IDRC, P. Bennett.

Once the plans and agreements have been approved and celebrated, the implementation should be started as soon as possible in order to capitalize on the good will and excitement generated by the negotiations (Borrini-Feyerabend et al., 2000). Implementation comprises the activities by which the co-management plan is carried out. The implementation process will involve numerous decision-making points and a different process from the one used to create the plan and agreements (Table 12.1). All the activities in the co-management plan must be implemented correctly and in a timely manner if goal and objectives are to be achieved.

Coastal management programs are not self-executing. Implementation involves not just the daily planning, regulatory enforcement decisions and activities undertaken by government officials, but the decisions and activities of NGOs, resource user groups, and community residents. For effectiveness and legitimacy of the coastal management program, the government and non-government stakeholders must perform their assigned roles in carrying out the plan. Having a plan is not enough; follow through and commitment to fully implement the plan are also required.

(DENR et al., 2001b, p. 55)

It is common to feel overwhelmed by implementation. There is so much to do and so much to coordinate. Implementation will require trusting the plan and trusting the partners and staff. No plan is perfect. There will be successes and failures. This is why continual monitoring and learning-by-doing has been emphasized. There may be failures early on as everyone learns to work together and do their job, by learning from it and moving forward.

While implementation is based on the plan and agreements, the quality and effectiveness of implementation are shaped by a number of factors (National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, 1998; DENR et al., 2001b):

• A collaborative decision-making process;

• Legal authority to manage;

• Adequate and dedicated resources (personnel, funding, equipment) for management;

• Information and data to support monitoring and learning-by-doing;

• Key political support;

• Staff skills and commitment;

• Coordination arrangements with government, external agents, resource user groups and community members;

• Community support through participatory processes.

Please note that no one component of implementation exists in isolation, but they are linked and complementary to each other. For example, solutions to fisheries management problems often lie outside the fishery, thus requiring household livelihood and community development issues to be addressed.

12.1. Setting to Work

The workplan should specify an individual or group who will be responsible for each activity and for reporting on the progress being made to the stakeholders.

Especially in the early period of implementation, there will emerge various interpretations of the agreements and rules. For more formal agreements, the contracts and law will provide some basic reference. For less formal agreements, conflict management processes will need to be followed. An important principle to be applied is that of accountability. Accountability is the clear and transparent assumption of responsibilities, the capacity and willingness to respond about one's own actions (or inactions), and the acceptance of relevant consequences (Borrini-Feyerabend et al., 2000). It is important that the co-management programme remains flexible and creative to changing human and natural needs and conditions.

While the plans and agreements are being implemented, the fishers using the resource tend to develop a greater sense of the legitimacy of their role and responsibility. This may encourage them to refine the management measures and rules and to apply more efficient and complex solutions. The scope and scale covered by the plan and agreements (new community organizations, other fishing gear types, new boundaries) may also increase in size. The co-management organization will need to be innovative in adapting to these changes. This is facilitated by some experimentation, flexible management plans and budgets, and by having sensible people in charge (Borrini-Feyerabend et al., 2000).

12.2. Management Measures

While it is beyond the scope of this handbook to fully discuss all the fisheries resource management measures available, a short discussion will be presented as found in Berkes et al. (2001, Chapter 6).

12.2.1. Traditional measures

Documented cases have accumulated, especially since the 1980s, on longstanding community-based management systems. It is becoming clear that these time-tested systems were often based on sound ecological knowledge and understanding, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, which is rich in traditional knowledge and management systems. Many of these systems have been documented in detail, especially those in Japan and parts of Oceania (Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia) (Ruddle and Akimichi, 1984; Freeman et al., 1991).

The most widespread single marine conservation measure employed in Oceania was a combination of reef and lagoon tenure and taboos. The basic idea behind reef and lagoon tenure is self-interest and sustainability. The right to harvest the resources of a particular area was controlled by a social group, such as a family or clan (or a chief acting on behalf of the group), who thus regulated the exploitation of their own marine resources. A wide range of traditional regulations and restrictions applied to resource use. Some of these rules could be attributed to religious beliefs (Johannes, 1978) and some to power relationships and regional differences in systems of political authority (Chapman, 1987). But by and large, reef and lagoon tenure rules served both conflict resolution and conservation, directly or indirectly, and operated as institutions for the management of common property resources.

