 to 50 50 to 300 Z8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 start month Figure 5.5. Proposed length of shrimp fishing season by fishers of the Colonies Z l , Z2, Z3 and Z8. The stars in each graph represent the shrimp season as defined by Decrees 171/98 and 144/01. The size of the dots is proportional to the number of responses. 98 Table 5.6 shows how fishers agree with other general rules controlling artisanal fisheries in the estuary and coastal waters. Two issues that fishers diverge with are the regulation for the use of stownet and trawling. Decree 171/98 limits the use of 10 stownets per fisher to catch shrimp but fishers complain that 10 stownets is no longer economically viable. Trawling of all kinds was banned in the estuarine fisheries but many fishers consider that fishing with otter trawling should be allowed in the deeper channel waters of the estuary and also in the coastal waters, where many of them maintain a fishery for marine shrimp during the winter. Likewise, the majority of fishers consider that manual trawling should be allowed in the estuary because it does not cause any harm to the environment (see Chapter 6). In contrast, 74% of respondents agree that otter trawling should not be allowed in shallow estuarine waters because these are nursery areas for both shrimp and fish resources. Other points of agreement with the regulations are the fishing closure during the winter (with the exception of Colony Z8 where 48% of the surveyed fishers oppose a winter closure, Table 5.7), the unemployment benefit received during the closure, and the limited access to Catarina fishers. The latter was achieved with a rule, defined in Decree 171/98, that limited access to estuarine fisheries to only those fishers who reside in the area (see Chapter 7). 99 Table 5.6. Responses to question of how fishers agree with the rules defined for artisanal fisheries in the estuary and coastal waters. Numbers presented as percentage of total number of responses (n= 623). No Yes Do not No know answer Fishing closure during the winter period 24 .73 2 1 Maximum of 10 stownets per fisher , 48 49 2 1 Forbid artisanal otter trawling in channel waters 51 46 2 1 Forbid artisanal otter trawling in shallow waters 23 74 2 1 Forbid artisanal manual trawling 74 21 5 0 Forbid otter trawling in coastal waters 68 . 18 13 3 Impede access of Catarina fishers 28 69 3 0 Receive unemployment benefit during closure 7 92 1 1 Table 5.7. Responses to question of how fishers agree with fishing closure. Numbers presented as percentage of total number of responses (n). No Yes Do not know No answer Z l ( n = 159) 13 84 3 0 Z2 (n= 189) 14 80 5 1 Z3 (n= 116) 37 60 3 0 Z8 (n= 85) 48 47 4 1 not registered (n= 74) 20 77 3 0 A l l (n= 623) 24 73 3 0 One last set of questions was used to evaluate the representation of the Forum of Patos Lagoon based on the ranking of a number of achievements of the Forum and of management priorities that require more attention by the Forum, as perceived by fishers. Based on order of importance, fishers ranked the main achievements of the Forum as follows (Table 5.8): (1) unemployment benefit received during the fishing closure, (2) the control of access of Catarina fishers, (3) the opportunity created for fishers to participate directly in decisions affecting artisanal fisheries, and lastly (4) the definition of fishing calendars for each of the main resources. The number of fishers that consider these achievements unimportant increase in the same order, being largest for definition of fishing seasons. The low importance given to the definition of fishing seasons indicate that, although fishers agree to a certain extent with the calendars currently defined in the regulations (Table 5.5 and Figures 5.2 to 5.5), the majority of 100 them think that the definition of calendars is unnecessary since artisanal fisheries in the estuary follow the calendar defined by the dynamics of the resources (Chapter 6). Table 5.8. Rank of importance (l=more important; 4= less important) of the main achievements of the Forum of Patos Lagoon according to fishers. Also shown are the number of fishers that considered the achievements unimportant. Numbers represented as percentage of total responses (n= 623). The most frequent rankings are highlighted in bold. Forum's achievements 1 2 3 4 Unimportant No answer Receive unemployment benefit during 54 23 7 5 9 closure Impede access of Catarina fishers 21 32 12 14 19 Participatory space 16 14 29 11 28 Definition of fishing seasons 3 11 19 35 30 Fishers were also asked to rank a number of management priorities defined in previous semi-structured interviews. The results (Table 5.9) indicate the higher importance given by artisanal fishers to the control of industrial fishing activities on the coast, such as the operation of purse seiners in the mouth of the estuary and the illegal fishing of industrial trawlers in the 3 miles zone. Fishers ranked with lesser priority rules regulating artisanal fisheries activities in the estuary, such as the increase in enforcement, the legalization of artisanal trawling and the reduction of the number of stownets in use during the shrimp season. Up to this moment the issues of highest priorities for fishers have never been taken into account in the Forum, which has focused only on the establishment of regulations within the estuarine boundaries. As shown in Chapter 7 this represents an important problem of fit between the institutions and the resource base of artisanal fisheries and also a point of disagreements with the implemented actions by the Forum of Patos Lagoon. 101 As expressed by some fishers: ".../ think that closure will help us for sure. It will help not only the fishermen but also the future but the law has to be followed. But it is useless to have fishing closure inside the lagoon. The fishing closure for croaker started today for the artisanal fisher but the big boats continue fishing croaker outside, the mullet fishing season will start for us tommorrow but it was open the whole year to be fished outside the lagoon. There is nothing that is favoring us, on the other hand the laws that exist are not followed neither by the artisnal nor by the industrial. Now the artisanal trawling inside the laggon is forbidden but the stownet are allowed and tommorrow you may see how many small fish they will kill with it... The biggest problem is the industrial trawling. Imagine two big boats working 24 hours. And there is another thing that I'll tell you and that I think it's very important that you quote: the artisanal fisher only fish when the weather is good, Rio Grande is usually bad weather, I mean, in one week we go fishing one or twice. And sometimes is good but sometimes we don't get anything. The big boats, the industrials, work 24 hours, they work even when is windy, they stop working only during storms. Then they clean the coast and when we go there we do not catch anything..." Now I will tell you how the fishing will recover and within 3 years we would have a fishing activity for everybody: it is forbidden to fish outside in the coast within the three miles because the fish we catch here are the same that they catch outside and if they stop fishing there the fishing would improve, the catfish would get inside again, we would have croaker that we do not have anymore only in sporadic occasions of good weather.. .because the industrial trawling go inside the three miles and catch everything from Santa Catarina to Rio Grande... Table 5.9. Ranking of management priorities according to all artisanal fishers interviewed in the estuary of Patos Lagoon (l=more important; 4= less important). Also shown are the number of fishers that considered the achievements unimportant. Numbers represented as percentage of total responses (n= 623). The most frequent rankings are highlighted in bold. Priorities / 2 3 4 5 Unimportant No answer Forbid industrial purse seiners of 63 20 8 2 1 5 1 fishing in the mouth of the estuary More enforcement in the 3 miles zone 16 29 22 9 3 20 1 More enforcement in the Lagoon 10 15 21 20 8 25 1 Legalize otter trawling in the estuary 8 17 16 14 17 27 1 and coastal waters Reduce the number of stownets in use 2 8 8 18 30 33 1 in the estuary These results corroborate what has been observed during my participation of the Forum, that although the Forum is working towards a better management of the small-scale fisheries activities in the estuary, it has still a long way to go in order to better incorporate fishers range of knowledge-practice-beliefs. As it has been shown before, there are Forum's achievements which are considered important by artisanal fishers, but there are still important adjustments to 102 be made in the rules regulating the fisheries activities before they can better reflect the interests and knowledge of fishers. These results put also in question the mechanisms in place for the representation of fishers' interests in the local decision making process, considering that fishers interests diverge from some of the Forum's achievements. The representation of fishers was a matter of intense discussion and conflict during the definition of the statute of the Forum. While a group of people agreed that assigning two votes for each Fishers Colony representative would be enough to represent fishers interests, others feared that the presidents of the Colonies would not truly represent fishers, but their own interests and the maintenance of status quo as it is further discussed in the section below. As put by a Colony representative The assignment of one vote to each participant institution was already set, but because there are politicians present that may favor their own interests I thought that again artisanal fishers would be weakly represented in their own Forum... In order to balance the representation in the Forum, then I requested that if the Colonies were not given the right of 2 votes each I would quit. With the support of the other Colonies the statute was therefore changed and we acquired what we wanted. In the view of other participants of the Forum, however, having the Colonies in the Forum would not be enough to represent fishers communities. "What we wanted was to have the communities in the Forum, because we knew that counting only with the Colonies it would be a representative democracy that sometimes does not work. According to them [the other participants] the president of the Colonies would participate in the meetings, go back to the communities to discuss the issues treated in the Forum and bring back in the next meeting the opinion of the community. But we knew that this wouldn't work..." At the end, the chosen mechanism to link fishers communities and the Forum was through the Fishers Colonies and the Fishers Pastoral, despite internal disagreements. Whether these 103 mechanisms of representation "guarantee a voice to artisanal fishers" in the Forum is examined in the following section based on survey results. Representation of fishers interests by Fishers Colonies Fishers were asked to what extent they think their representatives in the Forum truly represent their interest. Approximately 22% of all surveyed fishers consider that the presidents of the Colonies do not represent their interests, and another 38% think the Colonies represent fishers less than what they expect (Table 5.10, question A). The results indicate differences among Colonies. The percentage of fishers that consider their interests well represented by the presidents of the Colonies is higher for Colonies Z3 and Z8. The same pattern was obtained when fishers were asked i f the Colonies work on issues of their interest (Table 5.10, question B). These differences are well explained by the activity of the different Colonies, measured by the frequency with which the presidents gather fishers in meetings to discuss issues of their interest. In this respect, Colonies Z3 and Z8 are more active, while Colonies Z l and Z2 rarely organize meetings with fishers (Table 5.10, question C). 104 Table 5.10. Representation of fishers interest by the Fishers Colonies. Numbers represented as percentage of total responses (n). A) Are fishers well represented by the Fishers Colonies representatives? no a little Sometimes a lot Do not know Z l (n= 159) 25 23 23 26 3 Z2 (n= 189) 30 14 25 28 3 Z3 (n= 116) 21 20 19 40 1 Z8 (n= 85) 5 5 9 80 1 Not registered (n= 74) 16 15 34 23 12 A l l (n= 623) 22 16 22 36 4 B) Do Fishers Colonies work on issues of interest for fishers? no a little Sometimes a lot Do not know Z l (n= 159) 18 30 29 21 2 Z2(n= 189) 17 24 23 32 3 Z3 (n= 116) 12 20 24 43 1 Z8 (n= 85) 0 4 9 87 0 Not registered (n= 74) 15 14 28 24 19 A l l (n= 623) 14 21 24 38 4 C) How often do Colonies gather fishers to discuss important issues for the communities? never once year More than 2 more than 5 Monthly no answer Z l (n= 159) 66 7 8 11 6 3 Z2 (n= 189) 56 7 16 13 5 3 Z3 (n= 116) 16 4 14 49 16 1 Z8(n= 85) 0 1 8 41 48 1 Not registered (n= 74) 57 5 9 7 9 12 A l l (n= 623) 44 5 12 22 14 4 Fishers were also asked to rank the institutions they think work more towards their needs, including the Colonies, the Forum of Patos Lagoon, Fishers Pastoral, communities representatives and middlemen (Table 5.11). Although fishers face problems with the representation of the Colonies, they pointed to these representatives as the ones that still work more on their behalf than the other institutions. Nevertheless, a noticeable result of the ranking is the large proportion of respondents that consider all of the above institutions unimportant. 105 Table 5.11. Rank of importance of fishers representatives. Which institutions are more trusted by fishers.. Numbers represented as percentage of total responses (n= 623). / 2 3 4 5 6 Unimportant No answer Fishers Colonies representatives 44 9 2 1 1 0 43 0 Community representatives 1 0 8 6 4 2 0 70 0 Middlemen 9 4 4 3 6 0 72 2 Forum of Patos Lagoon . 6 7 5 4 2 0 75 1 Fishers Pastoral 7 3 4 3 2 0 78 3 Other3 8 1 1 0 0 0 0 90 a. Other includes fishers, the representative of E M A T E R , the government of State and Municipalities, the University, and politicians during elections. The problem of the weak representation of fishers by the Fishers Colonies has historical roots (Diegues, 1995). The organization of fishers in Colonies originated with the program of nationalization of Brazilian fisheries carried out by the Navy between 1919 and 1923. The main goal of the program was to organize fishers for the military defense of the Brazilian coast and also, by grouping them in Colonies, to supply fishers communities with basic social services. The Colonies are organized in Federations at the state level and in a Confederation at the national level. Until 1973 the type of organization of the Fishers Colonies was not clearly defined. After that year the Ministry of Agriculture defined the Colonies as fishers unions, but in practice they remained with the same authoritarian structure in place since their creation. As a result the Colonies in general have never functioned as fishers community organizations nor worked towards fishers interests. For many years the elections for presidents of the Colonies were controlled by the Federation and the president of the Confederation was appointed by the Ministry of Agriculture. In the case of the Colony Z l in the municipality of Rio Grande, for instance, the Colonies president's position has been practically inherited, and the last election was held in 1989 (minutes of the Colony Z l ) . One aggravating factor is that in the vast majority of the cases the presidents of the Colonies are not fishers but politicians or middlemen (Diegues, 1995). Given this reality, it is not surprising that fishers are weakly represented by the Colonies in the Forum. 106 5.6. The Forum and its relationship with other activities in the coastal zone On the one hand there are institutions dealing with fisheries at federal (DPA), regional and local (Fisheries Industry) levels that are not part of the Forum but that have impact and influence on the use of local fisheries CPRs, on the other hand small scale fisheries receive impacts from other economic activities such as port, industry, agriculture and urban development activities, which are not engaged in participatory management of coastal resources. The model adopted by the Forum of Patos Lagoon was not a multistakeholder process (sensu Dorcey and McDaniels, 2001) for integrated coastal resources management (Cicin-Sain and Knecht, 1998) but rather a fisheries co-management. Nevertheless, as suggested by Pinkerton (1989, 11-12) an important function for the success of co-management is the creation of mechanisms for protection from resource or habitat quality damage caused by other resource users. The fact that institutions (or people) representing all range of activities in the coastal zone are not present in the Forum may lead to questioning i f the Forum will achieve the goal of maintaining small scale fisheries activities over time because of conflicting interests with other economic activities that historically have had more political power than artisanal fisheries. Despite the lack of the broader multistakeholder, multi-interests involvement, it can be observed that the Forum is somehow creating the venue for empowering small-scale fishers to bargain with more powerful sectors. In some circumstances, depending on the issues to be dealt with on the agenda, the Forum brings to the table sectorial interests that may influence positively or negatively the achievement of its goal (Forum of Patos Lagoon minutes). Two recent examples illustrate this: First, when the Forum became engaged in the definition of criteria for the development of aquaculture in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. The implementation of small-scale aquaculture had been proposed by the university and supported by the state government as an alternative economic activity for small-scale fishers communities (Wasieleski, 2000). The 107 Forum stepped into the process to discuss its concerns about the impacts of such a development on the estuarine environment, on the territoriality and use rights over water resources, and resource access given that the areas suitable for aquaculture represent approximately 1% of the estuary and overlap with the area used by shrimp capture fisheries (Freitas and Tagliani, 2000; 2001). These issues were not taken into account prior to the involvement of the Forum. It has now been agreed that the Forum will be fully involved in the process of establishing the criteria that will guide the implementation of aquaculture and that eventually will base legislation to regulate this activity, i f it is found to be suitable. Because of the involvement of the Forum, for the first time, actions to plan the development of an activity in the estuary of Patos Lagoon are being taken prior to its implementation. On a second occasion the Forum, supported by the Public Ministry, has been able to confront the process of governance in the estuary of Patos Lagoon related to the implementation of a plan proposed by government (federal and local) and by private interests to revamp the port of Rio Grande (Domingues, 1997). The current plan to improve port navigation through the enlargement of the jetties is expected to produce impacts to the hydrology of the estuary and to artisanal fisheries which were not properly accounted for in the environmental impact assessment made in order to approve/reject such enterprises (see Chapter 6). Neither the plan nor its impacts were openly discussed with small-scale fishers of the estuary of Patos Lagoon nor were they brought for discussion within the Forum when the study was being performed. Following conventional EIA procedures (FURG, 2000), the finalized results were open to public scrutiny in two limited public hearings where information was passed to the community. Public hearings, which are the adopted method of public consultation in EIA, have proven to be a very limited tool for citizens participation in decision making worldwide (Arnstein, 1969). In public 108 hearings emphasis is often placed on an one way flow of information - from officials to citizens - with weak mechanisms for citizens' feedback and negotiate agreements. Under these conditions, particularly when information is provided at a late stage in planning, people have little opportunity to influence the program design for their benefit. As stated by Arnstein (1969): "...consultation i f not combined with other forms of participation offers no assurance that citizen concerns and ideas will be taken into account. What citizens achieve in all this activity is that they have participated in participation. And what powerholders achieve is evidence that they have gone through the required motions of involving those people". Arnstein (1969) concludes that: "...there is a critical difference between going through the empty ritual of participation and having the real power needed to affect the outcome of the process. Participation without re-distribution of power is an empty and frustrating process for the powerless. It allows the power holders to claim that all sides were considered but makes it possible for only some of those sides to benefit. It maintains the "status quo" (see also Renn et al., 1995). The fact that neither the Forum of Patos Lagoon nor small-scale communities were consulted and given a voice in the process of EIA shows how incompletely this study was conducted and how economic development plans are imposed into society in the estuarine region. The Forum, supported by the Public Ministry, is currently challenging the results of the EIA on the basis of the lack of consideration of artisanal fisheries, which is a sector directly impacted that was neither properly involved in the discussion about the plans for development nor in the assessment studies. The result of this process has not been defined yet. 5.7. Concluding remarks In the estuary of Patos Lagoon there was an erosion of the local fisheries management system in the 1960's that changed the patterns of resource use (Chapter 6 and 7). The informal community-based system was the result of the centralization of the decision making process, which led to central government-based systems and to the over-exploitation of most estuarine 109 related fisheries species. This situation triggered, in the late 1990's, a re-design of local institutions to create new arrangements that are expected to foster use patterns compatible with both the characteristics of the resources and the conditions for the survival of small-scale fisheries communities in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. A central element to the success of these initiatives is the increased participation of fishers in management decisions, changing from merely being consulted and receiving top-down information to become fully involved participants in the process of natural resources decision-making. The Forum of Patos Lagoon is a co-management framework to organize actions for dealing with the crisis in artisanal fisheries and the problems of the 'tragedy of the commons'. That is, how to control access to the resource (the exclusion problem), and how to institute rules among the users (the subtractability problem). The case of the Forum of Patos Lagoon has shown that although these two aspects were promptly addressed, the outcome it created has weaknesses that can be related to problems in at least two levels of influence (sensu Berkes et al, 2001; Pollnac, 1998; Pomeroy et al, 2001): the supracommunity and the community levels. Community conditions affecting the success of fisheries co-management include the local physical and the social environment. Just as individuals are members of communities, communities are situated within states, and states are in turn situated within larger social and economic systems containing different layers and scales (Hanna and Jentoft, 1996). Supracommunity conditions are thus external to the community and include government's role in legitimizing the decisions made in the Forum, and willingness to share power and authority (Section 5.4; Table 5.2). At the community level one important aspect that has been overlooked when the Forum designed rules and regulations to manage artisanal fisheries was the heterogeneity in terms of 110 the use of the resources and the level of organization of fishers communities in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. As shown before, the communities in the higher estuary (Colony Z8) present a calendar of activities, such as the catfish season, that differs from those communities in the lower estuary (Colonies Z l and Z2). This difference, which is a matter of conflict today, was not taken into account when the Forum designed the rules that defined the fishing calendars for each resource and the fishing closure in the estuary during the winter months. Communities were not consulted when the establishment of rules and their use of the resources were assumed to be homogeneous along the estuary. Communities are also heterogeneous in terms of their social organization. The communities of the Colonies Z3 and Z8 present distinct conditions from the other two; they are more active in claiming the demands of fishers (the changes in the calendars proposed in Decree 171/98 were triggered by complaints made by these two communities) and are recognized by fishers as the communities that stand more for their interests in the Forum (Table 5.10 and 5.11). The level of organization of these communities may benefit from the fact that they are smaller and more cohesive than the Colonies Z l and Z2. Social cohesion has been shown to be an important pre-condition supporting co-management in other geographical settings (Pinkerton, 1989, 27-28). In an international comparative study of user participation in fisheries management, Jentoft and McCay (1995) conclude that specific patterns of user participation reflect the broader institutional patterns and practices that prevail in each country. The cost of ignoring the importance of social cohesion or of removing its functions is often the disruption of the resources management process. As put by Hanna and Jentoft (1996, 35-55) "when resource users find themselves disembedded from the social bonds that connect them to each other and to their community, the dynamic represented in the tragedy of the commons may result". The tragedy of the commons, argued by these authors, is the product of social disruption rather than a natural outcome of individual rational behavior, in this 111 case; and once removed social cohesion cannot be easily reestablished. For example, re-establishing management responsibilities within the local community through the design of co-management regimes and the inclusion of user-knowledge in resource management is a difficult task in such an historical context, as discussed in Chapter 6. For local control to exist, it is imperative that the integration of the community be restored as showed by Jentoft (2000). The dilemma is that the more disintegrated communities are, the more difficult it is to achieve a successful co-management process (Jentoft, 2000). Jentoft and McCay (1995) argue that to work, institutions must have the support of resource users, but this support is often not in place before property rights regimes are implemented. The restoration of communities and the introduction of co-management through the delegation of regulatory powers must go hand in hand as part of a coordinated plan. Co-management institutions must be designed with social integration in mind, and users must be involved in their creation (Jentoft and McCay, 1995). This is a goal that the Forum of Patos Lagoon has not fully accomplished, yet, as demonstrated above it represents an important weaknesses in the arrangement that remains to be resolved. Involving fishing communities in management depends on the existence of appropriate institutions that are based on a process of shared governance, "the process of communities creating their own pathways to the future" (O'Riordan, forthcoming, chapter 5). Institutions that aim to widen the basis of power by enabling participants to define problems from their perspectives and experiences, and to seek solutions which they regard as appropriate and suitable for their culture and aspirations (O'Riordan, forthcoming). This Chapter showed that the institution created with the Forum is an attempt toward a sharing of responsibility and authority 112 over the management of fisheries resources, but it still lacks the mechanisms for empowering the community and delivering such a model of shared governance of fisheries CPRs. As put by O'Riordan (forthcoming): ..."the achievement of pluralist power relationships in a society implies the capacity of empowerment, where all individuals are aware of their ability to recognize what is going on in their name, and that they have a capability to express their needs and reactions in such a manner as to be respectfully heard". According to the same author, in many instances, however, "pluralism gives way to neo-elitism where coalitions collude to determine what is to be done and how. Empowerment thus becomes possible in different forms of policy space" (O'Riordan, forthcoming), such as in the case of the estuary of Patos Lagoon, where it has been shown to work via a combination of partial empowerment through elites representatives. In this respect, the model adopted by the Forum of Patos Lagoon resembles more that of a stakeholder centered co-management than a community-centered co-management. Berkes et al (2001) distinguished these two types of arrangements based on the level of empowerment and community involvement. While a community-centered co-management is focused on community development and social empowerment, the stakeholder-centered co-management focuses more on getting the users participating in the resource management process. This category of co-management often has fishers and other stakeholders represented through various organizational arrangements in management. Such procedures can be helpful, i f genuinely representative groups are present, but as it has been shown here that is still not the case in the Forum of Patos Lagoon. The reasons for this are manifold. On the one hand Brazil does not have a tradition of involving the different range of interests of the community in the decision making process. Indeed the interests of one portion of the community, the one driven by economic power and by the elite, has always been favored and included within the process of management and decision making. 113 In such cases neo-elitism is dangerous because it may maintain the status quo. The overall community has been frequently excluded from the decision process of environmental planning and management (Asmus et al, 1999). On the other hand, there is still an overall lack of power and unity within the fishers communities in the estuary of Patos Lagoon to make their rights heard or to regulate themselves. In the past, Brazil went through a dictatorial military system which has created political oppression in the country. Two facts can be derived from this situation (Tagliani, pers. com.): (a) people were granted limited rights of freedom of opinion and expression, and (b) the educational system, was similarly repressive. Education is a process for liberation; unfortunately, educational processes and programs adopted in Brazil frequently turn into instruments of repression and oppression rather than liberation. As stated by Freire (1983) the Brazilian educational system can be characterized as an "anti-dialogic form of education" that creates attitudes in the learner that prevent him/her from acting to change unjust social and environmental conditions, allowing authorities and institutions of oppression to maintain control and avoid community involvement in the decision making process. As it will be discussed in Chapter 6, the problem of inclusion has also roots in the illiteracy and socio-economic marginalization of fishers, which has historically created low expectations among scientists and decision makers of fishers knowledge value for management (Diegues, 1995; 92-103; Pauly, 1997, 40-41). One important strength of the co-management arrangement is its capability of improving the knowledge base of resource management by combining different types of knowledge, traditional and scientific, rather than assuming away the merits of one or the other (Pomeroy and Berkes, 1997; Pinkerton, 1989). For co-management to succeed, there have to be mechanisms in its structure to revisit rules and regulations and provide user 114 groups with an opportunity to input into rule-making as identified in successful co-management and community-based management systems worldwide (Pinkerton, 1989; Ostrom, 1990, 58-181; Pinkerton, 1998, 363-389). On the other hand, as it will be shown in Chapter 7, the physical boundaries of the area managed by the Forum (the estuary of Patos Lagoon) differs from the boundaries of the ecosystem in which the artisanal fishing communities operate. As a consequence the management priorities defined in the Forum also differ from those of fishers, who see no point in enforcing rules inside the estuary when there is no control of access to resources in the ocean (Table 5.9). This misfit between the institution and the ecosystem is a factor affecting the acceptance of the Forum among fishers. The above weaknesses in the initial outputs of the Forum can be related to the lack of a direct inclusion of the individuals affected by the regulations (fishers) in the process of making the regulations. A very small percentage of the surveyed fishers in the estuary have participated in the meetings of the Forum of Patos Lagoon (Table 5.3 ), and the adopted mechanisms for fishers representation in the Forum (through the Fishers Colonies and Pastoral) has been shown to be also ineffective in bringing fishers inputs to the process. The lack of inclusion may have contributed to the observed lack of trust by fishers in the Forum (Table 5.4 and 5.11), which in turn is a necessary condition to achieve a strong co-management institution (Berkes etal, 2001). Recognizing the value of fishers knowledge is a pre-condition to the willingness of institutions to involve fishers communities in the management process. A reforming and restructuring process, including the revision of rules, is occurring within the Forum at the time of writing. A change towards a more inclusive process of rule making has been recently observed when the fishers inputs were used to revise the Decree 171/98 and create Decree 144/01. Although, inputs 115 from fishers were taken into account in the revision of regulation (e.g. mesh size, and calendars for catfish, mullet and croaker), their knowledge was only considered after scientific scrutiny. In reality, scientific knowledge has been the basis for management, no matter how limited it is. Fishers knowledge, on the other hand, has received little attention, despite its importance to the adjustment of regulations to the local conditions (see Chapter 6). The transition from a top-down management approach to a more decentralized one is not a rapid process (Dorcey and McDaniels, 2001; O'Riordan, forthcoming). One does not change an institutional culture fast. The Forum of Patos Lagoon has had important outcomes and gained legitimacy as time goes by. Although there is a consensus that much progress has been made; for the first time the small-scale fisheries sector is being heard and is gaining power to bargain in the decision making process. In this sense the Forum represents a move to the transition in the resource management paradigm in place in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. 