Development of a Theoretical Framework for Community-Based Fisheries Co-Management in the Niger Delta: Integrating Institutional Economics and Ecological Resilience Theory

The complex socio-ecological dynamics of fisheries governance in the Niger Delta, South South Nigeria, are inadequately captured by existing co-management models developed in Western institutional contexts, necessitating a theoretically grounded framework specifically calibrated to the governance realities of this region. This study develops an original theoretical framework for community-based fisheries co-management in the Niger Delta by integrating Ostrom's Institutional Analysis and Development framework, ecological resilience theory, and political ecology concepts, and validates this framework against empirical evidence from eight case study fishing communities in Rivers, Delta, and Bayelsa States. The framework posits that effective co-management in the Niger Delta requires simultaneous attention to three dimensions: ecological resilience of the targeted fish stocks, adaptive capacity of fishing community institutions, and the power dynamics governing resource access in an oil-producing region where community authority is frequently contested by industrial interests. Case study data were collected through 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork, institutional mapping, social network analysis, and fish stock monitoring. The framework was operationalised as a diagnostic tool producing a co-management readiness index for each case community. Analysis revealed that communities with intact traditional governance structures and collective action histories scored highest on co-management readiness and recorded better fisheries condition outcomes over the study period. The original theoretical contribution lies in the explicit incorporation of oil-industry power asymmetries as a determinant variable in Niger Delta co-management design, a dimension absent from global frameworks. The study provides a theoretically grounded and empirically validated co-management design guide for practitioners and policymakers in the region.

Keywords: co-management theory, Niger Delta, institutional analysis, ecological resilience, fisheries governance