Governing offshore fish aggregating devices in the Eastern Caribbean: Exploring trade-offs using a qualitative...

Area of Science:

• Fisheries Management
• Marine Conservation
• Socio-economics

Background:

• Small-scale fisheries in the Eastern Caribbean face food security, economic, and overexploitation challenges.
• Moored Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) offer potential solutions but introduce complex governance issues.
• These issues include FAD provisioning, resource appropriation, human wellbeing, and food web impacts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of three distinct governance scenarios for moored FADs.
• Scenarios examined: private-individual, community-based, and top-down governance.
• To model and compare the social-ecological impacts of each governance scenario.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a qualitative network model (QNM) approach.
• Data sourced from semi-structured interviews (n=60) with fishers and managers.
• Integrated existing food web, economic models, and expert knowledge for simulations.

Main Results:

• Community-based and top-down governance models showed low conflict levels.
• These models offered limited incentives for FAD development and maintenance.
• The private-individual model increased conflict and FAD monitoring incentives, but not maintenance/deployment incentives.

Conclusions:

• No single governance model perfectly addresses all FAD-related challenges.
• Balancing conflict, incentives, and resource management is crucial for sustainable FAD implementation.
• Further research is needed to optimize governance frameworks for small-scale fisheries using FADs.