116 Chapter 6: The changing role of local and scientific knowledge in the management of artisanal fisheries resources "...if the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature but by our own institutions, great is our sin... " Charles Darwin 6.1. Introduction Crises faced world-wide in managing the fisheries commons have triggered changes in the process of governance of such resources. Also it has triggered changes in the approach to studying fisheries CPRs. Co-management theory and the theory of the commons have played an important role in the field of fisheries CPRs management. Focusing on the resource user rather than on the resource itself, such theory brings to the table elements such as the use of local fishers knowledge in the decision making process, and its relevance for improving the understanding of natural resources and ecological systems upon which fishers communities depend for a living. Fishers knowledge is used here interchangeably with Local/Traditional Ecological knowledge (TEK) to refer to the cumulative body of knowledge, practices and beliefs, evolved by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmission, about the relationship of living beings with one another and with their environment (Berkes, 1999; Neis and Felt, 2000). T E K contains empirical and conceptual aspects, is cumulative over generations, and is dynamic, in that it changes in response to socio-economic, technological and other changes. Co-management represents a change in the current paradigm of resources management as it presupposes some kind of sharing of power and responsibility between the government and local users in the management of a given resource. Co-management has embedded into its 117 approach the concept of civic science, defined by O'Riordan (2000) as a form of science that is deliberative, inclusive, and participatory whose purpose is to recognise that groups in society have to be involved i f fairer and more comprehensive decisions on natural resource management are to be made (O'Riordan, 2000: 9). The sharing of power and responsibilities and a civic science within co-management systems can be accomplished through the use of fishers' knowledge. Using fishers knowledge in the design of local rules that mediate the use of resources, for instance, is a way to empower local communities as it gives them a voice into the process and it creates a mechanism for inclusion because it provides a concrete basis for their involvement. In this sense the use of Traditional/local Ecological Knowledge becomes a strong tool for empowering small-scale communities within co-management systems. With the use of local knowledge a greater power balance may be achieved between local small-scale fishers communities on the one hand versus government, large-scale fishers and conventional resource management scientists on the other (Berkes, 1999; Neis and Felt, 2000). Empowerment to regain control over their own cultural information and reclaiming this knowledge has become a major strategy for revitalisation movements (Neis and Felt, 2000). The use of local knowledge in co-management systems is a way for communities to regain their rights to control their resources; the right to self-determination and self-government; and the right to represent themselves through their own world view systems (Berkes, 1999, 168-175; Berkes etal, 2001). As noted by Berkes (1999, 13-14) "traditional knowledge may be considered at several levels of analysis, consistent with the description of traditional ecological knowledge as a knowledge-118 practice-belief complex" (Figure 6.1). The first level relates to the local knowledge of the animals and ecosystems, such as the behaviour and habitat of fish, and the timing of fishing seasons. Such local knowledge may not be sufficient by itself to ensure the sustainable use of resources. Therefore, the second level refers to the level of resource management system, one that uses local environmental knowledge to devise an appropriate set of practices, tools and techniques for resource use (Berkes, 1999). However, as put by the author, for a group of fishers to manage resources effectively, there have to be appropriate institutions - a set of social organisation - in place for co-ordination, co-operation, rule making and rule enforcement. Accordingly, the third level of analysis is about institutions - the set of rules-in-use to co-ordinate the management of the resources. Lastly, the fourth "worldview" level represents the system of belief (e.g. religion, ethics) that "shapes human-nature relations and gives meaning to social interactions". Berkes (1999, 14) warned that distinctions between the levels of management systems and institutions are sometimes artificial, and although the four levels are hierarchically organised, there are often feedbacks between the knowledge levels such that worldviews may themselves be affected by changes occurring, for instance, with the collapse of a management system. Figure 6.1. Levels of analysis of traditional ecological knowledge (Berkes, 1999, 13). 119 Local fisheries knowledge has proven to be very important for managing resources on a sustainable basis. There has been a noticeable trend towards the recognition that different knowledge frameworks exist and that, together, they might provide an improved understanding of the world around us (Johannes, 1981; Berkes and Folke, 1998; Berkes, 1999). There have been excellent examples of alternative ways fishers can contribute their knowledge and create management models that are effective for their community and for the species that they fish. In Brazil a few studies have reported different aspects of fishers knowledge, including their understanding of the environment of Pantanal wetlands (Calheiros et al, 2000), the use of knowledge by fishers of coastal islands in deciding about optimal fishing strategies (Begossi, 1992; 1996), the use of fishers knowledge in the management and assessment of CPRs in the Amazonian floodplain (Castro, 2000; Isaac et al, 1998; Castello, in press), in coastal fisheries of North-eastern Brazil (Cordell and McKean, 1992; Christensen et al, 1995; Barbosa and Hartman, 1997), and in a coastal lagoon in southern Brazil (Seixas, 2000; Seixas and Berkes, 2000). In the estuary of Patos Lagoon, research on artisanal fishers knowledge is still in its infancy. The work of Altmayer (1999) is the only reported study for the region that analyses the knowledge of fishers about species life cycle. The present scarcity of information about fishers knowledge raises the question: Is it possible to identify an informal knowledge system used by small scale fishers in the estuary of Patos Lagoon that could improve the co-management in place and hence help in the maintenance of local ecosystem resilience? The assumption is that in the context of the Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management, such knowledge may contribute to developing or re-formulating local management plans to better adapt them to local social and environmental conditions. 120 This chapter evaluates the role of local and practical knowledge held by fishers communities in the estuary of Patos Lagoon and discusses its use and relevance for the Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management scheme as a complement to scientific knowledge in devising rules and regulations for the management of small-scale fisheries. As such it is based on the following three questions: 1) How has the local social system developed management practices based on ecological knowledge for dealing with the dynamics of the ecosystem in which it is located; 2) How have these management practices changed over time to the present situation; and 3) What are the current barriers and opportunities to using T E K in the Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management? The following discussion is based on the synthesis of the information collected from the interviews, survey and participant observation. Details for specific information about interviews and survey questionnaire see Appendix II and III. 6.2. Fishing practices and ecosystem resilience The fishing calendar One of the single most important characteristics of estuarine artisanal fisheries is the fishing calendar. Since the time when practically no formal rules existed for fisheries management (before 1960s), artisanal fisheries followed a calendar of activities (rules in use) determined by the abundance of different fisheries resources during the year and by the fishing technologies in use. The calendar was established by and reflect the experience of local fishers. As such it represented a form of traditional ecological knowledge with important consequences for the resilience of artisanal fisheries because it posed limits on the exploitation of CPRs. From January to May fishers captured shrimp and mullet. Some also fished for black drum, catfish and menhaden, but that period was characteristically shrimp and mullet season. Mullet 121 were fished mainly in two periods: in January when the adults were returning from the spawning grounds in the sea, and during the spawning runs, which normally occur between the months of April and June. Elder fishers recall that until 1950 there were between 1 and 3 major spawning runs of mullet during the season. According to them the main triggers for mullet to start schooling and to migrate to the sea were the last quarter moon of May and the cold temperatures accompanying the fronts from the Southwest. Mullet apparently moved out of the estuary with the entering salt water into the lagoon. Beginning in the month of June, fishers prepared their gears to catch menhaden, young croakers and silverside fish. Menhaden was caught during the spawning migration towards the lagoon. The menhaden was among the most important artisanal fisheries resources between the late 1940s and early 1960s when the average catch was in the order of 2,000 tonnes per year (Barcellos, 1966). Although fishers claim that menhaden is still abundant in the estuary and coastal area, the species is not the target of a commercial fishery anymore. The catfish season normally began in August and lasted until early November. This fishery targeted the large adult catfish that were entering the Lagoon to reproduce and also to fish in the reproduction grounds in the upper estuary. The fishery during this period captured mostly fish of good weight and with the gonads well developed. A less intensive fishery also occurred during the summer months, specially in February, when catfish migrate back to the sea, and the males were incubating the young in their mouth. Few fishers were involved in this fishery because the catfish was normally "thin" and did not have a high value; besides there were other fisheries more attractive during the time period, such as shrimp and mullet. 122 The croaker and black drum season started in October or right after the catfish season. Initially croakers were caught mainly on the beaches of the mouth of the estuary. The schools were so big that elders recall being able to locate the fish using the paddle inside the water. Schools of black drum were located by the noise produced by the fish which vibrated in the wood walls of the fishing boat. The black drum fishery has never reached the economic importance of croaker, even when the species was still abundant in the estuary. The peak production of black drum during the 1960s was on average 690 tonnes, while during the same period the average croaker production was in order of 7,000 tonnes (SUDEPE). The artisanal fishery in the coastal area also followed a well defined calendar. During fall and winter months fishers targeted bluefish, marine shrimps, and demersal species such as king weakfish, weakfish, and sharks. The marine coastal area was also frequently visited in the late spring and early summer in the croaker fishing season and in the period when mullet were migrating back to the estuary from spawning grounds. This coastal fishery was intensified with the increasing scarcity of resources in the estuary after the 1980s (Reis, et al, 1994). The fishing calendar in the estuary of Patos Lagoon is, according to fishers, strongly influenced by the strength of the intrusion of salt water and the rainfall regime. Saltwater is considered by many fishers the single most important factor controlling artisanal fisheries activities in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. This influence is particularly conspicuous in the shrimp fishery. Shrimp is considered to be more controlled by the climate than the other fisheries resources. A good fishing season usually occurs i f the salinity of the estuary is ideal in the period from October to December; the earlier the estuary is replenished with saltwater the earlier will be the shrimp season. "It does not matter if the winter was rainy or not, the important period for shrimp is the end of the spring", a fisher stated. Such relationship between rainfall regime and 123 shrimp production was demonstrated by Castello and Moller (1978). A warm winter is also viewed by fishers as beneficial for the shrimp season. Croaker, black drum and catfish migrate into the estuary during flood regime (marine water enters the estuary), which is determined largely by the strength of southern winds. According to fishers, while in the sea croakers are dispersed and at the bottom, and before entering the lagoon they aggregate in large "pelagic" schools. It is in this period and areas that croakers are most vulnerable to the fishery, both to artisanal gillnets and industrial purse seiners. Once in the estuary the fish remain in areas with saltwater or brackish water - a fisher suggested that "of a school of 100 tonnes of croaker only 5 will go to areas with freshwater". Fishers know by the colour of croakers i f they came from the sea or i f they have been in the estuary for a longer period of time. Usually fish coming from the sea have a yellowish colour and remain alive for a longer period when captured. The "resident" croaker is whitish and less resistant. The presence of saltwater in the estuary in the Fall is also viewed as beneficial for the mullet season since it controls the formation of schools and the timing of the spawning run. This is also corroborated by the work of Vieira and Scalabrin (1991) which demonstrated that the reproductive migration of adult mullet intensify with the decrease in temperature and increase in salinity of the estuarine waters observed during the Fall. The moon is also considered by fishers as an important factor determining the timing and success of a fishery. For instance, the full moon usually determines good catches of shrimp but it is not good to capture croaker, as explained by a fisher: "when the moon is bright the croaker is more active and difficult to catch with gillnets". The last quarter moon is considered excellent for mullet; according to fishers it is the last quarter moon of May that triggers the schooling behaviour of mullet spawners. 124 Resource use by small-scale fishers in the estuary of Patos Lagoon was and still is to a large extent conditioned by the availability of the resources in the estuarine environment which is in turn controlled seasonally by the influence of the weather and also affected by the influence of the moon on the behaviour of the fish. As explained by a fisher: " ...nature makes its own fishing closure with the moon, the bad weather, and also the fish, because if it is too windy the fish don't move and you cannot catch them. For instance, if the mullet sees the net it does not enmesh. If it is not the right time, and the fish do not want to be captured, you cannot catch them". But, as shown in the next section, resource use practices changed markedly with time when new fishing technologies were introduced and the industrialisation of fisheries brought exploitation beyond the limits of the carrying capacity of resources. Changes in fishing practice and resource conditions In the past 50 years fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon and coastal areas experienced changes in fishing technologies and materials that altered significantly resource exploitation and the sustainability of artisanal fisheries. Artisanal fisheries were initially based on the activity of 'parelhas' which were fishing enterprises composed by 20 to 30 men (where one was the owner of the boat and materials, approximately 5 crew members, and the remaining fishers helped the fishing operation from land), and a canoe which varied in size from 6 to 12 meters and capacity from 2 to 9 tonnes. Canoes used sail and paddles, but some also utilised gasoline engines ( 8 - 9 Hp) which, according to an elder fisher, were first introduced in estuarine fisheries in 1941. The nets were made with cotton and other natural fibres, and could not remain in the water or even in the boats for many days because they would deteriorate. The nets had to be regularly washed, 125 cleaned, dried and also tanned. It was common to loose one day or two in this process. Nets made of nylon multifilament were introduced in 1957 (as an elder fisher recalls the new material was first experimented with mullet because it is the fish considered most smart, and it was not any type of material that could be used in mullet fishing). The introduction of nylon had a marked change in the fishing time since the nets could remain in the water without deteriorating, there was no need for wasting too much time taking care of the nets, the nets were stronger and less susceptible to damages caused by fish, therefore less time was spent repairing the nets. These effects were even more pronounced with the introduction of stronger nets made of nylon monofilament in 1968-1970. The main activity of the 'parelhas' was the beach seine fishery {terno de costd) which was carried out at the mouth of the estuary and in other specific locations along the migratory route of the species inside the Lagoon (Barcellos, 1966; Costa, 2001). The nets were approximately 300 meters long and were utilised to encircle the fish schools of mullet, croaker, black drum, catfish, and even shrimp, close to shore. The mullet fishery was carried out in two main places in the mouth of estuary, one on each side of the channel. Each fisher had his turn on a specific day, which was sorted out among the Fishers Colony 7. The parelhas waited for the best moment to encircle the schools passing by the fishing spots. The success of the fishery lay in choosing exactly the right time to shoot the net and encircle the largest school. A parelha who did not want to use his turn had to give it to the next one in line. It was common to capture over 60,000 fish (ca. 90 tonnes) in a single shoot, and in order to handle the large catch volume the fishery was often carried out by groups of 20 to 30 fishers. It was practically impossible for a 7 This informal system of rules used by fishers became formalized by legislation in the late 1960s (Chapter 7). 126 single boat to handle the catch, therefore the necessity of fishers to operate together in groups (Barcellos, 1966). Comments made by elders illustrate the abundance of fish in the past: "Our parelha once caught 97 thousand mullet in a single shot. We caught so many fish that our canoe was buried in the piles of deadfish in the beach". It was common for fishers to rely on the help of dolphins in the beach seine fisheries. Dolphins are even today considered important allies because of their role in helping fishers find concentrated schools of fish (specially croaker and mullet) close to shore, thus making it easier to encircle the schools with the nets. Fishers can tell exactly the type of fish in the schools depending on the behaviour of dolphins. " When they [dolphins] are chasing mullet they force the fish to jump out of the water; when they are bombeando8 there is croaker in the channel waters". Contrary to the relationship between fishers and dolphins, the sea lions are considered rivals. According to fishers they wait for the fish to be captured in a gillnet before eating them, consequently they often spoil the captured fish and also damage the nets. The amount of fish lost and the costs of repairing the holes in the nets caused by sea lions can be very significant. Sealions leave the area in the summer and return in the autumn, when they use the jetties (at the mouth of the estuary) as a resting place. Fishers agree that the number of sea lions have been increasing during the last few years thus increasing conflicts. Elder fishers recall that the beach seine fishery remained important until approximately 1964 when gillnet fishing intensified (this is also confirmed by Barcellos, 1966). Although gillnets were employed in the capture of catfish and sharks before the 1960s, the use of this fishing 8 Dolphins are known to tap the surface with their caudal fins to concentrate the fish while feeding. Fishers have named this behavior bombear. 127 technology intensified and the beach seine phased out when fishers that were formally employed in the "parelhas" started fishing in their own smaller boats. The boats used power engines, varied in size from 4 to 11 meters, with a maximum load of 3 tonnes, and were constructed with a flat bottom that allowed fishers to operate in shallower areas of the lagoon (Barcellos, 1966). It can be inferred from the interviews that gillnets were the most efficient type of technology to be used in the large areas of the lagoon where fish were naturally more dispersed than at the mouth of the estuary. According to fishers the intensification of gillnet fishing, together with the introduction of industrial purse seiners, exarcebated the increasing scarcity of fish which in turn decreased the viability of the beach seine fishery. The introduction of power engines and the widespread use of gillnets allowed fishers to start chasing mullet in the lagoon as early as October. This gillnet fishery was considered inadequate by elders who believe the lagoon functions as a nursery area for mullet: "...the mullet depends on the freshwater, the small fish enters the lagoon during the flood and stays in the weeds growing until it is adult...The right thing to do is to open the fishery only from March until June, because if the fishery is allowed all year round the boats will go inside the lagoon, in the nursery of the mullet, and will catch the small fish using small meshes...". Contrary to the beach seine fishery, which captured only adult fish during a short time window, the gillnet fishery expanded the time and areas where the resource was vulnerable to exploitation, in addition to also targeting immature fish. Also consequential for the mullet fishery were the large industrial purse seiners, which started operating off the mouth of the estuary during the 1960s (Yesaki and Bager, 1975). Fishers believe that mullet do not form large schools as they used to do because of the increasing scarcity of fish and because the fish are scared and dispersed by the lights of the city, the noise produced by fishing boats and ships in the lagoon, and by the operation of seine gillnets (mullet are considered by fishers among the most temperamental and difficult fish to catch, so that they are often recognised to be easily 128 scared and in control of the catch). Such changes in fish shoaling behavior with the decrease in resource abundance represent behavioral adaptions (evolved to maximize the chances of survival in the aquatic environment) that have been shown to impact the resilience of marine fisheries by affecting the vulnerability of resources to fishing and also their capacity to recover from depletion (Pitcher, 1995). Likewise, according to fishers during the inteviews, the change in fish behaviour and abundance are important impediments today for the activity of the former beach seine fisheries, and can be seen as important triggers of change in the resilience of this system. Similarly to mullet fisheries, today croakers are fished mainly using gillnets. The fishing operation changes according to the area, as described by fishers during interviews. In the inshore coastal area and the estuarine channel the fishery is carried out during the day using drift gillnets (caceio or bomboi). Both the inshore and channel fisheries are adapted to capture croaker in the water column. On the other hand, the fishery in areas inside the estuary of Patos Lagoon uses gillnets fixed with anchors to the bottom (menjoada; according to fishers, while in the estuary, croakers are mostly at the bottom, therefore the need for bottom gillnets). The nets are fixed during the night and recovered during the day. On the coast, since the early days of industrial fisheries, croakers have been intensively exploited by trawlers, gill-netters and purse seiners (Yesaki and Bager, 1975; Haimovici et al, 1989). During the decade of the 80s, it also became a target of a semi-industrial coastal gillnet fishery (Reis et al, 1994). Catfish is mainly caught with trammelnets and gillnets that can be set as a drift gillnet (which was normally made when the fish were concentrated off the mouth of the estuary) or, more commonly, fixed by wood poles (andainas) or by anchors inside the lagoon. The use of beach seine and long-lines was also common in the early days of the fishery (Costa, 2001, 76-78). There were specific beaches and sand banks inside the lagoon that were used to set the beach 129 seine and encircle the schools of catfish spawners as they migrated in and out of the lagoon. It was customary for fishers to camp with family members in those specific places during the catfish season - fishers wives and children were responsible for gutting, drying and extracting fish oil and guts (used in the industrial production of glue) (Costa, 2001, 78-79). The catfish fishery has lost importance with time for most artisanal fisheries communities in the estuary due to the abrupt decline in resource abundance (Reis, 1999). The only exception seems to be the fishers communities in the upper part of the estuary; according to fishers of Sao Lourenco do Sul the catfish is still an important resource during the winter months. Catfish catches (normally less than 100 tonnes in the last few years) are, however, small compared to peak landings of ca. 10,000 tonnes registered in 1973 (See Figure 4.2, SUDEPE and IBAMA) . The size of gillnets used by artisanal fisheries has been increasing with time in response to the decreasing yield. For instance, a fisher that used to fish mullet 20 years ago, with a net 300 meters long, now needs 1,400 to 2,000 meters of net to catch an amount equal or smaller than before. Substantial changes in technology were also observed in engines (more powerful today) and fish finding devices, such as echosounders, that are becoming more common among wealthier fishers. The increasing scarcity of resources in the lagoon and the improvements in technologies had as a consequence the intensification of the use of shallow coastal waters as fishing grounds by artisanal fishers. As may be observed in Figure 6.2, more than 50% of the surveyed fishers in all colonies consider the coastal area either as important or very important fishing grounds (many stated that, when weather permits, the coastal area is visited regularly during the croaker fishing season, capturing the fish before they enter the lagoon). Also the marine shrimp9, which was not targeted by artisanal fishers until the early 1990s, is becoming an 9 The marine shrimp, Xiphopenaeus kroyeri, has the entire life cycle restricted to the marine environment and, differently from the pink shrimp, it does not enter the estuary. 130 important alternative resource during winter months, especially for fishers of the Colonies Z2, Z3 and Z l which are situated closer to the mouth of the estuary. Importance of coastal area as fishing ground • not important • impo r tan t ^ v e r y important 50 40 30 20 10 0 Z1 Z2 Z3 Fishers Colony Z8 Fish for marine shrimp in coastal waters 100 | H -80 60 40 20 Z1 Z2 Z3 Fishers Colony Z8 Figure 6.2. Percentage of respondents that consider the shallow coastal area as important fishing ground (upper panel), and that are involved in the fishery for marine shrimp during the winter. One activity that has experienced marked changes in fishing technologies and practice in the last decades was the fishery for pink shrimp. The shrimp fishery was initially carried out along the Lagoon beaches and shallow areas using a manual trawling net {redes de caldo which was dragged by two to four people), or beach seine nets (Barcellos, 1966). The net was trawled at dawn when, according to fishers, shrimp migrate from channel waters of the estuary to the 131 shore. As explained by fishers during interviews the manual trawling nets were later (in the mid-1950s) modified into a fixed net (bag nets or redes de saco) by copying a gear type used by Catarina fishers. Fishers recall that by the same time a new type of manual trawling (coca) was also introduced in the estuary of Patos Lagoon by Catarina fishers. The operation of bag nets was explained by a fisher as: "Bag nets were 10 meters long and were fixed in the lameirao [shallow areas with strong currents]; the mouth of the net was always placed facing the ebb currents...the shrimp was caught in the currents". During the interviews fishers explained that in the early 1960s otter trawling (prancha) from boats became widely used in the shrimp fishery. Trawling was carried mostly in deeper waters of the estuary and in areas with "cleaner" bottom (although fishers recognise that many of them used to trawl also in shallow nursery areas). According to fishers, stownets (saquinho), which are today the dominant type of gears used in the estuarine shrimp fishery, were introduced in the 1970s. Stownets are fixed in shallow areas of the lagoon and operate by attracting shrimp to the net with light produced by gas lamps (D'Incao, 1985). The fishing operation with stownets has changed over the years. The nets were initially placed close to small inlets (canaletezinhos), because "shrimp was initially caught in the currents". Now the nets are placed mostly in the shallows where according to fishers the young/smaller shrimp are caught before migrating from the nursery areas. Fishers claim that the capture of shrimp below the optimal size occurs mainly when the net is used incorrectly. Some fishers place their nets mouth perpendicular to the beach instead of mouth parallel to the beach, as was customary in the past (Figure 6.3). As explained by fishers, the difference is that when the mouth of the net is parallel to the currents it captures mostly "the large shrimp that is travelling to the sea," while when the nets are facing the beach or deeper channel waters they capture both 132 adult and juvenile shrimp that migrate daily between the shallow and deep waters of the estuary (Figure 6.3). The positioning of the nets and the use of light attraction are considered important factors determining the higher fishing power of stownets compared to other types of gears used in shrimp fisheries. Figure 6.3. Positioning of stownets according to fishers. Positions 1 and 2 place the mouth of the net perpendicular to the beach or the deep water of the estuary. Position 3 places the mouth of the net parallel to the beach and to the estuarine currents (source Rocha et al., 2001). According to fishers the introduction and widespread adoption of stownets impacted negatively on the operation of other types of fishing technologies (such as bag nets and trawling) because a large proportion of the shrimp is caught before they are able to migrate to the channel areas and lower parts of the estuary. It also triggered an intensification of trawling in the estuary to compensate for the decreasing yield of shrimp. The end result has been an increase in fishing effort and the over-exploitation of shrimp in the estuary. D'Incao (1985) estimated that the intensity of the shrimp fishery with stownets in the estuary of Patos Lagoon is so high that few 133 shrimp leave the Lagoon to complete the species life cycle. The same author cites observations made by elder fishers that prior to the introduction of fixed nets there were two types of shrimp fisheries in the region: a fishery inside the lagoon "pesca de dentro", and a fishery on the coast "pesca de for a". The intense fishing pressure of stownets in the estuary is suggested by D'Incao (1985) as a reason for the disappearance of the coastal fishery. The bycatch1 0 of juvenile fish is an important issue in practically all shrimp fisheries because of its potential impact on other estuarine CPRs (see Chapter 7). Stownets and trawling are cited by fishers during the interviews as fisheries that frequently produce high bycatch rates. According to them artisanal trawling can produce little bycatch depending on the area of the estuary and also on the characteristics of the otter board and the height of the net - the higher the net in the water column the higher the bycatch. Fishers have found ways to reduce the amount of bycatch (if not for conservation reasons, for practical reasons since bycatch increases the handling time of the catch on board) by decreasing the height of the net, and' also avoiding trawling in areas with high bycatch rates, such as shallow estuarine waters and specific locations off the coast which are known as nursery areas. On the other hand, manual trawling nets are commonly viewed as very "clean" gear, causing not as much impact on the ecosystem as otter trawling and stownets. The reasons given by fishers for the low impact of manual trawling are: first, because the net is dragged slowly, it avoids capturing small juvenile fish; second to avoid the cluttering of the net, fishers usually use mesh sizes larger than those used in other shrimp fishing gears, which end up avoiding the capture of shrimp of smaller size; and third, contrary to stownets that are fixed nets that remain fishing for hours every day of the season, the coca is trawled manually and can only be used when weather conditions are appropriate, thus it also limits the fishing 1 0 Incidental capture of resources that are not the main target of the fishery and which are often discarded. 