5 COMMON PROPERTY: CAUSE OR REMEDY OF POVERTY FOR SMALL-SCALE FISHERS

5.1 SUMMARY OF REFERENCES

5.2 MAIN FINDINGS

Common property resources (cprs) are those to which no individual has exclusive property rights. They include a wide range of natural environments (and the items that can be collected from them), and include village pastures, bushland, uncultivable fields, community forests, waste lands, village ponds, the inter-tidal zone, marine waters, rivers, river-beds, lakes, to name just a few. They also include resources that are gathered from privately owned land (or water) with access rights negotiated rather than being legally defined (Beck and Nesmith 2001), although little research appears to have been completed on this latter form of resource.

The literature on common-property resource theory first emerged with the work of Gordon (1954), who formulated the theory for fisheries to explain the dual problems of low income among Canadian fishermen and overfishing. The idea was taken up and developed by Hardin (1968) in his often referred to article "The tragedy of the commons", relating to grazing rights for a hypothetical village commons^[3]. The paradigm is based on the important notions/assumptions that a) individual self-interest will prevail over the best interests of the community as whole, b) that the environment must be limited, and that c) the resource must be collectively owned and freely open to any user (Stillman 1975). In the context of fisheries, it is often argued that these three factors, combine to ensure that if fishing is making more than normal profits then more and more fishermen will enter the fishery until all resource rents have been dissipated. Each new boat that a fishermen adds brings him a gain of almost +1, whereas the effects of overfishing will be shared by all, and his loss will therefore be only a fraction of -1.

Berkes (1985) suggests that Hardin's paradigm is a tautology. Where the "tragedy of the commons" does exist, resource rents are by definition dissipated (and this can be of no benefit to either the rich or the poor). Where the "tragedy" does not exist, it is because one or more of the assumptions underlying the paradigm do not exist. Most commonly the fishery is in reality not open-access (because of either Government or local/community control), and individual interests are often subservient to the collective interests of a community.

While incomes are likely to be higher when the tragedy of the commons is not present, Copes (1989) points out that, even in the theoretical case, common property features do not in themselves result in low incomes because fishermen should be left with at least an opportunity cost income. He therefore suggests that it becomes important to consider why fishermen's opportunity costs appear so often to be below those of other occupations. Reasons include isolation, the highliner illusion (the possibility of a windfall catch), and the time-lag required to adjust labour requirements to productivity gains). Bland (1995) supports this hypothesis for the case of Lake Malawi where the fisheries sector acts as an employer of last resort with low entry barriers and high exit barriers, to concentrate people with low opportunity costs.

The existence of both self-interest and over-exploitation (assumptions underlying the "tragedy of the commons") seem to hold true more for industrial fisheries than for small-scale ones. This is largely due the greater ability of industrial fisheries to move to other areas once they have depleted stocks to a level that makes fishing un-economic (Berkes 1985, Copes 1989). Where the "tragedy" is inclined to occur in small-scale fisheries, it is usually due to vulnerability to a number of stresses (Berkes 1985):

a) the loss of community control over the resource

b) economic development and commercialization, as opposed to subsistence fishing (Aswani 1999, Rivers 1999)

c) rapid population growth (Heady et al 1995) without the creation of alternative employment opportunities (Bailey, 1984)

d) rapid technological change (Bailey, 1984, Aswani, 1999; Kurien, 1992; Berkes, 1987)

It is important at this stage of the discussion to note the difference between a) the "tragedy of the commons" which requires open access, and b) common property resources. The latter do not necessarily have to be open for access to all who wish to exploit them (although may be), and indeed common property regimes generally refer to situations where property rights accrue to specified groups or communities of people, to the exclusion of others. The distinction is important, as in any discussion that mentions the word "common(s)" one tends to immediately think of Hardin's article and dissipation of all resource rents. In fact, evidence suggests that there are few fish resources that are truly common property and open access (Berkes 1985, Durrenberger and Palsson 1987). There is considerable confusion in much of the literature as to the exact definition and differences between the "tragedy of the commons", open access, common property, and common property regimes, and which of these situations refer accurately to localised conditions. Management regimes range in their degree of control from open access through unregulated common property regimes (i.e. with exclusion of non-community members, but community members under no control) and regulated common property regimes (exclusion of outsiders and regulation of those allowed to fish), to private property regimes (again, with differing levels of regulation).

