The Galapagos small-scale fishing sector collaborative governance network: Structure, features and insights to bolster its adaptive capacity

Abstract

Collaborative forms of governance have a key role in building adaptive capacity in small-scale fishery systems. However, governance systems’ structures and features are usually ignored, reducing opportunities to improve collaboration among multiple actors to cope with adverse drivers of change and enlarge trust in decision-making. This study used a social network analysis approach based on descriptive statistics and exponential random graph models (ERGMs) to examine specific network patterns and configurations that may bolster collaboration links and the capacity to adapt in the Galapagos small-scale fishery governance system. To this end, we evaluated the Galapagos small-scale fishery governance system to (1) identify central and bridging organizations, (2) explore the organizational links and link frequencies, and (3) test hypotheses about the governance system structure using a building block approach. Our findings suggest a cross-level and cross-sectoral interaction between various organizations in the Galapagos small-scale fishery system. We identified central and well-positioned actors and network configurations whose interactions might be fundamental to strengthening the small-scale fishing sector’s collaboration links and adaptive capacity to face future crises caused by novel pandemics, climate change or other anthropogenic and climate drivers of change.