THE BLESSING OF THE COMMONS: SMALL-SCALE FISHERIES, COMMUNITY PROPERTY RIGHTS AND COASTAL NATURAL ASSETS

John Kurien

Introduction

Following the influential article by Garrett Hardin titled 'Tragedy of the commons', it is part of both popular and scholarly belief that unless natural resources are strictly in the domain of private or state property, their fate is an inevitable ruin (Hardin 1968). Closer examination of the actions of low-income communities who depend on natural resources for their daily livelihoods has recently brought to the fore a more positive view about human proclivity for caring and nurturing common resources found in nature.

A good example is found in the state of Kerala, in India, where small-scale, community-based fisherfolk initiated collective action to invest in rejuvenating the natural assets of the sea that had been destroyed by the incessant fishing operations of large-scale bottom trawlers in the region. They went about erecting artificial reefs at the sea bottom in coastal waters to create anthropogenic marine environments. Reefs act as fish refugia and become sources of food for them as the structures are soon covered with bottom-dwelling biomass. Artificial reefs placed in strategic positions in the coastal waters can in time increase the overall biomass and the fish stock in the local ecosystem. An unintended side-effect of sufficiently large artificial reefs is that they act as barriers to the operation of bottom trawl nets, effectively performing the role of a sea-bottom fence against incursions of trawlers into coastal waters. Such reefs have not yet healed the wounds inflicted on the coastal ecosystem of the area, nor can the fishing communities depend exclusively on them as a major source of livelihood. But such community investments by small-scale fisherfolk, and their appropriation of coastal sea area to form community property rights, point to the potential for strategies for visualizing natural resources in a new light — as natural assets that can contribute significantly to sustainable resource use, community empowerment and well-being. Only with such strategies can we have the blessing of the commons.

Natural Assets of the Oceans and Seas

Life on our planet began in the oceans and seas. It is widely recognized that humanity's present and future will continue to depend very significantly on the way we are able to identify, understand and foster life in this vast watery milieu of our planet (Lovelock 1987). From time immemorial, many millions of persons the world over, living in coastal communities, have obtained food, work and income for a decent livelihood from the vast stocks of living resources of the oceans and seas. Nurturing these resources as natural assets that are the common heritage of humankind can ensure their effective and sustainable use.

The coastal fishing communities in the developing maritime states and numerous native communities in the developed countries, using small-scale fishing equipment, continue to depend on these resources as their primary source of subsistence. These communities are the repositories of traditional knowledge, skills and cooperative fishing techniques that exhibit a highly nuanced ecological sophistication. This is particularly evident in the Asia-Pacific region, where large human populations exert pressure on all manner of natural assets. In this region, the current relatively 'free access' to the seas and oceans often make coastal waters the avenues of last resort for the poor to eke out a living.

It is difficult to establish property rights to the living, predominantly mobile and wandering natural assets of the oceans. Through their long and continuous association with the oceans, however, coastal communities devised a variety of rules and norms — institutional arrangements — with regard to territorial claims and the manner in which living resources were to be harvested. These arrangements were especially important in societies where coastal resources constituted a significant part of daily livelihood. An elaborate array of such arrangements was typically found in island societies and regions where bays and lagoons constitute a significant feature of the coastal morphology. Where these economic and geographic conditions co-exist, some of these arrangements still remain vibrant despite the passage of time.

It is customary to refer to such collective rights over resources as 'common property rights' — meaning the private property of a group of individuals. In this paper, however, I refer to such collective rights as 'community property rights', to stress the role of the group as a community and not simply as a number of individuals.

These community property right regimes were largely traditional, unwritten arrangements that were respected and adhered to by the coastal communities. They were not necessarily egalitarian or democratic institutions, but were part of the 'moral economy' of the community (Scott 1978). Consequently, they typically ensured that the benefits from the use of the natural assets of the coastal seas, as a matter of first...