Article Combines Global and Marine and Wins Prize

Associate Professor Jeppe Kolding has been an author in an article that has been awarded the 2011 NFU’s Best Article Prize.

Tilapia seining Lake Turkana, Kenya Foto: Jeppe Kolding

Jeppe Kolding

The article entitled “The Tragedy of Our Legacy: How Do Global Management Discourses Affect Small Scale Fisheries in the South?” is based on 25 years of work, mainly in Africa, and highlights the increasing scepticism towards Western created paradigms that permeates fisheries management globally, large and small. One is the fear of open access regimes, and the other is the condemnation of catching under-sized and immature fish. (Kolding was interviewed by På Høyden about this issue in 2005). The on-going immense pressure to close the last remaining open access regimes in small-scale fisheries is based on the axiomatic view that catches are a function of effort, and that unmanaged effort will lead to a ‘tragedy of the commons’ situation.

The tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen. It is frequently cited to support the notion of sustainable development, meshing economic growth and environmental protection, and has had an effect on numerous current issues, including the debate over global warming.

The biological basis for questioning the underlying assumptions of the ‘Tragedy of the commons’ paradigm in small-scale fisheries is discussed in another review where Kolding is co-author, which has just been published. It shows that the effort in African open access systems is regulated by the productivity and not vice versa as assumed in the ‘Tragedy of the commons’ theory. This review, entitled “Relative lake level fluctuations and their influence on productivity and resilience in tropical lakes and reservoirs” addresses the impact that water level fluctuations relative to depth have on general ecosystem attributes and biological production in tropical lakes and reservoirs. It is a factor that has not previously been given much attention. By classifying a series of fisheries according to their natural biological productivity, it was found that the amount of fishers (effort) in open access systems were seemingly self-adjusted so that each fisher produced approximately 3 tonnes per fisher per year, irrespective of geographical or biological differences, and that this level is sustainable.

In their remarks the Norwegian Association for Development Research’s (NFU) Prize Committee, consisting of the editors of the journal, Forum for Development Studies, and led by Knut Nustad, stated:

“The article critically analyses narratives underlying current management of fisheries, showing their historical origins and relationship to other key natural resource management narratives such as ‘the tragedy of the commons’ story. An examination of the biological properties of fish populations and of the organizational and economic aspects of artisanal fishing demonstrates the inappropriateness of such understandings for informing management regimes for fisheries. This in turn has implications for central theoretical perspectives within development studies, such as for instance common property theory.

The article thus uses a broad interdisciplinary approach to question widely-held assumptions underlying current practices and regulations, while at the same time challenging established theoretical approaches. In this sense, the article realizes the full potential of development studies.”