Common property regimes as collective resource management systems have been shown to develop when a group of individuals is highly dependent on a resource and when the availability of the resource is uncertain or limited (Runge, 1992). If the resource problem is repeatedly experienced, such as low or no catch, and if it exists within a single community of users, the fishers are likely to develop a collective institutional arrangement to deal with the problem. Institutional arrangements are sets of rights the fishers possess in rela- tion to the resource and the rules that define what actions they can take in uti- lizing the resource. In the face of uncertainty in resource availability, fishers are more willing to group together to trade-off some benefit from individual use of the resource for the collective assurance that the resource will be used in a more equitable and sustainable manner (Gibbs and Bromley, 1987).
Community-based Co-management 13
Box 2.3. Property Rights Regimes.
The literature on property rights identifies four ideal analytical types of property rights regimes:
● State property: with sole government jurisdiction and centralized regulatory controls;
● Private property: with privatization of rights through the establishment of individual or company-held ownership;
● Communal property: in which the resource is controlled by an identifiable community of users or collectively, and regulations are made and enforced locally; and
● Open access: absence of property rights.
In reality, many marine and coastal resources are held under regimes that combine the characteristics of two or more of these types. The four property rights regimes are ideal, analytical types; they do not exist in the real world. Rather, resources tend to be held in overlapping combinations of these four regimes. Strictly speaking, pure commu- nal property systems are always embedded in state property systems and state law, deriving their strength from them. Resource managers cannot function effectively unless they know the property rights regime they are dealing with.
Source: Bromley (1991).
Institutions, through rights and rules, provide incentives for the group members to take certain actions to achieve a desired outcome. Institutional arrange- ments require an investment of time on the members’ part to build.
Coordination and information activities are initial aspects of building institu- tions. The transaction process of developing institutions will have costs. These transaction costs can be defined as the costs of: (i) obtaining information about the resource and what users are doing with it; (ii) reaching agreements with others in the group with respect to its use; and (iii) enforcing agreements that have been reached. For common property regimes, these costs are part of the collective decision-making process.
An individual member of the group relies on reciprocal behaviour from other members of the group regarding their adherence to the agreed-upon rules for management. An individual’s choice of behaviour in a collective action (action taken by a group (either directly or on its behalf through an organiza- tion) in pursuit of members perceived shared interests) situation will depend upon how he or she weighs the benefits and costs of various alternatives and their likely outcomes. An individual’s choices are often affected by limited information which leads to uncertainty and by the level of opportunistic behaviour (taking advantage of a situation in your own self-interest so as to get the benefit while bearing less of the cost) that individual resource users can expect from other resource users. Individuals also have differing discount rates (the value people put on the future benefits from the resource versus today);
many poor fishers, for example, attribute less value to benefits that they expect to receive in the future, and more value to those expected in the present (Ostrom, 1991).
In some situations, individuals may have incentives to adopt opportunistic strategies to circumvent the rules and to obtain disproportionate benefits at the cost of others. Three types of opportunistic behaviour may occur: (i) free riding, (ii) corruption, and (iii) rent seeking. Free riders (holding back on one’s contri- bution so as to get the benefit while bearing less of the cost) respond to incen- tives to engage in other activities while other members of the group work.
Corruption can occur when incentives exist for rules to be changed for an indi- vidual through, for example, the provision of illegal payments. Rent seeking (the gaining of excess profits from the resource) can occur when an individ- ual’s assets, for example, property rights, increase in value through special advantages (Ostrom, 1992; Tang, 1992). The imperative of the common prop- erty regime is to establish institutional arrangements which reduce or minimize transaction costs and counteract opportunistic behaviour.
The principal problem faced by group members of a common property regime is how to organize themselves. That is, how to change from a situation of independent action to one of collective action and coordinated strategies to obtain greater joint benefits and reduce joint harm. A sense of ‘commonality’, commitment and compliance must be established for the collective good.
