Current trends in the analysis of co-management arrangements in coral reef ecosystems: a social–ecological systems perspective

Abstract

Co-management refers to various power sharing and participatory decision-making arrangements between government(s) and marine resource users for managing marine resources, such as fisheries. Marine co-management arrangements have proliferated across the globe since ca. 1970s, and recently Elinor Ostrom's [1•] social–ecological framework has been used to evaluate their efficacy for sustaining social–ecological systems (SES). We review Ostrom's framework and recent studies that use it to evaluate marine co-management arrangements, and comparatively review the findings and discuss their importance. Our review illustrates the evolving nature of Ostrom's framework, shows promise for using it to evaluate marine co-management arrangements, and provides summative evidence showing both positive and negative implications for using marine co-management in coupled social–ecological systems.