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MANAGING WITHOUT INSTITUTIONS: THE ROLE OF COMMUNICATION NETWORKS IN GOVERNING RESOURCE ACCESS AND CONTROL Anthony King Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Warwick Ecology and Epidemiology Group Department of Biological Sciences University of Warwick Coventry CV4 7AL UK May, 2000 Contents List of tables vi List of figures viii List of appendices ix Acknowledgements x Declaration xii Abbreviations xiii Summary xiv 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Approaches to human-environment interactions 1 1.2 The case study 6 1.3 Objectives and outline 8 2 MITIGATING HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT RELATIONS 9 2.1 Introduction 9 2.2 The meaning and role of institutions 10 2.3 The nature of small scale-fisheries 13 2.4 Contextual limits to management success 16 2.4.1 Theories and reality 17 2.4.2 Cultural prejudice 18 2.5 The legacy of modernism 21 2.6 Less structure, more action 25 2.7 Analysing the process of problem solving at the local level 26 2.7.1 A network approach 27 2.7.2 Sources of actor importance 30 2.7.3 The use of social network analysis in this study 31 3 THE BIOPHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE KENYAN COAST AND THE STUDY SITE - LOCALLY AVAILABLE RESOURCES 33 1 3.1 Introduction 33 3.2 Environmental characteristics of the region and the Kenyan coast 34 3.2.1 Climatic seasonality 35 3.2.2 Oceanographic seasonality 37 3.2.3 Coastal habitats 37 3.3 Biophysical environment of the Study Site 40 3.3.1 Marine environment 40 3.3.2 Terrestrial environment 47 3.4 Conclusion 50 4 THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE: INFLUENCES ON RESOURCE ALLOCATION AND USE IN THE STUDY AREA 52 4.1 Introduction 52 4.2 The origins of the people of Biga 53 4.3 The take up of fishing by the Digo 57 4.4 Local beliefs and Islam 60 4.4.1 Local beliefs 60 4.4.2 Islam 62 4.5 Politics and power 64 4.5.1 Recent changes 65 4.5.2 Contemporary politics and power 66 4.6 Conclusion 69 5 ANALYSIS OF KEY ORGANISATIONS AND INSTITUTIONS IN THE STUDY AREA 70 5.1 Introduction 70 5.2 Formal institutions and resource access in the study site 71 5.2.1 An organisation's power 71 5.2.2 Regional and International influences on formal institutions 73 5.2.3 Legislation as formal institutions in national government 75 5.2.4 Local government 76 5.2.5 Fisheries Department 77 5.2.6 Kenya Wildlife Service 80 5.2.7 Coast Development Authority 82 5.2.8 Integrated Coastal Area Management (ICAM) Team 82 5.2.9 Fishermen's Co-operative Societies 83 5.2.10 Land tenure 84 11 5.3 Informal institutions and resource access in the study site 85 5.3.1 Traditional land tenure 86 5.3.2 Traditional sea use and beach use organisation 86 5.3.3 Traditional landing site organisation 87 5.3.4 The Galu Fishermen's Committee 88 5.4 Institutional links to livelihoods 88 5.5 Conclusion 91 6 BROAD ISSUES AND IMPACTS ON THE PEOPLE AND THE ENVIRONMENT OF BIGA TODAY 94 6.1 Introduction 94 6.2 Resource users and stakeholders in the study area 95 6.2.1 The Digo community 95 6.2.2 Tourism 96 6.2.3 Upcountry hawkers and curio merchants 99 6.2.4 Expatriate European residents 99 6.2.5 Seasonal farmers 100 6.2.6 Upcountry and Asian businesses such as shops 100 6.2.7 Migrant fishers 100 6.2.8 Plantation estate 102 6.3 Direct and indirect impacts of the different stakeholder groups 102 6.3.1 Competition for resources 102 6.3.2 Environmental impacts 104 6.3.3 Socio-cultural impacts 105 6.3.4 Economic impacts 106 6.4 Summary of user interactions and resource-use in Biga 107 6.5 Conclusion 108 7 ANALYSIS OF LIVELIHOODS AND PRODUCTION SYSTEMS THROUGH DISCUSSIONS AND SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS 113 7.1 Introduction 113 7.2 Methods 115 7.2.1 Livelihoods and production systems information 115 7.2.2 Additional fisheries information 117 7.2.3 A general note on sources of information 118 7.3 Demography of Biga 122 7.3.1 Community differentiation 123 7.4 Production systems of the Digo 125 7.4.1 Digo household and subsistence plots (shamba) 126 111 7.4.2 Secondary sources of income in Digo households 129 7.4.3 Fishing 132 7.4.4 Non fishing/farming employment 136 7.5 Digo household productivity and incomes 137 7.5.1 Calculating the maintenance threshold 138 7.5.2 Calculating incomes and productivity 139 7.6 Socio-economic position of households in relation to the maintenance threshold and other groups. 