Coastal-marine extractive reserves: Reflections on the pre-implementation stage

Abstract

This article reflects on the process of institutionalization of Extractive Reserves, more specifically those located in a coastal-marine environment, in light of the concept of community-based co-management. The analysis focuses on the pre-implementation stage of Marine Extractive Reserves, especially two Extractive Reserves on the Santa Catarina coast yet to be decreed. The study demonstrates that the formal prescriptions regulating Resex creation processes designed to ensure mechanisms of social participation and the protagonist role of the traditional populations fail to achieve that end. The hierarchical relationship between nature conservation interests and the rights of traditional populations, favoring the former, permeates this stage of construction and so the artisanal fishermen are not the subjects of the process.