Institutional Challenge and Governance in Traditional Commons : Lessons from Wetland Fisheries in Assam, India

Assam, Northeastern Indian State has been well known for its innumerable multi use common water bodies, i.e. Rivers, floodplain wetlands (locally called as beel), Reservoirs, tanks etc. The floodplain wetlands constitute the most important fishery resource covering an area of more than 100,875 hectares in Brahmaputra basin. These wetlands support rich capture fisheries that sustain the livelihood of a large number of fisher families. These wetlands are being administered and controlled under different property right regimes by different state departments. Fisheries in these multiple use water resources dates back to time immemorial in Assam and have been traditionally managed under common property resource regime. The most prominent system of fisheries management in these wetlands has been traditionally under the cooperative governance system, an internal institutional structure model of distributed governance. An attempt has been made based on the experience and understanding developed in floodplain wetlands of Brahmaputra basin to examine the fishermen cooperative management system. Primary fisheries cooperative societies (PFCS or FCS) have been set up to look after different water bodies by fishermen under the Assam cooperative society’s act 1949. These FCS have been assigned usufruct rights to use river stretches and wetlands for fisheries subject to certain socio-economic and administrative condition under the Assam Fisheries Act 1953. These cooperative societies shall be formed with 100 percent membership of fishers as defined under the rules. FCS has been given priorities in the allocation of wetland resources since only fishers as individual or as cooperative society been allowed to bid for fisheries in the wetlands under the open bidding system, and Cooperative societies if bid 92.5% and above of an individual bidder, they will automatically selected as successful bidder and get the lease of fishing for seven years. This article describes governance and institutional arrangement in the framework of fisheries cooperative society mechanism of access to utilize the floodplain wetland of Brahmaputra basin for outcome. This article provides details of governance structure of cooperative fisheries management system in Assam. This article also looks at the community level participation and relates it to wider governance issues that take into account the sharing arrangement of income and trust and commitments in a fishermen cooperative