There is an increasing shift towards the co-management of fisheries in many countries. Co-management creates new challenges for information collection and use, with a larger number of people involved in the process. This has prompted managers to reflect upon their new roles and reconsider their information requirements. However, co-management also creates opportunities for participatory data collection and systems for sharing information.

Co-management – the sharing of authority for resource management between government and resource users – is increasingly being introduced to manage fisheries, especially where centralised, top-down approaches to management have failed to manage stocks sustainably. Information remains fundamental to the management process, to monitor management approaches and policies and to develop and implement effective management plans.

However, co-managed systems involve a wider range of stakeholders, who have diverse information needs. These stakeholders include local resource users and local management bodies implementing local management plans, to national governments setting co-management and fisheries policies at regional or national levels.

Useful literature already exists to help co-managers design and implement data collection systems to support their evolving needs. However, much of this refers to other natural resource sectors, with little emphasis on co-managed fisheries. Research funded by the UK's Department for International Development reviewed fisheries in Lao PDR, Bangladesh, Thailand, Cambodia, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam and the Philippines. This research found that:

• Co-management creates new challenges for stakeholders responsible for designing and implementing sustainable and efficient systems that meet the information needs of all people involved the management process.
• The problems of designing and implementing effective data collection systems are that they are often poorly designed, resource intensive and unsustainable.
• Whilst stakeholders’ objectives and responsibilities vary, they often have overlapping data and information needs. Opportunities therefore exist to share data and the responsibility for collecting it.

An eight-stage participatory process was developed to identify common data needs and design data collection and sharing systems, which helped in meeting these new challenges. The research projects compiled a set of guidelines around this eight-stage process. These will be published in the FAO Fisheries Technical Paper Series. The guidelines are currently helping to develop information systems to support the co-management process in a number of projects, including the Fourth Fisheries and Community-Based Fisheries Management projects in Bangladesh and as part of the Mekong River and Reservoir (MRRF) project in the Lower Mekong Basin in southeast Asia.

Policy approaches for more effective data collection systems for co-managed fisheries systems include:

• encouraging the participation of key stakeholders in the design and implementation of data collection and sharing systems
• communicating the importance of the role of resource users in collecting and sharing information
• raising awareness amongst resource users of their role in shaping policies and of the importance of ensuring their resources are adequately valued and recognised by planners and management bodies from different sectors
• ensuring feedback to stakeholders for sustained participation and cooperation.

Although specifically aimed at the fisheries sector, the guidance produced and the eight-stage participatory process to designing data collection and sharing systems will hopefully be applicable to other natural resource sectors where government and resource users share responsibility for resource management.

Source(s):
‘Guidelines for Designing Data Collection and Sharing Systems for Co-Managed Fisheries’, FAO Fisheries Technical Papers  494/1 & 494/2, Food and Agriculture Organization: Rome, by A. S. Halls, R. Arthur, D. Bartley, M. Felsing, R. Grainger, W. Hartmann, D. Lamberts, J. Purvis, P. Sultana, P. Thompson and S. Walmsley, 2005

Funded by: Department for International Development, UK (DFID)

id21 Research Highlight: 28 November 2005

Further Information:
Suzannah Walmsley
Marine Resources Assessment Group Ltd (MRAG)
18 Queen Street
London W1J 5PN
UK

Tel: + 44 (0) 1225 722872
Fax: + 44 (0) 1225 722095
Contact the contributor: s.walmsley@mrag.co.uk

Marine Resources Assessment Group (MRAG), UK

Ashley S. Halls
Aquae Sulis Ltd (ASL)
Midway House
Turleigh, Bradford-on-Avon
Wiltshire BA15 2LR
UK

Contact the contributor: a.halls@aquae-sulis-ltd.co.uk

Aquae Sulis Ltd (ASL), UK

Fisheries Management Science Programme

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FAO Fisheries Department