Moving Beyond Co-Management: Opportunities and Limitations for Enabling Transitions to Polycentric Governance in Chile’s Territorial User Rights in Fisheries Policy

Sarah A Ebel

doi:10.5334/ijc.998

Abstract

This paper contributes insights to discussions of adaptive governance in marine socio-ecological systems by elucidating the conditions which limit or enable the transition from co-management to polycentric governance at the local scale. I offer a comparative study of two coastal communities, Carelmapu and Ancud, which are both bound by the same political structures governing marine resources and are home to multiple fishing unions governed by Chile’s co-management policy, Territorial User Rights in Fisheries (TURFs). However, each community has experienced different outcomes in their abilities to transform to polycentric governance at the local scale in the Lakes Region of southern Chile. I suggest that the legislative structures which govern new ocean uses have brought new stakeholders to the table of environmental governance and have shifted power dynamics, creating both opportunities and limitations for the transition of polycentric governance. In Carelmapu, fishing unions have been unable to organize to transform environmental governance because they refuse to work with the Indigenous Communities, who are seeking to form an Indigenous marine protected area. In Ancud on the island of Chiloe, fishing unions have initiated the beginnings of polycentric governance by uniting and collaborating with government officials to form a new institution to govern resources. I first explore how the legislative structures which govern new ocean uses have caused conflict in Carelmapu between fishers and the Indigenous Community, with attention to how conflict and exclusion constrain the formation of polycentric governance. I then examine the conditions under which fishing unions in Ancud facilitated the beginnings of polycentric governance through new management plans.

Highlights

For society to adapt to increasing uncertainty in complex marine socio-ecological systems, scholarship calls for a paradigm shift from top-down to decentralized governance (Armitage et al 2009; Berkes 2007)
Three salient themes emerged from my semi-structured interviews and informal conversations with fishers and members of the Indigenous Communities during January through June 2018 related to why legislative structure may have different outcomes in fishing unions’ abilities to transform environmental governance
The Territorial User Rights in Fisheries (TURFs)’s co-management policy was created during a period of ecological restoration in 1991; where fishers needed to be empowered to collaborate with the government to manage marine resources, where aquaculture was in many ways still experimental, and where the opportunity for Indigenous communities to create ECMPOs did not exist

Summary

Introduction

For society to adapt to increasing uncertainty in complex marine socio-ecological systems, scholarship calls for a paradigm shift from top-down to decentralized governance (Armitage et al 2009; Berkes 2007). Co-management, defined as joint governance of a resource between resource users and the state (Jentoft et al 1998), has been widely proposed as a decentralized governance structure that can address uncertainty and complexity to foster resilient socio-ecological systems and create more equitable management outcomes (Jentoft et al 1998; Pinkerton 2011; Pomeroy et al 2001; Pomeroy, Cinner, and Nielsen 2011). Davis and Ruddle (2012) suggest that co-management systems often shift the burden of responsibility onto resource users’ local institutions to overcome dilemmas. This shift in responsibility often neglects a nuanced understanding of the realities of many resource-dependent communities, including the disparity in users’ access to resources and the social inequality and poverty they face (Béné and Friend 2011; Davis and Ruddle 2012)

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Conclusion