Governing offshore fish aggregating devices in the Eastern Caribbean: Exploring trade-offs using a qualitative network model.

The use of moored Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) in small-scale fisheries is a potential solution to food security concerns, economic development needs, and the overexploitation of nearshore coastal fisheries in the Eastern Caribbean. However, moored FADs also generate novel and largely unstudied governance challenges involving (1) the provisioning of FADs, (2) fisheries resource appropriation, (3) human wellbeing, and (4) food web impacts. We examine the relative performance of three governance scenarios to address these challenges: private-individual, community-based, and top-down governance. We construct a qualitative network model (QNM) of the fishery based on semi-structured interviews (n = 60) with fishers and fisheries managers, established food web and economic models, and expert knowledge. We simulate the social-ecological impacts of the three governance scenarios. The models suggest that community-based and top-down governance scenarios result in low levels of conflict, but provide limited incentives to develop and maintain moored FADs. The private-individual governance scenario tends to increase conflict and incentives for monitoring FADs, but has no impact on incentives for maintaining and deploying FADs.