4.2. Stakeholders in Community-based Co-management
4.2.2. Government
Both the national and local government units (i.e. province/state, city, town, municipality, district, village) have jurisdiction over fisheries and coastal resources. Each government level has different mandates, authority and responsibility.
Increasingly, government policies and programmes stress the need for greater fisher participation and the development of local organizations to handle some aspect of resource management. Government must, however, not just call for more fisher involvement and participation, but also establish commensurate legal rights and authorities and devolve some of their powers.
The delegation of authority and power sharing to manage the resource may be one of the most difficult tasks in establishing co-management. Government must not only foster conditions for resource user participation but sustain it.
As a first step, the national government must establish conditions for (or at least not impede) the co-management programme to originate and prosper. At a minimum, government must not challenge fishers’ rights to hold meetings to discuss problems and solutions and to develop organizations and institutional arrangements (rights and rules) for management. Fishers must feel safe to openly hold meetings at their initiative and discuss problems and solutions in public fora. They must not feel threatened if they criticize existing government policies and management methods.
As a second step, fishers must be given access to government and government officials to express their concerns and ideas. Fishers should feel
that government officials will listen and take action as necessary. As a third step, fishers should be given the right to develop their own organizations and to form networks and coalitions for cooperation and coordination. Too often there has been the formation of government-sponsored organizations which are officially recognized but ineffective since they do not represent the fishers.
However, these may be the only type of organization a government may allow.
Fishers must be free to develop organizations on their own initiative that meet their needs and that are legitimate to them. The issue is government’s willingness to share authority and responsibility with the fisher organization and what function and form this will take.
One fundamental debate in co-management is the perception that fishers cannot always be entrusted to manage resources on their own. Unless government and officials who implement government policies can be convinced of the desire and the ability of fishers to manage themselves, not much progress can be made in co-management. The acknowledgement and acceptance of local-level management is partly the task of fishers to take on the new responsibilities, to organize themselves and, on the ability of the local community, to control the resources in question. On the other hand, communities and change agents often point out that government resource managers are reluctant to share authority. In this case, peers who have already
‘bought into’ co-management and/or a targeted education programme can be used to inform and, hopefully, persuade the resource managers to support co- management. While there are cases that show how politicians could use co- management to pursue their own personal goals and hang on to political power, it would be a mistake to interpret this for all government resource managers and officials. The success of co-management is fundamentally based on the trust extended among the partners and the commitment to collectively work towards a common vision.
A question for government is what management functions are best handled by the community, as opposed to the national or local government.
Seven management functions have been identified that may be enhanced by the joint action of users and government resource managers at the local level:
(i) data gathering; (ii) logistical decisions such as who can harvest and when;
(iii) allocation decisions; (iv) protection of resources from environmental damage; (v) enforcement of regulations; (vi) enhancement of long-term planning; and (vii) more inclusive decision-making. No single formula exists to implement a co-management agreement to cover these functions. The answer depends on country-specific and site-specific conditions, and is ultimately a political decision.
The roles of the national government and national agencies in community- based co-management include:
● Provide enabling legislation to authorize and legitimize the right to organize and to make and enforce co-management;
● Determination of form and process and provision of decentralization;
● Recognition of legitimacy of community-based informal management systems;
Roles in Community-based Co-management 37
● Address problems and issues beyond the scope of local co-management arrangements;
● Provide technical assistance;
● Provide financial assistance;
● Ensure accountability of co-management through overseeing local arrangements and dealing with abuses of local authority;
● Conflict management;
● Appeal mechanism;
● Backstopping local monitoring and enforcement mechanisms;
● Applying regulatory standards;
● Research;
● Training and education;
● Coordination role to maintain a forum for local co-management partners to interact;
● Gatekeeper in case the local co-management partners do not act upon their responsibility;
● Determination of allocation of management functions.
The main role of the local government unit is to support community-based co-management initiatives within its jurisdiction (Box 4.1). In many countries, local government units have a good deal of authority and responsibility to manage fisheries and coastal resources within their jurisdiction. This authority and responsibility may be historical or it may have been recently decentralized from the central government. There must be political willingness among the local political ‘power elite’ to support co-management. In addition, local government staff and officials must also endorse and actively support the co- management programme.
The roles the local government unit plays include:
● Supporting community involvement in community-based co-management;
● Approving local regulations and ordinances;
● Enforcement of regulations;
● Appeal mechanism;
● Providing technical assistance and staff;
Box 4.1. The Changing Role of Local Government in Co-management.
The role of local government (provincial/state, municipal, village) in co-management differs from country to country and the mandate provided to them from national government. In the Philippines, municipal and city government have an important role in coastal management because of the legal mandate to manage resources within municipal waters. In South Africa, the role of municipal government is very limited. Marine resources management is identified as a national competence. Aspects of fisheries management have been delegated to the provincial level, such as the provincial conservation authority in KwaZulu-Natal, but not to the municipal level, even though local authority could easily engage with provincial authorities. In South Africa, as in Mozambique and Angola, the national government is ultimately responsible for fisheries resource management.
● Providing financial assistance;
● Backstopping community-led functions, activities and mechanisms;
● Provide and/or support conflict management mechanisms;
● Ensure legitimacy and accountability of co-management;
● Engage in multisectoral and inter-local government unit collaboration;
● Facilitate and coordinate co-management planning and implementation;
● Provide a supporting environment for partner dialogue;
● Institutionalize co-management for fisheries and coastal resources in local waters (DENR et al., 2001a).