12.2.2. Conventional and new fisheries management

Much has been written on tools or control measures for fishery management. Some were developed out of common knowledge and long-term observation in traditional management systems (Table 12.2). These and others developed in the last 100 years as part of conventional fisheries management, such as

those described by Beddington and Rettig (1983) and Hilborn and Walters (1992), comprise the present tool box for fisheries managers (Table 12.3).

The main difference between the old and new approaches is the way of reaching decisions on when and how to apply the tools.

12.2.3. Rights-based fisheries

Economists have pointed out that governments often use the wrong approach to deal with problems that arise from a 'market failure'. Command-and-control

regulations used in an attempt to correct the problem through legal and administrative means do not dissolve the market failure. This has led to a market-based perspective that suggests that governments should change the incentive structure in order to bring private and public interests closer in line, restoring the workings of a 'perfect' market. Advocates of a market-based perspective see the lack of individual property rights as a market imperfection in the fisheries.

This perspective led to the development of property rights regimes to regulate access and effort. In temperate developed countries, biological fisheries management used biological knowledge of fish stocks to set Total Allowable Catches (TAC) designed to restrict exploitation of the stock at or below the TAC (Beddington and Rettig, 1983). Economic fisheries management included economic instruments to regulate exploitation at the TAC, thereby extracting maximum economic rent. The introduction of Individual Quotas (IQs) and Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) were steps towards individual property rights that, ideally, help to restore the workings of the market mechanism, address problems of governance, and add objectivity in adjusting fishing effort.

These management models, however, seem better suited to temperate regions with discrete single-species fisheries, and therefore calculable TAC, than to the multi-species, multi-gear fisheries of many tropical countries. These models have limited applicability to tropical fisheries because of the large amount of information that managers need to implement them, the wide variety of fishing gears used in the tropics, and managers' limited ability to control access of fishers, both full- and part-time, to the tropical fishery.

Quotas, particularly individual transferable ones, have been promoted as appropriate rights-based management tools for several fisheries in developed countries. They are also being introduced to some developing countries, but there are several reasons why quotas are problematic, especially for small-scale fisheries (Table 12.4). However, other tools based on fishing rights have been used for centuries in the traditional fisheries of many communities, particularly in the small islands of the Pacific.

Several of the constraints and challenges facing small-scale fisheries managers have been identified before, and Table 12.4 relates these to quota systems. Several of them are also problems for large-scale and developed-country fisheries, but in these cases the nature of either the fisheries resources or management capacity makes them less critical.

Other rights-based management tools have focused on quotas for groups

such as communities or fishing-industry organizations rather than individuals or companies. The most durable systems have concerned access to the fishing area or gear rather than to the amount of catch. The common feature is the decentralization of control over exploitation, usually by devolving power that was centred upon the state. In the past, this control was often community-centred and at the origin of the rights-based system integrated with the social and cultural practices of the resource users. Now, formal recognition by the state is also necessary for full legitimization and acceptance by the wider society and by outsiders who may seek to impose different values.

12.2.4. Ecosystem-based measures

The impact of environmental degradation from both fishery and non-fishery activities on the ecosystems that support fisheries, particularly inland, coastal, and inshore fisheries, is increasingly recognized as the major fisheries management problem (Dayton et al., 1995). Separating these impacts on exploited resources from the direct effects of fishing mortality may be one of the major challenges of fisheries management planning. Since most small-scale fisheries are near shore, non-fishery human impact is usually a more important issue in their management than in large-scale fisheries. Consequently, different types of management measures are likely to be useful, depending on distance from shore (Caddy, 1999). For inshore and inland fisheries, habitat conservation, rehabilitation and enhancement are commonly used management measures.

Although this is an emerging field, it appears that ecosystem-based measures will be variations of standard measures based on ecosystem criteria. For example, areas may be closed to protect habitats; quotas of prey species may be set to ensure adequate forage for predators; and predator quotas may be set to ensure that predator depletion does not lead to explosions of prey populations that are released from predation pressure.

