From the 1970s onwards, the management and governance of natural resources in Africa started to more seriously involve local communities, and to include stakeholders that are affected directly or indirectly. One of the main principles of participatory approaches is that stakeholders should be involved in decision-making, implementation and enforcement. Inclusion of actors and resource users is also expected to increase the legitimacy and thus efficacy of resource governance. Allowing communities to be part of the system should lead to better knowledge of rules, regulations and other management activities and thus contribute to improve compliance. In this paper, I test the solidity of these claims by comparatively examine different collaborative fisheries governance systems in Tanzania: Beach Management Units and Marine Parks. Beach Management Units are community-based form of fisheries management and governance, while Marine Parks are led by government but include forms of local participation.
The results presented here arise from fieldwork I carried out in 2017 and 2018, which included key informant interviews, focus group discussion, participant observation and a survey. I find that during the establishment of Beach Management Units (BMUs) as well as Marine Parks (MPs), communities were involved through various meetings at the village level. However, participating in these meetings did not mean that all members of the communities were satisfied with the process. This had implications on the implementation of strategies and rules. Village Liaison Committee (VLC), for example, are supposed to represent communities in the Marine Park management system, but they consist of a passive modality because many of the members do not know their roles, and very little information is disseminated to the broader community. At best, the members of VLCs consider themselves as receivers of information from Marine Park officials. Differently from VLCs, the community-selected BMUs committees have power to make important decisions on governance issues on their own, as long as they do not conflict with government policy and law. I examine the implications of these dynamics for the quality of community participation and in terms of environmental outcomes.