Hardin, and others, have suggested that the solution to the "tragedy of the commons" i.e. open access, was either to regulate the commons through governmental authority or to turn the commons into private property via enclosure. In relation to regulation of small-scale fisheries through governmental authority, centrally planned limited entry systems are often inflexible, costly in terms of monitoring and enforcement, subject to political interference, and subject to a lack of communication between resource users and managers (FAO 1993). However, agreement is less than complete on the most effective forms of rights-based fishing e.g. ITQs, lease payments and royalties, corporate ownership, communal property solutions, TURFs etc (see Townsend 1995, Keen 1983, Clark and Major 1988, Palsson 1992, Berkes 1987, Copes 1999, Ferrer 1989 for different views on the merits of different forms of private and communal property), largely due to the different emphases on efficiency, equity and sustainability by the proponents of different regimes. The use of property rights in fisheries management has been recently the subject of a major international conference organized by FAO with the Government of Western Australia (on community-based fisheries management see in particular the papers by Christy; Kurien; McCay; Viswanathan; and Willmann in Shotton (ed.), 2000). Many have suggested that "poor" coastal communities will only be able to maintain access to fish resources close to the shore through defence of these resources as "common property" (Copes, 1999), and the creation and/or formalization of common property regimes. Co-management (the sharing of power and responsibility between the manager e.g. government and the resource user, e.g. the community) is also now seen as increasingly important in ensuring that the poor benefit from resources.

A review of existing studies of common-pool resources by Agrawal (2001) suggests that many have focused on local institutions to show that common property arrangements (i.e. common property but not necessarily open access) can result in efficient use, equitable allocation and sustainable conservation (e.g. works by Robert Wade, Elinor Ostrom, and Jean-Marie Baland and Jean-Philippe Platteau, and those referred to by Beck and Nesmith (2001), Bavinck, 1996, Berkes, 1985, Berkes, 1986). This by inference suggests that such institutions can help to minimise poverty, although there are often trade-offs between efficiency and equity objectives that may be necessary under different management regimes. The structure, status and motivations for different community management and associated institutional arrangements are to be particularly important, not just in deciding who benefits, but in whether they result in sustainable resource use (important in the long-term to ensure that those using the natural assets can continue to acquire financial assets) (Hartmann, 1996, Dyer and McGoodwin, 1994).

Despite the enthusiasm in much of the literature for common property management by local institutions, some studies e.g. Heady et al (1995) on inland fisheries, have questioned the usually accepted paradigm of equity and/or efficiency, claiming instead that community-managed access arrangements may serve other purposes such as the maintenance of the existing social order, and the existing distribution of power and wealth. In fact they suggest that the primary relationship is between access and distribution, rather than access and efficiency. This explains why certain factors e.g. environmental stresses, increasing lease payments, etc, tighten the distributional constraints and therefore make the impacts of controlling access even more important. It is also explains why "external" forces to enhance the allocative functioning of markets, as either an efficiency objective or as a revenue-raising tactic, can undermine their legitimacy because of impacts on distributional factors that are not accepted by the communities involved. Other studies (Aswani 1999) have highlighted the presence of internal regulatory instabilities that affect the fishery sustainability outcomes of different types of tenure regimes, and that while some groups may prevent free-riding, their aim is gain for those involved rather than restraint (Ruttan, 1998).

However, Agrawal (2001) points out that few studies on community institutional arrangements for the management of cprs have focussed in any great detail on how aspects of the resource system, some aspects of user group membership, and the external social, physical and institutional environment can affect institutional durability and long-term management. Nor, given the large number of factors considered to be important (mainly in terms of group characteristics and institutional arrangements as emphasized by Ostrom (1990) and Dyer and McGoodwin, 1994), have they developed a full theory of what makes for sustainable common-pool resource management, or why individuals participate in monitoring and sanctioning efforts. This is because incomplete model specification and omitted variables mean that studies are generally relevant to the sample under consideration, rather than being suitable for more general application.

Nevertheless, it is clear that the value of common property resources is significant (e.g. $5 billion per year to the incomes of poor rural households in India alone (Beck and Nesmith, 2001)). It is unlikely that many other informal sources of income provide such significant benefits to the poor, and there is reason to suggest that cprs play a redistributive role, in that they are of greater importance and relevance to the poor than the non-poor (IFAD, 1995). The use of common property resources is not just important on a regular basis to contribute to household incomes and assets, but also as an important coping mechanism. Common property resources are therefore very important for sustainable livelihoods as described by Beck and Nesmith (2001) in their excellent review of the literature on common property resources. The importance of the concept of vulnerability is discussed later in this report.

