Rights-based management in Latin American fisheries

This study reports on a diversity of cases of rights-based benthic and finfish fisheries from Latin America. Each case specifies the main attributes of the access rights (in a broad sense, including privileges), whether formal or informal. The study also explores and discusses the following questions: How can, the property rights systems illustrated in the case studies, improve the incentives for stewardship, conservation and sustained profitability? What sorts of distributional implications are there in each of the rights-based finfish fisheries reported? What sorts of operational requirements do the different types of property rights documented demand in terms of research, enforcement, administration and actual fishing operations? The diversity of rights-based management schemes reported for benthic and finfish fisheries in Latin America seems to respond to (i) local fishery contexts, (ii) institutional, resource and ecosystem dynamics, and (iii) governance capacities in place. At this stage of establishing rights-based schemes in Latin America, a commonality found in virtually all study cases is the non-transferability of formal privileges. It seems to reflect the concerns for potential concentration of fishing rights on a few hands were transferability introduced. In many of the cases discussed, non-divisibility of rights is also specified. In contrast, informal access privileges are effectively transferable and divisible in some customary tenure systems where seabed resources are targeted. Enforcement and compliance continues to be a challenge for many of the cases reported, particularly in artisanal fisheries. Community self-policing in fisheries with limited number of participants seems to facilitate compliance with regulations and granted rights. Because of the relatively short time span over which the reported formal right-based systems have been in place, the sustainability performance of most of them cannot yet be properly assessed.