134 effort. The perceived impact of fishing gears by fishers is given in Table 6.1, which shows fishers ranking of fishing gears according to their level of impact on the ecosystem. With the exception of otter trawling, all other types of artisanal fishing gears are considered to cause no impact on the ecosystem by over 70% of all surveyed fishers. In contrast, industrial purse seiners are ranked as the most impacting gear on the fish resources. Despite the knowledge of fishers about the appropriate use of trawling, since the introduction of stownets in the estuary of Patos Lagoon all types of trawling fisheries have became forbidden without any prior evaluation of potential impacts on the ecosystem (Chapter 7). The fact that trawling is forbidden by officials may be a condition influencing the higher ranking of otter trawling in the comparison of the level of impact of fishing gears examined in Table 6.1. Table 6.1. Ranking of fishing gears according to the level of impact on the ecosystem and resources as perceived by fishers. Results expressed as percentage of total respondents (n= 623). 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not impacting Manual trawling 2 5 10 3 4 3 0 73 Stownets 3 5 8 6 3 4 0 70 Otter trawling 23 31 8 2 1 0 0 35 Bag nets 0 6 5 7 4 1 0 77 Gi l l nets 1 2 4 4 4 4 0 81 Purse seiners 70 20 4 0 0 0 0 5 Many consider that the increase in the number of artisanal fishers and the changes in fishing practice and technologies in use in estuarine fisheries had probably the effect of increasing the pressure over resources which became gradually less abundant to the point of collapse of some important fish resources of the past, for example catfish (Reis, 1986). Rodrigues (1989) suggested that the increase in artisanal fisheries production observed in first half of the twentieth century was only made possible by the increase in the number of fishers involved in the activity. According to the same author, the population of fishers increased in this period in response to the growth of communities but also as a result of the migration of farmers, who began to rely on fisheries as their main source of income, in addition to the seasonal migration of fishers from 135 other regions, mainly from the neighbor state of Santa Catarina. The reason for the migration of Catarina fishers to the estuary of Patos Lagoon was initially the mullet fishery, which was carried out in different periods between the two states11 (Rodriges, 1989). This seasonal migration remained important also in the second half of the twentieth century when the Catarina fishers started targetting the profitable pink shrimp fishery in the summer (D'Incao, 1985). However, fishers and scientists agree that one of the main causes of decline of CPRs in southern Brazil was the intensification of industrial fisheries observed during the 1960s and 1970s (Haimovici et al, 1989; Haimovici, 1997; see next section and also Chapter 7). The fishing areas and technologies employed by industrial fisheries, as viewed by fishers, have a much greater impact on resources because of the amount of fish caught, and the fishing time. As expressed by fishers: "Artisanal fishers only fish in good weather conditions and trawl for a maximum of 20 or 30 minutes, while industrial fisheries fish almost every day and trawl for hours". "An industrial trawler capture around 40 Kg of shrimp per hour and in 4 hours they take 160 Kg. In the same 4 hours of work we take a maximum of 15 or 20 Kg." These are the fisheries activities that operate in areas of the continental shelf that were before (and still are) most of the time inaccessible to artisanal fishers. Fishers recall that since these industrial vessels started operating on the coast, the fish that used to enter the lagoon are disappearing, and to balance the decrease in production, artisanal fishers started to increase their fishing gears (e.g. increase in the number and size of gillnets) in use in the estuary. The end result has been an overall decrease in fisheries production. As explained by a fishers representative: "/ think we have all the conditions to be rich, because in the 1960s, 1970s, until 1993 we had reasonable catches, but since then the production has been decreasing. One of the main impacts we had was the large industrial shrimp trawlers from Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Santa Catarina that started operating here in areas around the 40 meters depth zone. Then we started suffering the "Mullet spawners are know to migrate from the nursery areas in the Patos Lagoon towards the spawning areas off the coast of Santa Catarina. The fishing season in the estuary of Patos Lagoon was for this reason earlier than that of Santa Catarina (Vieira and Scalabrin, 1991). 136 impacts in the lagoon because since this fleet took over this zone, the species that we used to fish both inside the lagoon and in the coast, such as croaker, weakfish, bluefish, moved away from the coast and disappeared... We then started to increase the nets to try to cover the 'hole' in production but it did not stabilise, production continued to decrease...that is the worst problem we had in recent years". 6.3. Management lessons from traditional practices What is learned from the above forms of resource use practice? When resources were still abundant, the fishing calendar worked in a way that allowed fishers to benefit from the most abundant resources in a season, while limiting the amount of fishing pressure (time) over a particular species and/or a critical period. For instance, fishing for catfish during the summer months, when the males are incubating the young, was normally discouraged and unnecessary given the availability of other resources such as croaker and shrimp. Similarly, the capture of large amounts of shrimp below the optimal size (between late spring and early summer) was in part prevented by the type of fishing technology in use, and also by the existence of other alternative fishing resources. A failure of a fishing season, which was normally verified with shrimp, resulted in a re-distribution of fishing effort to the other resources available in the period, but never to the point of over-exploitation because the characteristics of the fishing practice were more compatible with the carrying capacity of the system and a smaller number of people were involved in the activity. Until the recent creation of formal rules defining the calendar for each estuarine fishery (Decrees I B A M A 171/98 and 144/01; see Chapter 7); an informal calendar was still in place but much less significant than in the past. Figure 6.4 shows the changes in fishing calendars of the main artisanal fisheries resources between the 1960s and the early 1990s. Species such as mullet, that were fished mostly in late fall (April to June) during the spawning run, became in the early 1990s fished almost equally throughout the year. For other resources, such as catfish, 137 the collapse of the stock brought a change in the fishing calendar from spring to winter months when the few remaining catfish sustain a smaller-scale fishery in the upper estuary. The change in technology (from beach seines to gillnets) also made fishers capture croakers during the same period as mullet, since both species are present in the estuary at different life stages throughout the year and are vulnerable to the same gear. 0.5 1960s - - Catfish - X — Mullet -•—Croaker Shrimp Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 0.5 1990s - - Catfish -X— Mullet ••—Croaker Shrimp Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Figure 6.4. Fishing calendar of artisanal fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon and coastal waters during the 1960s and 1990s. The lines represent the proportion of the total annual catch of each species obtained in a single month. 138 Also, before the advent of industrial fisheries a large proportion of the species habitat in the Patos lagoon and in the southern Brazilian shelf worked as a de facto spatial refuge since artisanal fisheries were limited to specific areas of the estuary of Patos Lagoon and adjacent coastal shallow waters. Therefore the increasing competition for resources (between artisanal and industrial fisheries) and the technological improvements in resource location (e.g. with more powerful engines and the employment of sonars) and capture undermined important factors that made artisanal fisheries resilient in the past (i.e. the limited time and areas of resource exploitation. The fishing technologies and resource use practices in the past were intrinsically dependent upon nature, through the influence of the moon, the behavior of the fish, and weather conditions. A l l created a natural mechanism for limiting excess exploitation by artisanal fisheries. This concept is represented in Figure 6.5 using Holling's 4 phases model from Chapter 4. Accordingly artisanal fisheries were practically limited to two phases in the resource dynamics: the exploitation phase, when resources such as croaker, catfish, black drum and mullet were entering the estuary, and the release phase, when all these species and pink shrimp were leaving the estuary to the shelf waters. The other two phases (renewal and conservation) were not targeted by fishers until technology improvements and the industrialization of the fisheries which in turn made the resources available to be exploited at any time and area. This increased the capacity to catch the resources and the appropriated carrying capacity of the system. In conclusion, to a certain point in time the pattern of resource use by artisanal fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon served conservation purposes and made resources less vulnerable to over-exploitation while helping maintain the cycle of resource renewal. Besides serving conservation purposes, the adopted fishing practices by artisanal fishers sustained a very 139 productive fishery from the early 1900s until practically the late 1980s (Reis, 1999). For instance, in 1960 artisanal fisheries were responsible for over 80% of the total fisheries landings in southern Brazil (ca. 27,000 tonnes/year; IBAMA) . Climatic conditions Renewal spawning & recruitment fish t f shrimp' enter estuary l-'xplfiilnf iiiii rv k Conservation growth & • ^ ^ reproduction aduhs leave1 the e\tuarv Release Artisanal fisheries Figure 6.5. Four phases model of the dynamics of fisheries CPRs in the estuary of Patos Lagoon (see Chapter 4), adapted to represent the phases where artisanal fisheries activities were concentrated (adapted from Holling, 1986). Further, the above analysis of the fishing practices adopted by artisanal fishers in the estuary of Patos Lagoon has shown that indeed there was an informal knowledge system used by fishers to deal with the dynamics of the resources. These fishing practices were part of an informal resource management system that helped maintain a productive and resilient small-scale fishery over time. Internal and external factors have triggered changes in the basis of the local resources management which disrupted a pattern of resource use that was key for the sustainability of the artisanal fisheries. The following section analyzes how the local management system, and the use of fishers knowledge to that effect, has changed over time from informal community-based, to central 140 government-based, and to the present situation of co-management, the outcomes generated with the different established arrangements, and what is the importance of reconciling the knowledge of fishers to the success of the present co-management arrangement. 6.4. The changing role of fisheries knowledge in management The management of fisheries CPRs in the estuary of Patos Lagoon has been changing over time in response to changes in technology, increasing fishing pressure and influences from internal and external (mostly from government agencies) institutional transformations. The changes in management institutions and the ecosystem are conceptually represented in Figure 6.6. Up to the 1960's management practices were mainly informally devised by fishers. Fisheries followed a well defined calendar of activities controlled by cycles of abundance of different resources through the year in the estuary. The fishing calendar, the simple fishing technologies used combined with the characteristics of fishing operations limited considerably the pressure exerted on a particular resource over time and space. The use of the resources followed an intricate system of informal management and locally devised rules that made fisheries more sustainably managed up to that point in time. Although fishers have devised a system of rules in use for resource exploitation, overall these rules never became legitimized by formal institutions responsible from regulations at different levels of decision making. Rather they were eroded by the centralization of management observed in the late 60's, when formal institutional arrangements for fisheries management were created from the top-down implementing a system of rules and rights to resource exploitation that neither accounted for the local resources conditions nor for the local management systems in place in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. 141 Government intervention / Fisheries industrialization y Technological changes \ Overfishing '• Resource collapse Y ? — * i ^^^^^^^^^^^^ <-Up to 1960's Local rules Fishing calendar 1970s - 1990s Centralized management 1996 - present Co-management Forum Patos Lagoon Figure 6.6. The effects of changes in property rights and institutions on socio-ecological resilience. The filled boxes represent the phases of resources dynamics where they were subjected to fisheries (e.g. in the period up to 1960s fishing was practically restricted to the release and exploitation phases, or when resources were either entering the lagoon or leaving the estuary. That changed after 1970 when the industrialisation of fisheries and the changes in technology allowed fishing in areas and periods in the life cycle of resources so far unavailable for artisanal fisheries). The question mark represents the uncertainty about whether the co-management arrangement in place will be able to create the conditions to recover the status of local fisheries (adapted from Seixas, 2000). Internal and external influences had a role in breaking down this system. The lack of an institutional structure such as the principles proposed by Ostrom (1990, 90-102) that were able to cope with external forces was itself a condition that facilitated the erosion of local management practices. An important external influence was the introduction of new fishing technologies and materials. Some of the technological innovations were brought to the region by outsider fishers, such as the Catarinas. This influence is particularly noticeable on the local technologies used to catch shrimp, as many of the gears used in the shrimp fishery were introduced by outside fishers. There is a general feeling among local fishers that Catarinas are much more creative in fisheries technologies and methods, and over time there was a general 142 tendency of locals to copy the new and more efficient techniques of the Catarinas. As stated by a fisher: "Compared to the Catarinas our fishery is too primitive; when we started to fish the marine shrimp the Catarinas were already doing it..., our fishing material is all primitive, we learn everything from the Catarinas... Each year they invent anew type of net, they are very creative ". These technological changes, which were later institutionalised by government, had an important role in leading to resource overuse and a re-distribution of resource access rights. One example of the above was the effect that the introduction of stownets had in allowing the capture of shrimp of smaller size in nursery areas, therefore interrupting the species life cycle (exploitation - conservation phase in Figure 6.5) and decreasing the access to other shrimp fisheries (see Chapter 7). A factor of considerable influence on the restructuring of the local socio-ecological system was the expansion of markets and the industrialization of fisheries. The increasing market demand for fish products influenced the development of local fisheries particularly after the end of the nineteenth century. The processing of salted fish, which up to that point in time was carried out mostly by fishers, began to be gradually carried by small industries (saigas) which were proliferating in the estuary in the early 1900s (Rodrigues, 1989). The fish produced locally was exported, salted or as by-products (fish oil and guts) to other Brazilian states and also to Europe (Von Ihering, 1896). Between the beginning of the twentieth century and the 1960s the local fishing industry experienced a modest growth influenced by a combination of factors, including the construction of the jetties at the mouth of the estuary, which improved the capacity of the port of Rio Grande to export the local production; the changes in international markets caused by WWI and WWII; the increasing demand of the domestic market; and improvements in the capacity to transport, process and conserve fish products with the introduction of freezing 143 methods (Rodrigues, 1989). Parallel to the development of the industry, the increase in the number of fishers and the improvements in fishing materials and technologies contributed to a significant increase in the catch volume of artisanal fisheries, from ca. 400 tonnes in 1905 to an average of 20,000 tonnes during the 1950s. (Rodrigues, 1989; Figure 4.2). Nonetheless, the structure of fisheries activities (resource capture and industrialization), which remained relatively unchanged until the first half of the twentieth century, began to be reshaped mainly after the 1950s. "The structuring of the fishing industry in this new moment is marked by the logic of development proposed for the industrialization on a national scale" (Barbosa, 2000). From this moment the local fisheries went through changes of unprecendent scale. With the goal of increasing production, conditions were created for the establishment of more fish processing plants in the region and the former saigas were transformed into large plants, reaching in 1960s a number of 14 industries, diversifying the production activities into freezing, canning, fresh fish and by-products such as fish oil and fish meal (Barbosa, 2000). The period also unveiled new forms of resource exploitation in the region with the introduction of large industrial trawlers and the incentives from the government to open access of local fisheries to foreign industrial fishing vessels (Yesaki and Bager, 1975). This change in resource exploitation in turn allowed the industries to become independent of the season of the artisanal fisheries and thus increase productivity and profits. By possessing their own fleets, industries become partially free from the dependence on artisanal fisheries and ensured a more stable supply of fish to the processing plants (Rodrigues, 1989). In the subsequent years, with tax incentives from the federal government (Decree 221/1967) there was an observed marked increase in fish processing capacity and in the number of industrial fishing vessels operating along the coastal area of southern Brazil. The peak of industrial fisheries activities was reached between the late 1970s and early 1980s when there were a total of 27 active processing plants in the region, 144 employing approximately 20,000 workers (Barbosa, 2000), while industrial fisheries landings reached a record volume of approximately 80,000 tonnes (Figure 6.7). Despite the marked increase in industrial fisheries observed in the period, artisanal fisheries remained very important, accounting for an average of 34% of the total production during the 1970s and 1980s. 140000 120000 100000 80000 a 60000 40000 20000 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 Figure 6.7. Landings of industrial and artisanal fisheries from Patos Lagoon and coastal areas. A factor of ultimate importance that influenced the above changes in fisheries CPRs management relates to the governmental policies that centralised management. Up to the 1960s the federal government had less influence on the use of the local resources which was to a large extent determined by informal rules locally devised in accordance to the characteristics and reality of local fisheries . The use of local knowledge in resources management is evident in the rules in use up to late 1960s. Despite the existence of local rules (formal and informal) controlling use, efforts to preserve the resources were hampered by federal and regional 1 2 Examples of formal rules concerning the preservation of estuarine resources exist since the late nineteenth century, in a time when these resources were still highly abundant (Rodrigues, 1989). For instance the municipality of Rio Grande created a law in 1882 that prohibited the use of a type of trawling net, while the neighbour municipality of Sao Jose do Norte prohibited in 1908 the use of explosives and small mesh size nets. 145 government incentives to increase exploitation, halting the possibilities of a more rational use of resources (Rodrigues, 1989). After the 1960s the model that prevailed was that of management by a federal government institution (first by SUDEPE and later by I B A M A ) . With economic development as a goal, the centralisation of fisheries management brought as consequences the industrialisation policies to the sector and the design of management rules on paper ('top-down'), which did not account for local resource conditions or for local management. This institutional change affected directly the sustainability of local fisheries by increasing substantially the pressure on the resources in the areas and periods never explored previously, with a direct effect on fisheries landings (Figure 6.7). This initially increased at the expenses of increasing fishing effort and technologies but soon (in the mid-1970s) began to decline due to the overexploitation of the traditional fisheries resources (Haimovici et al, 1989). Since then fisheries production in the region declined steadily, reaching in the late 1990s, when artisanal fisheries landed less than 5,000 tonnes, the lowest landed volume on record in the last 50 years of the activity (Figure 6.7). As stated by Berkes (2000) the replacement of local institutions by centralised ones often involves a change in the way knowledge is used for management. Local institutions tend to use their own folk knowledge, whereas centralised management agencies have tended to use internationally accepted scientific practice and often assume away the validity of local knowledge and practice. In this context, the use of knowledge (scientific and local) in the management of fisheries in Brazil went through distinct phases over the years (Castello and Haimovici, 1991). The first strategy for assessing fish stocks was implemented in the late 1950's with the establishment of a national system of fisheries statistics, assessment of fisheries resources and fleets. The leading position of the state of Rio Grande do Sul in the national fisheries production attracted, as early as 1955, efforts from the state and federal government to 146 study local marine resources. The first initiative, sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture and largely supported by FAO biologists (including William Ripley and Ian Richardson), produced the first results and recommendations in 1960 with the publication of "Carta Pesqueira do Rio Grande do Sul" (Fisheries Chart of the Rio Grande do Sul). This document presented an evaluation of the status of fisheries in the state and also a proposed set of goals and means for its development (Barcellos, 1966). The recommendations produced at that time were clearly in favour of a stronger industrialisation of local fisheries, which were still underdeveloped: "Demersal resources such as black drum, croaker are usually fished by trawlers, but once they maturate their gonads they migrate to surface waters. Thus there are great possibilities for the development of purse seine fisheries for these resources in this period..." (Barcellos, 1966). "It is evident the need to develop the artisanal fisheries through the employment of better equipped boats[...] with more powerful engines that could allow fishers to operate all day long as trawlers and purse seiners..."(Barcellos, 1966). "Mullet are only fished in the estuary with a very rudimentary fishery that is still very dependent on weather conditions to capture the large spawning runs. If large purse seiners could target the schooling fish in the ocean, just after the mouth of the estuary, the catches could be much higher annually..." (Barcellos, 1966). With the fisheries management responsibilities taken over by the central government through the creation of SUDEPE (Secretary for Fisheries Development) in 1967, the plan to develop economically the industrial fisheries was consolidated. The scientific basis for management launched at that time served the established fisheries industrialisation purposes. For instance, beginning in the 1970s studies were conducted to survey and assess the productive potential of fish stocks along the coast (Neiva and Moura, 1977). For southern Brazil, Neiva and Moura (1977) estimated overly optimistic yields, on the order of 500,000 tonnes, when in fact the combined yield of industrial and artisanal fisheries never achieved 120,000 tonnes (Figure 6.7). It is well known for many other areas of the world that these agreements about resource assessment were strategically used to propose policies that disproportionately benefit some sectors at a cost to others (Radovich, 1982; Gadgil and Guha, 1992, 113-238). Similarly, in 147 Brazil, the optimistic assessments of fisheries resources carried in the 1970s worked in reality as an incentive to further develop the industrial fisheries sector, which was beginning to boom during that period. Until the decade of 1970s, Brazilian policies reflected the short-sighted "economic development at any cost", while environmental proposals did not have any influence in the political debate about the future of society and were not relevant for the governmental actions (Diehl, 1994). The political position adopted by Brazil in turn reflected that of many "developing" countries engaged in the international debate about economic development and environmental concerns. "As development programs gave way to global ecological concerns, Southern countries governments, organised under the G-77, rallied in favour of the old model of development, and labelled environmental constraints a new form of (eco)-imperialism. With poor populations in need of land, it was argued, under-developed countries could not afford the luxury of abstaining to use their territory. It was also rightly felt that since the main polluters were in the then G-7 group of northern countries, they were the ones who should pay for conservation in the South. Sustainable development was the compromise notion that arose from its confrontation. Although G-77 governments presented a reasonably united front in favour of development, domestic opposition in many of the G-77 countries stressed that developmental policies were not actually meeting the needs of the landless nor of the poor in general, still less of the local and indigenous populations that were being overrun and dispossessed by progress" (Almeida and Carneiro da Cunha, 2001). During the 1980s, increased support for environmental concerns in Brazilian civil society, helped define the National Policy for the Environment which became institutionalised by the Federal Constitution of 1988 (Diehl, 1994). Responding to this political reality the I B A M A was created to formulate, co-ordinate, and execute the National Policy for the Environment, being responsible for the preservation, conservation, rational use, enforcement, control and subsidy of renewable natural resources, including fisheries. This period marks the introduction of the environmental variable into fisheries management policies. A n important milestone in this process was the establishment of a system of expert consultation 'Grupo Permanente de Estudo' (GPE) by I B A M A to monitor the status of the main fisheries CPRs exploited by industrial fisheries (i.e., shrimps, demersal fishes, sardine, lobsters, snappers and tunas). However, little 148 attention was given to coastal ecosystems which were traditionally exploited in an integrated way by small-scale fishers (Diegues, 1995) The objective of the GPEs was to provide scientific recommendations for both management • and research based on the analysis of biological, technological and socio-economic information about these major resources. However, management recommendations produced in the GPEs (normally proposing conservation measures for resources, such as limiting licenses to industrial trawlers) were often ignored or not effectively implemented by managers due to the lack of political will , economically-driven decisions of particular interests, and the lack of enforcement (Castello and Haimovici, 1991; Diehl, 1994; Diegues, 1995; Haimovici, 1997). As pointed out by the head of IBAMA's fisheries division at the federal level, the excessive number of objectives and attributions concentrated in a single organisation (fisheries management is only one of the 21 the objectives of I B A M A ) was one of the main structural limitations for a satisfactory performance of I B A M A in the management of fisheries activities (G. Sales, pers. comm.). In none of the periods described above has there been an opportunity or interest on the part of the government to receive knowledge inputs from small-scale fishers or to devise management policies that could give incentives to the local management and the participation of small-scale fishers. Science, in a similar fashion has historically been used only in situations where it served policies of economic development, being otherwise disregarded. The problem with the centralisation of fisheries CPRs management, and in general with large-scale institutional arrangements, is that centralisation can lead to the destruction and discouragement of institutional arrangements at smaller (local) scales (Ostrom et al, 1999, 278-282). In addition, given the complex interactions, the dynamics of a resource and a substantial differences among fisheries CPRs and their environment, it is rather difficult to find effective 149 rules that could match such ecological complexity (Ostrom, 1995, 36-46). However the centralisation of management did not arise in a vacuum and certainly the maintenance of ecosystem and small-scale communities sustainability and resilience (sensu Berkes and Folke, 1998) were not a priority on the political agenda. For instance, when the federal government took over the responsibility for fisheries management in Brazil, it caused a change in the access to the resources (see Chapter 7). Fisheries in the estuary, that were informally managed by the small-scale communities became under a de facto open access regime to be exploited to the maximum capacity by industrial fleets without consideration for traditional use rights of local artisanal fishers. A problem also related to the centralisation of management is that valuable information from the resource may be delayed or lost because of the mismatch in scale (Holling et al. 1998; Folke et al, 1998). As pointed out by Berkes and Folke (1998), local level institutions usually learn and develop capabilities to respond to environmental feedback faster than do centralised agencies. It is at these smaller scales that local knowledge about nature can be applied in daily life. On the other hand, experiences in other CPRs management systems suggest that complete decentralisation is also not the solution, because valuable information from user-groups of different resources and activities, or of adjacent but connected ecosystems such as the case of many resources that are transboundary, may be lost (Berkes and Folke, 1998). The experience in the estuary of Patos Lagoon has shown resource management failures in both decentralised (community-based) and centralised (government-based) forms of management due to a large extent to the mismatch between local knowledge and social institutions. The local, informal, decentralised management system present until the 1960s failed because it was never formally institutionalised. Therefore the attempts to control access and attenuate the 150 subtractability problem with locally devised rules never reached higher levels of decision making. This system was easily eroded by the external influence of economic development policies aimed at the industrialisation of local fisheries and by a centralised management model adopted by the federal government after the late 1960s. By relying on a system of economically driven policies, this centralised management of fisheries disregarded the sustainable resource use practices by small-scale fishers and drove many resources to over-exploitation and collapse. However this scene is changing and, if the federal government hindered local self-organisation in the past, in the contemporary period, ironically, higher level government is playing a central role in the decentralisation of CPRs management, as concerns fisheries, water, and forests (Chapter 5; Becker, 2001). As analysed by Becker (2001) it was after 1990, due to social struggles and environmental pressure, that the environmental variable was introduced and actions such as the importance of socio-environmental policies, emphasising institutional changes for modernisation of the codes regulating the use of natural resources, the expansion of the protected areas and alternative communitarian projects were created. In this new paradigm, traditional populations and indigenous people started to appear in public discourse on environmental problems as legitimate stakeholders, as actors endowed with significant knowledge of the natural environment and experienced with customary institutions which in many cases had worked well in the past (Almeida and Carneiro da Cunha, 2001). Reflecting upon the above reality, the I B A M A adopted a decentralisation policy for fisheries management through co-management. The present context of artisanal fisheries management in the estuary of Patos Lagoon called for a cross-scale linkage between local institutions and government, represented by an initiative towards a co-management arrangement since 1996 with the creation of the Forum of Patos Lagoon. It has been hypothesised that improvements in fisheries CPRs co-management arrangements occur when decisions combine local and scientific 151 knowledge. This study demonstrates that fishers' knowledge can provide a valuable set of information about the relationship between the fisher and its local environment, and about the characteristics of practices, tools and techniques that led a more sustainable pattern of resource use in the past. Local knowledge can broaden the knowledge basis needed for management and hence improve institutions that mediate the interaction between communities and their use of the resources. However, the co-management of fisheries CPRs in the estuary of Patos Lagoon is still in its infancy and there are still barriers to be overcome in order to incorporate the role of fishers knowledge in management decisions. The following section discusses the important factors influencing the use of fishers knowledge and the possible ways to reconcile its incorporation in the present co-management system. 