2004:50 DOCTORAL THESIS Flipping the Pyramid Lessons from Converting Top-down Management of Bleak-roe Fishing Carl Rova Luleå University of Technology Doctoral Thesis - Department of Business Administration and Social Sciences Division of Political Sciences 2004:50 - ISSN: 1402-1544 - ISRN: LTU-DT--04/50--SE Flipping the Pyramid: Lessons from Converting Top-down Management of Bleak-roe Fishing CARL ROVA Division of Political Sciences Department of Business Administration and Social Science Luleå University of Technology SE-971 87 Luleå, Sweden Abstract The fishing of vendace (Coregonus albula), in the northern part of the Gulf of Bothnia, is a good illustration of the presumption that institutional arrangements which are too inflexible to cope with changing ecological conditions are unlikely to prosper. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the development of a better understanding of governance in a relatively small and clearly defined, but complex common-pool resource system. It also aims at providing insights into how different governance strategies affect individual users’ incentives, as well as the adaptive capacity in such systems. Since the beginning of the 1960s, the trawl fishery for vendace has been top-down regulated by the State. At the beginning of the 1990s, catches started to decrease dramatically. This happened despite extensive state regulation and despite the fact that the resource is fairly non- migratory and concentrated in a limited area. In the thesis, the institutional framework that contributed to this crisis is analysed in terms of provision of incentives and the capability to adapt to changing ecological circumstances. It was found that despite deliberate state regulation, the existing governance system worsened the resource crisis. In response to the poor performance of the fishery, a co-management system, with sharing of power and responsibilities between the National Board of Fisheries and the trawl fishermen, was implemented. An extensive survey among trawl fishermen showed that, after three years of co- management, a change in individual behaviour has occurred. The fishermen had, to some extent, redirected their individual catch-maximising strategies towards long-term collective rationality. With regulations implemented through bottom-up, instead of top-down processes, the legitimacy for regulations had also increased considerably. The management system became more adaptive and created users, who had the capability to react to changes in the ecosystem. As a result, catches have increased extensively since co-management was implemented. In the thesis, it is demonstrated how and with what mechanisms this change, from top-down to bottom-up approaches in management, has affected the incentives for individual fishermen and, how this has affected collective action and, thus, the long-term ecological survival of the vendace resource. It is concluded that, managing fisheries with unexpected changes and complexity in linked social-ecological systems requires actors (both fishermen and authorities), who learn from failures and, when necessary, initiate and achieve institutional change. The creation of social-ecological resilience can be looked upon as a process – a socially generated collective good – which is likely to result in better governance systems. In this context, the role of institutions in building adaptive capacity and supporting collective rationality is important. Key-words: Bleak-roe fishing, common-pool resources, social-ecological resilience, governance, institutions, local management, collective action. i Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v 1 THE POLITICS OF FISHERIES GOVERNANCE 1 1.1 GOVERNANCE OF A DYNAMIC, DIVERSE AND COMPLEX NATURAL RESOURCE 5 1.2 FISHERIES GOVERNANCE AS A BRIDGE BETWEEN SOCIAL AND ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS 11 1.3 ECOSYSTEM DYNAMICS AND RESILIENCE IN FISHERIES MANAGEMENT 14 1.4 FAILURES WITH A LINEAR SINGLE SPECIES APPROACH TO FISHERIES MANAGEMENT 16 1.5 FISHERY SYSTEMS AS AN ADAPTIVE RENEWAL CYCLE 17 1.6 SOCIAL RESILIENCE 21 1.7 THE IMPORTANCE OF ECOSYSTEM-BASED AND ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN FISHERIES 22 1.8 BLEAK-ROE FISHING IN NORRBOTTEN 25 2 AN ANALYTICAL CASE STUDY: INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE IN BLEAK-ROE FISHING 27 2.1 THE AIM OF THIS STUDY 29 2.2 METHOD 30 2.3 DATA COLLECTION 35 2.4 OUTLINE 36 3 AN INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON FISHERY MANAGEMENT 38 3.1 THE IMPORTANCE OF APPROPRIATE INSTITUTIONS FOR SUCCESSFUL MANAGEMENT 39 4 COPING WITH TRAGEDIES: FISH AS A COMMON-POOL RESOURCE 45 4.1 THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS 48 4.2 THE PRISONERS’ DILEMMA 49 4.3 THE LOGIC OF COLLECTIVE ACTION 51 4.4 REPEATED INTERACTION AND UNCERTAINTY IN RESOURCE USE 53 4.5 WHY FISHERMEN CAN WANTONLY OVERFISH THE SEAS – AND HOW CPR DILEMMAS ARE CREATED 55 5 COMMON-POOL RESOURCE DILEMMAS 57 5.1 A CHANGE IN PROPERTY RIGHTS AS A SOLUTION TO THE HARDIN TRAGEDY IN FISHERIES? 