Determinants of Compliance to Formal Choice Rules among Artisanal Fishers in Laguna Lake, Philippines

The primary aim of this study is to identify determinant factors influencing cooperative behavior, measured as consistent compliance to formal choice rules, of artisanal fishers in the context of coastal fishery management. A questionnaire survey was conducted with the artisanal fishers of Barangay Bucal, Calamba City, Laguna, Philippines on August 2015 regarding the characteristics of contextual variables found by Agrawal to be recurrent in sustainable common pool resources (CPRs) and the fishers’ mode of compliance to the formal choice rules in their fishery. Based on the skewness of their Compliance Index (CI), cooperation among the fishers is deemed moderate. Using phi, the fishers’ wealth, age, educational attainment, use of Laguna de Bay catfish, and membership in the local fishermen’s association were found to be strongly associated with consistency of compliance to the formal choice rules. Specifically, through simple logistic regression the odds for consistent compliance is higher if a fisher a) has medium to high number of household fixtures, b) is more than 50 years old in age, c) has finished high school, d) markets his Laguna de Bay catfish catch, and e) is a member of the local fishermen’s association. These results indicate that by ensuring the fishers: a) are not experiencing survival constraints; b) have the necessary set of cognitive skills, interest, and knowledge of the political and ecological issues surrounding the management of the coastal fishery; and, c) have strong moral norms favouring compliance to the formal choice rules, cooperation among them can potentially be increased.

Keywords: Cooperative behavior, artisanal fishers, CPRs, institutional analysis, Laguna Lake, Philippines.