6.5. Fishers knowledge role in co-management It is possible to identify three inter-related factors influencing the use of local knowledge in the co-management of estuarine resources: 1) Illiteracy and socio-economic marginalization creates low expectations among scientists and decision makers of fishers knowledge value for management. There are many myths about artisanal fishers that still haunt management arenas and hinder a more productive interaction between scientific and local knowledge. Diegues (1995, 92-103) paraphrased some of the most common myths about artisanal fishers in Brazil: "artisanal fishers are beach beggars, they are a social problem that need to be treated by social aid programs"; "artisanal fisheries are in transition to industrial, capitalist fisheries, and therefore are doomed to disappear"; "artisanal fishers are unintelligent and resist the technological innovations"; "artisanal fishers are predators, individualists and are not able to organise themselves". Over time these myths helped 152 marginalize fishers from decisions and made them consequently more vulnerable to the management process. As conveyed by Pauly (1997, 41): "the marginalization of fishers and their limited formal education have often masked to managers and scientists the ecological knowledge held by them and which is used in many successful common property systems as the basis for traditional community-based management". Despite their limited formal education, artisanal fishers developed resource use practices that maintained a productive fishery in the estuary of Patos Lagoon until the late 1960s when their informal systems of management practices were eroded by formal top-down management procedures. Fishers knowledge of sustainable fishing practices were also identified during interviews and meetings of the Forum of Patos Lagoon in the form of requests for changes in local fisheries management. Fishers requests match many of the principles devised by higher level environmental institutions, such as the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (Table 6.2). 153 Table 6.2. Comparison between selected principles of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (FAO, 1997) and adjustments to local fisheries management suggested by small-scale fishers during interviews and Forum of Patos Lagoon meetings. Principles of Responsible Adjustments to fisheries management according to fishers knowledge Fisheries (FAO) Control of gears that are damaging to the ecosystem: • Monitoring and enforcement Marine protected areas Adaptive management Stop industrial trawling in the coast because it kills large quantities of fish that are discarded. Switch trawling nets by gillnets with large mesh sizes, which are more selective and less damaging. Forbid or reduce artisanal fisheries in the nursery shallow waters of the estuary (such as stownets and trawling) because they capture large quantities of juvenile fish and shrimp. Adapt artisanal otter trawling nets to reduce bycatch (implementing by-catch reduction devices) and restrict the use of artisanal trawling only in the channel areas of the lagoon; Increase enforcement in the estuary all year round and not only during the shrimp season; Increase enforcement in the 3 miles zone along the coast, where many industrial trawlers operate illegally. Close the inshore area around the mouth of the lagoon (specially to industrial purse seiners). This is an area that according to fishers fish concentrate before entering the lagoon. By turning it into a protected area fishers believe that more fish will make their way to nursery and reproduction areas in the lagoon. The establishment of marine protected areas is also congruent with a precautionary approach to fisheries management. Adjust fishing calendars according to the environmental conditions and resource abundance. An intricate system of time/area openings has been suggested by fishers as a way to accommodate management rules to the characteristics of the shrimp fishery. 2) Misfit between institutions and the characteristics of common property resources hinders fishers stewardship for resources and the use of their knowledge to that effect. A generally accepted argument of the "tragedy of the commons" is that without management (from central government or local community) the benefits that most fisheries produce will diminish and resources will collapse13 (McCay and Acheson, 1987; Ostrom, 1990; Bromley, 1992; Hardin, 1998; Berkes et al, 2001). Results obtained from interviews (e.g., Table 6.2) and the survey (see Chapter 5) indicate that small-scale fishers do feel that management action is important to 1 3 In the review of the tragedy of the commons theory, Hardin (1998) restated it is "the tragedy of the unmanaged commons" to emphasise that the tragedy will develop for fisheries that remain unmanaged and under an open access regime. 154 recover the resources condition and the importance of the local small-scale activity in the estuary. During the survey, fishers were asked to choose between two statements reflecting commonly observed but opposite perceptions about fisheries CPRs. The first statement "It is important to have a fishing closure period in the lagoon" tries to translate the importance of taking management actions (fishing closure) to protect resources and sustain the fishery. The second statement "Fishing closures in the lagoon are not necessary because nature itself creates mechanisms to protect the resources" reflects the idea that small-scale fisheries practices, techniques and tools cannot cause resource over-exploitation and therefore the fishery should remain unmanaged. The majority of the surveyed fishers at all ages agree that management actions, represented in this case by the establishment of a fishing closure, is a necessary condition for the conservation of resources and the future of the activity (Table 6.3). There is a tendency however for increasing awareness of the need for management with age. Table 6.3. Comparison between two opposite perceptions about the need for management of artisanal fisheries. Numbers in percentage. up to 20 20 to 30 30 to 40 40 to 50 50 to 60 >60 All n=26 n=120 n= 155 n= 170 n= 109 n=43 n=623 It is important to have a fishing 58 64 68 62 70 77 66 closure period in the lagoon Fishing closure is not necessary, 23 30 28 33 27 21 29 nature protects resources No answer 19 6 5 5 4 2 5 Although they recognise the need for management, fishers still do not comply with the management rules in place in the estuary. Table 6.4 shows survey results of fishers compliance with the regulations defined by Decree 171/98 for the estuary of Patos Lagoon. A significant proportion of surveyed fishers consider that small-scale fishers do not follow or follow only partially the rules defining the period of fishing closure, the number of nets, the minimum 155 fish/shrimp size in the catch and the rules forbidding the use of trawling in the estuary and in the coast. Compliance is higher with rules controlling minimum mesh size and the space between fixed nets. Comparing the results of the compliance questions to the level of agreement to regulations reported in Tables 5.5 and 5.6 it is possible to identify three patterns of response: there are rules with which fishers agree but do not comply (fishing closure); there are rules with which fishers disagree and also do not comply, such as the rules regulating the use of trawling and limiting the number of nets; and there are rules that are normally followed, such as the mesh size. Therefore, at first sight one would say that there is a lack of care for resources among fishers given that they practice a predatory fishery, that is, catch fish below the minimum size, use gears that are forbidden, do not follow fishing closures. Nonetheless what seems to be a predatory fishery by officials in some cases may be not considered so by fishers, such as the case of artisanal trawling that they argue captures mostly adult shrimp that are leaving the estuary. Whereas other practices that are allowed by regulation are considered more damaging not only by fishers but also by scientists, such as the use of stownets to catch shrimp inside the estuary (Vieira et al., 1996) and the capture of mullet and croaker by industrial purse-seiners in the mouth of the estuary (Table 5.9). As stated by Johannes (1981, 84): "...when fishermen do not understand the purposes of fishing regulations or perceive them as being imposed arbitrarily by outsiders they are not liable to look on them with favor or obey them voluntarily. There is a major advantage to regulations that have a precedent based on local custom". As expressed by small-scale fishers: "If there is 10,000 kilos of mullet in the Lagoon, 1,000 kilos will be caught by small-scale fishers. But if the 10,000 kilos leave the Lagoon, 9,000 will be caught by the industrial purse seiners that are waiting in the mouth of the estuary. Only the remaining 1,000 will escape..." "There is a gully in the mouth of the estuary that is like a nursery. A l l kinds of fish concentrate there; it is like a resting place for fish that is migrating. Using the sonars purse seiners are able to tell if there is fish in there, so they become an easy catch". 156 The lack of compliance with fishing closure, on the other hand, reveals a contradiction between values and behavior which is further examined below. Table 6.4. Small-scale fishers compliance with the management rules for the estuary and coastal waters based on survey results (n= 623). Numbers in percentage No Partially Yes No answer Follow fishing closure 26 42 31 1 Follow number of nets 47 24 27 2 Follow mesh size 17 20 62 1 Follow min. fish/shrimp size 36 25 38 1 Trawling in 3 miles 50 13 36 1 Manual trawling in the estuary 36 29 35 1 Leave space between nets 19 16 61 4 Trawling (trolha) in the estuary 47 18 35 1 Findings about the relationship between values expressed by people and intentions to specific policy management actions is rather complex (Satterfield and Gregory, 1998). Values and beliefs may not lead in a straightforward way to behaviour because of social influence agents, including misery, greed, and market for instance that affect individual's behavior (Stern and Dietz, 1994). The apparent contradiction between fishers values and behavior makes us believe fishers may be trapped into a system that is predatory due to conditions external to them, particularly their socio-economic reality, despite the current actions to achieve co-management of resources. That can be identified in explanations provided by fishers when they were asked about compliance with the rules during the survey and interviews. "Because the income [welfare] is too low I am forced to fish something during the closure" "...we fishers are treated like bandits when we try to sustain the family...The IBAMA put a gun on the face of 12 years old childjust because he was with his father fishing with the coca'5..." 1 4 Fishers earn an amount equivalent to US$50.00 per month during the 4 months of fishing closure. This value is equivalent to the national minimum wage. 1 5 The coca is a manual trawling net which is considered by fishers among the less damaging fishing technique used in estuarine fisheries. 157 To understand the contradiction between behavior and values one needs also to consider the cultural organization of the governance system of coastal resources. As explained earlier in this chapter the management of fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon changed approximately 30 years ago from a locally informal managed-based system to a centralized, top-down management system controlled by the government. In practice, during the period of government-based management, resources became unmanaged public properties to be harvested to the maximum capacity through incentives to the industrialization of fisheries. As put by Johannes (1981,64): "where resources are unmanaged public properties it is in the best interest of the fisherman to catch all he can. Because he cannot control the fishery, the fish he refrains from catching will mostly be caught by someone else. Self-interest in this case dictates overfishing and leads to shrinking yields." In a condition of scarcity and competition over the resources, fishers stewardship for resources is an important yet difficult issue to achieve. Where stewardship for resources exist it is in the best interests of those who control it not to overfish. As put by Johannes (1981,64) in this case "self-interest thus dictates conservation". Users must be interested in the sustainability of the particular resource so that expected joint benefits will be worth trying (Ostrom et al, 1999). However, solving fisheries CPRs problems involves two distinct elements that are important to the stewardship of the resources: restricting access and creating incentives for users to invest in the resource instead of overexploiting it (Ostrom et al, 1999, 278-282). A fundamental incentive to conservation relies on the definition of property rights to common property resources (Ostrom, 1990). As long as property rights to resources remain open no one knows what is being managed or for whom, and any incentive to conserve will disappear because there is no guarantee that the benefits of any management action will be accrued by the same individual or group that practices conservation (Ostrom, et al, 1999, 278-282). 158 Limiting access alone can fail if (it is not applied to all users) the resource users compete for shares and the resource can become depleted unless incentives or regulations prevent overexploitation (Ostrom et al., 1999, 278-282). Besides, as may be observed in Table 6.2, traditional users of the fisheries resources in the estuary of Patos Lagoon feel threatened by sharing the rights to the use of resources with the industrial users group. Resources outside the mouth of the estuary are still open to be caught freely by industrial purse-seiners, as there are no rules regulating this activity on the coast, despite the damage it may cause. This creates a dilemma over the use inside the estuary as small-scale fishers complain that the resources they do not catch will not be available to them in the future but rather will be fished by industrial fishers outside the estuary. Therefore efforts to exercise stewardship over the resource in such circumstances will not guarantee a responsible use of the resources. The knowledge accumulated by fishers about resource dynamics and the impact of changing fishing practices provide them today with an essential role in the design of management policies to recover the productivity of CPRs fisheries in the estuary of the Patos Lagoon. Examples of CPRs management worldwide have shown that although the development of local ecological knowledge is a necessary condition it is many times not a sufficient condition to achieve sustainability (Johannes, 1981; Berkes, 1999; Castro, 2000; Seixas, 2000). To have fishers knowledge achieve a larger role in the governance of fisheries a change in the management paradigm is necessary, so that fishers are viewed by the co-management participants as part of the solution rather than part of problem in the management of CPRs (Berkes et al, 2001). In this sense, small-scale fishers and their knowledge - that include a set of practices, tools, techniques and appropriate social institutions embedded in a different world view system - may represent "a future oriented concept not a label for a frozen past" (Carneiro da Cunha and Almeida, 2000, 335). 159 For more than 30 years small-scale fishers in the estuary of Patos Lagoon were embedded in an open access top-down centralized resource management system which offered no incentives for fishers to act congruently with any existent conservation ethics. A locally grounded alternative to this system was established with the Forum of Patos Lagoon. One of the first actions of the Forum was the attempt for locals to regain the control of access to resources and the making of rules. The first steps towards this direction have been taken, but as will be discussed in Chapter 7, the management of local CPRs is still in transition and there are still adjustments to be made in the Forum co-management to better fit the locally based resource management actions, with the fully participation of fishers, to the characteristics of the resources and their environment. Whether or not a larger proportion of small-scale fishers and institutions will buy into the process of managing fisheries and take responsibility for their actions depends on how the Forum co-management succeeds in making sure that local needs are addressed and that relevant local management practices and values are part of management decision making. 3) The difficult transition to a "civic science" in the management of coastal resources. Two types of paradigms about the role of science and local knowledge are evident in local environmental management institutions. The first, which has been the dominant, is based on the idea that scientific knowledge is objective and factual, and provides the 'truth' on which decisions should be made. There is no room in this paradigm for local traditional knowledge, to uncertainties, or to a systemic view of the problems (Holling et al., 1998). This conventional way of conducting science has been shown to act against sensitive and precautionary environmental management by drawing decision makers to examine only those phenomena where cause and effect can be either proved or shown to be reasonably unambiguous 160 (O'Riordan, 2000, 2-27). The second paradigm is based on the recognition that conventional science is value-laden, therefore information and decisions are vulnerable to be manipulated by specific powerful interests. It acknowledges that knowledge about the ecosystem is incomplete, therefore uncertainties are high and the risk of surprises (when actions produce results opposite to that intended) is inevitable (Holling et al, 1998). It calls for the integration of different forms of knowledge (scientific and local) in order to better understand the nature of complex problems and to reduce uncertainties, whatever it is possible. More importantly, this paradigm recognises that management of CPRs should not rely merely on science but on civic science (sensu Lee, 1993), one that is "deliberative, inclusive, participatory, revelatory and designed to minimise losers" (O'Riordan, 2000, 9). By stimulating the exchange of information and knowledge between scientists and fishers, the Forum of Patos Lagoon is creating the conditions for a transition towards a civic science in the co-management of artisanal fisheries. In line with a precautionary approach to resource management, for the first time local institutions are discussing measures to protect resources and to recover the productive capacity of artisanal fisheries. Resource management measures such as fishing calendars and fishing closures are being defined and revised from the bottom-up, with inputs from local communities and institutions (the rules devised locally were legitimised by the federal government as Decrees I B A M A 171/98 and 144/01). In many instances, however, actions seem contradictory to a precautionary principle. Calendars defined in the Forum are often not followed by fishers, and there is still little concern for the long term conditions of the resources. For instance, when environmental conditions were favorable to the recovery of vulnerable resources (such was the case of croaker in 2000's season) and actions should have been taken to benefit from the situation by playing safe and applying a more conservative fishing strategy, the opposite actions were observed and resources were extracted as much as 161 possible. The reasons are that rules on paper are not always congruent with the characteristics of resources and fisheries activities (see Chapters 5 and 7) and enforcement is still far from making the rules to be followed accordingly (Chapter 7). Also there are still challenges to be overcome so that a larger proportion of fishers communities and institutions buy in to the process of co-managing artisanal fisheries by taking responsibilities for their actions. But, i f on the one hand decisions within the Forum that relate to small-scale fisheries management are triggering the transition towards a civic science paradigm, the overall process of governance of other resources and activities within the coastal zone of the Patos Lagoon is not. Rather the overall coastal zone governance system is still locked in a top-down management system based on a conventional scientific approach (sensu Holling et al., 1998; Asmus et al., 1999). One example of this approach was observed in the Environmental Impact Assessment of the enlargement of the jetties at the mouth of the estuary of Patos Lagoon (FURG, 2000). The assessment study which was based on the use of a mathematical model of water circulation to evaluate the expected modification of the project on the natural dynamics of intrusion of marine waters in the estuary, concluded that the project would have no effect on the ecosystem and socio-economic activities in the estuary. The EIA study was embedded with uncertainties which were not made explicit or communicated, and the communities directly affected by the project were never consulted. The project has had many outcomes that are not well defined and there are many questions that still remain unanswered, such as the ones raised within the Forum: "w ill the project impact the amount of shrimp entering the Lagoon? What will be the impact of the project on the behavior of the fish that migrate through the channel of Rio Grande? What will be the impact of the project on the estuarine ecosystem? How the project will affect navigation conditions for small-scale fishing boats off the mouth of the estuary? The above characteristics create (as defined by O'Riordan (2000)) a mix of uncertainties and 162 ignorance about the possible consequences of the project which calls for a civic science approach. Contrary to the civic science's principles of inclusion and participatory research, neither the small-scale fishers communities of the estuary of Patos Lagoon directly affected by the project nor the Forum of Patos Lagoon were consulted during the EIA. Therefore, although the move towards a civic science to deal with artisanal fisheries management is slowly happening inside the Forum of Patos Lagoon, there are many other activities happening in the estuary, with a direct effect on artisanal fisheries, which are not being taken into account by the bottom-up or participatory approaches. However, because many of the 21 institutions that participate in the Forum, and represent interests beyond fisheries (e.g., Public Ministry, Environmental Agency), opportunities are being created for the Forum to challenge decisions which impact artisanal fisheries thus empowering local institutions and fishers communities to call for a better governance of the natural resources of the estuary of Patos Lagoon as a whole. 163 Chapter 7. The fit between institutions to ecosystems "...the first lesson is that there is a remarkable fit among the foundations of small-scale, community based fisheries, the cultural, economic and social problems they have faced in the past, and their potential for surviving failure in the present crisis...visions of how to proceed require that the people involved share (or at least accept) that vision..." (Newell and Ommer, 1999, 364-5). 7.1. Introduction Lee (1993) attributes the problem of resource over-exploitation to a mismatch of scales between institutions and ecosystems: "when human responsibility does not match the spatial, temporal, or functional scale of natural phenomena, unsustainable use of resources is likely, and it will persist until the mismatch of scales is cured." Spatial mismatches occur where the boundaries of management do not coincide with the boundaries of the ecological entity. Temporal mismatches are often discussed in reference to time horizons of planners and politicians (short) relative to environmental and social changes (long). Functional mismatches are mismatches of scope. Resource users may have very specific desires from a highly complex ecosystem, and they may tend to focus their management actions narrowly, aiming on one objective (economic and biased interests) in detriment to others (social and ecological). Therefore the "problem of the commons" can be seen as one of getting the scales right in a dynamic and adaptive fashion. Although the problem of fit between institutions and ecosystems is not explicitly emphasized in the literature of common pool resources, it is important to make explicit the fact that institutions will be more effective when they match the biophysical domain in which they operate. The problem of fit thus relates to how well institutions fit into the environment they supposedly protect (Young, 1999). As discussed by Young and Underdal (1997) "the problem of fit asserts that the effectiveness and the robustness of social institutions are functions of the fit between the institutions themselves and the biophysical and social domains in which they operate". 164 The objective of this chapter is to analyze how congruent are the environmental institutions to the conservation of the fisheries CPRs and to the maintenance of artisanal fisheries over time in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. The misfits between institutions and fisheries CPRs are identified based on the characteristics of the fisheries CPRs and the institutions that mediate the use of resources and ecosystems in the Southern Brazilian Coastal Zone (Chapter 4). The chapter ends by discussing the driving forces behind the misfits and the challenges in relation to the problem of fit between ecosystems and institutions. 7.2. Misfits between institutions and the CPRs To address the question of how congruent are management rules with the sustainability of local resources and the maintenance of artisanal fisheries over time, the analysis focuses on two aspects. First the definition of boundaries and the rights to fisheries CPRs and, second the (in)congruence between rules on paper and rules in-use and the characteristics of the fisheries CPRs. The challenges of defining rights to fisheries CPRs Defining boundaries over resources is a way to deal with the issue of property rights. As stated by Ostrom (1990, 91), the definition of boundaries can be thought of as a first step in organizing for collective action. Ostrom discusses that "as long as the boundaries of the resources and/or the individuals who can use the resource remain uncertain, no one knows what they are managing or for whom" (right to what, right for what, for whom, against whom). According to Pinkerton (1999, 342): "Mechanisms for achieving de facto or de jure exclusion from local fishing territories have been key to the success of all these systems, because state regulatory systems and the unimpeded operation of industrial markets would probably have led to over-exploitation of local resources by outsiders if locals had not had the ability to exclude them". 