How resilient is the Torres Strait Treaty (Australia and Papua New Guinea) to global change? A fisheries governance perspective
2019
Butler, James R.A. | Busilacchi, Sara | Skewes, Tim
Multi-lateral treaties are the primary institutional instrument for managing shared trans-national ecosystems, but their original designs may not be resilient to unanticipated global pressures. Here we evaluate the Torres Strait Treaty, which was ratified in 1985 to manage marine resources shared by Traditional Inhabitants from Western Province, Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Torres Strait Islands of Australia. Since 1985 rapid Asian economic growth has driven illegal fishing and trading practices amongst PNG fishers, and impacts from mining on PNG coastal settlements, exacerbated by relatively limited management capacity on the PNG side of the border. We evaluate the resilience of the Treaty to these unprecedented pressures by applying six design principles from the literature on resilient trans-boundary river basin treaties. Our analysis indicates that the Treaty’s strengths lie in delegated inter-governmental organizations, conflict resolution and resource allocation mechanisms that account for variability. However, its weaknesses are due to the lack of formal review mechanisms, the absence of joint monitoring of potentially over-exploited species (sharks, barramundi, jewfish, mud crabs and reef fish), and low PNG capacity for enforcement. We present a ‘score-card’ synthesising our evaluation, and recommend adaptive co-management processes that will enhance the resilience of the Treaty, including the regular review of the Treaty’s structure and terms, and inclusion of external stakeholders related to cross-border trade with neighboring Indonesia, and PNG mining. We discuss the relevance of our approach for the design and evaluation of multi-lateral marine resource-sharing agreements, and regional security.
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