Journal
JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
Volume 128, Issue -, Pages 768-778Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2013.06.032
Keywords
Participatory research; Co-management; Governance; Artisanal fisheries; Small-scale fisheries; Uruguay
Categories
Funding
- University of Manitoba
- Manitoba Graduate Scholarship
- International Development Research Centre through the IDRC/CRC International Research Chairs Initiative
- Canada Research Chairs program
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Participatory research has become increasingly common in natural resources management. Even though participatory research is considered a strategy to facilitate co-management, there is little empirical evidence supporting this. The objective of the present paper is to analyze the contributions of participatory research to help encourage the emergence of co-management, based on a case study in Piriapolis artisanal fishery in coastal Uruguay (where management has been top-down). We argue that participatory research involving artisanal fishers, government, and other stakeholders (university scientists and NGOs) can be a key stimulus towards co-management. We build this argument by considering seven faces by which co-management can be analyzed: (1) as power sharing; (2) as institution building; (3) as trust building; (4) as process; (5) as learning and knowledge co-production; (6) as problem solving; and (7) as governance. Our findings show that participatory research had an impact on these various faces: (1) power was shared when making research decisions; (2) a multi-stakeholder group (POPA), with a common vision and goals, was created; (3) trust among participants increased; (4) the process of group formation was valued by participants; (5) stakeholders learned skills for participation; (6) two problem-solving exercises were conducted; and (7) a diversity of stakeholders of the initial problem identified by fishers (sea lions' impact on long-line fishery) participated in the process. The case shows that participatory research functions as a platform which enhances learning and knowledge co-production among stakeholders, paving the way towards future co-management. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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