Natural resources and institutional performance linking social and ecological systems in fisheries

Abstract: In times of resource scarcity, the management system should be able to adjust, thus enabling it to respond and reorganise when changes in the ecosystem occur. For a successful resource management, ecological resilience must be combined with institutional resilience. The fishing of vendace (Coregonus albula)in the northern part of the Gulf of Bothnia provides a good example of this type of problem. The resource system seems to have all the features that characterise a so-called "common-pool resource dilemma". Short-term individual rationality lead to an outcome that is not rational for the fishers as a goup. In addition, the centralised management system seems unable to change even when ecological circumstances obvious call for this. This thesis argues that a small and well-defined local management system, which avoid free-rider problems, is better able to recieve and respond to signals from the ecosystem. With recourse to "short" implementation structures, bottom-up processes for the construction of rules, and fishers own monitoring of the resource system, the incentive to follow rules will most likely be higher. If incentives to follow rules are high, it will also be easier to adjust rules when disturbances in the ecosystem occur, thus enhancing resilience in the management system. A possible way to implement co-operation between fishers and officials is through co-management.