There are two broad classes of problems that must be overcome by the col- lective group. The first, called appropriation problems, is concerned with how to allocate the resource units (i.e. fish) in an economically efficient and equi- table manner among the resource users. The second, called provision prob-
lems, is focused on behavioural incentives to assigned duties to maintain and improve the resource over time.
Collective action does not occur where there is no organization that has authority to make decisions and to establish rules over the use of the resource.
Note that institutions are not organizations. Organizations operationalize insti- tutional arrangements (Bromley, 1991). There can be a variety of organiza- tional forms for governing the resource, which may range from a government agency or enterprise to the fishers themselves. The common property regime will need to establish an agenda and goals which are to be achieved. This may include an identification of the problem or issue to be addressed, management and adjudication. The authority system to ensure that fishers’ expectations are met is normally inherent in the organization.
Membership within common property regimes is not always equal. Some members may have fewer or lesser rights than others. Access to the resource, for example, may change or rotate for members through the year.
Corresponding duties may or may not vary accordingly. The rights and duties of members of the group must be clearly specified.
Collective action entails problems of coordination that do not exist in other resource regimes, such as private property. In order to organize the har- vesting, for example, fishers must develop rules to establish how rights are to be exercised. Rules give substance to rights, structure a situation, define the behaviour of the group’s members and reduce conflict. Rules may create dif- ferent incentive structures that affect cooperation or conflict among fishers (Tang, 1992). The type of rules that are devised will depend upon the severity of the problem the fishers face, the level of information they possess, socio- cultural traditions, the extent of the bundle of rights they hold, the level of opportunistic behaviour, and the ease with which actions can be monitored and enforced. Rules require, permit or forbid some actions or outcome. Rules provide stability of expectations, and efforts to change rules can rapidly reduce their stability (Ostrom, 1991).
The institutions and rules fishers use may not always be the same as formal laws. The fishers may develop institutions and rules to meet their needs which are not legitimized by government.
For institutional arrangements to be maintained over time, it is important to develop workable procedures for monitoring the behaviour of fishers, enforcing against non-conforming behaviour with sanctions, and settling conflicts. The ease and costliness of monitoring rules devised to organize the fishing activity depend upon the physical nature of the resource, the rules-in-use and the level of conformance to the rules (Ostrom, 1990). The number of times that non-con- formance must be measured affects the cost of monitoring. The ease and cost of monitoring will depend upon whether the fishers can monitor compliance themselves, as they fish or through self-monitoring incentives, or if they must establish more elaborate arrangements, such as external authorities.
Fishers who violate the rules need to have sanctions imposed upon them.
What constitutes an effective sanction will vary depending upon the nature of the group of fishers. In most cases, sanctions are likely to increase with the severity of the offence (Ostrom, 1992).
Community-based Co-management 15
Conflicts may arise within the common property regime and between users. The intensity and frequency of conflicts are likely to be closely related to the perceived relative scarcity of the resource. Several factors can lead to conflict, including: (i) absence of recognized rules, (ii) divergence in the inter- pretation of the rules, and (iii) outright trespass of a rule. Part of the institutional process must include a mechanism for discussing and resolving what is and is not a rule violation and how to settle the dispute. This can be done formally or informally. In general, for monitoring and sanctions to be effective, the fisher must have a stake in institutional processes and be involved in monitoring and enforcement (Townsend and Wilson, 1987).
Common property regimes and their associated institutional arrangements need to be dynamic in order to adjust to new opportunities, internal growth, externalities and institutional dissonance (Ostrom, 1992). Institution building is a long-term process and often is based on trial and error. Allocation rules, for example, may need to change as a result of poor compliance. The struc- turing of institutions must be an ongoing process to meet the changing condi- tions.
Whether or not local, self-governing institutions can be developed is often dependent upon governmental policies. In countries which do not recognize the rights of local community organizations or do not create opportunities for communities to organize themselves in a de facto manner, it is more difficult for fishers to successfully find solutions to collective action problems. Many governments are not willing to give up management authority over resources or do not believe that self-governing organizations can be successful. There is no single answer for how to resolve these differences.