Lindkvist Emilie, Basurto Xavier, Schlüter Maja
Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
Duke University Marine Lab, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Beaufort, NC, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2017 Apr 13;12(4):e0175532. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0175532. eCollection 2017.
Small-scale fisheries (SSFs) in developing countries are expected to play a significant role in poverty alleviation and enhancing food security in the decades to come. To realize this expectation, a better understanding of their informal self-governance arrangements is critical for developing policies that can improve fishers' livelihoods and lead to sustainable ecosystem stewardship. The goal of this paper is to develop a more nuanced understanding of micro-level factors-such as fishers' characteristics and behavior-to explain observed differences in self-governance arrangements in Northwest Mexico. We focus on two ubiquitous forms of self-governance: hierarchical non-cooperative arrangements between fishers and fishbuyers, such as patron-client relationships (PCs), versus more cooperative arrangements amongst fishers, such as fishing cooperatives (co-ops). We developed an agent-based model of an archetypical SSF that captures key hypotheses from in-depth fieldwork in Northwest Mexico of fishers' day-to-day fishing and trading. Results from our model indicate that high diversity in fishers' reliability, and low initial trust between co-op members, makes co-ops' establishment difficult. PCs cope better with this kind of diversity because, in contrast to co-ops, they have more flexibility in choosing whom to work with. However, once co-ops establish, they cope better with seasonal variability in fish abundance and provide long-term security for the fishers. We argue that existing levels of trust and diversity among fishers matter for different self-governance arrangements to establish and persist, and should therefore be taken into account when developing better, targeted policies for improved SSFs governance.
发展中国家的小规模渔业（SSFs）有望在未来几十年的减贫和加强粮食安全方面发挥重要作用。为实现这一期望，更好地理解其非正式的自我治理安排对于制定能够改善渔民生计并实现可持续生态系统管理的政策至关重要。本文的目标是更细致地理解微观层面的因素，如渔民的特征和行为，以解释墨西哥西北部自我治理安排中观察到的差异。我们关注两种普遍存在的自我治理形式：渔民与鱼商之间的等级制非合作安排，如主顾关系（PCs），以及渔民之间更具合作性的安排，如渔业合作社（co-ops）。我们开发了一个基于主体的典型小规模渔业模型，该模型捕捉了来自墨西哥西北部渔民日常捕鱼和交易的深入实地调查中的关键假设。我们模型的结果表明，渔民可靠性的高度多样性以及合作社成员之间较低的初始信任度使得合作社的建立变得困难。主顾关系能更好地应对这种多样性，因为与合作社不同，它们在选择合作对象时有更大的灵活性。然而，一旦合作社建立起来，它们能更好地应对鱼类丰度的季节性变化，并为渔民提供长期保障。我们认为，渔民现有的信任水平和多样性对于不同自我治理安排的建立和持续存在至关重要，因此在制定更好的、有针对性的小规模渔业治理政策时应予以考虑。
