Elevated participation in co-management increases the willingness of stalked barnacle harvesters to adopt highly restrictive and spatially explicit management strategies - Dataset

Survey data used in a perception study of stalked barnacle harvesters on the effectiveness of fisheries management practices in Spain, Portugal and France. Harvesters from the following six regions along the Atlantic Arc participated: Morbihan in Brittany (France), Asturias-East, Asturias-West and Galicia (Spain), the Reserva Natural das Berlengas (RNB; Portugal) and the Parque Natural do Sudoeste Alentejano e Costa Vicentina (PNSACV; Portugal). We administered 184 surveys from October 2019 to September 2020 and each region was treated as an independent population. The data includes: general demographic data (Region, Age, Gender, Level of Education, Main income source, Years of Experience); perception data of the effectiveness of the currently implemented management strategies in each region (coded: e_name_of_strategy – using Likert Scale with scores ranging from 1 = completely ineffective to 5 = very effective); data of the willingness for change of the currently implemented management (Yes, No, NA); and data of harvesters’ perceptions regarding the most important strategy to achieve sustainability in the fishery. Because the surveys were conducted both before and during the Covid-19 pandemic (the column Covid indicates whether the data was collected before or during the pandemic), we had to make adjustments in our data collection methods. We provided the following options for survey completion (see the Recollection_of_data column): by hand in a written format, online, or via an oral interview conducted with the assistance of a scientist per telephone.
Our results indicate that the majority of harvesters in the regions in Portugal and France were willing to make changes to current management strategies, reflecting their awareness of the need for improvement. Based on the AIC model selection analysis results, the model with the single variable region explained 83% of the cumulative model weight. The variable region was the best predictor of the trends in management strategy preferences, and presented a highly significant goodness-of-fit result (p<0.001), suggesting that regional differences play a significant role in shaping these preferences. No clear trend emerged regarding a single "optimal" management strategy preferred by harvesters across regions. Harvesters in less developed co-management systems favored general input and output restrictions and expressed a desire for greater involvement in co-management processes. Conversely, harvesters in highly developed co-management systems with Territorial User Rights for Fishers (TURFs) preferred the most restrictive and spatially explicit management strategies, such as implementing harvest bans and establishing marine reserves. Our findings emphasise that management strategies do not only need to be tailored to each region's particular practices, needs, and characteristics, but that resource users’ readiness for specific strategies also needs to be considered.