Dissertation Research: Local Institutions and Management of a Belize Common Property Fishery

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Common property resources are much less fragile than the `tragedy of the commons` model suggests, and ecological anthropologists have contributed many valuable case studies of native or local community management systems which maintain such resources. This dissertation research project by an anthropology student from Pennsylvania State University studies a fishing community in Belize. The project's objective is to measure the relationships between lobster fishermen's lending and investment behavior, household composition, and fishing behavior. Hypotheses will be tested based on models predicting that lending and investment strategies and household composition influence fishing behavior, especially the harvest of under-sized lobsters. Methods include participant observation, informal-unstructured and structured interviews, and a census. The contribution of the project will be to advance the general theory dealing with the success and failure of local community resource management institutions and practices. The results from this study will be valuable to theorists and policy planners concerned with the management of common property resources.