Measuring squid fishery governance efficacy: A social-ecological system analysis

Abstract

As finfish fisheries increasingly shrink due to overexploitation, management and industry have shifted their attention to the world’s squid fisheries. The emergence of squid fisheries in the global seafood market calls for well-designed and effective management strategies if they are to remain viable. This study assesses the efficacy of squid governance from a social-ecological perspective in three fisheries. This analysis uses an evidence-based approach to characterize the social-ecological system variables that contribute to each fishery management system meeting its stated goals. To do so, I test the hypothesis that the presence of the ten institutional design principles formulated by common pool resource theory leads to more effective squid fishery management. I measure five outcome variables (governance system effect, commons condition trend, basin switch, user group well-being, compliance) to assess governance effectiveness from social and ecological perspectives. This is the first attempt to examine the design principles and operationalize Ostrom’s Social-Ecological System framework to compare globally competitive squid fisheries. Results indicate that each of the three analyzed squid governance systems has met its specified management goals and is associated with positive social and ecological outcomes. Using the Socio-Ecological Systems Meta-Analysis Database (SESMAD), I used secondary data supplemented with semi-structured interviews with key informants to find a strong presence of the design principles in each case. Findings suggest effective squid governance is associated with user-involvement in system operations and contextually appropriate policies, rather than a single overarching squid based strategy.