Social climate resilience: Evidence from a traditional surf clam fishery community in Chile

Regulatory frameworks and management systems are key determining the resilience of small-scale fishing communities to climate change, as they can either enhance or hinder the ability of fishers to sustain their livelihoods and well-being. In Chile, the fishing sector holds significant economic and social importance. The management of specific resources has evolved with the introduction of territorial user rights, which have overlapped with existing traditional and customary fishing communities. Caleta San Pedro (CSP) is one of those traditional communities with a rich legacy dating back to the mid-1800s that since 1997, has operated under a spatial property rights system (AMERB) granted to a neighboring community who hold the official property rights. In this study, we focused on understanding the extent to which property rights, operating alongside customary rules at CSP, can confer social climate resilience. Through the application of face-to face semi-structured questionnaires to 48 fishers, we investigated a range of social factors that are theoretically linked to foster climate resilience in fishing communities (i.e., fisher mobility, resource stewardship). Fishers’ responses were categorized in 23 indicators that relate to the different resilience factors, both at the individual (fisher) and the collective (CSP guild) levels. Our study reveals some mismatches in resilience indicators between the individual and collective scales partly due to differing capacities within the embedded regulatory system (e.g. long-term stewardship is high for the individual fishers however lower at the collective scale). However, our findings also illustrate the potential of the system to promote resilience by involving fishers more extensively in decision-making processes, addressing existing inequalities, and implementing adaptive management strategies. Results can shed some light on how resilience may be fostered in similar customary fishing communities embedded in property rights systems elsewhere.