59 5.1.1 OPEN ACCESS FISHERIES 60 5.1.2 FISHERIES AS PRIVATE PROPERTY 61 5.1.3 FISHERIES AS STATE PROPERTY 62 5.1.4 FISHERIES AS COMMUNAL PROPERTY 63 5.2 PROPERTY-RIGHTS REGIMES ARE NOT FREE OF COSTS 65 ii 6 EXPERIENCES FROM SUSTAINABLE COMMON-POOL RESOURCE SYSTEMS 69 7 A METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSING BLEAK-ROE FISHING 77 7.1 THE ACTION ARENA 80 7.2 FOUR SETS OF ATTRIBUTES THAT STRUCTURE AND AFFECT THE ACTION ARENA 82 7.3 PATTERNS OF INTERACTIONS, EVALUATION CRITERIA AND OUTCOMES 85 8 FORMAL INSTITUTIONS GOVERNING BLEAK-ROE FISHING 90 8.1 FISHING REGULATIONS IN SWEDEN: A LONG HISTORY OF CENTRALISED STATE MANAGEMENT 90 8.2 FORMAL RULES GOVERNING SWEDISH FISHERIES 92 8.3 THE NEW SWEDISH FISHING LAW 96 8.3.1 EFFORT CONTROLS AND QUOTA CONTROLS 98 8.3.2 REACTIONS ON THE NEW SWEDISH FISHING LAW 99 8.4 ECOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS FOR THE VENDACE RESOURCE 101 8.5 THE ECOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS FOR THE VENDACE SYSTEM 104 9 TOP-DOWN GOVERNING OF BLEAK-ROE FISHING 109 9.1 CONDITIONS FOR TRAWLING 109 9.2 A DOWNWARD TREND IN THE ECOLOGICAL SYSTEM 111 9.3 THE DEVELOPMENT AND CONDITIONS FOR COMMERCIAL FISHERMEN 115 9.4 THE DEVELOPMENT AND CONDITIONS FOR RECREATIONAL FISHERMEN 118 9.5 ATTITUDES TOWARDS REGULATIONS 120 10 RESILIENCE AND EFFECTIVENESS IN THE VENDACE SYSTEM; HOW SHOULD THE RESOURCE CRISIS BE UNDERSTOOD? 125 10.1 RESILIENCE AND EFFECTIVENESS 125 10.2 APPLYING THE IAD FRAMEWORK TO THE VENDACE RESOURCE 128 10.3 WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM TOP-DOWN GOVERNING OF BLEAK-ROE FISHING? 130 11 CHANGES IN THE VENDACE SYSTEM 135 11.1 WHAT ARE THE FORMAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE CHANGES IN BLEAK-ROE GOVERNANCE? 136 11.2 HAS THE NEW GOVERNANCE STRATEGY FOR VENDACE BEEN SUCCESSFUL BY PROMOTING A MORE SUSTAINABLE AND EFFECTIVE FISHERY? 140 11.3 THE TRAWL FISHERMEN’S OPINION OF THE LOCAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM 146 11.4 COLLECTIVE ACTION AMONG THE TRAWL FISHERMEN 150 11.5 LOCAL KNOWLEDGE IN THE SOCIAL SYSTEM 154 11.6 THE TRAWL FISHERMEN’S VIEW OF THE FUTURE FOR BLEAK-ROE FISHING 157 12 EVALUATING CO-MANAGEMENT IN BLEAK-ROE FISHING 163 iii 12.1 SOCIAL RESILIENCE 163 12.2 ECOLOGICAL RESILIENCE AND EFFECTIVENESS 167 12.3 THE ACTION ARENA OF VENDACE FISHERY; AN ANALYSIS OF THE CAUSES OF IMPROVEMENTS IN RESILIENCE AND EFFECTIVENESS? 170 12.3.1 HOMOGENEITY AMONG THE GROUP OF RESOURCE USERS 171 12.3.2 INCREASED SOCIAL CAPITAL AND LEARNING-BY-DOING CAPACITIES 172 12.3.3 RULES-IN-USE AND MONITORING 174 12.4 HOW TO IMPROVE THE GOVERNANCE SYSTEM FOR VENDACE? 176 12.5 PROBLEMS THAT NEED TO BE SOLVED 182 13 CONCLUSIONS 186 13.1 THE GENERAL IMPLICATIONS FROM THE BLEAK-ROE CASE 187 13.1.1 NON-LINEAR PROCESSES IN GOVERNANCE 189 13.1.2 “TIMING” IN IMPLEMENTATION 192 13.1.3 IMPERFECT KNOWLEDGE 194 13.1.4 CONCLUDING REMARKS 195 REFERENCES 197 APPENDIX 211 iv Acknowledgements There are lots of people I would like to thank for a wide variety of reasons, people who, in one way or another, speeded up or slowed down the completion of this thesis. Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Lars Carlsson. I could not have imagined having a better advisor for my PhD thesis, and without his common sense, knowledge and perceptiveness, I would never have finished the work. Thank you Lars for critical and constructive comments, and for all the time you have spent reading my manuscript. I also would like to thank Professor Nils-Gustav Lundgren, who has provided valuable comments on various parts of this thesis. Secondly, a huge thank you to all previous and current members of the Political Sciences and the Economics Departments at Luleå University of Technology, particularly those of you who have put up with my drifting away from the academic subject during countless coffee and lunch breaks. Much respect to my officemates, and, hopefully, still my friends. Thirdly, I would like to say a big “thank-you” to all the fishermen and officials who agreed to be interviewed for this thesis, and who had to put up with my interviewing technique (or lack of it!). A special thanks to Thomas Hasselborg, at the National Board of Fisheries Office in Luleå, and to Kjell Strömbäck, president of the Coastal Fishermen’s Association in the County of Norrbotten, who have been extremely generous in their willingness to discuss and explain fishery issues with a novice PhD student. Fourthly, I want to thank my parents for their endless support and absolute confidence in me. The knowledge that they will always be there to pick up the pieces is what allows me to, repeatedly, risk getting “shattered”. Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my family, Lotta, Oscar and Hugo, for giving me so much joy and for distracting me from my work, thereby giving me the strength to return to it.