Polycentrism and flux in spatialized management: evidence from Maine's lobster (Homarus americanus) fishery
Spatial approaches to fisheries management hold great promise but require continued conceptual and policy development. Polycentrism and flux emerge as useful concepts, drawing lessons from more customary, informal resourceuse patterns to produce more innovative "spatialized" policies
within existing governance architectures. Empirical evidence from Maine shows that pioneering efforts have been limited by the single-species focus of conventional management hierarchies. As entry limits have consolidated the fishing fleet and eliminated flexible, diversified, and adaptive
business strategies, cross-species and habitat externalities have become problematic. State lobster (Homarus americanus Milne-Edwards, 1837) comanagement zones have achieved some successes, including trap limits and improved industry-management communications, but incur significant
transaction costs and raise equity and stewardship concerns. Kindred proposals for spatial refinement of groundfish management and locally based area-management councils lack support from the state Department of Marine Resources, Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, New England Fishery
Management Council, and National Marine Fisheries Service. Broader and more transparent deliberation of explicitly spatial and ecosystem approaches might be advanced by citizen panels convened to foster polycentric decision structures and accommodate more integrative management strategies.
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 April 2010
- The Bulletin of Marine Science is dedicated to the dissemination of high quality research from the world's oceans. All aspects of marine science are treated by the Bulletin of Marine Science, including papers in marine biology, biological oceanography, fisheries, marine affairs, applied marine physics, marine geology and geophysics, marine and atmospheric chemistry, and meteorology and physical oceanography.
- Editorial Board
- Information for Authors
- Subscribe to this Title
- Terms & Conditions
- Ingenta Connect is not responsible for the content or availability of external websites
- Access Key
- Free content
- Partial Free content
- New content
- Open access content
- Partial Open access content
- Subscribed content
- Partial Subscribed content
- Free trial content