The paper discusses the application of Elinor Ostrom’s Social Ecological Systems (SES) framework, using as example a community organization in Costa Rica, which collectively extracts turtle eggs.

In settings in which people rely directly on either forest or marine resources, protecting both the natural resources and livelihoods is challenging. Findings from Tanzania suggest that, where budgets are limited, key factors for a successful combination of livelihood and conservation policies include the strategic location of livelihood projects that target those most dependent on the protected resource rather than those most likely to cooperate with access restrictions.

The recreational and aesthetic values of coastal areas have a significant economic impact, and because they are enhanced by coastal protection, the latter should receive top priority in striving to achieve development goals

Microcredit schemes have become a popular means of improving smallholders’ access to credit and making long term investment possible. However, it remains to be explored whether the current microcredit schemes are more successful than earlier formal small scale lending in identifying successful borrowers. We studied shrimp farming in a rural region in Bangladesh where formal microlending is well established, but where more expensive informal microlending coexists with the formal schemes.

Although Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) provide an increasingly popular policy tool for protecting marine stocks and biodiversity, they pose high costs for small-scale fisherfolk who have few alternative livelihood options in poor countries. MPAs often address this burden on local households by providing some benefits to compensate locals and/or induce compliance with restrictions.

Fishers in developing countries do not have the resources to acquire advanced technologies to exploit offshore fish stocks. As a result, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea requires countries to sign partnership agreements with distant water fishing nations (DWFNs) to exploit offshore stocks. However, for migratory stocks, the offshore may serve as a natural marine reserve (i.e., a source) to the inshore (i.e., sink); hence these partnership agreements generate spatial externality.

This analysis of the fishers’ compliance with regulations in Lake Victoria, Tanzania, gives support to the traditional economics-of-crime model and shows that the extension of the basic deterrence model can lead to a richer model with substantially higher explanatory power.

Economic theory predicts that open access leads to myopic behaviour of fishermen, while improving property rights leads to more long-term decisions of fishermen.

Using South Africa’s hake and rock lobster fisheries, the authors argue the need for satellite accounts of South Africa’s commercial fisheries.