165 If delimitation of boundaries and rights to exclude outsiders from the use of resources are not well defined and established it will be difficult to maintain life support systems and resource users livelihood. The basic and probably universal factor of environmental regimes in fisheries is the limitation of access to the resource (Scudder and Conelly, 1985). Without some kind of access limitation, a productive fishery sooner or later attracts enough fishermen to render it unproductive (Gibbs and Bromley, 1989; Grima and Berkes, 1989). The current crisis faced by the artisanal fisheries community of the estuary of the Patos Lagoon relates to the historical problem of access limitation - or the lack of it. The estuary of Patos Lagoon was the site of a productive small-scale fishery until the early 1970s (Rodrigues, 1989; Figure 6.7). Fisheries communities had their rights exercised in the management of the resources through different mechanisms. One such mechanism was the definition of fishing territories. Territories are sometimes defined based on pragmatic grounds, which micro-environments are best suited for which technologies, and sometimes defined as the result of informal and formal rules establishing where and how to fish. These use patterns reflect practical and informal resource management strategies developed by a community of fishermen through years of experience, and represent important methods to control spaces and resources (Begossi, 2001). In the estuary of Patos Lagoon there were fishing practices used by artisanal fishers that had important significance to the definition of fishing territories and rights. Fishing practices involved interrelated mechanisms such as the definition of fishing areas, periods and technologies (see Table 4.4 for a summary of the evolution of fishing gears in use in the estuary and coastal waters). The pink shrimp was fished during the summer using different gears, each with a specific location in the estuary. The coca, which is a manual type of trawling dragged by two fishers, 166 was used mainly in estuarine shallow waters and considered a very clean net due to its low bycatch. Bag nets (rede de saco) were fixed around the estuarine channels and caught shrimp by passively filtering the ebb currents of the estuary. Fishers had delimited specific locations in the estuary to fix their nets, which were agreed and respected among them and recognized by legislation. This legislation was to ensure continuity of the procedure. With the advent of power engines, some fishers started using otter-trawling (prancha) and pair-trawling from boats mainly in the deeper waters of the estuary. Since 1973 all types of trawling fisheries were forbidden to minimize the bycatch of fish and the impact in the nursery areas. Since then a new type of gear was formally institutionalized by the federal government, the saquinho, which is a fixed stownet placed in shallow waters that use light attraction to catch shrimp at night. Since the implementation of this technology the former traditional forms of resource use were disrupted as well as the informal rules devised to control access and use. Control over the fishery became an attribution first of SUDEPE and later of I B A M A which still determines the maximum number of nets and the specific location for each fisher to fix their nets, following to some extent their traditional access rights. The introduction of stownets had some impacts over the fishing activity and the territoriality in the estuary. It opened access to occasional fishers, people who work in the cities and farmers, that have never lived from the fishery activity but that began to catch shrimp as an alternative source of income (Asmus, 1989). According to Asmus (1989), three factors led to this: the high prices of shrimp on the market, the easy access to fishing grounds (the city of Rio Grande, for instance, is surrounded by two important shallow water bays used as shrimp fishing grounds by city workers), and the considered simple fishing technique which requires only one fisher and a small boat to operate the nets. I add to this the fact that there were no rules in place at that time to prevent new entrants to the fishery. The open access combined to non-compliance and non-enforcement of rules regarding the maximum 167 number of nets per fisher resulted in the overcrowding of the lagoon shallows during the shrimp season. The opening of access to new entrants, and the spreading of stownets around the lagoon redefined fishing territories and created unintended access limitation problems to some artisanal fishers, mainly to those that continued using trawling and bag nets. This was due to the lack of space for new shrimp nets, the difficult navigation in the fishing ground overcrowded with nets, and the fact that most shrimp are caught before migrating out of nursery grounds in shallow waters. Stownets are highly efficient in capturing shrimp as a result of the effect of light attraction, and few shrimp escape to be caught by other fishing techniques. Moreover, a large portion of fishers consider stownets a rather difficult and expensive kind of technology. They argue that the investment in the gear does not pay off because it can only be used to catch shrimp in the estuary, while trawling for instance can also be used to catch shrimp on the coast. Finally, it is widely accepted by fishers that stownets are inappropriate because they are used in nursery areas and kill large quantities of small juvenile fish, which was more effectively avoided by the use of their traditional technologies such as the coca. Mullet were fished during spawning runs in the autumn at specific locations in the estuary, where large schools concentrated before migrating out of the estuary. The fishery followed a system of orderly beach seine shots (lances), where each fishing unit (parelha) was given the right to fish once. After completing its beach seine shot, a fisher would move to the last place in line, and give the turn to the next parelha. This common use of the resource became formalized as a Decree in 1969 (SUDEPE No. 406 05/11/69), which also established the places and the number of parelhas that could operate in each beach annually. This management system broke down due to many factors. Improvements in technology and materials (nylon) and the 168 widespread adoption of gillnets made artisanal fishers start chasing fish in other areas of the Lagoon and over longer periods. Since 1962 large purse seiners (20 - 24 m long) from Santa Catarina started operating in the inshore areas of Rio Grande do Sul capturing mullet during the spawning run (Haimovici, 1997). Both factors probably contributed to exacerbate resource scarcity in the last four decades and erosion of local management systems. A problem of great concern to many artisanal fishers today is the definition of territorial rights in the channel waters of the estuary and in the inshore coastal areas. Both areas have always been used by artisanal fishers as important fishing grounds, because fish (mullet, catfish, croaker, black drum) concentrate in these areas during migration in and out of the estuary and during spawning. One conflict over the rights to use channel waters exists between the fisheries and port and navigation activities. The latter has received priority by the Port authority, who restrict fishing in order to guarantee a safe and clear transit in the area. The access of artisanal fishers to the coastal areas is also prohibited by the Port authority because small scale artisanal fishing boats usually do not comply with the norms and safety requirements to operate in open waters. The environmental agency, I B A M A , on the other hand excludes the right to use the three mile zone for trawling in order to protect the resources. This rule affects a recently developed artisanal trawling fishery for marine shrimp which occurs in the area during autumn and winter months. Therefore, due to port activities and attempts to protect resources, artisanal fishers have lost the rights to extract the resources in areas that were frequently used in the past and that are still very important for them. This tightening of fishing territories is a matter of concern, as expressed by a fisher: " I B A M A and the Port Authority don't let us to go off the Barra (mouth of the Patos lagoon), they don't want us to work in the channel where the fish is...they don't want us to fish on the coast, how are we gonna live? They don't let us fish here (channel) because we can't be trawling for shrimp; we can never fish croaker in the channel; we can't fish on the coast because the boats are small, only who has large boats 169 can...In the winter, fishing there (on the coast) is very important for us, we always have the marine shrimp, there is no other fishery." A factor of important consequences to the definition of property rights to fisheries CPRs in southern Brazil was the development and activity of industrial fisheries. Industrial fisheries benefited from economic development policies adopted by the Brazilian government, especially after the implementation of Law 221/1967 by the Federal Agency for Fisheries Development (SUDEPE), of the Ministry of Agriculture. SUDEPE was charged with implementing a development plan for fisheries, which included as the main objectives the increase of fisheries production and profitability of the fishing sector; the increase in the number of jobs, and the improvement of socio-economic conditions of fishers. One of the most important development polices adopted by the government as a result of Law 221/1967 was the tax incentives to the fisheries sector (Abdallah, 1998). Abdallah (1998) calculated that fiscal incentives given to fisheries from 1967 to 1986 summed up to US$ 1,015.8 millions, 24.5% of it invested in southern Brazil (Souza, 2001). From the total capital incentives, 51% were invested in the industry sector, 20% in the fish resource capture, and the rest in the commercialization of fish products and administrative expenditures (Abdallah, 1998). Practically nothing was invested in . management research or data gathering to monitor the resource conditions. Abdallah (1998) concludes that government fisheries policy in the period was not concerned with conservation of resources but aimed at economic growth of the industrial fishing sector. It is important to note that no incentives were given to the small-scale fishing sector. Interests lay solely in creating the conditions to establish the modernization of the activity and the extraction of resources (Diegues, 1995; Abdallah, 1998). The activity of industrial fisheries intensified in southern Brazil particularly in the early 1970s, as a result of the tax incentives and also due to the limited access of Brazilian trawlers to 170 fisheries CPR in territorial waters of Uruguay and Argentina (Haimovici et al, 1989). Industrial fishing vessels have a fishing capacity considerably higher than artisanal vessels, which can be seen by the characteristics described in Table 4.2. As pointed out by Haimovici et al. (1989) and I B A M A (1995), the intensive activity of large trawlers in southern Brazil was one of the main causes of decline in many of these fisheries CPRs between 1975 and 1985. Indirectly industrial fisheries also affected the territoriality of artisanal fisheries in the estuary. Heavy fishing in the coastal waters has decreased the amount of fish entering estuarine waters. Artisanal fishers were therefore forced to gradually intensify fishing in the coastal waters, to the point where a new semi-industrial gillnet fleet was created in the early 1980s (Reis et al, 1994). The decrease in abundance of CPRs also disrupted the traditional fishing calendar, which once followed the seasonal availability of the different resources in the estuary (see Chapter 6). This calendar served conservation purposes because it controlled the overuse of a specific resource by limiting the fishing period for each species. As a result of the overall scarcity and increased competition for resources, fishers are now forced to fish for longer periods to sustain their living, consequently increasing pressure on the resources. Therefore, government policies gave rights for new entrants to use fisheries CPRs that were already informally managed by others. Resource availability and the carrying capacity of the system became jeopardized by the increasing pressure to exploit the resources, created by the growing number of people chasing the same resource, along with the changes in technology that tremendously improved the efficiency of resource extraction in the last four decades. The recent years of fish scarcity have initiated a conflict over resources territoriality in the region, especially between artisanal small-scale fisheries and medium and large scale industrial fisheries. Conflict over use of resources escalated even further when the Department of Fisheries 171 and Aquaculture opened access to foreign trawlers to operate in the shelf waters of southern Brazil. Few attempts have been made to regulate inshore and offshore fisheries and to minimize conflicts over the use of resources between artisanal and industrial fisheries. Although rules exist on paper to regulate inshore and offshore fisheries (e.g. limited areas, license control, size limits, gear restrictions; Table 4.5), in fact the management of fisheries CPR off the estuary of Patos Lagoon has been ineffective or absent. Rules for license control, which were only recently established to freeze the number of trawlers in the area, are clearly insufficient to allow for the recovery of the fishery given the already large fishing fleet capacity ( IBAMA, 1995). On the other hand, rules that limit trawling in the three mile zone are not respected and enforced, while large purse seiners with high capacity for resource extraction are free to operate inside this area. For instance, any type of trawling is prohibited inside the three mile zone, but in reality large pair-trawlers, double-rigg trawlers, and also artisanal otter trawlers frequently fish in the area (the latter restricted to the inshore areas adjacent to the mouth of the estuary). The rule is not normally enforced by the responsible agency, and fishers complain that enforcement, when it occurs, is targeted to small scale artisanal fishers only. This concern was as expressed by fishers and discussed during the Forum meetings (Forum of Patos lagoon, minutes 08/12/1999 and 22/01/2000) " ...the enforcement is only for the small fishers. If the enforcement is bad with IBAMA, imagine without it! But, enforcement has to be the same to everybody. This is justice. " By assigning the responsibility of managing fisheries to SUDEPE (and later in 1989 to I B A M A ) , government centralized the making of rules that were before locally devised by fishers. Informal management systems present up to that point in time were disrupted when 172 government adopting the economic model of the open-access fisheries intruded, leading too quickly to the changes in the sector caused at some extent by policy incentives to the industrial fishing sector, corporate interests and international situations (it is noteworthy that the role that international organizations such as FAO had in encouraging the international trade and the " better" management of fisheries through the use of modern technologies to maximize resource extraction disregarding local fishing practices and the sustainability of resources (Barcellos, 1966; McCully, 1991)). One can speculate that there were no effective local mechanisms at that time to cope and foresee the effects of these external influences on the delimitation of boundaries and the sustainability of fisheries activities. Recognizing the need for dealing with boundaries definition as an important issue for the crisis in the local activity and in the light of the lack of an overarching institutional mechanism in which local rules could be designed, a group of stakeholders involved in the governance of the CPRs in the estuary of Patos Lagoon have opted to engage in a co-management regime (Forum of Patos Lagoon). The demand in the estuary was for some kind of sharing of power and responsibility in such a way that the power of centralized management agencies could be partly redistributed to local-level institutions and balanced, not eliminated. The first step of building this new institution was related to designing resource boundaries and individual rights to use the resource as well as to devise rules to give rights to local users to exclude outsiders. Among the rules established in the Forum (Decree 171/1998, Table 4.5) was the definition of use rights of the estuarine resources. There was a consensus among representatives of the Forum of Patos Lagoon that licensing had to be done in such a way that could help control fishing effort, hence limiting entry. Fishing licenses are given annually only to those who proved: a) to be residents in the estuarine region of the Patos Lagoon; and b) that fishing was their main 173 activity and source of income (Table 4.5). These rules are related to the rights of local fishers to refuse access to other fishers, mainly those from the neighbor state (here referred to as "Catarina fisher"). This access limitation rule was challenged by Catarina fishers on the grounds that fisheries are considered public resources by the federal constitution and are open to any Brazilian who holds a valid fisher license. The Forum however succeeded in having the limiting entry rule accepted by the Federal government. Regulations developed by the Forum paid close attention to defining resource boundaries and the rights to exclude other fishers to fish in the estuary. However they have not yet taken into account the fact that most resources exploited in the estuary also occur and are intensively fished in coastal waters by semi-industrial and industrial fisheries, that is, management boundaries do not coincide with fisheries CPR boundaries (Tables 4.3 and 4.5). Although there are rules established by the central government to limit access to fish extraction in the three-mile zone, these rules on paper do not address the very question of access rights because it does not consider the differences in fishing power capacity of industrial/semi-industrial and artisanal small-scale fishers. Therefore the benefits to defining boundaries and limiting access within the estuary may be threatened if local fishers continue facing the risk that any benefits they produce by their efforts will be reaped by others who have not contributed to those efforts and who have not shared the same management interests. Protection of fisheries CPRs from overfishing and the maintenance of artisanal small scale activity will not be achieved if this problem of misfit is not addressed. The congruence of management rules and CPR conditions In addition to limit the appropriation of common pool resources through rights and boundaries delimitation it is also important that rules are congruent with the characteristics of the exploited 174 resources and ecosystem. This section describes some mismatches that were identified in the management of fisheries CPRs that can potentially affect resources sustainability in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. Harvest technologies and environmental characteristics Fishing impacts ecosystems in many different ways, for example, by exploiting resources beyond their carrying capacity, by damaging habitats that are important for nursery and production, and by capturing species that are not the main target of the fishery (bycatch) (Hall, 1999). Bycatch is an important issue in the management of shrimp fisheries and as such it has evoked rules that restrict the use of certain fishing methods. In the estuary of Patos Lagoon the gears allowed to catch shrimp (stownets and bag nets) are considered adequate by I B A M A because they produce relatively low by-catch rates per net compared to what is known about other types of gears such as trawling. Vieira et al (1996) estimated that on average only 6% of the total catch in stownets is composed of juvenile fish (mostly croaker and catfish), which are discarded. However the total amount of juvenile fish discarded at the end of shrimp season can be significantly high, in the order of 600 tonnes (Vieira et al, 1996). According to these authors this happens because i f in the formal established rules each fisher is allowed to use 10 nets (Table 4.5), in practice each use more than 15, and there are cases of 200 nets per fisher. Many of the ca. 3000 licensed fishers and the considerable number of unlicensed fishers in the estuary use this fishing technology to catch shrimp. As a result, more than 15.000 nets are placed and allowed in the shallow waters which are the nursery grounds of the estuary of the Patos Lagoon (Vieira et al, 1996). The reality is, therefore, that the shrimp fishery with fixed nets can produce harmful levels of bycatch. The decision making process that by law established this as the technology to be used was narrowly defined because it considered only the characteristics of the fishing gear and failed to account for the difficult problem of limiting the right of entry and 175 use of resources. The opening of access and the lack of monitoring and enforcement contributed to increase the pressure on the resource over the years. In short, there are several unintended consequences of imposing rules from the outside. Although these rules were revised and accepted by the Forum of Patos Lagoon representatives, there is a consensus among fishers that stownets are inappropriate because they are placed in the nursery areas of the estuary and are responsible for killing large quantities of juvenile fish. The bycatch of trawling, which is still used by many fishers, can also be high, although no formal evaluation has been conducted since it became prohibited in the estuary of Patos Lagoon in 1973. Bycatch is not only an issue in artisanal shrimp fisheries. It is particularly important in industrial trawling fisheries that operate along the coast. Haimovici (1997) estimated that the total discarded bycatch of pair-trawlers and otter trawlers fishing in the region during the early 1980s summed up to 46% of the total catch in weight, most of it composed of juvenile weakfish, royal weakfish and castanha. The discarded bycatch in double rigg trawlers is in the order of 50% of the total catch and is composed of small sharks and fishes. A rule limiting the minimum mesh size of fish trawling nets to 90 mm was later adopted to remedy the bycatch of juvenile fish (Vooren, 1983) (Table 4.5). Both artisanal and industrial fisheries use harvest technologies that can have grave consequences to ecosystems and fisheries CPRs. The shrimp fishery with stownets provides an example of an incongruence between rules and the local characteristics of the ecosystems. The case of artisanal trawling in estuarine waters is an example of a rule that is apparently congruent with the resource conditions but it is not followed by fishers. A combination of factors are responsible for the lack of compliance. First, because fishers believe that trawling in the channel waters is less damaging than fishing with fixed nets in shallow waters. Second, because 176 the shallow waters are already occupied by thousands of fixed nets, therefore for many fishers there is no other available way to catch shrimp. Third, because fishers were never consulted or involved in the rule making and do not have the authority to set and modify the rules to better fit them to the specific characteristics of their setting. Finally, fishers seem to be trapped in the rationale that ' i f I don't do it others will do it', which when combined with the lack of enforcement leads to non-compliance with the rules. Industrial trawling provides an example of a fishing technology that is incongruent with the sustainability of resources. Rules have been devised to alleviate the damaging effects of this fishery, such as the three mile exclusion zone and the mesh size limits, but in fact there have been little compliance with these rules and no enforcement. Fishing calendars One of the most widely used rules to limit the appropriation of CPRs is the definition of fishing calendars. In the estuary of Patos Lagoon fishing calendars define the timing of artisanal fisheries for each of the main resources (see Table 4.5 and also Chapter 6). The shrimp fishery calendar is tied to a fixed opening that happen every year on February 2 n d , although fishers, scientists and managers acknowledge the fact that the cycle of shrimp growth and production varies between years and areas. Manager officials have based the fixed opening on monthly shrimp production data which indicate that March and April are the months when on average most shrimp are fully developed (D'Incao, 1985). According to them the opening in February would benefit the fishery in terms of the total weight of shrimp caught. Although the fishery occurs mostly after February, in reality some fishers follow their own traditional calendar and start catching shrimp earlier in the year depending on environmental/resource conditions. The lack of feedback mechanisms to adapt rules to the characteristics of the resource and to the climatic conditions, often generate conflicts between fishers and officials. Fishers ask for annual 177 revisions of the rules and for distinct openings by areas, since shrimp production varies along the estuarine shallows and is closely related to the hydrological conditions (Forum of Patos Lagoon, minutes 08/12/1999). Changing the status quo to an adaptive calendar would require a more complex system of monitoring, which is viewed as unfeasible by the official agency (Forum of Patos Lagoon, minutes 08/12/1999). On the other hand, attempts to adapt rules to resource conditions have failed because of fierce discussions between scientists and fishers about when the stock would achieve the adequate fishing size (Reis and D'Incao, 2000). There is still a perceived institutional barrier to be broken to allow the sharing of responsibilities between officials and resource users in the monitoring of shrimp conditions and in the management of the activity (Forum of Patos Lagoon, minutes 08/12/1999). Another identified incongruence in the Decrees I B A M A 171/98 and 144/01 considered by the Forum relates to the calendar for catfish. The established formal rule is that the fishing season is restricted to the period from October to November and from March to May. The fishery traditionally started in August and lasted until December, the period when the species enters the estuary to mature and reproduce (Reis, 1986) (see Chapter 6). Fishers consider the current calendar inadequate because it makes them catch catfish in a critical period in the species life cycle, when adults are incubating the young in their mouths. After spawning in estuarine and coastal waters in late spring, male catfish incubates the eggs and the fry for up to two months in their buccal cavity (Reis, 1986). The life cycle of the species is described in detail by an elder fisher: " We had a fishery for catfish, which was very large. Some 40 years ago we caught many catfish. They come, enter to spawn, when they reach the Barra (mouth of the estuary) they go spreading themselves all over the lagoon, spawning here and there, ...then they stay in the lagoon. The male catfish is the one that rear the eggs. The male catfish, which is smaller than the female, fill up his mouth with eggs...The gestation period lasts 3 months, from January to March, when they (male fish) reach the salt water the young fishes release themselves ...Fishers could catch them before they released the young. This fishery was prohibited, but today it is allowed... Every thing is allowed, it can't be, it's wrong. We started fishing in August and then 178 in November there were no catfish and we started fishing croaker. In December we had the fishery for the 'Christmas catfish', which were large fish only. All of this is now over, we don't have more fisheries in the lagoon, we don't have anything... " The incongruence in the catfish calendar is particularly threatening to the maintenance of this long-lived resource, which suffered from intense overfishing in the last decades and requires strong conservation measures to recover (Reis and D'Incao, 2000). Limiting excess exploitation of resources Most of the fisheries CPRs traditionally targeted by artisanal fisheries are currently classified as either fully exploited, overexploited or collapsed (D'Incao, 1991; Reis et al, 1994; I B A M A , 1995; Haimovici, 1997). The abundance of croaker has been decreasing steadily in the last two decades and current exploitation rates are considered unsustainable (Haimovici, 1997; Reis and D'Incao, 2000). Resources such as black drum and catfish were overexploited in the 1970s and the fishery in the estuary of Patos Lagoon collapsed in the early 1980s (Reis et al, 1994). The stock of pink shrimp also shows signs of overfishing. Despite the high natural variability in catches, the average landings have declined from 4,016 tonnes to 2,152 in the early 1990s (Reis et al, 1994). The resource is expected to decline even further i f the excess exploitation by industrial and artisanal fisheries is maintained in the near future ( IBAMA, 1995; Reis and D'Incao, 2000). Not much is known about the status of mullet stock in southern Brazil; landings are highly variable but show a clear declining trend from a peak of 4,291 tonnes in 1975 to ca. 500 tonnes in 1998 (IBAMA). Recognizing the need to recover the productivity of estuarine fisheries, the Decree 171/98 defined measures to control the excess resource exploitation in the estuary (e.g. license control, effort control, closed seasons; Table 4.5). The expected effect of these rules in alleviating the excess exploitation and allowing the recovery of depleted stocks is highly uncertain. At best the 179 rules in place are expected to maintain the status quo conditions, which are worrisome for their potential impact on some resources, such as catfish and black drum. There is no action plan defined with specific strategies to recover the depleted resources. More importantly is the fact that all species exploited by the artisanal fishery in the estuary migrate to shelf waters of southern and southeastern Brazil (some to Uruguayan and Argentine waters) where they are also exploited and subjected to other less restrictive management rules (Table 4.5). A complicating factor to the effectiveness of management rules is the overall lack of enforcement. Deficient monitoring and enforcement Institutional behavior is not only defined by its intentions, political rhetoric, and the policies that it enacts, but it is also largely defined by the extent to which these policies are implemented and monitored. Monitoring constitutes a vital source of feedback in the management process. Many contend that Brazil has one of the most advanced bodies of environmental laws in the world, yet implementation and enforcement of these laws is exceptionally weak and ineffective (Domask, 1997). As it can be observed in Table 4.5 a number of rules exist for regulating fisheries activities in southern Brazil, but enforcing these rules has been ineffective. Figure 7.1 examines the level of fishers compliance with some of the rules regulating artisanal fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon based on survey results. In order to account for individual biases in the responses, the question was framed in two different ways: first by asking the surveyed fishers i f they comply with the rules, and alternatively i f their kin comply with the rules. It became evident that individual fishers normally assume higher levels of compliance when compared to what they indicate for their kin (that pattern was expected because fishers would naturally avoid assuming they do illegal fishing). The data show otherwise that compliance can be relatively low for some rules (such as the rules limiting the maximum number of nets and establishing a fishing closure). Overall the rule that the majority of fishers seem to agree and comply with is 180 the one limiting the minimum mesh size (it was often stated during interviews that one of the causes of the decline of fisheries catches was the capture of fish too small). Although compliance is relatively low, only 23% of the fishers surveyed were ever applied sanctions by the enforcement agency. Trawling in the estuary Space between stownets Use of manual trawling Trawling in the 3 miles zone Minimum fish size Mesh size Number of nets Fishing closure • K i n • Individual 0 20 40 60 80 100 % Figure 7.1. Fishers compliance with the rules regulating artisanal fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. The bars represent the percentage of surveyed fishers that said they comply with the rules. Filled bars represent how the surveyed fishers consider the compliance of their kin (n = 623). Many factors contribute to the deficient monitoring of resource conditions and the enforcement of regulations in the estuary of Patos Lagoon and coastal areas. Beginning with the fact that with the centralization of fisheries management both monitoring and enforcement became the responsibility of a single federal agency (SUDEPE and later I B A M A ) which has always lacked structure and human resources to carry out the functions effectively. It is known that contravention is usually tolerated by officials, who are often unwilling to enforce rules impartially. For instance, it was frequently emphasized during interviews that industrial fishers 181 who want to avoid rule enforcement have considerable opportunity and means to obtain the help of officials in obstructing such enforcement, thus undermining any effort to support new local institutions. As expressed by small-scale fishers: "We know that trawling is illegal, but why is it illegal only for us [artisanal fishers]? The industry trawl as much as they want...it will be always illegal for the small fisher". "The industry has the resources, if they get caught they pay and are free to fish again. Our fishery here is failing because of the lack of enforcement off the mouth of the Barra [estuary]". "I am not against enforcement. I think like that, imagine if there was no police in Rio Grande, or in Brazil, or in the whole world? It would be a mess. I think the problem is that there are rules for ones and not for others". It has been proposed that the efficiency of this source of feedback (who monitors resource conditions and how) is increased with the inclusiveness and accountability of the resource users (Pinkerton, 1989, 3-33; Ostrom, 1990, 94-100). Of the total number of artisanal fishers surveyed in the estuary of Patos Lagoon, 21% agreed that some level of involvement of fishers in enforcement and monitoring might be beneficial, but the role of government is also acknowledged as important (Figure 7.2). This sharing of responsibilities between government and fishers over enforcement has not been considered yet by the local institutions. On the other hand, efforts to overcome the problem of infrastructure and the monitoring of illegal fishing in estuarine and coastal areas were recently done by a concerted action between I B A M A and the Navy. The results of this initiative, which are to be analyzed in the future, will serve as an important mechanism to evaluate how these management functions could be better performed over time by the different institutions. 