NORTH-SOUTH CENTRE - ETH - North-South Centre North-South ...

The role of cooperativeness in adopting
sustainable common resource management
This research takes place in the context of an environmental
programme (EP) targeting fishermen living in a natural
reserve in Brazil. In this natural reserve, one of the most
important income sources, fishing, is threatened by overfishing.
In addition to catching fish, many fishermen have
started to catch shrimp. This has led to the decline of the
shrimp population because fishermen use traps which
capture large amounts of not yet fertile shrimp. The main
objective of this project is (i) to better understand the roles
of cooperative and less cooperative fishermen in introducing
a new policy for the management of shrimp resources,
and (ii) to help policy-makers to design suitable institutions
in this regard.
In 2008, fieldwork was conducted with 143 fishermen. It
included replacing some of the current traps, and manufacturing
less exploitative shrimp traps. Additionally, the
fishermen were asked to (i) participate in laboratory experiments,
(ii) vote on participation/non-participation in the
programme, and (iii) take part in a survey in which we asked
questions on their social networks, perceptions and beliefs.
This unique sequence of measures with the same individuals
will help us to understand the role of experimentallyobserved
cooperative behaviour in the adoption of a sustainable
policy.
One of our findings shows that fishermen who are wellintegrated
in the social network of their community, and
fishermen who participated in the development of the EP
cooperate more during the programme than others. In addition,
we find that the perception of the necessity of this
EP plays an important role for cooperation during the programme.
Furthermore, we find no evidence that individuals
are more likely to be friends with individuals who share
similar economic preferences than with others. On the
contrary, our findings suggest that opposites attract when
it comes to risk and time preferences. In addition, our results
also show that risk and competition preferences are
related to the centrality in the network: Individuals who are
more central in the network are more likely to take risks and
compete more than individuals at the periphery. Social preferences
are not significantly related to network structure
and network centrality.
These results provide empirical evidence for the role of
social integration, participation, and perceptions for community
resource management. Our findings may also be
useful for the interpretation of relationships between social
network characteristics and economic behaviours.
Research fellow
Carina Cavalcanti, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
73
Supervisor
Stefanie Engel, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Collaborators
Ernst Fehr, University of Zurich, Switzerland;
Randall E. Brummett, World Fish Center, Cameroon;
Elinor Ostrom, Indiana University, USA;
Jose Augusto Tosato, Secretaria do Meio Ambiente
e Recursos Hidricos, Brazil;
Luciano Vaz,
Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana, Brazil;
Marcelo Raseira, ProVárzea – IBAMA, Manaus, Brazil
Duration
May 2008 – April 2010
Capacity development
Research fellowships
A Brazilian fisherman with his new, less exploitative shrimp trap