Unfortunately for the poor, the availability of common property resources, and the existence of successful common property regimes, has been shown in almost all studies to be steadily declining (see review of literature by Beck and Nesmith (2001), IFAD, 1995, Marshall, 2001). And of course, numerous fisheries-related studies have demonstrated the declining status of fish stocks and catches resulting from a lack of control of access (Butler et al 1993). This has implications not just in terms of fish production and catches, but also for land-based common property resources that are used by fishers (and the use of fisheries by non-fishers). Despite the assertion by Agrawal (2001) that external reasons for the breakdown of cpr regimes have not been widely studied, principal reasons, and corresponding reductions in cprs, appear to include overfishing, State-induced investments in fishing capacity, land reform, liberalisation, commodification, capitalisation and the introduction of markets, agricultural intensification, dispossession by elites, increasing population pressure, new forms of management, a lack of external legitimacy provided by the State for cpr regimes, the increasing importance of aquaculture, and concepts of Western individualism and migration.

And unfortunately it appears difficult to create new community management regimes. Certainly factors that stand to impede the successful establishment and sustainability of community-based management systems include: the lack of competence and capabilities of the fishing communities in regard to such a role; the difficulties in determining boundaries between different groups or communities of users (including non-fishers) and potential conflicts that result; the unwillingness of politicians to divest power; and the already high levels of capitalisation of many fisheries (FAO, 1993).

The importance of cprs for the poor, means management that prevents the use of cprs can be very detrimental to their well-being. Sarch M-T. and Allison E. (2001) demonstrate how the establishment of community-management measures (TURFs) on other lakes constrains the ability of fishermen on Lake Malawi to migrate, which is a key coping-strategy. They also refer to work done by Kone (1985) in Mali which shows that introduction of fishing permits for the River Niger enabled outsiders to enter the fishery and thus broke down traditional management measures, leading to conflict.

5.3 POLICY IMPLICATIONS

1. Open access/common property does not in itself cause poverty. It does however dissipate rents (and any subsidies) making them unavailable for use in poverty reduction programmes. However, as shown by Wright (1990) fishing incomes can be raised in the long term by a) increasing the entry opportunity cost of fishermen, b) increasing the wages for part-time non-fishing employment (e.g. by training programmes to increase the non-fishing human capital of fishermen, subsidies to employers etc), and c) making fishing less enjoyable (less leisure, rigorous training, onerous side duties etc). In regions of high unemployment, open access fisheries often act as an employer of last resort.

2. The success of community-management regimes in many small-scale fisheries have meant that the use of State management, markets, or privatisation is not now recommended as a matter of course.

3. The importance of cprs for the poor requires policies and management that help with people's access to cprs, rather than those that hinder it.

4. Where local alternative non-fishing employment opportunities are limited, and out-migration is unlikely to reduce poverty for those leaving, the only other alternative is to reduce levels of effort used to exploit the fishery through various technical measures. This itself will of course have implications for the earnings of all those involved. Policy that seeks to assist the poor must be focused on equity, rather than efficiency (Bailey 1984) or technological developments (IFAD 1995). If the key problem in fisheries is seen as equity (i.e. distributional) rather than efficiency (i.e. rent maximisation) as suggested by Heady et al (1995), then management measures must focus more on social, economic and political solutions, to ensure the legitimacy of changes to any distributional arrangements.

5.4 RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS

1. There is a need for more work on the quantitative contribution of cprs to poor people's households (under open access and common property regimes), both in terms of fishers exploiting land-based cprs and in terms of non-fishers exploiting fish resources.

2. Better understanding is required on how access to cprs is negotiated and eroded, and who depends most on cprs (to explore differences between regions, income groups etc).

3. Where cprs are managed locally (both relating to fisheries and non-fisheries cprs), what are the conflicts associated with cprs between elites and the less powerful? This requires detailed research into power relations. What are the most effective ways of resolving conflicts at the local level of common property resource use?

4. Study is required into the social effects of policy implementation, with particular reference to the poor. For example, what forms of alternative employment opportunities are most relevant for poor fishermen who may benefit from leaving the fishery.

5. Equally, where opportunities for alternative employment are limited, are there particular types of technical restrictions that are less harmful to the poorest fishers. Some regulations are clear in their impact on different wealth groups, e.g. technical measures that restrict large trawlers rather than gear used by small-scale fishermen. However, it would be beneficial to have a greater understanding of different gear types, access arrangements and effort levels used within small-scale fisheries, and how management measures relating to such issues may have disproportional impacts on the very poor? (some such research has already been conducted - see Heady et al 1995).

6. The lack of a developed full theory (rather than just a list of useful characteristics of participants) of what makes for sustainable common-pool resource management (including motivations for successful monitoring), and the different methodologies employed to date, points to further research.