Marine protected areas

Marine protected areas (MPAs), such as reserves, sanctuaries and parks, can achieve protection of well-defined areas and critical habitats, such as coral reefs, mangrove, seagrass and wetlands (Box 12.1). When properly sited and designed, an MPA can play a significant role in aquatic resource conservation. MPAs help to sustain and increase biotic and genetic diversity by protecting rare, threatened and endangered species, subpopulations and their habitats. By restricting fish harvest, they give different species the chance to freely reproduce. As fish inside the MPA grow larger and multiply more easily, this leads to a faster turnover of fish from the MPA to the non-MPA area, which increases yields for fishers. An MPA can also reduce conflicts between fishers and other users by providing areas where non-fishery users can pursue non-consumptive uses of the resources.

One of the main concerns about relying too much on MPAs is that they simply displace fishing into adjacent areas, leading to extra depletion there (Fogarty, 1999). This, in turn, increases the difference in abundance between protected and exploited areas, which may increase emigration of fish from the former to the latter, thus reducing abundance in the protected areas. Another concern is that strict protection through MPAs can create conflicts among different interests, user groups, levels of government and national government agencies.

One of the reasons that parks frequently do not perform as intended is that many are set up with the hope that they will serve several purposes: tourism, biodiversity conservation and fisheries enhancement; purposes that are not always compatible. Consequently, one must pay careful attention to site selection and design criteria when establishing MPAs.

Success of MPAs will depend on managers being in tune with fishers and committed to working with fishing communities. MPAs that are to protect the viability of major fish populations and critical habitats need to be designed with those objectives in mind, not to carry out the requirements for arbitrarily designated protected areas. They will need the local fishing communities' support and help in siting, design, management, monitoring and enforcement.

MPAs can be one important management strategy within a larger area-wide coastal management framework whose broader goals may include maintaining essential ecological processes and life support systems, maintaining genetic diversity and ensuring sustainable utilization of species and ecosystems. MPAs are closely linked to issues of ownership and control over specific pieces of coastal marine space. Their management outcomes greatly affect activities that degrade local coastal conditions.

12.2.5. Habitat restoration, creation and enhancement

Small-scale fisheries, usually located in inland water bodies and coastal areas, are highly dependent on habitats (coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass, wetlands) that are susceptible to human-caused pollution and physical destruction. The restoration of these habitats, particularly those that limit the abundance of a resource at some life-history stage, may be the most important step to increasing stock productivity. The restoration of coastal habitats that have been destroyed by development is increasingly taking place in many developed countries. In some cases, lands that have been filled and reclaimed for agriculture and development have been purchased, at very high cost, and returned, insofar as is possible, to their original condition. This trend is based on the realization that many of these habitats are important nursery or spawning areas for fishery resource species. The role of coastal wetlands in maintaining the quality of fresh water that is discharged into nearshore habitats, and thus the integrity of these ecosystems, has been another driving force in coastal wetland rehabilitation.

A number of methods exist to create and enhance aquatic systems. Examples of these are artificial reefs, fish aggregating devices for pelagics, and casitas for lobsters. Many of these have traditionally been used by small-scale fishers around the world (Kapetsky, 1985). (A review of these approaches, which are adequately covered in other publications, is beyond the scope of this book.) However, before implementing them, the small-scale fishery manager must consider whether they are likely to contribute to increased production by the resource or simply increase the availability of the resource to exploitation by aggregating individuals. If the latter, their use must be accompanied by the capability to control exploitation.

Artificial reefs (ARs) are structures that serve as shelter and habitat, source of food, breeding area, resource management tool and shoreline protection. The AR may act as an aggregating device to existing dispersed organisms in the area and/or allow secondary biomass production through increased survival and growth of new individuals by providing new or additional habitat space. In addition, ARs have been considered as a barrier to limit trawling in coastal areas where they may be in conflict with small-scale fishers.