182 Navy IBAMA Fishers Environmental Police Figure 7.2. Reponses to survey question of who should be responsible for enforcement and monitoring of fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. Number in percentage (n=623). The lack of a systemic view Fisheries management in Brazil is still sectorial, and does not include in its structure the possible interference from other activities and institutions. There are multiple sources of human impacts that can alter the carrying capacity of the estuary of Patos Lagoon, and potentially impact artisanal fisheries. These include: i) destruction of vital habitats: Estuaries provide vital habitats for nursery of aquatic organisms. Seagrass beds, for instance, are a nursery ground in which postlarval stages of many invertebrates and fish species concentrate and develop. Salt marshes are important producers of organic matter that is either exported to the estuary and coastal area, or recycled in the marshes by herbivores and detritivores organisms that are important food sources for juvenile fish and birds that rest in the estuary (Costa, 1997). Although legally protected (Table 4.5), seagrass and salt marsh habitats have been destroyed by the filling of intertidal and shallow water flats in the lower estuary for port, residential, and industrial development. It is estimated that filling along estuarine margins and around small islands has destroyed as much as 10% of the total salt marsh area of the estuary (Seeliger and Costa, 1997). Other important man-induced impacts to salt 183 marshes, which have not yet been quantified, are the large-scale grazing by livestock on marginal marshes. Estuarine habitats are also lost due to sedimentation processes, which could be natural or man-induced, the latter related to the misuse of agriculture land in the watersheds. Over the last two centuries it is estimated that the water area of the estuary has decreased by ca. 11% due to deposition of fine sediments from the Patos Lagoon in shallow estuarine shoals (Seeliger and Costa, 1997). ii) changes in primary production: The main primary producers in the estuary of Patos Lagoon are salt marshes, submersed macrophytes (sea grasses), benthic and floating macroalgae, cyanobacteria and microalgae (including phytoplankton). Conservative estimates of net primary production indicate that salt marsh plants, macroalgae and cyanobacteria are responsible for as much as 86%> of the total addition of carbon to the estuary (Seeliger, et al, 1997). There is no direct evidence of changes in primary production in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. On the one hand, a decrease in primary production may have occurred due to the destruction of salt marshes and seagrass habitats during the last century (see above). On the other hand, excess nutrient loads from domestic and industrial effluents and agricultural runoff are responsible for the eutrophication of the estuary with the development of blooms and changes in phytoplankton composition (Seeliger and Costa, 1997). Eutrophication has as a side effect the decline of submerged macrophyte biomass in estuarine embayments, due to the attenuation of light penetration, which can also decrease the overall primary productivity (Okey et al, in press). iii) changes in freshwater flow: The growing utilization of freshwater that discharges into the estuary can modify the seasonal variation of flow rates that is essential for flushing and maintaining the balance of salinity and nutrients in the estuary (Seeliger and Costa, 1997). It is estimated that during 1968-1969 the water demand for irrigated rice cultivation and for the 184 population living in the watersheds of the Patos Lagoon was ca. 6% of the annual runoff. Today, as much as 13% of the total natural water runoff may be diverted during drought periods as a result of an increase in the human population of 37% and a 120% increase in the area of rice cultivation (Seeliger and Costa, 1997). iv) pollution and contamination of estuarine waters: The estuary presents high risks of contamination by chemical substances due to the large number of petrol-chemical and fertilizer industries settled on its margins, the trade and transportation of toxic substances in the port of Rio Grande, landfills, and the excessive use of agricultural pesticides in the farm lands around the lagoon (Seelinger et al, 1997). One of the most recent and important incidents in the port of Rio Grande was the acid spill from the Maltese freighter, M V Bahamas. The ship entered the port of Rio Grande in August, 1998, carrying 22 thousands tonnes of sulfuric acid to supply the local fertilizer industries. A hole in the M V Bahamas caused water from the estuary to get inside the freighter, and react with the acid to produce a highly explosive gas. Considering the risks of explosion and the economic costs to take alternative measures, a decision was made by local authorities (port and governmental organizations, Port Authority, municipality and the university) to release about 9,000 tonnes of acid in the estuarine environment. The consequences to fisheries activities were extremely grave. Artisanal fisheries activities were prohibited in the estuary, compromising part of the fishing season for croaker and shrimp. The accident revealed the lack of contingency plans in port activities and the absence of care of local authorities for the environment and the populations which depend on resources extraction. Seeliger and Costa (1997) also cite as important pollution sources in port activities the washing of vessel tanks which release into the estuary different types of toxic hydrocarbon forms. Yet another source of contaminants to the estuary is the landfill of the city of Rio Grande. The municipal district of Rio Grande produces 110 thousand tones of garbage per year, which has been deposited on salt 185 marshes at the margins of the estuary during the last 20 years. There are no prospects of waste treatment in the near future, which poses serious threats for the health of the local people and the environment. The above examples illustrate the complex reality of the estuary of Patos Lagoon, where artisanal fisheries are subjected to the cascading impacts of other human activities in the watershed and estuarine areas. This relates to what Pinkerton (1999, 344) states as: "...finding appropriate scales, scope, parties and levels of collaboration...the implications of agreements at different geographical scales (small, medium, large), at different governmental levels (local, regional, national), and with different scopes (broad and multiple issues, few and narrow issues)". To be effective the co-management regime established in the Patos Lagoon has to find ways to protect not only the fish stocks as it has been the issue of concern but also their habitats. There is little point in planning the enhancement of stocks i f in the process the community cannot protect its environment and the habitats on which the stocks depend for spawning and nursery (Pinkerton, 1989; Young, 1999). Existing fisheries management institutions pay little attention to this aspect when defining rules for the conservation of fisheries CPRs (Table 4.5). On the other hand efforts for the management and conservation of coastal habitats through their federal and state institutions have narrowly defined goals and indicators that disregard the impacts of coastal activities on the living resources, such as fisheries. This demonstrates a lack of an integrated coastal zone management plan which also intensifies the actual misuse of the natural resources and aggravates the disruption of the estuarine and coastal environment in the area (Asmus and Tagliani, 1997; Asmus, etal, 1999). 186 7.3. The Driving forces Whether a renewable resource is managed sustainably depends largely on how property rights or use rights are assigned and the pattern of incentives they create for conservation or depletion. A key issue on governing the commons relates to the ability of developing institutional arrangements that enhance the likelihood that individual incentives lead participants toward sustainable use rather than imprudent uses (Ostrom et al, 1999, 278-282). The history of Brazilian coastal zone management and the outcome of resource management in the locality of Patos Lagoon has shown that use rights and patterns of incentives have lead the resources to depletion. The weakening of access limitation to small-scale fishers and opening to industrial fisheries, the failure to implement rules which are compatible with the maintenance of the resources, legitimized and complied with, and the strong incentives to overexploitation instead of conservation, all represent causes of the current situation. What can we learn from the estuary of Patos Lagoon case study, concerning the misfits between the institutions and the management of fisheries CPRs and their implication for better management strategies for the future? Ostrom's (1990, 58-181) argument is that some communities have broken out of the trap inherent in the commons dilemma, whereas others remain trapped in institutional arrangements and so destroy their own resources. The same author states that differences exist between those who have broken the shackles of a commons dilemma and those who have not. According to her, the differences may have to do with factors internal to a given group and/or with factors outside the domain of those affected (Ostrom, 1990; Ostrom et al, 1999). 187 The story of the Patos Lagoon is similar to other stories of disruption of fragile CPR situations which can be told for many other parts of the world. An attempt has been made to change the decision making process in the management of artisanal fisheries at the local level with the establishment of the forum of Patos Lagoon to co-manage the resources and to break the shackles of the local tragedy. Despite this change there are still important institutional misfits that have to be dealt with in order to break the trap of the commons dilemma. What are the factors behind the misfits? This study has identified inter-related internal and external factors that play a role in hindering local management of artisanal fisheries. They are organized as follow: i) the historical weak institutional arrangement to deal with a diversity of interests and types of activities in the area. Fishers' ability to organize for collective action has a number of prerequisites, essentially involving the question of local institutions. Not all groups of fishers have appropriate local institutions. Any co-management initiative will necessarily start with institution building as it was the case in the estuary of the Patos Lagoon. But institution-building is a long-term and costly process. Experience in other CPR management systems shows that community organization can take 3 to 5 years, in some cases even more, before a self-sufficient institution is in place (Pomeroy and Berkes, 1997). In this context the local co-management initiative (Forum of Patos Lagoon) is still young and faces many challenges to its organization. A key question for co-management is what management functions are best handled at the local or communal level, as opposed to the national government level only (Pinkerton, 1989). The establishment of partnership makes co-management a strong alternative to manage resources 188 under complex conditions, multiple interests, and power imbalance situations. Because co-management is a middle course between government and community-based management, this characteristic makes co-management a stronger arrangement to deal with complex systems such as the estuary of the Patos Lagoon. A total of 21 institutions involved in the management of natural resources are invited to participate (with a right to vote) in the Forum of Patos Lagoon. Each one has specific interests and responsibility over the fishery sector that could be turned into practical actions based on the issues raised by the Forum. Some changes towards this direction are observed (e.g., more management oriented research, based on questions raised in the Forum, is being carried by the university; government financing programs are becoming available for small scale fishers), but there is still a long way to go before management functions are shared more effectively. Institution representatives are still trapped into old ways of doing things, with a strong cultural organization that impedes different forms of management. Also, some of the 21 institutions invited to participate are either absent or rarely present at the meetings, including the Fishing Industries Union, Industrial Fishermen Unions, Public Ministry, Port Authority, and law-enforcement unit. These are institutions that, as was shown in this chapter, have an important role in determining the course of decisions and the success of any attempt to manage fisheries locally. Attempts at local management will also face difficulties whenever artisanal fishers interests conflict with the interests of other activities such port and industrial activities. The problem of the fishery is in this case beyond the scale of the traditional fisheries management framework. There is no compatibility between the institutions dealing with fisheries and the institutions related to other activities in the estuary. These institutions are not nested or organized in an integrated coastal zone management plan for the region. The effort made to recover the fishery and maintain artisanal activity may be challenged by this institutional scale. 189 ii) the fact that most artisanal fishers are marginalized from decisions, which gives them less opportunity to control the use of CPRs, and also impedes the use of fishers knowledge in the design of management norms congruent with, the characteristics of resources and artisanal fisheries. A strong driving force that triggered overexploitation of the local fisheries CPRs was the government's intervention in fisheries management. Government intervention led to the widespread design of rules that were incongruent, because they did not account for local resource conditions, as well as for local informal management rules. One example of such intervention, was the effect of government incentives to industrial fisheries which changed the structure of property rights to use CPRs and created de facto open access regimes in the estuarine and coastal areas. These actions were taken in a top down manner, driven mainly by political or economical decisions, without either ecological or social concerns. The historical marginalization of artisanal fishers from decision arenas has facilitated the above scenario (Diegues, 1995). As noted in the prior chapter, Pauly (1997, 40) discusses the marginalization of small-scale fishers to their "geographic, socio-economic, and ultimately, political remoteness from decision makers in major population centers". According to Pauly, socioeconomic remoteness from the mainstream of society is related in part to the low income of small-scale fishers in most developing countries and to the fact that they often belong to social classes of low status. This is often compounded by illiteracy or limited formal education which often masks the traditional ecological knowledge possessed by small-scale fishers, which serves as a basis for traditional community-based fisheries management (Pauly, 1997, 40-41). 190 It is well known that the knowledge held by fishers in many areas of the world, and in the case of the artisanal fishers of the estuary of Patos Lagoon (see Chapter 5) may be extremely detailed and relevant for resource management. Despite this reality, there is still a weak involvement of the fishers in the management of the resources; fishers were not fully involved in the process of designing and modifying the new set of rules in place for the estuary proposed by the Forum of Patos Lagoon (Decree 171/98 and 144/01). Measures such as fishing effort limit, minimum mesh size, minimum landing size, closed season, among others, have been exhaustively discussed and agreed as a first step for community-based management. In spite of a consensus reached by the Forum representatives at the time of elaborating this Decree, few fishermen were consulted and gave inputs on the rules launched. The measures for fisheries management in place in the estuary seem not to fully meet fishers purposes (see Chapter 5), therefore they are not supported by a large number of Patos Lagoon fishers (Colonia de Pescadores Z3, Pelotas, RS; Colonia de Pescadores Z8, Sao Lourenco do Sul, RS). On the one hand they see this Decree as working against their interests. Fishers complain that "it's again more rules to aggravate the small fishers and nothing against the big guys". They argue that before the establishment of the Decree 171/98 they could fish more freely because no specific regulations were being truly enforced within the estuarine boundaries. There were rules but they were not enforced. On the other hand they urgently request more rules to guarantee an effective protection of the three mile zone from semi-industrial and industrial vessels. These are important nursery areas and also essential places where the fish concentrate before entering into the estuary (Barcellos, 1966; Haimovici, 1997). As put by a fisher: "If they protect over ^ere(coast) we will have more fish inside, the fish will be able to grow and recover and the impact caused by of our fishing will be minimized". 191 When the Decree 171/98 was established the artisanal fishing calendar was changed to accommodate fishers resource use practices with conservation measures (closed seasons) and social welfare (received only during the closed season). The latter was used as a major incentive to discourage resource exploitation in the estuary during the closed season. "The closed season was strategically elaborated from June to September (winter), because it is the most difficult period of the year for fishers..., when the savings obtained during the shrimp season is running out, and when the 'predatory fishery' intensifies'" (Head of CEPERGS-I B A M A ) . However, the Decree has proven inadequate in many aspects. For instance, before the Decree 171/98 fishers used to catch mullet for 8 months, and now the fishery is allowed only for 4 months. According to their local knowledge it is appropriate to fish catfish during winter and spring months, before the species enter the phase of incubation. Scientists also agree on a calendar that avoids fishing during the summer months (Reis and D'Incao, 2000). But the resulting norm in the Decree 171/98 defined the calendar for catfish in the autumn months, considering neither the scientific knowledge nor the local knowledge. Fishers complaints about the calendar for mullet, catfish, and croaker led to the revision and proposed rectification of the respective calendars (in the Decree 144/01). Their main argument is that some of the rules are not congruent with the local conditions of the resources because they were made by " fishers bureaucrats" that do not have any knowledge about the resource and the environment to which the law will be applied. Fishers contentions are that i f the objective is to protect the resources and to recover the importance that artisanal fisheries used to have, how come a law is created to allow resource extraction in nursery areas and during spawning season? Why is such a law applied only to regulate use inside the estuary i f the fish is mobile and the fishery also takes place beyond such boundaries, and mainly by large scale industrial fisheries? As stated by Ostrom (1990, 93), i f the individuals who directly interact with one another and with the physical world can modify the rules over time so as to better fit them to the specific 192 characteristics of their setting, a successful outcome will happen as well as rules better tailored to local circumstances in many CPR management systems over the world. This has not been the case here yet. What is usually observed during the Forum meetings is that the fishing community is informed of the results and decisions made through meetings with the researcher and technicians (Reis and D'Incao, 2000). The culture of working for the fishers instead of working with the fishers may be identified as a major observed problem that still has to be faced. These problems are exacerbated by the politics which are still top-down and driven by certain interests. Those sectors that want to avoid rule enforcement have considerable opportunity and means to obtain the help of officials (local and central) in obstructing such enforcement thus undermining the efforts of new local institutions. Small-scale fishers do not have the same means and do not share the help of officials. The problem becomes then what is behind the governance process and what group interests does the governance system serve? What happened in the estuary of the Patos Lagoon represented an example of how actions taken by local management institutions can be eroded by political power through federal agencies. iii) the regime structure of governance which centralizes final decisions to the federal government. The history of fisheries management in the estuary has shown that many practices, which seemed to be consistent with conservation, were abandoned and/or transformed with the introduction of the centralization of management and the expansion of the industrialized sector during the 1960s and 1970s. This can also be observed in other areas along the Brazilian coastal zone (Seixas and Berkes, 2000). The year 1967 established a mark in fisheries management in Brazil, when formal management was introduced and rule making became 193 exclusive to the Federal government. In the estuary of the Patos Lagoon, this process of centralizing decisions created a change in the boundaries and rights to use the fish resource. As in other areas of Brazil, policies set up in this period to support development and exploitation of resources were made not free from conceding privileges to some particular interests groups (industrializing fishing sector) over others (small-scale fisheries) (Diegues, 1995). Incentives to de-centralize fisheries management in recent years have created opportunities to co-management initiatives, such as the Forum of Patos Lagoon. A key issue for the success of such initiatives is the government willingness to share power when devising rules and enforcing them (Pinkerton, 1989, 26-31; Pomeroy and Berkes, 1997). As stated by Ostrom (1990, 101): "Provided the governmental officials give at least minimal recognition to the legitimacy of such rules, the fishers themselves may be able to enforce the rules themselves. But i f external officials presume that only they have the authority to set the rules, then it will be very difficult for local appropriators to sustain a rule-governed CPR over the long run". This design principle of co-management has not been fully met yet in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. The first concrete outcome of the Forum of Patos Lagoon was the Decree 171/98 which devised rules for managing estuarine resources. The legitimization of Decree 171/98 by I B A M A (central agency) may be seen as a positive sign of de-centralization and commitment to co-management. Although power was delegated to the local level (Forum), the process of creating rules locally was not certainly agreed by the whole interests group involved in the fisheries management, as it can be seen from the number of identified incongruities between rules and local and scientific knowledge, and by the fishers requests for revision of the Decree. On the other hand, one of the most important rules in Decree 171/98 (the access limitation) was challenged by the Federal government on the grounds of constitutional resource use rights to every Brazilian. This specific problem, which was later overcome by the Forum through political lobbying, shows the strong influence that central government still has on local 194 decisions. Also at the federal level, the split of power between I B A M A and the Ministry of Agriculture has removed from the local agency of I B A M A , the process of licensing. As a consequence, access control and the monitoring of artisanal fisheries activities (both associated with licensing), which were before in the hands of the Forum of Patos Lagoon, became jeopardized. A l l of the above give the opposite sign that management power is not yet shared by resource users, and that decisions are still largely influenced by the Federal government. On the other hand, facing problems of representation, legitimacy and recognition is creating a positive feedback through an institutional learning process where participants of the Forum of Patos Lagoon are developing the means to achieve a better internal organization to cope with the external influences, and therefore to strengthen the co-management arrangement. 195 Chapter 8. Conclusions: The Forum of Patos Lagoon: local lessons, national challenges and implications for conservation of natural coastal resources "...Our vision for small-scale fisheries is one in which they are no longer marginalized; where fishers are invited to participate in management decision-making and are empowered to do so; where poverty and food security are not persistent problems; and where the social-ecological system is managed sustainably.... It is a vision that sees the linkages between human and natural systems and recognizes the need for management approaches that address these linkages. It is a vision with a human face and a people focus — fishers and fishing communities. We understand that this is a broad vision, but we feel that it is achievable for many small-scale fisheries..." (Berkes et al., 2001, Chapter 8). Crises in the management of common property resources worldwide have led to the recognition of the need to change the basis of resource management and the importance of involving local resource users and communities in a meaningful way. Co-management has been suggested as an alternative approach to the sustainable use of fisheries common pool resources. The goal of this dissertation is to analyze the origin, maintenance, and outcomes of the local co-management regime of fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon in order to evaluate its strengths and weaknesses as an integrated management system of common property resources. The implications of this work to fisheries co-management were discussed in the individual chapters and are summarized in the following sections. 8.1. On the choice of an integrative framework for the analysis of the Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management The limitations of current approaches and the debates applied to deal in general with environmental management have raised the need for integrative frameworks that allow research studies in the field of natural resource management to be at the same time, policy relevant, meaningful to the resource users and to provide the best knowledge on ecological attributes on which to base management actions. In order to develop an integrative framework this thesis synthesizes concepts from integrated resource management, common property and co-management theory. The above theories allowed the analysis of the implementation of the 196 Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management arrangement from different perspectives, incorporating the natural (resource characteristics) and socio-economic systems. Integrated resource management theory focuses on the need to understand the relationship between social and ecological systems in order to reach a more sustainable management of natural resources. The relationship between social and ecological systems is mediated by institutions. Local institutions are an important part of the multi-level governance systems needed for resource management. Common property theory offers a set of principles present in local institutions that help determine the success of managing resources over time. Emphasis is however placed on the relationship/fit between the local institutions and the resources, and on the importance of local users as effective managers of small-scale resource systems. However large-scale institutions are also a necessary part of governance systems, and the type of link between the local and large-scale institutions influence the outcomes of management. Co-management theory presents, on the other hand, criteria to evaluate the cross-scale link of institutions. Rather than focusing primarily on local institutions, co-management brings in the importance of looking. at cross-scale arrangements (horizontal and vertical) to successful management and in this manner helps to explain the factors that influence the development of management at the local level. This case study has shown that fisheries co-management is a complex arrangement where artisanal fisheries is subjected to the cascading impact of other human activities and socio-political systems involving multiple parties and not only one community and one government agency. Finally to complement the analytical framework, it is important to integrate a third set of criteria that capture how concepts such as participatory research/management, local ecological knowledge, uncertainty and precautionary principles are an integral part of the paradigm of science and management. The paradigms reflect social values and worldviews which are driving forces behind the re-structuring of institutional arrangements. 197 8.2. Moving towards shared governance in the estuary of Patos Lagoon Characteristics of co-management are that it is neither community based nor government based, but a cross-scale linkage between different levels of governance. Co-management involves different institutional mechanisms of partnership, power sharing and integration between community-based and government-based management systems. These vary in a spectrum from consultation, where government consults with resource users before implementing rules to regulate the activity, to a situation in which communities are fully involved in the process of devising, implementing and enforcing rules in partnership with the government. This type of co-management is therefore defined by the roles of both government and community in the decision making process. The effective transition from a government-based, top-down management model (historically adopted in Brazil) towards a co-management model calls for the existence of mechanisms of community representation in the different levels of decision making as well as for the establishment of a governmental and legal structure that supports and sustains such arrangements. The Forum of Patos Lagoon represents a local initiative for the co-management of artisanal fisheries. It is composed of 21 institutions that have a stake in fisheries and coastal resources management, ranging from fishers communities representatives, civil society, government and non-government organizations. The analysis conducted in this thesis found that the Forum of the Patos Lagoon co-management arrangement is an attempt towards a sharing of responsibility and authority over the management of fisheries resources, but it still lacks the mechanisms for empowering the community and delivering such a model of shared governance of fisheries CPRs. It was possible to identify external (supracommunity) and internal (community) factors influencing positively/negatively the development of the Forum of Patos Lagoon. 198 On the one hand government (federal and state) incentives to decentralize decisions about fisheries management have acted in favor of legitimizing the rules locally devised and have empowered local institutions. On the other hand, the general lack of an integrated participatory management of coastal resources echoes a sectoral governmental structure, which has been supporting development policies that threaten local efforts to sustain small-scale fisheries activities. One notable example of the above was the split of fisheries management authority between I B A M A (resource conservation) and DPA (economic development) at the federal level, and the consequences it had on local efforts to control access to fisheries CPRs. Also the sharing of power between government and the Forum of Patos Lagoon has taken the form of delegation and not devolution, therefore the local institution is not totally influential in the decision making process (i.e., in the process of designing, implementing and enforcing laws and regulations with assistance from the government). Although the Forum of Patos Lagoon is working towards the goal of better management of small-scale fisheries activities in the estuary, and it is empowering the artisanal fisheries sector to bargain in the governance of coastal resources, there are still important adjustments to be made, particularly in the mechanisms of representation, before the outcomes of the Forum can better reflect the interests and knowledge of fishers. The Forum is delivering a stakeholder centered co-management model that works via a combination of partial empowerment through elite representatives. This category of co-management has fishers and other stakeholders represented through various organizational arrangements in management. As shown in the thesis, in the context of the artisanal fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon, this procedure has weaknesses related to problems in the representation of fishers interests by their representatives in the Forum. This in turn, when combined with the very low participation of fishers in the Forum, has led to decisions that are not fully agreed upon and, consequently, not supported by 199 artisanal fishers. In this regard, not much progress can be expected until the Forum of Patos Lagoon finds ways to widen the basis of power by enabling fishers to define problems from their perspectives and seek solutions which they regard as appropriate. 