Competency of small-scale fishers in fishery co-management

Abstract

This study aims to demonstrate the competency level of small-scale fishers for operating fishery comanagement. The study was conducted in three phases. The first phase deals with constructing and verifying competency model by reviewing literature to construct the initial model and in-depth interviewing with the fishery co-management experts. Phase II is competency assessment using questionnaires to interview smallscale fishers. A total of 392 fishers which comprised of 204 and 188 persons from the upper and lower provinces on the Andaman coastline, respectively, were sampled. Finally, Phase III concerns with verifying the assessed results by expert focus-groups. Examination of each competency aspect revealed that, from the nine competencies, small-scale fishers in the upper province had knowledge of geo-ecological and local resource at a leading level which was higher than small-scale fishers in the lower province whose knowledge was at the application level. However, smallscale fishers in these provinces had the learning person competency at the beginner level. Considering all aspects of competency simultaneously by cluster analysis, it was found small-scale fishers could be divided into three groups: those who had knowledge of fishery law and geo-ecology but weak in experience; those who were learning person and had holistic thinking; and those who lacked volunteer spirit, leadership, and communication. The study suggests that the competency of small-scale fishers in fishery co-management which should be developed primarily is learning person, follow by holistic thinking, volunteer spirit, leadership, and communication competencies.