Contribution of Subsidies and Participatory Governance to Fishers' Adaptive Capacity

• Author: Xavier Basurto,Mateja Nenadović,Amy Hudson Weaver
• Published date: 01 December 2016
• Date: 01 December 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1070496516670448
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Contribution of Subsidies

and Participatory

Governance to Fishers’

Adaptive Capacity

Mateja Nenadovic

´

1

, Xavier Basurto

1

, and

Amy Hudson Weaver

2

Abstract

The need for strengthening fishers’adaptive capacity has been proposed in the literature

as an important componentof effective fisheries governance arrangements in the pres-

ence of rising numbers of external drivers of change. Within the context of small-scale

fisheries, government subsidies have been the main tool used for increasing adaptive

capacity. We examine the relationship among adaptive capacity, subsidy programs, and

fishers’participation in fisheries management,as a potentially importantmediating factor

affecting outcomes using a data set from two periods of a fishing community in Baja

CaliforniaSur, Mexico.Our results show a correlationbetween those fisherswith access

to decision-makingvenues and their reception of subsidies,yet the effect of participation

and subsidies on fishers’ adaptive capacity is limited. This appears to be due to the

authorities’ lack of commitment to strengthening fishers’ adaptive capacity through

subsidies programs, and fishers’ lack of trust in the governance processes.

Keywords

fisheries governance, participation, subsidies, small-scale fisheries, Mexico

A rising number of anthropogenic drivers of change has begun to challenge and

undermine many of the existing governance arrangements that structure and

organize use of common-pool resources such as f‌isheries (Dietz, Ostrom, &

Journal of Environment &

Development

2016, Vol. 25(4) 426–454

!The Author(s) 2016

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DOI: 10.1177/1070496516670448

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1

Duke University Marine Laboratory,Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Beaufort, NC,

USA

2

Sociedad de Historia Natural Niparaja

´A.C., La Paz, BCS, Mexico

Corresponding Author:

Mateja Nenadovic

´, Duke University Marine Laboratory, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke

University, Beaufort, NC 28516, USA.

Email: mateja.nenadovic@duke.edu

Stern, 2003). Those drivers, such as climate change (Allison et al., 2009),

resource overexploitation (Jackson et al., 2001), regulatory constraints

(Mascia & Claus, 2009), and market globalization (Perry et al., 2011) in direct

or indirect ways, acting either individually or synergistically, have a tendency to

reduce catches and, therefore, negatively af‌fect livelihoods of the people who

depend on them. This trend is particularly relevant for the small-scale f‌isheries

sector given that it employs more than 90% of world’s f‌ishers (Berkes, Mahon,

McConney, Pollnac, & Pomeroy, 2001), contributes at least 50% of the global

total catch (FAO, 2010), and provides a social safety net to a large number of its

participants (Allison & Ellis, 2001). Since the majority of small-scale f‌isheries

tend to be marginalized, illiterate, and impoverished (Berkes et al., 2001), it is

dif‌f‌icult for them to adapt to or to recover from both short- and long-term

changes (Be

´ne

´, Macfadyen, & Allison, 2007). Therefore, there is a need to

better understand institutional arrangements that can increase adaptive capacity

of small-scale f‌isheries to the changing conditions of their social–ecological

system.

In this study, we explore how governmental subsidies programs, designed to

improve f‌ishers’ income generating activities have af‌fected their adaptive cap-

acity. We pay particular attention to how f‌ishers access to and participation in

decision-making venues and management activities related to small-scale f‌ish-

eries acted as a potentially important mediating factor in their adaptive capacity.

To our knowledge, this is the f‌irst study examining the ef‌fects of f‌ishers’ partici-

pation and subsidies programs on small-scale f‌isheries. We analyze changes in

the small-scale f‌ishing f‌leet inf‌luenced by the Espiritu Santo Island National

Park from La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico, over a course of a 6-year

period. In the remainder of this section, we introduce our theoretical model

and provide a theoretical background for our study. In the following section,

we contextualize our study within the social, political, and ecological context of

Mexican f‌isheries. Then, we describe the multimethod approach we used to

collect data (i.e., standardized survey, informal interviews, and participant

observation). Our main results show a very limited ef‌fect of subsidies on f‌ishers’

adaptive capacity associated with low participation levels in decision-making

processes. We discuss the processes that might be behind our f‌indings and

their relevance in the context of small-scale f‌isheries in Mexico and beyond.

Civic Participation as a Method to Foster Adaptive Capacity of

Resource Users

Recent research on adaptive capacity indicates various ways of conceptualizing

this latent construct in relation to specif‌ic unit of analysis (individual, commu-

nity, regional, and national) and to a source of a stressor (e.g., climate change,

natural disasters, resource overexploitation; Lockwood, Raymond, Oczkowski,

& Morrison, 2015; Maldonado, Moreno, & Sanchez, 2014). In this study, we

Nenadovic

´et al. 427