Co-management of sea turtle fisheries: Biogeography versus geopolitics

Co-management between local communities and government agencies is promoted as a strategy to improve fisheries management. This paper considers the potential for co-management of sea turtle fisheries within four UK Overseas Territories (OTs) in the Caribbean, and for co-ordinated management among those territories. We focus on fisher incentives for engaging in co-management and on the potential to scale up co-management to a regional level. This paper presents data from Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Montserrat, and Turks and Caicos Islands, where 110 turtle fishers participated in a socioeconomic survey undertaken as part of the 'Turtles in the UK Overseas Territories in the Caribbean' project, Based on three established criteria for co-management (perceived crisis in stock, willingness to participate and Community cohesion), results suggest that fisher support for co-management exists within each OT but the extent of support for and views of specific management interventions varies among OTs. The implications of results for co-management in each territory, and for establishing coordinated management regimes in the region, are discussed in the context of current debates about the nature of resources and scalar (mis)matches between resource and management regimes. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.