Identifying Drivers of Collective Action for the Co-management of Coastal Marine Fisheries in the Gulf of Nicoya, Costa Rica

Abstract

Small-scale fisheries are important for preventing poverty, sustaining local economies, and rural livelihoods, but tend to be negatively impacted by traditional forms of management and overexploitation among other factors. Marine Areas for Responsible Fishing (Áreas Marinas de Pesca Responsable, AMPR) have emerged as a new model for the co-management of small-scale fisheries in Costa Rica, one that involves collaboration between fishers, government agencies, and NGOs. The primary objective of this paper is to elucidate some of the key variables that influence collective action among small-scale fishers in Tárcoles, a community in the Gulf of Nicoya. We examined collective action for the formation of a local marketing cooperative and participation in management through the AMPR. We apply the social-ecological framework as a diagnostic and organizational tool in the analysis of several types of qualitative data, including interviews with key informants, informal interviews, legal documents, and gray literature. Findings illustrate the importance of socio-economic community attributes (e.g., group size, homogeneity, previous cooperation), as well as that of social (e.g., equity) and ecological (e.g., improved stocks) outcomes perceived as favorable by actors. In addition, our work demonstrates the importance of certain kinds of external NGOs for facilitating and sustaining collective action.

Do responsible fishing areas work? Comparing collective action challenges in three small-scale fisheries in Costa Rica

“…Qualitative interview data from each AMPR were coded using the second-tier variables of the SESF from McGinnis and Ostrom (2014) as a content analysis tool following similar methods in other SSF and SESF studies (Basurto et al 2013;Partelow and Boda 2015;García Lozano and Heinen 2016a;London et al 2017). If necessary, third-tier variables were incorporated which were previously developed by mentioned authors above and suited for our research context, and also new variables were developed to sort data into more nuanced categories adapted for our research, following an ontological logic of "categorizing data into hierarchies of classes and subclasses….specifying the important attributes that each class has; and specifying other important relationships between classes…," (Frey and Cox 2015, 13) linked and organized by the SESF variables.…”

“…In Costa Rica, Marine Areas of Responsible Fishing (AMPRs) have been established as a community-based co-management model for SSF governance (Fargier et al 2014;García Lozano and Heinen 2016a). The AMPR model was proposed and implemented by the Costa Rican National Institute of Fishing and Aquaculture (INCOPESCA), a Costa Rican government organization.…”

“…However, few studies to our knowledge have examined the successes and challenges of the AMPRs empirically (i.e. Fargier et al 2014;García Lozano and Heinen 2016a;Rivera et al 2017;Sabau 2017), all of which examined the same community of Tárcoles, only one of seven AMPRs in the Gulf of Nicoya. Thus, this study provides a much-needed empirical examination of the challenges facing the practical implementation of the AMPR model, and perhaps the FAO SSF guidelines more broadly, in three different AMPRs.…”

The Gulf of Nicoya (Costa Rica) Fisheries System: Two Decades of Change

“…However, inside the Gulf of Nicoya, the small‐scale artisanal fishing sector is of major economic and social importance (Trujillo et al. ; Garcia Lozano and Heinen ). Four artisanal fishing fleets operate in the gulf with different types of gear, including gill nets, lines (bottom longlines and drifting longlines), handlines, and manual gear (traps and mollusk extraction), and target a variety of demersal and coastal species (BIOMARCC 2013a, 2013b).…”

Achieving Sustainable Development Goals in the global food sector: A systematic literature review to examine small farmers engagement in contract farming

“…The first grand theme relates to the dynamics of smallholder participation in contract farming programs. Herein, studies examine barriers and motivations for smallholder participation in contract farming (Lozano & Heinen, 2016;Selhausen, 2016), factors influencing the intensity of smallholder participation in contract farming (Selhausen, 2016), and factors influencing smallholder choice of contracts (Ma & Abdulai, 2016;Saenger et al, 2013). The second grand theme relates to the impacts of contract farming as a poverty reduction initiative.…”