Fish aggregating devices (FADs), items placed in the water to attract fish to aggregate (gather near to them), have been used in Southeast Asia for much of the 20th century, if not longer. FADs are deployed in a variety of environments, from calm waters to rough, high-energy environments (Pollnac and Poggie, 1997). They can be constructed from a wide range of materials, from simple line and palm fronds to sophisticated devices with radio beacons. For example, bamboo rafts are traditionally used in Japan. The benefits of using FADs include: (i) increased catch, (ii) lowered fuel consumption, (iii) accessibility to small-scale fishers, (iv) shifted effort from overfished areas, (v) improved fishing vessel safety, and (vi) definition of territory and/or inhibition of certain types of fishing. Potential problems include: (i) increased probability of stock depletion, (ii) changes in eating habits of attracted fish, (iii) lack of monitoring and evaluation, (iv) restricted access to the resource, (v) increased conflicts, (vi) periodic maintenance and replacement required, and (vii) cost of long-lived, high-technology devices (if used).

12.2.6. Restocking and introductions

Enhancing fish populations by restocking with young individuals has been most successful in small, enclosed water bodies such as ponds and lagoons (Welcomme, 1998). The generally high cost of producing the young for stocking means that this approach has been most cost-effective for recreational fisheries that provide economic returns beyond the landed value of the fish. The few instances of successful stocking programmes in the marine environment are in very localized inshore habitats (Blaxter, 2000). The costs and benefits of any stocking programme should be evaluated. As well, the variety of risks, such as of genetic dilution of the wild stocks and introduction of disease, should be considered.

When considering introducing new species, the manager should fully explore the extensive literature that describes the many pitfalls and case histories of unexpected consequences. The Code of Conduct for Responsible Fishing provides guidelines for introductions (FAO, 1996).

12.2.7. People-focused measures

Successful implementation of fisheries management is now seen to include a variety of measures that engage and inform stakeholders (including the public). Addressing the undesirable social and economic implications of attempts to reduce fishing effort is also an emerging direction.

In several parts of this handbook, the need to inform and build the capacity of fishing-industry stakeholders in order to empower them to participate in fishery development and management has been emphasized. This should be borne in mind as a crucial new direction for management.

12.2.8. Public education

Education aimed at the non-fishery public can increase their awareness that they are stakeholders with a right to expect that fisheries will be well managed on their behalf, and that industry stakeholders will observe the agreed-upon measures in return for the right, or privilege, to participate in the fishery. Messages absorbed by the general public, such as those about conservation, can be important for structuring social sanctions and attitudes. A knowledgeable public can also play a role in enforcement, either indirectly through the political directorate or directly by exercising its consumer right not to purchase illegally or inappropriately harvested products.

The role of the public as stakeholder should not be underestimated, particularly when household consumers are the primary purchasers of fish. If the public is aware of the issues, regulations and the long-term effects that breaking the regulations may have on the availability of the product, there is reason to believe that many individuals will choose not to purchase illegally caught fish. If properly informed and supported by the authorities, the public can also play a role in reporting violations. These roles may be strengthened through public education and market-oriented initiatives such as the ecolabelling mentioned earlier. Cases involving sea turtles and marine mammals are well known. However, public perception of the fairness of management also takes into account the opportunities (or lack thereof) for involved fishers to pursue alternative livelihoods.

12.2.9. Managing excess fishing capacity

It is now almost universally accepted that many coastal fisheries are overfished. Many small-scale fisheries are home to an excessive level of factor inputs (capital and labour) relative to that needed to catch available fish. Thus, most fisheries can be characterized as having the problem of 'excess capacity', 'overcapitalization' or simply 'too many fishers chasing too few fish'. The result is lower productivity of small-scale fisheries, increasing impoverishment of small-scale fishers, and erosion of food security in coastal communities that depend on fish supplies for protein and income.

Because the capital and labour employed in small-scale fisheries are generally use-specific, their exit is often difficult and painfully slow. As long as small-scale fishers can obtain a positive return, they will continue fishing, trying to circumvent any command-and-control regulatory measures such as gear limitations and closure of fishing areas. These measures appear to focus on the resource rather than on the people: the fishers, other resource stakeholders, and the community. Resource managers' action to deal with excess capacity as a major cause of resource overexploitation and environmental degradation reflects a one-sided policy response to the problem. Unless we address the core issue of excessive capacity, that is, by facilitating the exit of labour and capital from the fishery without unacceptably severe social and economic disruption, any regulatory measure or other management strategy will simply be a stopgap measure. People will continue to enter the fishery unless viable alternatives are presented.

