The Forum of the Patos Lagoon: local lessons, national challenges and implication

1. Renewal Conservation spawning & recruitment growth & reproduction The Forum of the Patos Lagoon: local lessons, national challenges and implication for conservation of natural coastal resources Climatic conditions adults leave the estuary fish & shrimp enter estuary Daniela Kalikoski1,2 & Les Lavkulich2 Exploitation Release 1. Institute for Resources and Environment, UBC, Vancouver, Canada 2. Federal University of Rio Grande, R.S., Brazil e-mail: danielac@interchange.ubc.ca Adjusting to change: the crafting of a co-management arrangement in the estuary of Patos Lagoon Artisanal fisheries in the estuary of Patos Lagoon The poster focuses on fisheries co-management in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. It addresses the need for an alternative institutional arrangement to deal with the local sustainability of fisheries CPRs. The importance of understanding institutions is related to their close relationship to both cause and solution of environmental problems. The Forum of Patos Lagoon was established in 1996, redefining rules and rights, to manage fisheries resources. It is composed of 21 governmental and non-governmental institutions to discuss and develop action plans to resolve the problems of the fishers and the crisis in the artisanal fisheries sector. Up to 1960’s Local rules Fishing calendar In the estuary of Patos Lagoon, located in the Southern Brazilian coastal zone, artisanal fisheries are going through a tragedy of the commons. Fisheries resources are decreasing compromising the livelihood of more than 10,000 small-scale fishers. The recognition of this local reality as a result of both local and global pressure has resulted in the evolution of governance structures. In the case of the Patos Lagoon this reality have brought forth a co-management regime, the Forum, and an innovative institutional arrangement to deal with the issues of sustainability of local fisheries CPRs that has wide application. Government intervention Fisheries industrialization Technological changes 1970s - 1990s 1960s Centralized management Overfishing Resource collapse 1996 - present Co-management Fórum Patos Lagoon ? 1990s Local knowledge-based management practices in a dynamic ecosystem Traditional fishing practices were observed up to the early 1960s. The technologies and rules in use limited resources exploitation in both time and space while mantaining a productive fishery. A large proportion of the species habitat in the southern Brazilian shelf worked as a de facto marine protected area since fishing was restricted to the estuary of Patos lagoon and adjacent coastal shallow waters. The fishing calendar and technologies allowed fishers to benefit from the most abundant resources in the season while limiting fishing pressure over a particular species and/or a critical period. Institutional barriers and opportunities to co-management in the estuary of Patos Lagoon - Forum of Patos Lagoon co-management lacks a mechanism to lend credibility to local fishers knowledge and to incorporate this knowledge into the decision making process. Illiteracy and socio-economic marginalization creates low expectations among scientists and decision makers of fishers knowledge value for management - lack of involvement and support of sectors with conflicting interests in a participatory management (e.g. port activities) compounded by the historical weak institutional arrangement to deal with a diversity of interests and types of activities in the governance of coastal resources - support for decentralization is not shared by other government sectors with mandate over fisheries management (e.g., Ministry of Agriculture) - support of environmental agency to decentralize fisheries management decisions - Forum of Patos Lagoon is providing the means for cross-scale linkages between local and higher level institutions to empower local fishers communities - Forum of Patos Lagoon is creating a mechanism for shared governance of fisheries artisanal fisheries The changing governance of common pool resources (CPRs) Fishers management in the estuary of Patos lagoon has been changing over time in response to changes in technology, resources condition and institutional transformations. Local informal institutional arrangements lost their importance and resources were overfished when management became centralized. Historically, Brazilian policy has been to develop one standard set of regulations for the entire coast. Crisis in fisheries, the increasing pressure from the community and non-governmental organizations, influenced by a global tendency of international environmental management regimes toward community-based coastal zone management have triggered a move towards decentralization. The Forum of Patos Lagoon was created as a framework to implement small-scale fisheries co-management. The main focus here is to analyze how the attempt to reverse this situation of decentralizing decisions in artisanal fisheries through the establishment of a co-management arrangement has met with some success in the estuary of Patos Lagoon. The work focuses on the analysis of the process of implementing local based co-management and to recommend ways to strengthen the co-management process and to overcome future challenges. Methodology Document analysis Interviews Questionnaire Participatory research Acknowledgements To the members of the Forum of Patos Lagoon, the fishers communities of the estuary of Patos Lagoon and to the members of the Coastal Management Lab. at the Federal University of Rio Grande. This project was supported by UBC Hampton Award. The author thanks IAI for a travel scholarship.