Fishers' perceptions on the Chilean coastal TURF system after two decades: problems, benefits, and emerging needs

作者：Stefan Gelcich, Joshua E. Cinner, C. Josh Donlan, Sebastián Tapia‐Lewin, Natalio Godoy, JC Castilla · 发表于：Bulletin of Marine Science · 年份：2016 · DOI：10.5343/bms.2015.1082 · 被引用次数：104 · 研究领域：Coral and Marine Ecosystems Studies、Marine and fisheries research

Territorial use rights in fisheries (TURFs) are becoming a widely promoted tool to enhance the sustainability of small-scale fisheries. In 1991, Chile established a national coastal TURF policy that gave legal authority to assign exclusive access rights to artisanal fisher organizations. In 2014, there were several hundred TURFs decreed to fisher organizations in different biophysical and socioeconomic settings. To date, research assessing TURF implementation has generally been based on a few case studies and have had mixed results. Here, we present results from a survey of 535 fishers from 55 different artisanal fisher organizations. The survey consisted of three open-ended questions that explore users' perceptions of the main problems, benefits, and improvements concerning assigned TURFs. We also sampled 55 presidents of artisanal fisher organizations to explore how they perceived the accomplishments of TURFs. Main key problems, as perceived by fishers, include increased costs associated with surveillance and poaching, and the variability and sometimes lack of financial returns. Despite strong price drops in exported species, TURFs have provided incentives for innovation and stewardship, and fishers are generally unwilling to relinquish them. In fact, fishers define TURF benefits in multiple dimensions, which include conservation/ ecological and territorial empowerment. Fisher presidents stress that although expectations of economic benefits have not been fully realized, te...