8.3. Empowerment through local knowledge - a mechanism for conservation One important aspect of a co-management system is the possibility it creates to use the traditional knowledge of fishers as a complement to scientific knowledge in the management process. This thesis has shown that it is possible to identify a system of knowledge used by small scale fishers in the estuary of Patos Lagoon to devise practices, tools and techniques for resource use. These fishing practices were part of an informal resource management system that helped maintain a productive and resilient small-scale fishery until the late 1980s. Internal and external factors have triggered changes in the basis of the local resource management which disrupted a pattern of resource use that was key for the sustainability of the artisanal fisheries. Changes in technology, increasing fishing pressure and institutional transformations (mostly at the government level) all had a role in breaking down local fisheries management. On the other hand the lack of an institutional structure to cope with these external forces was itself a condition that facilitated the erosion of local management practices. This study further demonstrated that fishers' knowledge can provide a valuable set of information about the relationship between the fisher and its local environment, and about the characteristics of management practices that led to a more sustainable pattern of resource use in the past. Such knowledge can contribute to the formulation of present management plans to better adapt rules to local social and environmental conditions. In this respect local knowledge can broaden the knowledge basis needed for management and hence improve institutions that mediate the interaction between communities and their use of the resources. Moreover the use of 200 the fishers knowledge in the establishment of the rules regulating small-scale fisheries in the estuary is, by itself, an element that can empower and better involve the resources users that impact and are impacted by fisheries activities in the Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management process. Although fishers knowledge is important and relevant for achieving sustainability in local fisheries management, it will only have meaning when it becomes recognised and legitimised at different levels of decision making. This study identified three inter-related factors influencing the use of local knowledge in the co-management of estuarine resources. On the one hand, the low expectations among scientists and decision makers of the value of fishers knowledge for management is influenced by the general illiteracy and socio-economic marginalization of artisanal fishers. Fishers, on the other hand, act sometimes against their knowledge about sustainable use of resources because of incongruences between management institutions and the characteristics of common property resources. In this sense, the case of the estuary of Patos Lagoon corroborates other examples of fisheries CPRs management worldwide and shows that although the development of local ecological knowledge is a necessary condition it is many times not a sufficient condition to achieve sustainability. A fundamental incentive to conservation relies on the definition of property rights to common property resources. Without translating fishers knowledge into property rights, that is, the set of management institutions, any incentive to conserve will disappear because there is no guarantee that the benefits of any management action will be accrued by the same individual or group that practices conservation. Importantly, this study has identified contradictory scientific paradigms in place that value differently the role of local knowledge in the management of the estuarine ecosystem. If on the one hand the move towards a civic science paradigm to deal with artisanal fisheries management is slowly happening inside the Forum of Patos Lagoon, there are many other activities 201 happening in the estuary, with a direct effect on artisanal fisheries, which are not taking into account bottom-up or participatory approaches. Fisheries co-management brings therefore a new paradigm to resource management in the region, one that is more inclusive, adaptive, that acknowledges the importance of different systems of knowledge-practice-belief, and that aims at achieving the sustainability of small-scale fisheries activities over time. 8.4. Sustainability on resource management: the institutional fit Underlying the problem of resource over-use and the "tragedy of the commons" is the mismatch of scales among different levels of institutions and between institutions and ecosystems. In the case of the small-scale fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon the problem of fit of institutions was analyzed from different perspectives, related to the definition of boundaries and rights to fisheries resources and the incongruities between rules and local environmental/resource conditions which can affect the sustainability of artisanal fisheries. Over time, the rights of fishers have been variously exercised in the management of the resources. Most recently, the significant definition of fishing rights was the fishing practices adopted by artisanal fishers, which involved interrelated mechanisms such as the definition of areas, periods and technologies for resource use. The history of fisheries management in the estuary has shown that many such practices, based mostly on local knowledge, were more congruent with local ecosystem characteristics and for many years maintained a sustainable use of resources. However, this system of management was never legitimized by higher level institutions, rather it was abandoned and transformed with the introduction of the centralization of management and the expansion of the industrialized sector during the 1960s and 1970s. During the period of government-based management, resources became unmanaged public properties to be harvested to the maximum capacity through incentives to the industrialization of fisheries. 202 The history of Brazilian coastal zone management and the outcome of resource management in the locality of Patos Lagoon has shown that use rights and patterns of incentives can lead the resources to depletion. The weakening of access limitation to small-scale fishers and opening to industrial fisheries, the failure to implement rules which are compatible to the maintenance of the resources, legitimized and complied, and the strong incentives to overexploitation instead of conservation, all represent causes of the current situation. An attempt has been made to change the decision making process in the management of artisanal fisheries at the local level with the establishment of the Forum of Patos Lagoon to co-manage the resources use and to break the shackles of the local tragedy. Despite this change there are still important institutional misfits that have to be dealt with in order to break the trap of the commons dilemma. Regulations developed by the Forum of Patos Lagoon paid close attention to defining resource boundaries and the rights to exclude other fishers to fish in the estuary. However they have not yet taken into account the fact that most resources exploited in the estuary also occur and are intensively fished in coastal waters by semi-industrial and industrial fisheries. That is, management boundaries do not coincide with fisheries CPR boundaries. Therefore the benefits to defining boundaries and limiting access within the estuary may be threatened if local fishers continue facing the risk that any benefits they produce by their efforts will be reaped by others who have not contributed to those efforts and who have not shared the same management interests. In addition to limit the appropriation of common pool resources through rights and boundaries delimitation, it is also important that rules are congruent with the characteristics of the exploited resources and ecosystem. This study has identified some mismatches in the management of fisheries CPRs that can potentially affect resources sustainability in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. 203 These are related to harvest technologies, used by both artisanal and industrial fisheries, that can have grave consequences to ecosystems and fisheries CPRs; the definition of calendars that are only partially congruent with artisanal fishing practice and the dynamic characteristics of the estuarine ecosystem; the lack of appropriate mechanisms to limit current levels of exploitation, which are beyond the carrying capacity of many resources; the weak institutional arrangements to monitor resource conditions and enforce management rules effectively; and the minor efforts from the Forum co-management and other environmental institutions, to develop an integrated coastal zone management plan which mitigate the actual misuses of coastal resources in the area (inter-institutional misfit). These mismatches of scale between institutions and ecosystem and among institutions can be related to the factors discussed above, and are also expected since the local co-management initiative (Forum of Patos Lagoon) is still young and will face many challenges to its organization during the process of institution building that is observed in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. Institutional learning has shown to be key to the evolution of the Forum co-management framework. The transition from a top-down management approach to a more decentralized one is not a rapid process because it involves changes in the institutional culture, the system of worldviews, the paradigm underlying resource management goals and procedures, and the structure of organizations dealing with management of natural resources. This study demonstrated that although more progress has to be made, the Forum of Patos Lagoon has had important outcomes and gained legitimacy over time. For the first time the small-scale fisheries sector is being heard and is gaining power to bargain in the decision making process. In this sense the Forum represents a move towards a transition in the resource management paradigm in place in the estuary of Patos Lagoon, namely, one that is more participatory, in tune with the functions of ecosystems and based on social mechanisms that facilitate the exchange of knowledge and 204 information necessary to build a resilient social-ecological system for the future, or what may be termed a move towards adoption of civic science. 8.5. Reflections on the Forum of the Patos Lagoon co-management system An important move towards a transition to a civic science has been triggered in the estuary of the Patos Lagoon. Why has this happened and what is its implication for local resources management in the region? The Forum of the Patos Lagoon was created out of a crisis: the decrease in the fisheries catches and the collapse of some resources were the main indicators of the degree of the problem. The inability of the responsible institutions at the time and the failure of the system of governance to properly manage the resources were the driving forces that triggered the move from a centralized top-down management approach to a bottom-up fisheries co-management arrangement. Although the history of the people involved in the Forum has shown to be peculiar, overall the main goal of their involvement is to achieve a partnership to devise mechanisms to recover the fisheries resource productivity and maintain the small-scale fisheries activity over time. The strategy was to build and integrate the interests and knowledge of the local fishers community, the information from scientists, complemented by the government's tasks to provide enabling legislation, enforcement and other assistance. The institutions involved in the Forum were selected based upon their responsibilities over various aspects of the management of coastal resources. Some institutions are more related to the management process, some to the technical and scientific issues, others to the social and economic aspects for those who struggle to regain the same benefits as in the past. Yet for a particular group - the fisher communities - it 205 represented a struggle for survival - the fight to maintain the culture of small-scale fishers alive. Overall the people and institutions that are present in the Forum deliver important co-management functions according to their mandates and capabilities. Therefore they are partners that complement each other and address the broad ecological, social, economical and institutional aspects of fisheries management. This is an important strength of the Forum on its own. The motivations that triggered the involvement of the institutions and their representatives varied, but the people and institutions involved are connected and each has an important role in the fisheries governance process. But what links them together is a common goal: a common vision for the future as they would like to see in the estuary of the Patos Lagoon. And in this future small-scale fisheries and the resources upon which they depend for a living will remain completing their social and ecological cycles over time. The Forum has achieved important outcomes. Fisheries management has become a more transparent process in which a set of interests, priorities and management rights have become explicit and openly discussed. Managing fisheries has proven to be a challenge in many governance systems of the world, as it involves different competing actors, and different geographical localities, different interests and different cultures that range from protection of resources to economic development at any cost. With the establishment of the Forum, management roles became more clearly identified, as for example, who are the stakeholders, their different rights over resources and management, how different objectives and priorities clash/match; whose interests are taken into account when policies are implemented, what kind of management functions can be performed and who can better perform them, and what are the main conflicts and their driving forces. 206 As a result of the Forum, rules were revised, and redesigned to better integrate management procedures with resources conditions and to fullfill the interests of artisanal fisheries. The framework of fisheries co-management provided the adoption of the civic science approach. It became more inclusive because it deals with groups of people that hold empirical and theoretical knowledge of the system being managed. Scientists, managers, and fishers are discussing collectively the best way to manage fisheries resources. Their goals have demonstrated to go beyond ecological preocupation, such as only protecting the fish, to address and to alleviate fishers communities social and economic problems. Within this co-management framework the Forum's participants became exposed to a broader view of fisheries CPR management problems. Most important was the sharing of the different possibilities of solving problems. In fact the people involved in the Forum are those who struggle with ways to avoid the fisheries CPR problem in their day-to-day lives. They have already faced a failure of the system, and they are now able to challenge the 'problem and devise a mechanism to pursue its solution. The small-scale artisanal fisheries, historically marginalized from management plans, are now being empowered to better negotiate their interests within the broader framework of coastal natural resource management. Through the Forum a link among science, communities and decision making has been established. This link has triggered a change in the scientific and management systems as well. Although at a slow pace, scientists are discovering a new field of knowledge that makes sense and complements their own knowledge system - the tradtional knowledge of fishers. The science has become more closely aligned to the communities and projects have started to evolve that are more meaningful, and applied to answer questions that both fishers and managers face in their day-to-day management activities. Examples are the research and development of bycatch reducing devices for artisanal trawling fisheries in the coastal area, the study of the dynamics of catfish fisheries and resources to devise rules to 207 recover fisheries productivity and the program of research and development created by the partnership between the university, Forum, I B A M A and municipalities to elaborate a long term management plan for artisanal fisheries in the Patos Lagoon. On the other hand, management has been improved by better adapting rules, and procedures to local conditions, that in turn have outcomes better accepted by the small-scale fisher communities. The traditional scientific and conventional top-down management paradigm has been broken and shifted towards the transition to a civic science for management within the Forum. Given that the interests of fishers are defended through a representative democracy, constraints were identified related to the genuine inclusion of fishers within the co-management arrangement, the degree of fairness, of justice to the whole group of interests involved, and the real acceptance and compliance of its outcomes. However changes towards this direction are evolving. Fisheries co-management in general standout from the fact that fishers have an informal knowledge system of the resources being managed. One feasible way to move towards a more inclusive approach to fully involve the small-scale fishers in the Forum co-management process, and to integrate local values into decision making is through the use of their traditional local knowledge. This study has shown that the knowledge held by small-scale fishers in the estuary represents an important contribution to the local management of the fisheries resources. It was observed also that a shift in the dynamic of the resources has happened and consequently, a change in the use practices has followed. Traditional knowledge and the set of rules in use were disrupted with the implementation of formal management practices designed at higher levels of government, by 208 managers. The practices used now are different from the ones that mediated the resource use in the past. If it is possible to return to that situation where the resources were more sustainably used still remains unknown. However, the lessons on how the system has changed, how management practices were broken and how some informal rules that mediated the use of the resources served conservation purpose, have been learned and can indeed help the initiatives for the future. This may represent the starting point to find out the new practices that could lead to the recovery of the system, from a situation of crisis to a more harmonic use of resources. As coastal resources management in general is still largelly controlled by centralized institutions (many that follow traditional scientific reductionist management approaches), the use of fishers knowledge may be hampered if it is not recognized by them as valuable information. Also the implementation of more participatory-type of management approaches can be challenged. This study has demonstrated that a cross-scale institutional arrangement that links local level management to the small-scale communities and to higher levels of decision making may facilitate the flow of information among such levels. The existence of informal institutional arrangements at the local level, however, has been shown not to be sufficient i f there is a lack of internal mechanisms at local levels to couple with both internal and external management pressures. The case of fisheries CPR management has been more complicated given the characteristics of unpredictibility, high susceptibility to natural conditions and technological changes, high mobility and by being the target of different resource-users and impacted by the most diverse coastal activities besides fishery (e.g. port, agriculture). Adding to this, is the important economic and social value of these resources, and political interests of particular economic activities may jeopardize the process i f an intricate mechanism to deal with external forces is not devised. In fact, the system in the estuary was disrupted because external factors and the lack of internal mechanisms to deal with changes arose. These 209 were driven mainly by the interests for coastal economic development caused by technological changes, reallocation of fishing territories, management boundaries and fishing rights. However barriers are being broken and in fact, the use of local knowledge both as a way to complement scientific knowledge and a way to empower the involvement of the communities into the Forum is being implemented with the revision of fishing calendars, for example, to better adapt them to the characteristics of the system, as the fishers recommended and the scientists agreed. In this sense, this study has shown that the knowledge held by fishers and some of the practices they implemented that mediated the resources use may envision alternative solutions for the future. Their knowledge is part of a practice-beliefs system that may complement the lack of information to devise better management strategies. The Forum of the Patos Lagoon was found to be not only an excellent place to share knowledge and management interests, but also a laboratory by which to raise fundamental questions that can be turned into important research objectives and/or hypothesis to be developed, which in turn can improve the scientific knowledge for management, and better management practices on the ground. It has shown also to be an appropriate way to deal with conflicts. Natural resource management is most of the time about managing conflicts. Making such conflicts explicit is a way to envisage its solution, and creating the mechanisms to deal with it at the local level may change higher levels of decision making. Many conflict situations have happened since the creation of the Forum, and new conflicts will certainly continue to occur. However, when facing conflicting situations that could jeopardize the Forum's outcomes, new mechanisms were devised that challenged top-down management initiatives which would have never been contested, prior to the existence of the Forum. What it is seen in the Forum is a clear and practical example of an adaptive management system, where 210 the participants are "learning by doing". The co-management initiative through the Forum of the Patos Lagoon has shown that the objectives and goals that are expected to be achieved are constantly reviewed, changed and priorities redefined as the difficulties appear. The management of complex natural systems has proven to need complex and dynamic institutions to deal with the complex issues. There are many questions that remain unsolved but this is part of the evolution process and institutional learning. The Forum of the Patos Lagoon has shown the importance of maintaining a partnership in the governance of the resources, where different management attributions can be shared among functions whose mandates are the responsibility of different institutions. The Forum co-management framework has shown to be adaptive; through a learning process, information has been shared among stakeholders, leading to continuous modifications and improvements in management. It is participatory and allows the development of a flexible action plan that maintains a place for discussion and a structure for action on rule making, conflict management, power sharing, leadership, dialogue, decision-making, negotiation, knowledge generation and sharing, learning, and development among resource users, stakeholders and government. The Forum has demonstrated that it is possible to involve different interests congruently in discussing action plans for management. It has demonstrated that resource management is a laboratory of managing conflicts, and learning how to make tradeoffs and putting each personal interest in a more global perspective of goals, objectives and priorities. This does not mean that personal interests are put aside, it means that it can be combined in the frame of heterogeneous interests and still achieve a common pattern. This is part of the negotiation game. Definitely one enters in the Forum for the first time with one perspective of the issues and leaves the place with a better understanding of people's motivations and a rich knowledge about the complexities of managing common pool resources. Also one understands that it is together that solutions can be crafted. 211 References Abdallah, P. R., Atividade pesqueira no Brasil: Politica e Evolucao. Tese de Doutorado. Escola Superior de Agricultura "Luiz de Queiroz", Universidade de Sao Paulo. 130 p., 1998. Abes, R. 1998. 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Interviews - Elites of the Estuary of Patos Lagoon Target population: Members of local community; researcher from the university; Banker; entrepreneur; superintendent of the port of Rio Grande; fishermen; secretary of Agriculture, environment and Fisheries; Mayor; member of a non-environmental organization that work with communities projects; newspaper editor; politician; tourism associated; Head of the Rio Grande do Sul Rice Institute (IRGA), farmer worker, head of the mayor office and former regional head of the Brazilian Institute for Environment and Renewable Resources ( IBAMA). I) General perception of problems 1) What characteristics the Estuarine Area of the Patos Lagoon Coastal system should have to be consider healthy? Is there any evidence that show that this region is not healthy? What is the evidence of that? How can you perceive that, is it visible? 2) Would you say that protecting the environment is important? Why? (If no, Why not?) 3) What do you consider the most important ecosystems (areas) of the Estuarine Region of Patos Lagoon? 3.1) Why are they considered important? 3.2) What are the important attributes (functions) of these ecosystems? 4) What kind of problems (environmental, social, economical) do you face in this region? 5) What kind of problems (environmental, social, economical) are important in this region? What factors would you say affect the problems you consider important to this region? Can you recall a point of life (ecological experience) that happened that this became an important issue?. 6) In your opinion what are the causes and consequences of such problems and how do they affect you directly and indirectly? 7) Is there any conflict among uses of natural resources in the area? Can you explain the evidence and causes for the conflicts? 8) Is there any action taking place in this region to deal with any problems you perceive? 8.1) If yes, who is involved on these actions? 8.2) Are these actions effective? 8.3) Can you explain more about the pros and cons of these actions? 9) How do you see the economical development in this region? Do you see any positive and or negative evidence associated with the economical development and the environmental quality in this region? Can you explain ? 10) What do you consider the most important activities taking place in Estuarine Region of Patos Lagoon? Do you notice any impact (positive and or negative) to the environment associated with the activities you consider important? 10.1) What are the main characteristics of these activities? 230 10.2) What are the impacts of these activities on the ecosystems (areas) of the Estuarine Region of Patos Lagoon? Which of the impacts are of major concern in this region? 10.3) What impacting activities should be the focus of management policies? (If not covered by the questions above, the following issues will be brought to discussion; If covered skip to the next question: (a) Do you consider fisheries an important activity in the Estuary? If yes, which factor make fisheries an important activity? How do you see the actual exploitation of fisheries resources in the Estuarine Region? Is the fisheries activity getting better or worse? What are the factors could be of evidence for your opinion? (b) Tell me how do you see the importance of tourism for this region, please specify positive and negative points. Do you think there are some specific environmental problems associated with tourist activities? If yes, Why?. If yes, can you explain the factors associated with tourism that affect the environment? Do you consider the season an important component associated with tourism? According to your opinion, what could be done to improve the quality of tourist activities in the region? (c) Do you consider agriculture an important activity affecting this region? If yes, in which aspects? (d) How do you see the industrial development in this region? What type of industries do you think are more desirable to the ZPE? In which aspects and Why those industries are more desirable? How do you think industrial activities affect the environment? Do you recall the attempt made in early 1990's to implement a pulp mil industry in Rio Grande? (If no, explain the event) If yes, Were you in favor or contrary to the proposed project in that time? Why? Would you say that your opinion related to this subject would be the same nowadays? If yes, Why? If no, Why not? What factors made you change your mind? 11) Is the community consulted and/or involved in any kind of management program developed in this region? 11.1) If yes, how is the community involved? 12.2) If no, in your opinion should the community be consulted and/or involved in management programs for this region? 13.3) Why and how do you suggest that this involvement be done in practice? 14) Have you ever been consulted and/or involved in any kind of management program developed in this region? How? When? Can you provide a comment on it? 15) In your opinion, would you say that the ecosystems and/or environmental quality in the Estuarine region of the Patos Lagoon Coastal System have been increased/degraded ? 16) Do you think that management policies in the Estuarine region of the Patos Lagoon Coastal System are effective? If yes, in which aspects? If no, in your opinion how could the policies be improved? 17) What kind of policy changes would you like to see being implemented here? What action plans do you consider of priority here? If you could design a management plan to deal with the actual problems or to avoid new ones, what would you do? What factors would you consider to be important? 18) What should be the management priorities for this region in terms of resources allocation? 231 I would like to finish the interview by asking you some background questions. You can refuse to answer any questions you'd rather not answer, just say so. II) Background information 1) Age 2) Do you have children? If yes, how many and age of oldest and youngest 3) For how long have you lived here? If recently moved to this region, where are you from? 4) What education level have you achieved? 5) Occupation (experts - field of expertise in the natural/social sciences or your main occupation/ activity). 6) What do you do in your job? What are your main sources of news? How would you describe yourself politically? Interviewer comments: M/F date, time, length of interview where interview done other observation 232 Appendix II: Semi-structured open ended interview A) INTERVIEW WITH FISHER A. I) IDENTIFICATION AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION Date: Local: Tape # Time: Name Birth date: Where are you from? What do you do? For how long have you been fishing here? What does it mean to fish? It is common to hear that fisheries resources have declined. In your opinion do you think there is a decline in fisheries resources? Why - what are the causes of the decline in the fisheries resources? Compared to the past do you catch more fish today or 30 years ago? How many nets did you use in the past (30 years ago) to load a boat during a fishing trip? How many do you use now to catch the same amount? And about the size of the fish or shrimp caught, the fish and shrimp you catch today is of the same size of the ones you used to catch around 30 years ago? Who (which sector) do you think generally has the most influence on the management of artisanal fisheries resources in the estuary? Why? In your experience what are the factors contributing to the crisis in the artisanal fisheries sector? In your opinion, who should be responsible for improving the management of the fisheries resources as you would like to see? government alone fishermen only both government and fishermen Why? In your opinion is there anything that would make difficult for people involved in the fisheries management to work together to improve the status of resources? yes no What is the main difficulty? 