Exploration of the performance of the governance of small-scale fisheries in the South Pacific through action research ; Exploration de la performance de la gouvernance des petites pêcheries du Pacifique Sud par une démarche de recherche-action

Abstract

This work is a contribution for elaborating a research framework for the study of institutional development for the comanagement of common fishery resources. Indeed this governance mode is marginally being used worldwide despite its positive impacts that have been proved in a large number of concrete cases.Specifically the thesis examines the performance of the governance of small-scale fishery through an empirical and inductive approach of institutional economics. Our action research framework guided interventions of public fishery policy on the management of overexploited marine resources in several case studies in New Caledonia and Vanuatu (South Pacific) between 2008 and 2016.Those cases corresponded to different contexts and temporal and spatial scales. The thesis is supported i) by a theoretical causal model of the effects of this kind of intervention on institutional change in smallscale fisheries, and ii) by an evaluation grid of the dynamics of institutional development in the case studies. It analytically and practically explores the process of adaptive experimentation of co-management development in reallife conditions. Academic and non academic knowledge on small-scale fisheries and the learning through shared governance is mobilized.Results show that spatial, multi-scale management of reef fisheries through temporary openings and closures of fishing is a way to combine community-based management and government intervention that is relevant for a number of single- and multi-species fisheries in the South Pacific. Four key processes that drive the economic performance of fishery co-management regimes are highlighted, namely individual learning of systemic processes, collective learning, homogenization of actors' strategies, and building of capacity for action.These processes are interdependent following their own temporality in response to multiple stresses and fishery contingencies, that determine the initial conditions of the interventions in particular. By explicitly taking into account ...