147 7.7 State of the fishery 148 7.7.1 Effect of non traditional fishing methods 148 7.8 Conclusion 152 8 ASSESSMENT OF CONFLICT AND PROBLEM SOLVING ACTIONS IN BIGA USING SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS 154 8.1 Introduction 154 8.2 Methods 154 8.2.1 Data collection 155 8.2.2 Social network analysis 155 8.3 Presentation of Issues 164 8.3.1 The Diani — Chale marine reserve (marine reserve issue) 164 8.3.2 Beach seining by the Wapemba (beach seine issue) 167 8.3.3 Land grabbing at Mwaepe (land issue) 169 8.4 Results 172 8.4.1 Marine reserve issue 173 8.4.2 Wapemba beach seine issue 178 8.4.3 Land issue 182 8.4.4 Relationship between institutional levels or types and importance in networks 186 8.4.5 Affiliation between actors and issues 188 8.5 Results summarised 190 8.5.1 Summary of actor importance 190 8.5.2 Summary of general trends and underlying patterns across all the issues 196 8.6 Conclusion 198 9 GENERAL DISCUSSION 203 9.1 Scope of the study 203 9.2 Explaining the community's current predicament 205 iv 9.3 Problem solving actions in context 207 9.4 Alternative processes influencing local action 209 9.5 Adequacy of research methods 212 9.6 Conclusion 214 9.6.1 Implications for resource management 215 BIBLIOGRAPHY 217 PERSONAL COMMUNICATIONS 235 v List of tables Table 2.1 Risk matrix. 13 Table 3.1 Mean % cover of the different habitats over the surveyed area. 42 Table 3.2 Estimated economic productivity of three different habitats. 44 Table 4.1 The current administrative structure and regional division for the study site of Biga community. 68 Table 5.1 Elements of power in resource access and control negotiations or interactions. 73 Table 5.2 Government ministries active in the study site and their functions relating to issues of resource access and control. 76 Table 5.3 Organisations that have MOUs with the Fisheries Department. 80 Table 5.4 Institutional analysis matrix for the Biga community. 92 Table 6.1 Resource use by different stakeholder groups in the study area of Biga. 96 Table 6.2 Summary of the importance of different natural resources to the livelihoods of different user groups in Biga. 109 Table 6.3 Summary of strength and type of interaction between the different groups in the Biga area 110 Table 7.1 The main household groups and subgroups within Biga according to ethnicity and production system. 125 Table 7.2 The number of Digo fishermen for each of the main gear types at each landing site in Biga. The numbers in brackets include part time fishermen. 134 Table 7. 3 The main families of fish caught by Biga fishermen. 135 Table 7.4 Gear selectivity (F) in the Biga fishery from observations of catches. 136 Table 7.5 Calculation of the maintenance threshold for an average Biga household in Kenya shillings (at the time of the household surveys there were 85 Ksh/f). 138 Table 7.6 Calculating household disposable income. 140 Table 7.7 Daily catch range per fisher for the three gear types used by canoe fishermen. The range reflects the seasonality of the fishery. 141 Table 7.8 Calculation of disposable income per year for fishing households with boats (Ksh). 142 Table 7.9 Calculation of disposable income per year for fishing households without boats. 143 Table 7.10 Calculation of disposable income per year for subsistence agriculture households. 144 Table 7.11 Calculation of disposable income per year for non fishing/farming households. 145 Table 7.12 Estimated size of recruitment to the trap (5 cm) and beach seine (2 cm) fisheries of three important food and income species based on body length (cm) - body depth (cm) relations. 149 Table 7.13 Estimated weight (g) and value (Ksh) of three important food and income species when recruited into the trap and seine fisheries based on body length (cm) — wet weight (g) relations. 149 Table 7.14 The importance of fish for Digo household food and income in Biga. 152 Table 8.1 The basis of the hierarchy scores for valued graphs. 157 Table 8.2 Actor codes to reflect institutional levels and types in the networks 163 Table 8.3 Centrality of actors in the marine reserve issue calculated from the sociomatrix of combined administrative and political hierarchy values.