Actor-Based Design of a Management System for the Elephant Marsh Fishery in Malawi

In Malawi, fishing community user groups known as beach village committees, traditional chiefs, government officers, and fishers are the key players in fisheries management. Fish catch trends at the Elephant Marsh Fishery in southern Malawi are declining. Based on interviews and participant observation, this article uses an actor-based framework (known as Action-in-Context) to unveil the issues that are crucial in devising a sustainable governance system for the fishery. We establish and propose that the key social variables for the design of a three-pillared (locally based, weak, and amorphous) resilient institution for sustainability of the Elephant Marsh Fishery are (i) the social reputation of the leaders of local fishery institutions (beach village committee leaders), and (ii) the power dynamics between traditional chiefs and these local fishery leaders. We end the article by exploring the implications of the findings on the sustainability of the fishery under rising resource pressure.