Evaluating the role of co-management in improving governance of marine protected areas: An experimental approach in the Colombian Caribbean

Complexities associated with the management of common pool resources (CPRs) threaten governance at some marine protected areas (MPAs). In this paper, using economic experimental games (EEGs), we investigate the effects of internal communication, external regulation, and the interaction between internal regulation and non-coercive authority intervention—what we call co-management—on fishermen's extraction decisions. We perform EEG with fishermen inhabiting the influence zone of an MPA in the Colombian Caribbean. The results show that co-management exhibits the best results, in terms of both reduction in extraction and resource sustainability, highlighting the importance of strategies that recognize communities as key actors in the decision-making process for the sustainable use and conservation of CPR in protected areas.