233 Have you heard about the Forum of Patos Lagoon? How did you first come to know about the Forum? Do you think it is important? Have you ever participated of the meetings? What is the most important thing you would like to see improving with the management of fisheries resources as it has been established by the Forum? A.II) INTERNAL FACTORS FOR ORGANIZING FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION BOUNDARIES Historically, who used to fish (exploit ) artisanal fisheries resources in the estuary? How was the fisheries activity done in the past? Before the 60's Who can fish in the estuary? And in the coast? Who fish in the estuary and coastal areas? Where do you fish? Do you go in the coast to fish? Have you always been fishing here or have you used another fishing ground in the past? Where? Why has it changed? Tell me about it? Is there any restriction that impede you to fish in the ground you do fish? When do you fish? Tell me about the fishing calendar that you follow? Has this calendar changed? When? Why? Is there any rule here restricting who can enter into the estuary to fish or restricting fishing activity on the coastal waters? Can you explain to me how do this rule work? Who has implemented it? Do you mind that the "catarina" (fisher from the neighbor state of Santa Catarina) fisher come here to fish? Why? Have you ever been in Santa Catarina to fish? Why not? In your opinion what is the fishery that do you think is not adequate here? Tell me about it? Is there any kind of conflict among fishers here? Do you go fishing up in the lagoon? Do you have any problems with the communities that live there, do they allow you to fish up there? And do fishers from Sao Lourenco, Pelotas and Sao Jose do Norte come to fish here? Do you mind? I have a map here with me, could you draw on the map the main territories that you either used to fish in the past and fish now and explain how it works, when do you use such fishing grounds to fish, what kind of fish do you catch and when (in which season)? Is the rights over the resources an issue in the estuary? Do you think it is important to exclude some people from fishing around here? If no, Why not and i f yes, Who and Why? Do you think would be important for the artisanal fisheries to close the coastal area near by the jetties for the fisheries activity? If do they close that area what impact would it have on you? What do you think they should do there? If they do close there how should they do it? 234 A.III) CONGRUENCE BETWEEN MANAGEMENT RULES AND L O C A L CONDITIONS - PROBLEM OF FIT Are you familiar with the fisheries management legislation? How do you manage the resources? How was the regulation to manage the resources created? And by whom? Who is responsible for setting the rules? Have you ever been consulted to the rule making process here? Can you tell me about how are the rules for the fishing calendar when do you can fish? What type of net can you use? What is the size of the net for each of the species you catch? What do you think is wrong with the rules on paper? How do you think it should be? When was the trawling introduced in the lagoon? How did you fish before the introduction of the trawling? Why have you changed? Do you use stownet to catch shrimp? Why? Why not? When was stowned first introduced here? Who said that this was the best technology to catch the shrimp? What do you think about it? Which technology do you think is more appropriate to use to catch shrimp here? Why? Do you use it? In your opinion, how effective has regulation been in avoiding overuse/over exploitation? What is the strategy in place to help changing the overexploitation condition of the estuarine fisheries resources? Is/was there any informal rule (practice) to avoid catching small fish (juveniles); spawning fish in the past? Is/was there any temporal closure during the year? Why? How and who has designed it? Are those effectively implemented, monitored and enforced? How has it changed? By whom? Is/was there any spatial closure areas where fisheries was not practiced? Why? How and who has designed it? Are those effectively implemented, monitored and enforced? By whom? Is/was there any rules/programs/plans to protect /conserve estuarine habitats? Which one? Why? Are those effectively implemented, monitored and enforced? By whom? Are you familiar with the Decree 171/98 and 024/00? Who told you about it? A . IV) COLLECTIVE-CHOICE Is there any type of community association within this village? 235 Do fishers meet regularly to discuss issues of their interest? Have you ever participated of community meetings? Have you ever participated in the process of defining the rules to manage artisanal fisheries resources? Who have participated in defining the rules currently in use? How was the process of defining rules? Who was involved? When was stownet first introduced here, did you get involved in this process? Do you feel that there is a space or interest for your input into this process? Why? Would you like to participate? Why and how? If you have to modify the way to extract the resources and the rules applied to catch the fisheries what would you do? A. V) REGULATION (MONITORING) Is there any monitoring system in the estuary of the Patos lagoon? When is it done? How often is the monitoring done? Who does it? Is the monitoring applied to areas outside the estuary? Have you ever been assessed graduated sanctions for violating rules? When and why? What did they do? Do sanctions varies depending on the seriousness and context of the offense, depending on the fisher that is caught, depending on who fish? Do you feel sanctions are assigned equally to everybody? Have you ever saw any irregularities in the fisheries activity or in other activity that impact the fisheries? Do you agree with the process of monitoring and rules enforcement? Why? What do you think is wrong? How do you think it should be done? Are violators of the management norms and regulations assessed with graduated sanctions? By whom? Who do you think should be responsible for the monitoring? Government only Fishermen Government and Fishermen Why? What are the main difficulties to involve the community in the monitoring process? Would you like to be involved in the monitoring process? A. VI) L E G A L AND LEGITIMATE RECOGNITION 236 In your opinion what are the main positive and negative aspects of the Decree 171? Do you feel that rules established should be constantly revised according to change of knowledge and resources conditions? Why (not)? Do you feel the rules in place are flexible enough to accommodate changes when they are needed? Why? Do you agree and follow the rules? What do you think is wrong and should be changed in the current rules? 237 B. INTERVIEW WITH THE FORUM OF PATOS LAGOON PARTICIPANTS (ACTIVE PARTICIPANTS) B. I) REPRESENTATION AND POWER RELATIONSHIPS When was the first time you got to know the Forum of Patos Lagoon? What is the Forum? What are its objectives? How was it created? Why it was created? Were you involved in the creation of the Forum? What were the driving forces behind the creation of the Forum? What is your desired outcome in the use of estuarine fisheries resources that you expect to accomplish with the establishment of the Forum? Do you participate of the Forum Meetings? Why, why not? Since when? How often do you come to the meetings? In the last years how many times have you come to the meetings? Do you like participating of the Forum? Why do you participate? What factors have motivated you to participate of the Forum meetings? Is your participation in the Forum's meetings voluntary? Did somebody recommend you to participate? When did you get involved in the Forum meetings? What are your interests when you participate of the meetings? Is there any problem(s) that concern you the most, and that you intend to solve, when you come to the table? Who do you represent? Do you represent somebody, a group or yourself when you sit in the Forum? Whose interests do you support? Defend? Can you explain the details to me how do this work? Do you always make decisions according to your group or sometimes you do represent your own interests which diverge a bit from your group? When you come to the meetings, do you have an agenda of issues that you want to be dealt with? If yes, do you usually discuss about this agenda with somebody else beforehand? How often does this happen? Is there a general agenda for the Forum meetings? Who defines it? Is it communicated beforehand? Has the agenda or discussions been covering issues that are of your interest (never, rarely, frequently, always)? Why? What are the issues discussed during the Forum meetings? What are the issues that should be discussed and why? What is not been said? Is the Forum not good to discuss a particular issue? Why not? What is your role in the Forum? Are you familiar with everybody else role and interests? What do you have to say about the meetings? Do you think the Forum is inclusive to all people that either have direct interest on fisheries or that can indirectly affect fisheries in the estuary? Do you think the Forum members are trying to include everyone into the process? Who, or which group, do you think it should be present in 238 the meetings but it has not been involved so far? Why do you think this group/person should be present but it is not? Which strategy would you recommend to bring other people, that according to you, should be involved? Do you feel ready to participate in these kind of process? How do you see the others participants of this process? Do you have something to say about them? Have you ever participated of this kind of process before? Which one? How was it? Have you ever participated, for instance, of a neighbor community meetings to make decision or other type of collective decisions? Do you feel you have been heard or given a voice on the decisions made? Do you think your interests are being taken into account when decisions are made? Can you provide me with some examples of decisions made that had your input? Do you feel it is important in these kind of decisions to bring every one into the discussions and to make decisions collectively (always, sometimes, never)? Why? Do you think your interests are being accomplished through the process? Why, if not why not? Do you have any complains about the process? What are your main concerns? Are you happy with it? Do you listen to what others participants have to say? Do you think what they have to say is important? Do you feel you have learned throughout this process? Can you share with me a little bit of your experience? Are all interest/affected parties invited to participate in discussions? Do the invited parties effectively participate in the meetings? Have attempts been made to identify parties having a legitimate interest in the use and management of estuarine fisheries that are not currently participating of the meetings? Could you list some of them? Have arrangements been made to consult these parties and gain their collaboration? How? Do you feel you have an equal opportunity to express your opinions in any issue? Do decisions made reflect a consensus? If yes, how is the consensus reached? Do you exchange ideas/concerns with other Forum participants outside the meetings? How often? To whom? Why? Is there any conflict of interest among fishermen and between fishermen and other stakeholder groups; or other kind of conflict in place? 239 In your point of view, how often do participants have conflicting views about an issue? What kind of conflicts? Are those conflicts been solved? In what way? Have you ever though of giving up the meetings? When, in which circumstance and Why? Have you ever abandoned the meetings? When? Why? What did make you to come back to meetings? Do you feel all interest groups must have equal access to relevant information and the opportunity to participate effectively throughout the process Do you feel all interest groups do have equal access to relevant information and the opportunity to participate effectively throughout the process Are issues that have been discussed - and actions that have been decided by the Forum components - during the Forum's meetings - automatically put into practice? Does the I B A M A or other agency recognize and accept the decisions made by the Forum? How does this process occur? How do you feel about it? B. II) ADAPTIVE LEARNING How has the Forum evolved? What were the changes in the Forum since you came to be involved with it? How different is the Forum today from when it was established? Were there periods of crisis during these years? What kind of crisis, can you list some? Were they solved? How? Have you ever thought of quitting? Why? In your experience what are the main accomplishments of the Forum? Do they reflect your particular interest? What are your (your group) main accomplishments in the Forum? What are your frustrations with the Forum? What are your expectations with the Forum? How can you describe your experience with the Forum of Patos Lagoon? What is the most important thing you would like to see improving with the management of fisheries resources as it has been established by the Forum? 240 Do you think the government support the process? How? What do you think should be improved? Do you see any external and/or internal factors that have been impeding/jeopardizing the process? Can you tell me about it? Do you see any external and/or internal factors that have been facilitating the process? Can you tell me about it? 241 C. INTERVIEW WITH THE FORUM OF PATOS LAGOON PARTICIPANTS (NON-ACTIVE PARTICIPANTS) Date: Local: Tape # Time: Name What is the main attribution of your institution? Do you know the Forum of Patos lagoon? How did you first know about it? Have you ever been invited to participate of the Forum meetings? By whom? Have you ever been in the meetings? Why? In your opinion in which way you and your institutions can contribute to the Forum? What does the Forum contribution affect your activity? 242 D. INTERVIEW WITH RESEARCHERS, GOVERNMENTAL OFFICIALS D. I) IDENTIFICATION AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION Date: Local: Tape # Time: Name Where are you from? What do you do? It is common to hear that fisheries resources have declined, in your opinion do you think there is a decline in fisheries resources? Why - what are the causes of the decline in the fisheries resources? Compared to the past how has changed? Who (which sector) do you think generally has the most influence on the management of artisanal fisheries resources in the estuary? Why? In your experience what are the factors contributing to the crisis in the artisanal fisheries sector? In your opinion, who should be responsible for improving the management of the fisheries resources as you would like to see? government alone fishermen only both government and fishermen Why? In your opinion is there anything that would make difficult for people involved in the fisheries management to work together to improve the status of resources? yes no What is the main difficulty? D. II) INTERNAL FACTORS FOR ORGANIZING FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION BOUNDARIES Historically, who used to fish (exploit) artisanal fisheries resources in the estuary? How was the fisheries activity done in the past? Before the 60's? How has it changed? Was/is there any boundary defined to exploit the resources? Who can fish in the estuary? Where they can fish? When they can fish? How they can fish? How much can be fished and by whom? Is this pattern changing over time? Why? 243 How do the access to resource was controlled (defined), for instance, was/is it based on territoriality, historical activity (being fishermen) or any other criteria? Is/was there any legitimate rights to exclude people from the artisanal fisheries activity? Who? How is/was this enforced? How has the fishing activity changed over time means of production technology area (geographical) number of people involved institutions involved (processes that have triggered such changes) In your opinion what factors have triggered those changes? What are/were resource management institutions for artisanal fisheries management and their attributions? Under what management regimes (open access, communal, state...) are/were the resources exploited over their distribution range Who has the rights to use the resources, according to legislation and in practical terms? Who defines the rights over the resources? Is the rights over the resources an issue in the estuary? Why? How are rules/regulation to manage the resources created? And by whom? Under how many management jurisdictions are the artisanal fisheries resources in the Patos Lagoon? Are there management rules defined to protect essential fish habitat? Are those rules fully implemented? What are the main problems associated with the implementation of such rules? D. Ill) CONGRUENCE BETWEEN MANAGEMENT RULES AND L O C A L CONDITIONS - PROBLEM OF FIT The Decree 171/98 is the current instrument to manage fisheries activity within the estuary, how was it designed? Why was it design the way it is? Why is the Decree 171/98 applied only to manage artisanal fisheries within the estuary and not applied also to the outside coastal areas? Do you think this is an issue here? Why? How was the current calendar that controls the fishing activity done? Who has been involved in its design? When and why was the stownet became allowed in the estuary? Why was those the selected allowed technology? 244 In your opinion, how effective has regulation been in avoiding overuse/over exploitation? What is the strategy in place to help changing the overexploitation condition of the estuarine fisheries resources? Is/was there any informal rule (practice) to avoid catching small fish (juveniles); spawning fish in the past? Is/was there any temporal closure during the year? Why? How and who has designed it? Are those effectively implemented, monitored and enforced? How has it changed? By whom? Is/was there any spatial closure areas where fisheries was not practiced? Why? How and who has designed it? Are those effectively implemented, monitored and enforced? By whom? Is/was there any rules/programs/plans to protect /conserve estuarine habitats? Which one? Why? Are those effectively implemented, monitored and enforced? By whom? D. IV) COLLECTIVE-CHOICE Who has participated in defining the rules currently in use? How was the process of defining rules? How was the process of involving users in defining rules? Who was involved? Do you think the fisher community are organized to collectively manage fisheries resources? Why? Is there any form of informal rules used by the community and/or traditional ways to use the resources that became formalized as a rule on paper to manage the resources? Can you provide me with examples In the case of Decree 171, who was involved in the definition of rules in place? Who has decided on the rules? What is your opinion about the Decree 171, is it good? In the case of Decree 024/00, who was involved in its modification? Why was it modified? In your opinion what are the implication of this Decree for the use of estuarine resources? Do you have any concerns/problems with it? May individuals who are affected by the rules participate in modifying them overtime? Are rules modified overtime to better fit rules to local conditions? D. V) REPRESENTATION AND POWER RELATIONSHIPS What are the current government policies to fisheries sector? Within the coastal area of the Patos Lagoon, what are the government priorities in place, what kind of incentives have been made/will be made and to which sector? Do these priorities have an effect on the process of co-management in the estuary of Patos Lagoon? In which way? 245 What are the attributions of I B A M A regarding management of artisanal fisheries resources? What are its priorities for the sector? What are the attributions of Department of fisheries and aquaculture regarding management of artisanal fisheries resources? What are its priorities for the sector? Are there any conflicts (mandates, interests, priorities, incentives) between those two agencies? How do these conflicts affect the process of co-management in the estuary? What kind of structural/process changes may happen and/or have happened? Does the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture recognize the Forum of Patos Lagoon? How? Are decisions made in the Forum implemented by DPA? How is this process done? Is participatory management in the DPA agenda? Does I B A M A recognize the Forum of Patos Lagoon? How? Are decisions made in the Forum implemented by I B A M A ? How is this process done? Is participatory management in the DPA agenda? Does the Forum of Patos Lagoon represent all parties with influence on/influenced by artisanal fisheries? Before the Decree 171, were there any kind of fisheries regulations (formal, informal, both) for the estuary of Patos Lagoon? Which ones? How different is the current Decree 171 from the other established? When was the first fisheries legislation established to manage fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon? And in Brazil? Was there any other form of (informal) regulation adopted by fishers before this period, that you are familiar with? How was it done? How the rules now in place have been designed (the process)? Who was involved in the design process? What were the main proposals presented? Which one was chosen? Why? How many time was spent in redesigning the rules? What were the changes in the fisheries sector with the Decree 171? Would you relate somehow the collapse of estuarine fisheries today to the establishment of the Decree 221/67? Why? What were the changes (impact) in the estuarine fisheries of the estuary of Patos Lagoon (technologies, fishers, resources) with the establishment of Decree 221/67? Considering the Decree 171: What is the difference between the process of the design of 171 and the other past regulations? How was the Decree 171 designed? Who was involved in the design of Decree 171? 246 What kind of knowledge was used in the design of rules? Were there inputs from fishers, scientists, other officials? How was this input done? Who has decided that the Catarina fisher should be excluded to fish in the estuary? Why the issue of property rights became important in the estuary? Who has raised this issue? Is there any fisheries regulation to coastal and industrial fisheries? What are they? What are the legislation that cover the management of migratory resources? D. VI) PRECAUTIONARY APPROACH Are you familiar with the precautionary principle? Do you think the precautionary principle is important/relevant for artisanal fisheries management? Is there a precautionary approach for fisheries management in place? Is it implemented? In your opinion are there natural processes that are not currently completely understood and that would improve management of estuarine fisheries? What are they? How they would improve management? Are there measures such as research, monitoring, taking place to improve understanding of these processes? Are there rules in place to protect essential fish habitat for the artisanal fisheries resources? How effective they are? Is there a long term management plan in place being implemented to recover the status of artisanal fisheries? Which one - who was involved in its elaboration/implementation? Where management decisions have been concentrated? According to you where management decisions should be concentrated on? What future do you envision for the estuary and for the artisanal fisheries? Do you feel this is being accomplished? D. VII) RULES AND IMPLEMENTATION What is the main attribution, responsibility of the enforcement unit? Which area does the monitoring system cover? How is the monitoring system in the estuary of the Patos lagoon done? How many people work in the enforcement unit division? For the migratory resources is the monitoring applied outside the estuary done? Who is responsible for doing monitoring? 247 How often is the monitoring done? General do users follow the rules? Usually how many fishermen are accessed penalties for not following the rules? In the last year how many penalties were assessed and mainly to whom? Monitoring and sanctioning are performed by government only, by users or by both? How is the mechanisms to assess graduated sanctions to people who violate operational rules (depending on the seriousness and context of the offense) done? Are violators of the management norms and regulations assessed with graduated sanctions? By whom? Are there in place any of the following (observer programs; inspection schemes; vessel (gears)) monitoring schemes? Is the monitoring part of a plan or program to manage estuarine fisheries resources? What are the main difficulties faced to implement/enforce the law? 248 Appendix III. Survey - Closed Ended FISHERS COMMUNITY A.I) REPRESENTATION 1) Have you heard about the Forum of Patos Lagoon? No Yes If yes, go to QUESTION 2 If no, move to other section of the questionnaire - QUESTION 11 2) If yes, How? Radio/Television Church Friends Newspaper I B A M A Fishermen colony Other 3) Have you ever participated of the Forum meetings? Not at all Once or twice More than twice monthly If no, move to other section of the questionnaire - QUESTION 11 4) Does the Forum help fishers? No A little A lot Doesn't know 5) Are fishers interests represented in the Forum? No Yes Sometimes 6) Does the Forum works towards the needs of fishers? No Yes Sometimes 7) Why did you not participate of the Forum meetings? a) because the meetings take place far away from the place I live (place) b) because the time the meetings are not good form me (timing) c) because the dates of the meetings are not good for me (Date) d) because it is expensive for me to go from my village to the place where the meeting take place e) Other 8) Do fishers have a saying in the Forum meetings ? No Yes Sometimes 249 9) In your opinion, the decisions taken in the Forum are made in a consensus based? No Yes Sometimes 9a) If not or sometimes, who do you think has the power over the decisions taken in the Forum a) I B A M A b) F U R G c) Fisher Pastoral d) Artisanal fishers e) Fishers Colony f) Forum of Patos Lagoon g) No opinion h) Others (specify) 10) When do you go who pays the expenses? You_ Church I B A M A Fishermen colony Other 250 A.II) REGULATION 11) Do you agree with the following fishing calendars? Mullet: October to May No Yes Does not know Croaker: October - February No Yes Does not know Catfish: October to November No Yes Does not know Catfish: March to May No Yes Does not know Catfish: October to November and March to May No Yes Does not know Shrimp: February to May No Yes Does not know 12) If you could decide about the fishing calendars, what do you think should be the calendar for the following species? a) Mullet: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dez b) Croaker Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dez c) Catfish Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dez d) Shrimp Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dez 13) Do you think the calendar for shrimp should be established each year according to the monitoring of shrimp size? No Yes Sometimes 14) Which of the following techniques do you use in the lagoon? Emalhe (gillnet) Feiticeira (trammel net) Trolha (type of Purse seine) Prancha, arrasto (trawling) Aviaozinho, saquinho (Stownet) Rede de saco (bag net) Coca (manual trawling) Berimbau ou Gerival 251 15) Do you think your situation as a fisher will improve only if you had the resources to invest in the fishing technologies? No Yes 16) Here are the 4 outcomes of the Forum, which one is the most important to you (list them from 1 most important to 4 less important)? a) Welfare during fishing closure b) Closing access to catarina fisher c) Fishing calendar d) Opportunities for fishers participation in decisions 17) Here are 4 issues that we see fisher complaining about, which one is the most important to you that the Forum should work on (list them from 1 most important to 4 less important)? Forbid purse seines to fish close to the mouth of the estuary Stop artisanal fisheries with stownets Allow to fish with artisanal trawling in the channel waters of the estuary More enforcement in the 3 miles zone More enforcement in the estuary 18) How important is the coastal area as a fishing ground for you? Not Important Important Very important 19) Do you fish marine shrimp? No Yes 20) How often do you fish in the coastal area during the croaker fishing season? Every day when the weather is good Once a week Once a month Never 21) What is the proportion of the total croaker caught in coastal waters? Less than 10 % Between 10 and 30 % Between 30 and 50 % More than 50% 252 22) Do you think the marine area off the mouth of Patos lagoon should be made a protected area? No Yes 23) In your opinion who should be allowed to fish in area off the mouth of the Patos lagoon? Artisanal fishers Purse seiners Semi-industrial vessels (Gillnets) Nobody 24) Do you agree with the following rules? Fishing closure from June to September No Yes No opinion Maximum of 10 stownets per fisher No Yes No opinion Forbid trawling in the channels No Yes No opinion Forbid trawling in the shoals No Yes No opinion Forbid artisanal trawling in the coastal No Yes No opinion waters Forbid manual trawling (coca) No Yes No opinion Allow foreign trawlers to fish in Rio No Yes No opinion Grande Forbid catarina fishers in the lagoon No Yes No opinion Receive welfare during fishing closure No Yes No opinion 25) According to your knowledge which of the following fishing practices would you say that do not damage or damage the environment. List the most damaging practices to the resources and environment? (1) Coca (2) Saquinho, aviaozinho (Stownets) (3) Prancha (trawling) (4) Rede de Saco (Bag net) (5) Emalhe (Gillnet) (6) Purse seiners at the mouth of the lagoon (7) Others 253 26) Do you comply with the following rules? Calendars No Partially Yes Number of nets No Partially Yes Mesh size No Partially Yes Minimum fish/shrimp size No Partially Yes Trawl within the 3 miles zone No Partially Yes Use artisanal trawling (coca) in the shallows No Partially Yes If you use stownet, do you follow the determined space No Partially Yes Trawl (trolha) in the estuary No Partially Yes 27) Do you think the fishers you know comply with the following rules? Calendars No Partially Yes Number of nets No Partially Yes Mesh size No Partially Yes Minimum fish/shrimp size No Partially Yes Trawl within the 3 miles zone No Partially Yes Use artisanal trawling (coca) in the shallows No Partially Yes If you use stownet, do you follow the determined space No Partially Yes Trawl (trolha) in the estuary No Partially Yes 28) Have you ever been applied sanctions for not following the rules? Never Once Between 2 and 5 times More than 5 times More than 20 times 29) Do you know any fisher that has been applied sanctions for not following the rules ? Never Once Between 2 and 5 times More than 5 times More than 20 times 30) Do you think that enforcement is needed? No Yes 254 31) Is there any enforcement within the estuary? No Yes Sometimes Does not know 32) Is there any enforcement within the 3 miles zone? No Yes Sometimes Does not know 33) Which of the following affirmative do you think is correct? It is important to have a closure within the estuary of Patos Lagoon Closures within the estuary are not necessary because the environment creates the potential for natural closures 34) Do you feel enforcement is targeted equally to all fishers (small scale artisanal and industrial fishers)? No Yes Sometimes No answer If NOT or SOMETIMES 35) Which sector is more targeted? Artisanal Industrial 36) Who do you think should be responsible for enforcement? I B A M A Fishermen Navy Patram 37) How did you find out about the rules regulating fisheries in the estuary? Through licensing Forum Fishermen colony Port authority Church Other (specify) 38) Do you think the fishers should trust in the government when decision are to be made for the future of the artisanal fishers? No A little A lot 39) Do you feel you are well represented by the fishers colony? No A little A lot Sometimes No answer 255 40) Are you registered in the colony? Z l Z2 Z3 Z8 No 41) The head of the Colony work on my of artisanal fishers on issues of importance to artisanal fishers? No A little A lot Sometimes No answer 42) The head of the Colony calls meetings to discuss issues that are important to artisanal fishers in my community? No 1 in the last year More than 2 in the last year More than 5 in the last year Once a month 43) Who do you think most represent your views/interests regarding fisheries management decisions (1 most - 5 least)? Community representatives Middle men Head of the colony Forum of Patos Lagoon Fisher Pastoral 44) Do you receive welfare during the fishing closure? yes No 45) Do you think that your situation as a artisanal fisher will improve only if programs are implemented to recover the fisheries status? No Yes 46) Do you think fishers can be trusted with making proper decisions to manage the artisanal fishing? No A little A Lot 256 A. Ill) PERSONAL Gender: Age: Locality For how long have been living here? years Do you have family in the community? Are you a full time fisher? Locality Community Rio Grande Bosque,Vila Sao Miguel, Jocquei Club, 2 a Seccao da Barra, Henrique Pancada, Embratel, 4 a Seccao da Barra, Ilha dos Marinheiros, Pesqueiro, Torotama, Marambaia Sao Jose do Sao Jose do Norte, 5 a Seccao da Barra, Praia do Norte, Vi la Norte Nova, Cocuruto, Pontal, Passinhos, Varzea, Capivaras, Retiro, Ponta Rasa, Povoacao da Barra Pelotas Colonia Z3 - arroio sujo Sao Lourenco Bairro N.S. Navegantes, Bairrinha do Sul
Thesis/Dissertation
eng
Resource Management and Environmental Studies
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Graduate
The Forum of the Patos Lagoon : subtitle an analysis of co-management arrangement for conservation of coastal resources in southern Brazil
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