As traditional institutions and methods of controlling overexploitation of fisheries fail under the pressures of modernization and market economies, fisheries managers are increasingly aware of the need to develop appropriate policies to facilitate the exit of capital and labour from overexploited fisheries. This growing consciousness of the importance of reducing fishing overcapacity culminated in the FAO Committee on Fisheries' adoption in February 1999 of the International Plan of Action for the Management of Fishing Capacity. This instrument calls for states to prepare and implement national plans to effectively manage fishing capacity, with priority to be given to managing capacity in fisheries where overfishing is known to exist. International policy discussions of the fishing fleet overcapacity problem have focused overwhelmingly on industrial fishing fleets, largely ignoring the problems of small-scale fisheries. Developing countries with small-scale fisheries with severe overcapacity are unlikely to prepare effective plans to address that aspect of fishing overcapacity without initiatives to help them analyse the problem and generate new policy options.

The problem of reducing excess capacity in small-scale fisheries in developing countries is much more complex than that of reducing overcapacity in industrial fleets. The complexity in small-scale fisheries is compounded by: growing populations, sluggish economies, fishers' high dependence on the resource for food and livelihood, a paucity of non-fishery employment, increasing numbers of part-time and seasonal fishers, limited transferability of and rigidities in the movement of use-specific capital and labour, and the lack of a coordinated and integrated approach to horizontal economic and community development that blends fishery and non-fishery sectors. Migration to the coast and the subsequent shift to fishing also occur because people in the countryside have lost their farms due to land conversion, or have avoided armed conflict situations in the upland areas.

Thus, a reduction of excess capacity implies an increased focus on people-related solutions and on communities. This should involve a broad programme of resource management and economic and community development that emphasizes access control and property rights, rural development, and linking of coastal communities to regional and national economic development. This new management direction needs to address coastal communities' challenges, including employment and income, food security, better quality of living, and delivery of community services. We must go beyond the 'common' solution, which is to give fishers 'pigs and chickens' as a supplemental livelihood, towards more innovative approaches involving development of skills and microenterprises and the use of information technology. Co-management and community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) strategies can provide a framework for such linked development and management initiatives. Community-centred co-management can serve as a mechanism not only for resource management but also for social, community and economic development by promoting participation and empowerment of people to solve problems and address community needs.

12.3. Community and Economic Development and Livelihoods

Occupational multiplicity, a prominent feature of small-scale fisheries, has the consequence that fishery management extends into the domain of integrated community and economic development, whether urban or rural. Many fisheries management measures alter patterns of employment in fisheries and supporting occupations. Community and economic development programmes that address alternative (replaces fishing as a source of income) and supplemental (adds to but does not replace fishing as a source of income) livelihood for fishers, and livelihood planning for fisher households and part-time fishers, can contribute to the management of fishing effort. Livelihood planning is especially important where households depend on fishery-related income.

A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (including material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living. Livelihood development focuses on increasing the capital to effectively set up and sustain viable and sustainable livelihoods. These include human capital (skills, knowledge), social capital (social resources such as networks and relationships), natural capital (natural resources), physical capital (basic infrastructure and producer goods) and financial capital (financial resources). Livelihood strategies in fisheries should focus on the whole household and all its members including husband, wife and children. The outputs of livelihood strategies are more income, increased well-being, reduced vulnerability, improved food security and a more sustainable natural resource base.

Livelihood projects can be classified as those that are resource-based (utilizing aquatic resources) and non-resource based (developed independent of aquatic resources). Projects may be income-generating projects that generate additional income for the household (such as pigs or mollusc aquaculture) or enterprises that are formed as businesses to generate more long-term jobs and benefits (such as handicraft enterprise or fish marketing). Entrepreneurship often requires the development of a broader skills and capability base for those involved. Any livelihood project, whether income generating or enterprise, should recognize cultural diversity, provide equal opportunity for both men and women, be economically viable with proper management, and environmentally friendly. A project feasibility study should be conducted before any livelihood is proposed. A project feasibility study is a thorough and systematic analysis of all factors (market, technical, financial, socio-economic and management) that affect the possibility of success of the proposed activity (TDC and CERD, 1998).

