Two Rules for the Same Fish: Small-Scale Fisheries Governance in Mainland Ecuador and Galapagos Islands

Abstract

The small-scale fi sheries sector in the Ecuador mainland and Galapagos Islands face major challenges triggered by large scale human and climatic events, which compromise their sustainability. Lack of trust, leadership and cohesion among small-scale fi sheries entities, limited organizational skills, and social problems within fi shing communities reduce this sector's governability. Further, lack of willingness of fi shers to observe rules, limited governing capacity and lack of political attention to small-scale fi sheries often contribute to making the overall system less governable. According to interactive governance theory, different governing modes would be suitable for different systems, depending also on the types and quality of governing interactions. Using the interactive governance framework, this chapter explores the performance of the hierarchical and co-governance mode for small-scale fi sheries governance in the Ecuador mainland and Galapagos Islands, respectively. These two case studies, by using empirical evidence and triangulationbased methods, analyze the small-scale fi sheries sector and some mechanisms through which the governing system, the system-to-be-governed, and governing interactions are operating. The chapter highlights that both hierarchical and cogovernance modes of governance have underperformed and consequently that their governability has been reduced for three main reasons: the mismatch between legal frameworks, the undefi ned social system's borders, and the use of inappropriate mechanisms for information mobilization. The chapter concludes by suggesting that both models need to contribute to national initiatives, to strength the social system, and to increase the small-scale fi sheries sector governability. Only then can fi sheries sustainability be achieved.