It is widely known in Mexico that there is a strong tendency to centralize governing
functions, although the present government has shown interest in modifying this historic
characteristic through the Programa de Decentralization or "Decentralization Program".
However, this program has not reached the fisheries sector, which remains mostly controlled by
the federal government, excepting the management of a few fisheries of secondary importance.
The purpose of this study is to show the manner in which formal institutional
arrangements, established by the central government for the purpose of managing the fishery,
are "modified" or "adapted" to specific community needs. For this purpose 32 people were
interviewed including fishers, fishers' wives, and federal and state government officials to
discover their opinions about the following themes: trust, communication, knowledge of the
fishing laws/policies/regulations, effectiveness of fishers as resource managers and effectiveness
of government as resource managers.
Accordingly, the initial suspicion was that given the strong centralization of power in the
fisheries office in Mexico, fishers, in order to adapt national policies to local circumstances, had
to modify these formal arrangements. However, it was found that government representatives
living in the community perform this function more significantly than the fishers. The results
show a degree of harmony between government and community, partly owing to informal
arrangements that involve both fishers and government officials. Government officials living in
EGSC are an important policy filter adapting national policies to local circumstances so as to
improve the economic and social situation of fishers. While this arrangement has worked well,
other arrangements will be required to address the increasing number of skip-boats and the
trawling boats in the area of the Biosphere Reserve. These two factors, if ignored, could produce
a critical situation in the community.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/11435 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Rodriguez-Maynez, Liliana |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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