Extensive excursions into these areas are beyond the scope of this handbook, but they must be part of a new-style fisheries management. The capacity to contribute to such initiatives may require close links with agencies specifically responsible for community and economic development. Such development can also increase the quality of life in rural coastal communities through delivery of basic services (for example, health and education) and infrastructure development (for example, roads and communication).

Resource management policies must shift from a resource exploitation orientation to one of more holistic conservation and human resource management. In order for socio-economic development to be sustainable, attention must be given to policies that address issues of food security and people's well-being and livelihood, not just regulatory fisheries management.

Mixed with policies concerned with resource management and conservation is the need to address problems of poverty, unemployment and decreasing quality of life in fishing communities. The main brunt of such economic and social distress is borne by women, children and unskilled fishers, as well as by those unskilled people who depend, directly and indirectly, on the fishing industry. Elements of this prevailing scenario are: high levels of unemployment or underemployment, unavailable alternative or other supplemental employment and livelihood opportunities in the community, a growing population and pressure to find additional fisheries resources, lack of credit and markets, and the paucity of institutional mechanisms to undertake system-wide development.

12.4. Enforcement and Compliance

(The reference for this section is: Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources of the Department of Agriculture, Department of the Interior and Local Government, and Coastal Resource Management Project, 2001d; www.oneocean.org)

Regulations and ordinances must be enforced to protect fisheries resources. Compliance with the plan, agreements and rules is essential to the effectiveness of the whole co-management programme. There must be an enforcement mechanism that specifies who is responsible, the means of enforcement, and the penalties for non-compliance. While the national and local governments have responsibility for coastal law enforcement, enforcement of regulations by fishers is increasingly being considered by governments short of enforcement resources.

Law enforcement is more than the presence of armed police arresting people, it involves the application of a broad range of approaches by different institutions and stakeholders to change or modify behaviour. Oposa (1996) articulated four principles of effective environmental law implementation that can be applied to coastal law enforcement (DENR et al., 2001d). These principles include:

1. Law is an agreement of minds or a 'social product' that must be deemed desirable and supported by a mental and emotional agreement by individuals and society at large.

2. Legal marketing or selling the law is necessary to promote voluntary compliance.

3. Sociocultural sensitivities and pressure points must be considered in the manner used for implementing the law.

4. Swift, painful and public punishment must be carried out in order to modify behaviour and serve as a deterrent.

Law enforcement can be viewed as a variety of interventions that government and the community may rely upon to achieve compliance with requirements of the law. These interventions can be 'soft' preventive measures such as public education or 'hard' sanctions imposed by apprehension, prosecution and conviction. Soft enforcement approaches promote voluntary compliance with the requirements of the law without going to the courts. Soft enforcement focuses on the social and cultural dynamics of compliance that can be used to: (i) sustain widespread compliance, (ii) encourage voluntary compliance, and (iii) achieve general deterrence. When widespread compliance is achieved, target sectors have an adequate level of knowledge and attitude on the issues and behave within the bounds of socially accepted practices and legal requirements. Soft or positive approaches include:

• Social marketing;

• Social mobilization;

• Coastal resource management best practices;

• Legislation and regulation;

• Information management and dissemination;

• Education and outreach;

• Monitoring and evaluation.

Negative or 'hard' enforcement uses legal sanctions imposed by a court or regulatory authority for deterrence. Hard enforcement approaches have one objective, that is to identify, locate and suppress the violator using all possible instruments of law. It involves the process of developing sophisticated strategies to apprehend repeat violators and negate all economic profits and benefits from illegal activities. Law enforcement activities are directed to a specific violator or violation. In these cases, the law enforcement approach to persistent violators must be swift, painful and public. Swift means it should be directed to a specific and pre-identified target. It should be painful financially and psychologically and it should be public so that other people will be aware of the consequences of the offences. Negative or hard approaches include:

• Continuous presence of law enforcers;

• Consistent activities to detect, apprehend and prosecute violators and impose appropriate sanctions;

• Sophisticated strategies developed to apprehend repeat violators;

• Negate all economic benefits from illegal activities.

