Heterogeneity and Rule Conformance in the Management of the Kapenta Fishery at Lake Kariba – Zimbabwe

Socio economic and biophysical heterogeneity has an important impact on collective conformity to resource management measures. Within the kapenta fishery of lake kariba, there are several types of heterogeneity. These include differences in appropriation skills, political influence, initial endowment and local resource endowments. Kapenta operators have somewhat different preferences regarding resource management, assign different priorities to various objectives of resource management and have different access negotiating capacities. The differences in personal objectives regarding resource management and the differences in degree of control and access over the fishery have led to situations where users have varying incentive structures. This study shows that the social political and economic situation of users leads to variations on how different users relate with the kapenta resource. INTRODUCTION Fishery resources used in common have two important characteristics that make their management difficult. The migratory nature of the resource such as fish and wildlife makes it costly to exclude individuals from using the resource either though physical barriers or legal instrument (Janssen & Ostrom, 2001). The second characteristic is that each person’s use of the natural resource subtracts from the welfare of the others. The nature of the resource is such that, even if users cooperate to enhance the resource productivity, the level of exploitation by one user adversely affects the ability of another users to exploit the resource (Feeny et al, 1990). Subtractability is one of the major sources of the potential divergence between individual and collective rationality (ibid). Resources that share the above characteristics are susceptible to depletion and degradation because the rational individual’s choice is inconsistent with the long-term interest of either the individual or society According to Coarse (1960) theorem, if rational people can come together and bargain in the absence of transaction costs, they will always reach an efficient outcome that would maximise their wealth. The iterated prisoner's dilemma shows how cooperation and trust can