may be long-standing traditional agreements among fishers and have widespread legitimacy,
constitute disincentives for cooperation with any management regulation limiting catches.
Market structure and competition
The great majority of fishers work alone or in family groups. Many service only local markets
where the price givers are predominantly female small traders. These traders, often fisher’s
wives who trade in both fish and agricultural products, in turn operate within price ranges
determined by the powerful fish brokers running the city markets. Fishers hired as crew on
larger vessels are in an even weaker market position. They receive very small proportions of
the catch value. Neither they nor their more wealthy masters have much economic power
relative to the fish brokers and fish companies who determine prices. This leaves fishers and
small traders operating in a climate of intense competition and makes collaboration in
management of the wider fishery more difficult.
18.4.5 Incentives related to relationships with external agents
NGO and university intervention
The attention of researchers and NGOs is a source of pride to sasi villagers and an incentive to
retain the institution.
Interaction with sub-district, district and provincial fisheries management bodies
The government is preoccupied with intensification of the fishery and, therefore, provides no
incentives or direct support for conservation or other management tasks. Enforcement by
higher levels is patchy or non-existent at the village level and communication among the
various departments and between them and the village is also limited.
18.5 Outcomes
Outcomes are measured in terms of equity, efficiency, social sustainability, and biological
sustainability.
18.5.1 Equity and efficiency of management
Equity in terms of access to resources regulated under sasi is not a major issue because sasi
covers few species and small areas, while fishers freely exploit the larger pelagic fishery. Sasi
has also no effect on the distribution of fishing gears or economic disparities. However, fishers
are not neutral about equity issues in cases where harvest rights are sold or auctioned (either
sasi lelang or lelang that occurs outside of sasi). Fishers prefer a system where direct benefits
are shared and they find the sale of harvest rights to people outside the village to be particularly
objectionable. The degree of accountability and transparency surrounding resource rental
(lelang), and the level of benefits distributed among community members, is highly dependent
on the character of one key figure: the village head. If benefits are not seen to be fairly
distributed or if they accrue to outsiders, this can lead to non-compliance. On the other hand,
where the decision-makers are respected, this arrangement can be very efficient and also
reasonably equitable in that the profits are used for the benefit of all through community
development (the Nolloth case study). Where marine resources under sasi are harvested as a
communal crop and distributed equitably among the population (for example, the Haruku
Overall Discussion and Conclusions 271