Centralization under decentralization: The development of fishery clubs in Lesvos under the administrative reforms of Greece

Abstract

Decentralization and local participatory arrangement are essential for successful fisheries governance. In EU member states, the persistent gap between macro-scale management systems and diverse conditions of local small-scale fisheries obscures the actual attributes and contexts of local fishing communities. This study empirically showcases a parallel process in Lesvos, Greece, whereby administrative decentralization at a higher level in the 2010′s accompanied the centralization and further restructuring of fisheries governance at a lower level. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in 18 villages supplemented by spatial analysis of the demographic trends and an audit of the official records. In contrast to the socially rooted population concentration, local fishers and their villages in Lesvos are dispersed across the island, isolated from one another. Under such disparity, local fishers had formed fishery clubs (FCs) as mutual aid organizations since 1980s. Survey results revealed that FCs had multitrack development routes depending on their local situation. The geographical proximity of the villages and the spontaneity of fishers’ decisions had fostered representativeness and a sense of community among local FC members. However, national-scale administrative decentralization conjunctly has led to an island-wide FC consolidation that replaced all local FCs with a singular large-scale one. Both advantages and disadvantages of fisheries governance under a large-scale FC were perceived by local fishers. To avoid precariousness in such a changing situation, a lesson from Lesvos is to deliberate on the local contexts of fishers’ communities to secure their presence in a renewed governance system that may become more complicated rather than simply decentralized.