Evaluating the potential for self governance in a fishery

Self-governance has proved to be a suitable instrument for the management of a common pool resource (CPR) like fisheries. Under self-governance, individuals organize themselves for the use of a resource, to deal with problems derived from the free access: overexploitation and low profit levels. Unlike most of previous research that involves expost analysis, this is an ex-ante assessment of the potential for self-governance for management of a CPR: a small-scale fishery located in Mexico. Taking a set of theoretical conditions, this research assesses the fishers’ perception on the adoption of selfgovernance. The results show a high agreement towards the adoption of self-governance n the study site. The method is based on attitudes of the fishers, and it represents a step toward understanding apriori whether self-governance would be implementable or not. Thus, as an ex-ante assessment, it is hoped to help predicting individual’s behavior to deal with the overexploitation and low income levels derived from the CPR use. The findings may be useful to improve the fishing activity and encourage the adoption of selfgovernance in the study site.