International Postgraduate Research Conference (IPRC)

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Subject: search.filters.subject.coastal fisheries

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    Community-Based Management Strategies in The Brush Parks Fishery of Negombo Estuary, Sri Lanka
    (Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Gammanpila, M.; Amarasinghe, U.S.; Wijeyaratne, M.J.S.
    The objective of this study was to investigate how fishers optimize resource use in the brush park fishery of Negombo estuary, Sri Lanka through community based management. In this regard, a questionnaire survey was carried out during 2014-2016 including semi-structured interviews and participatory observations. A five-point Likert scale was used to measure the attitudinal levels of 20 brush park fishers on the resource use for sustainability of the fishery. Ownership of a brush park and fishing rights are controlled solely by a given family for generations, and are handed down from father to son. Encroachment by externalities is prevented as long as a brush pile exists in a given site. Although there was no specific authority for governing the brush park fishery, owners themselves hold rights to implement and monitor traditional community-based fishery management (CBFM) strategies. Traditional brush park fishing activities were found to be carried out with unwritten territorial boundaries by single or joint owners following certain customary rules, where fishing rights are socially accepted. Based on the local ecological knowledge including fish feeding and migratory behavior, habitats of fish aggregation, and co-occurrence of certain fish species, brush park fishers were found to be able to predict their fishing time using weather conditions and certain other environmental characteristics such as tidal flow. Traditional demarcation of territories and appreciation of fishing rights for equity sharing of the resource have therefore ensured the governance of the dilemma of common pool resources. Results also indicated that the major threat to the CBFM was the disturbance of fish movement caused by other fishers due to the nature of their fishing practices. Hence, it is necessary to establish co-management strategies, where centralized fisheries management authorities also play a significant role in the decision making process.
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    Institutional robustness averts Hardin’s tragedy of the commons in the community-based beach seine fisheries in Sri Lanka
    (Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Kelaniya, 2015) Deepananda, K.H.M.A.; Amarasinghe, U.S.; Jayasinghe-Mudalige, U.K.
    Small scale coastal fisheries accounts for nearly 40% of world fish catches and provide direct employment for more than 90% of the world fishers employed in capture fisheries. Subsequent recognition of the failures of centralized fisheries management led the governments to accept community-based management as an invaluable means to formulate fisheries management. Such traditional management practices exist in beach seine fisheries of Sri Lanka. Study ascertains and documents the rules and norms that are in general not formerly codified in writing, and evaluate empirically the compliance of elements of customary governance with Ostrom‘s modified design principles (MDP) for long enduring commons management systems. Eight beach seine fisher communities were studied using standard ethnographic methods, and evaluation of compliance with MDP was carried out by administering structured questionnaires. Fishing rights in contiguous sea were vested to the villagers who lived in the sea front, as a residential proximity right. Due to this tradition, the ownership of a beach seine and fishing rights came in three ways identified as: exclusive right, primary rights and secondary right. Sole authority for governing the commons was vested to community organization termed ―madelsamithi‖, considered as the local administrative unit. Institution governing the commons addressed the excludability problem by defining fishing territory, eligibility rules and intercommunity access rule, while subtractability problem was addressed by gear rules, temporal allocation rules, first comer rules, fishing behaviour rules, conservation rules, and rules for distribution of benefits. Institutional architecture of beach seine fisher communities exhibited the high compliance with MDP. Out of the 11 MDP, fisher communities showed very high compliance with four MDP and high compliance with six MDP. Only one MDP had a lower level compliance. As empirical evaluation on architecture of customary institutions shows high compliance with MDP, beach seine fisher communities can be treated as those govern commons through selfgoverning institutions. Beach seining in southern Sri Lanka is, therefore an example for wellmanaged commons that relies on strong, locally crafted rules as well as evolved norms, where institutional and governance mechanisms have essentially averted the ―tragedy of the commons‖. Study provides the starkness to the notion that local actors in tropical communitybased marine resource systems overcome the tragedy of the commons through robust selfgoverning institutions.