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

Ensuring the sustainability of European stalked barnacle fisheries requires effective management strategies. Insights into the experience of resource users with different management strategies can help to assess their success. To explore the opinion of the harvesters on the management of local fisheries, we conducted a multi-regional survey in Spain, Portugal and France with varying degrees of co-management. We analysed their responses using a multinomial logistic regression to understand what drove the observed differences. No single optimal strategy to achieve sustainability emerged, and the analysis revealed that geographic region was the most significant variable explaining the preferences of harvester. In less developed co-management systems they favored general input and output restrictions and expressed a desire for greater involvement in co-management processes. Conversely, in highly developed co-management systems with Territorial User Rights for Fishers (TURFs) they preferred the most restrictive and spatially explicit management strategies, such as implementing harvest bans and establishing marine reserves. These preferences indicate that harvesters in TURF-based systems exhibit a high level of stewardship and commitment to sustainable resource management. Moreover, our results indicate that the majority of harvesters in the regions in Portugal and France, areas with less developed co-management, are willing to make changes to current management strategies, reflecting their awareness of the need for improvement. To enhance the development of sustainable management practices across the distributional range of fishery resources, management strategies do not only need to be tailored to each region's particular practices, needs, and characteristics, but also consider the readiness of resource users for specific strategies. • Comparing perceptions of stalked barnacle harvesters from six European regions. • Harvesters in less participatory fisheries show higher willingness to change strategies. • Advanced co-management systems promote restrictive & spatially explicit strategies. • Harvesters readiness for strategies is crucial for sustainable fisheries management.