Folk Management among Belizean Lobster Fishermen: Success and Resilience or Decline and Depletion?

Fishermen from Caye Caulker, Belize use a local management system based on traditional "areas," or territories, which limits access to the fishing areas around the caye. Data from Northern Fishermen Cooperative Society annual reports suggest that fishermen members of the cooperative have produced lobster tails at a stable rate for over thirty years. Other data from observations and interviews suggest that this seemingly effective local management system may be beginning to teeter. Many factors are shifting the nature of tenure and access to fishing areas in the lobster fishery around Caye Caulker. Other factors are increasing pressure on the lobster population. Here I will discuss changing tenure patterns, fishermen's children's emigration from the caye, and tourism development at the caye. Though these factors are defining characteristics of success among villagers at Caye Caulker, they are in other ways threatening the resilience of this folk management system.