Co-management of tropical coastal zones: The case of the Soufriere marine management area, St. Lucia, WI

Centralized top-down fisheries management models based on biological stock- recruitment have, at best, achieved limited success when adapted to Third W orld fisheries. Comanagement, a resource management approach oriented towar ds resource users and their communities, has been proposed as an alternativ e strategy for managing Third World fisheries. We examine the initial succe ss and subsequent problems of one such collaborative coastal zone managemen t project on St. Lucia's leeward coast. Factors that must be considered in the development, implementation, and maintenance of coastal comanagement sy stems operating in the contexts of tropical marine ecosystems in developing nations are identified and discussed.