Co-management of TURFs in Chile- addressing assessment and enforcement demands through fishers’ participation

PARMA, A.M.

Santa Bárbara, USA

Workshop; Analytic Innovations in Minimum Information Fisheries Management; 2009

National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis and UCSB

Experience shows that fisheries management approaches that rely on centralized assessments and top-down enforcement of regulations are doomed to fail in small-scale coastal fisheries, where control of all landing sites scattered along the coast is too costly. Territorial use rights in fisheries (TURFs) offer a suitable alternative for fisheries that target relatively sedentary species, such as benthic invertebrates or reef fishes, by providing incentives for fishers to cooperate in the management of their local resources. The implementation of TURFs in the diving shellfisheries of Chile provides a valuable empirical test, given the scale of the operation (ca. 250 working TURFs), and the fact that TURFs where brought in to resolve a crisis in an export-oriented fishery where no traditional tenure was in place. When judged against the complete failure of preceding attempts to manage the fishery through individual-diver quotas, TURFs were successful on many accounts. Harvest pressure within the TURFs was reduced as conservative quotas were set based on local participatory surveys; fishers watched each other and were able to organize themselves to patrol their tracts and avert poaching. Strict self-imposed rules were developed within the organizations to coordinate work, distribute benefits derived from the TURFs, and impose graduated sanctions to violators. Key to compliance with internal rules is the fact that sales are consolidated, which introduces a viable way to exact fines. The power of local organizations is however limited by a number of government-imposed prerequisites for quota approval. The latter introduce delays, unnecessarily restrict harvest seasons, and increase assessment costs by requiring that a consultant be hired to prepare annual management plans. This co-management regulatory framework is ineffective, bureaucratic and disproportionately costly. A major overhaul in the provision of technical support is needed to (i) streamline tactical advice, (ii) standardize monitoring to allow strategic evaluation of performance at the regional scale, and (iii) encourage meaningful participation of fishers in the discussion of management plans. Decentralization of the administration would facilitate regional coordination of assessments and management, not only of the TURFs but also of the background areas which are depleted due to the displacement of effort away from the most productive grounds now within TURFs.