Dissecting co-management: Fisher participation across management components and implications for governance

Co-management—fisher participation in fisheries management—varies across two fundamental dimensions. The most commonly addressed is a ‘ladder of participation’ reflecting the degree to which decision-making is shared between government and fishers. The other dimension reflects if, and how, co-management is implemented across the ‘management spectrum’ of functional components of management: (1) direction-setting, planning and policy development; (2) harvest management; (3) compliance and enforcement; (4) ecosystem stewardship, conservation, rehabilitation; (5) research; and (6) organizational management and development. This article presents an approach to combining these two dimensions in a comprehensive manner, to better understand and assess the nuances of co-management in practice. The approach is tested through application to fisheries of Nova Scotia, Canada, with representatives of organized fisher associations assessing the nature and extent of participation, both current and desired, for each of the six management components. This leads to insights about the fishery management components that tend to have greater or lesser fisher participation, differences in perceived levels of current and desired participation, the willingness and capacity of fisher associations to take on various management tasks and potential directions to improve fishery co-management practices.