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Collective self-governance in a marine community: how to go about?

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March 7, 2017

ENP colleagues Linde van de Bets, Machiel Lamers and Jan van Tatenhove just published an article on expedition cruise tourism in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism. In the article they argue that long-term success of collective self-governance is dependent on both its internal organization and its embeddedness in external state and non-state regulations. They present the marine community concept, consisting of a policy and a user community, as a framework for investigating the internal and external dynamics of collective self-governance and its ability to steer toward sustainable cruise tourism. Their most important claim is that collective self-governance would benefit from reflection, especially regarding the role of the user community which functions as an intermediary between state and self-governance regulations. The article results from fieldwork conducted as part of a research project on ‘Sustainable Ecosystem Management and Use by Marine Communities’ in two exemplary regions. Collective self-governance in a marine community: how to go about?