Enforcement requires consultation and coordination among the various agencies and organizations with responsibility for enforcement about regulations, monitoring, surveillance, apprehension and sanctions. This includes the police, Navy, Coast Guard and any community-based enforcement units.

The inability to enforce, in the field, regulations that make perfect sense in the meeting room has been the downfall of many fisheries. Small-scale fisheries with large numbers of fishers widely dispersed in inaccessible places are particularly resistant to top-down enforcement. A host of factors come into play to make this type of enforcement ineffective. Small-scale fishers are often among the poorest people in society. Therefore, the political and judicial will to enforce regulations on them is often absent, especially when the action is seen as taking food from their family. In addition, the judicial systems are often bogged down with cases that the court inevitably perceive as more important than the enforcement of fishery regulations.

A community-based approach to enforcement may be warranted that involves the fishers in the regulatory and enforcement process. When the fishers understand the problems and benefits of taking action, and agree upon the actions to be taken, they will take part in the enforcement – at least to the extent of encouraging compliance. In a co-managed fishery, there is a greater moral obligation on individuals to comply with rules and regulations, since the fishers themselves are involved in formulating, rationalizing and imposing the rules and regulations for their overall well-being. The government will need to ensure that community-based enforcement units are trained and operational, with adequate equipment.

Fisher enforcement can take two forms that are not mutually exclusive. In the first form, fishers perform a mainly monitoring function, reporting violations to the authorities and exerting peer pressure. In the second form, fishers or other community members are legally designated as enforcement officers.

12.5. Monitoring

As previously discussed (see Chapter 10, Section 10.10), monitoring allows for an impact assessment of the co-management plan's activities in order to determine whether or not they are being achieved and what needs to be done to make improvements. A monitoring strategy is developed which includes indicators and the tasks needed to collect the data. The baseline data allow for a comparison of the results of the activity to be made against some benchmark. The comparisons that can be made in monitoring include:

• Comparing a group affected by the activity to itself over time by measuring how a given indicator changes as a result of the activity.

• Comparing a group affected by the activity to a group not affected by the activity over time by measuring how a given factor changes in a group affected by the activity relative to a similar group that is not influenced by the activity.

Both quantitative and qualitative data can be collected using a variety of methods. Participatory methods employ trained community members to collect and analyse data. Scientific surveys employ researchers in specialized fields of biology, social science and economics to collect and analyse data on biophysical and socio-economic indicators. Surveys and focus group discussions may be employed to assess attitudes and perceptions for behavioural indicators. The data collected should be systematically recorded and stored for easy access and use.

Analysis is a continual process of reviewing data as they are collected, classifying them, formulating additional questions, verifying data and drawing conclusions. Analysis is the process of making sense of the collected data. It should not be left until all the data have been collected (Margoluis and Salafsky, 1998). The results of the analysis are presented to both internal and external audiences.

The co-management plan is adapted based on the monitoring results. Iteration involves using the results of the monitoring to improve the plan. It may be found that activities are going as planned and little change is needed. However, it may also be found that things are not going as expected and big changes are needed to be made. This will require going back over the plan and its components to make modifications and move forward (Margoluis and Salafsky, 1998).

To facilitate learning-by-doing, a constructive attitude to both success and failure is required. If failures are regarded as an opportunity for learning, and if people are rewarded for identifying problems and promoting innovative solutions, learning-by-doing will be strongly encouraged. The challenge can be to recognize that plan adaptation and refinement is a normal activity that occurs because of experience and new information.

It should be noted that in carrying out the monitoring, it is necessary to document all the processes involved in order to develop institutional learning to help to avoid mistakes in the future.

