The tyranny of the past: why local histories matter in the South African fisheries

Co-management is widely advocated internationally as the solution to the purported failure of state management in the fisheries and has won adherents in South Africa. The theory, however, rests on a set of unexamined modernist assumptions, which raise serious doubts about its likely successful import to South Africa. These problems are demonstrated through a review of indigenous co-management in the South African inshore fisheries c.1905–1939. This suggests that co-management in South Africa was a historical compromise between a weak, pre-scientific state and the patrons of client fishing communities menaced by industrialisation whereby control was granted over marine resources within defined sea territories in exchange for governance at the coastal margins. The factors sustaining indigenous co-management have long since passed and the alignment of forces in the current conjuncture is hostile to its re-imposition from outside.