به سوی درک بهتری از مدیریت تعارض در شیلات گرمسیری: شواهد از غنا، بنگلادش و کارائیب

This paper explores the nature of conflict and how institutional failure may be a primary cause of conflict over natural resources. Typologies for studying conflicts are reviewed and a typology specific to tropical fishery conflicts is proposed. Using data from three tropical fisheries, it shows how conflicts emerge and how they are managed.1 The paper concludes that local level management of conflict can be successful, but, without proactive support from higher levels of government the underlying causes of conflict are unlikely to be removed in the long term.

Conflicts over the use and management of natural resources are widespread2 yet the formation and impact of such conflicts are often poorly understood. In the case of fisheries, although there is much case-study information on conflicts from around the world, there have been few systematic investigations of conflict per se. The information deficit is particularly acute in tropical fisheries,3 where, because of their important socio-economic role (e.g. employment, income, food supply) conflict may produce hardships for some of the poorest members of society. In order to provide a better understanding of conflict, and in particular its impact on sustainable livelihoods4 in tropical fisheries, this paper will (a) produce a preliminary typology of conflicts in tropical fisheries; (b) assess the relative importance of different conflict types in three case-study fisheries and (c) explain why conflict might occur, its potential impacts and management. Previous literature on fisheries conflicts can be divided between the ‘post-modernists’ and the ‘theorists’. The post-modernist approach provides detailed information on a particular scenario, presented as a case-study [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16] and [17]. Although these studies provide useful information on a specific location or issue, the results cannot necessarily be extrapolated with any ease or certainty to a wider context (thereby limiting the utility for policy-makers). The theoretical approach to the study of conflict advances new frameworks that can be used to describe and analyse natural resource conflicts. Since the inception of conflict theory during the immediate post-war period, these approaches have included sociological aspects, economic and econometric aspects, technological aspects and anthropological aspects [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25] and [26]. In addition there is a large body of literature that sees the emergence of conflict in natural resources as the specific function of rising population and/or a decreasing resource base. Based on Malthus’ original thesis,5 more recent work on this theme has been conducted by Homer-Dixon [27] and [28]; Maxwell and Reuveny [29] and Myers [30]. Econometric analysis of secondary data has attempted to show that as the resource base declines, so conflicts emerge. Although both the post-modernist and theoretical methods have their merits, there have been few studies of the institutional aspects of fisheries conflicts. Given the increasing recognition of the role of institutions generally, this appears to be an important omission. For example, little attention is paid to the way communities can and do co-operate over natural resource usage which might explain why conflicts do not emerge in some situations. The research reported in this paper focuses on institutional aspects of conflict. Data were collected during 2000 from three study regions: Ghana, Bangladesh and the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) in the Caribbean. Each study region represents a different institutional, economic and social setting. Ghana has large, marine artisanal fisheries important for rural livelihoods; most of the artisanal catch is consumed within the country. Bangladesh is dominated by floodplain fisheries that are governed by a complex patchwork of legislation and fishing rights and make an important contribution to domestic food supplies. Finally, TCI, a British dependent territory in the Caribbean consisting of sparsely populated small islands, heavily dependent upon off-shore finance, tourism and fishing. The remainder of the paper is organised as follows. Section 2 examines the definition of conflict, associated conceptual frameworks and then reviews the typologies that have been previously produced in the literature to explain conflict and suggests appropriate modifications based on evidence collected in tropical fisheries from the current research. Section 3 describes the methodologies used for studying natural resource conflicts. Section 4 presents the results from three field studies conducted in Bangladesh, Ghana and TCI. Section 5 discusses these results with reference to the emergence and management of natural resource conflicts whilst the final section provides some conclusions and policy recommendations.

Conflict is present in all fisheries and the degree of impact will vary across countries. From the research reported in this paper, a key factor which determines whether conflict emerges (or not) is the ability of the formal and informal institutions to withstand and adapt to change. More specifically, it would appear that the emergence and severity of conflict is linked to the institution's ability to deal with rising transaction costs. Conflict is not a linear, step-wise process but often a circular one: management issues can lead to conflicts and conflict in turn can create management issues. It is the circularity of the dilemma that often complicates attempts to identify the source of conflict. Whether it is possible to manage or resolve conflicts in tropical fisheries will depend upon managers being able to (a) distinguish between positive or negative conflict; (b) determine the root cause of the conflict and tackle that issue first and (c) strengthen the capacity of local institutions to manage conflict, preferably in cooperation with government. It is thus likely that a close alliance between government and local stakeholders (e.g. co-management) is a pre-requisite for successful conflict management in tropical fisheries. If institutions are ‘nested’ [25] so the information costs between layers of management can be minimised, helping prevent institutional failure. In so far as such an arrangement can strengthen the links between those that use the resource and those that manage or control the resource [50], co-management of some form may be the best long-term solution to conflict management. Where co-management is able to redistribute power and responsibility in the fishery, potential conflicts related to power relations and allocation of resources might be mitigated [51]. This has been shown to work to an extent in Bangladesh where the CBFM run by a coalition of Bangladeshi NGOs (funded by a number of external donors) has demonstrated a reduction in conflict at the local level in a limited number of areas [52]. While Ghana has an extant institutional base on which to build such a management arrangement, Bangladesh's institutional base is comparatively weak. Co-management has, for a number of different reasons, had limited success in the Caribbean [53, pp. 37–41] and so may not be the best solution for TCI. Here, building on positive social capital may be the best way forward. From our research, we conclude that no matter how effective the institutional framework for local-level conflict management, without support from Government (policy makers and managers) and State institutions (law enforcement, stable markets and clear political processes) long-term effective and sustainable conflict management will not be possible. Tyler [54, pp. 264–268] suggests that a step in this direction requires public policy makers first need to recognise the impact that they have on the emergence of conflict (for example by weakening institutions, setting one group of users against another or setting up market-based management systems that run counter to traditional use patterns). Second, they need to improve information flows (an essential element of transaction costs) that are often a root cause of many conflicts.26 Evidence from Ghana shows that when government and communities work in partnership, advances can be made in securing the livelihoods of artisanal fishermen. Bangladesh, unfortunately, demonstrates how local efforts at conflict management are severely hampered by a political system that prevents undue change at the bottom for fear that private economic interests will be damaged. On a positive note, however, our study has shown that whilst conflict is widespread, it is not necessarily out of control. The traditional institutional structures that aid conflict management in Ghana appear to be able to adapt to change for the time-being; conflict in TCI is managed through the institutions grounded in the close-knit nature of the islands population, although how long this will be able to contain the problem remains to be seen. Finally, further analysis of the research results is being conducted which will address some of the issues raised in this paper about the role of social capital, co-management and sustainable livelihoods in conflict management. An up-date on results can be found on the project web-site at http://www.pbs.port.ac.uk/econ/cemare/conflict.htm.