12.6. Annual Evaluation, Workplan and Budgeting

On an annual basis, the co-management plan should be evaluated and a new workplan and budget developed. The evaluation should determine whether the context has changed, whether lessons have been learned from experience, and whether the co-management programme is on the right track. Evaluations are conducted to assess, among other purposes, the effectiveness of new plan strategies, diagnose implementation problems, make adjustments in strategies, and make decisions about plan management (see Chapter 6, Section 6.5.9.1). Monitoring serves to provide information for the annual evaluation. The results of the monitoring are presented to the co-management organization. The assumptions on which the activities are based are tested to determine which activities worked and which did not and why. Decisions about necessary modifications to the plan and activities are made and, if so, what changes are needed and who should carry them out. The process may involve negotiation and mediation, although generally at a faster pace than earlier. This information is provided as input into the annual workplan.

During annual workplan and budget preparation, the co-management organization, with other selected stakeholders, should hold a strategic planning workshop to identify activities, resource needs and funding requirements. All forms of revenue generation and financing of the plan should be reviewed and evaluated. Additional funding requirements should be identified.

Participatory monitoring and evaluation is a potent source of information for feedbacks, which in turn, are sources of energy, inspiration and learnings for the co-management stakeholders. Feedback loops in management integrate research and learning, without which, the initially high level of participation often fades. In joint discussions and dialogues, the co-management stakeholders give and receive knowledge in an integrated fashion, and ideas are linked with action. With participatory monitoring and evaluation, learnings and learning needs are collectively shared and analysed, creating common ideas, knowledge and experience.

12.7. Networking and Advocacy

The linkages developed by the community and its organizations to entities outside the community are crucial for the long-term success of co-management. Networking establishes linkages that are important so that community interests and concerns are taken into account by policy and legislative processes of government, to provide a source of technical assistance and knowledge, to achieve certain objectives and for sharing of experiences and strategies.

Many of these linkages were started early in the co-management programme as the community reached out to government and external agents. The linkages include those to:

• Other communities and projects with co-management;

• NGOs and business for technical assistance and information;

• Government agencies with which the community do not generally have contact;

• Sources of power and influence such as business leaders, politicians and law enforcement.

Advocacy is a mechanism through which organized groups and communities institutionalize their goals in policies and laws of other groups and government agencies. Advocacy is the act or process of supporting a cause or proposal. Advocacy can be undertaken at multiple levels including local, regional, national and international.

Advocacy requires organized action and it is always geared towards change, whether this is in terms of policies, perceptions or attitudes. Advocacy and networking sometimes need to go beyond merely sharing of information; in other cases these would involve making demands or claims on a particular issue. For example, a group of fishers may take a concerted action to stop the development of tourism in their area.

Generally, local advocacy work is simpler and requires fewer resources. Usually, the different stakeholders know each other and it is easier to immediately see the gains and setbacks experienced in the implementation of the advocacy plan. Advocacy revolves around concrete, identified issues that must be addressed. Priorities must be identified and focused on a few winnable issues at a time. Gaining some achievement in an issue builds the confidence of those involved and their morale.

National and international level advocacy work is much more complicated by virtue of its geographic and demographic scope. Advocacy at a national or international level revolves around legislative lobbying for reform.

A clear advocacy agenda is the starting point of the advocacy plan. The advocacy agenda defines the direction of what is wanted in policy changes. At the same time as the advocacy agenda is defined, the bottom-line negotiating positions should also be clarified. Once the advocacy agenda is defined, it has to be understood and explained to the constituency. This is where awareness-raising and social communication (see Chapter 8, Section 8.5) come in.

Advocacy is conducted internally to the community and through networking externally with other communities, community organizations, NGOs, local government, government agencies, academic and research institutions, donors, international agencies, projects and media. Advocacy is conducted by engaging government through its legislative, executive and judicial branches for legislative, policy and programme reform. The media, including the Internet, can be used to provide and disseminate information. Advocacy can also be undertaken through electoral engagement and metalegal forms such as pickets, rallies and demonstrations.

In both networking and advocacy, the strategy is to share information with other groups and communities and government so as to bring about greater understanding as well as social and policy changes. Maintaining dialogue and flexibility will facilitate better learning and sharing of information as the co-management programme progresses.