The use of fishers’ knowledge to assess benthic resource abundance across management regimes in Chilean artisanal fisheries

Abstract

Globally, marine fisheries remain largely unassessed, particularly small-scale fisheries in developing countries. Fishers’ knowledge has proven to be valuable to help fill gaps of information in otherwise unassessed fisheries. This study tested the reliability of fishers’ knowledge to estimate the abundance of two benthic resources, locos (Concholepas concholepas) and keyhole limpets (Fissurella spp.), across two management regimes, territorial user rights for fisheries (TURF) and open access areas (OAA), over ~500 km of coastline in central Chile. Fishers’ knowledge (FK) was quantified using systematic interviews and compared to direct assessments (DA). Additionally, resource abundance was compared between the fishing regimes, considering regions with different concentration of TURFs (and consequently different availability of OAAs). The results show that abundances estimated by the two methods were highly consistent for the most valuable resource (the loco) and quite reliable for the keyhole limpet (for 67% of the comparisons). Abundances of both resources were higher in TURFs than in OAAs, a pattern detected by both FK and DA. The results clearly show the potential of this approach to be applied for the Chilean benthic fisheries over large scales. Interestingly, the results also show significantly lower abundance of locos in OAAs than in TURFs at coves immersed in zones with low availability of open access fishing grounds, suggesting the influence of effort displacement after the implementation of TURFs. This ancillary result highlights the need for seascape management plans that consider the potential, unintended effects of TURFs on resources beyond their boundaries. These findings are of both local and global interest, supporting the use of FK to inform management in unassessed small-scale fisheries.