Do you trust me? – Go Fish! A Study on Trust and Fisheries Management

Abstract

This paper investigates trust among stakeholders in fisheries management. We asked the general public, environmental bureaucrats, and recreational and commercial fishers whether they believed various stakeholders have sufficient knowledge to take a stance regarding fisheries management issues in a choice experiment they themselves had just been exposed to. We found that the general public and recreational fishers tend to trust bureaucrats to have sufficient knowledge, while bureaucrats distrust the general public. The commercial fishers in our sample deviate from the other respondents with high self-trust and low trust in both the general public and bureaucrats. In addition, bureaucrats tend to think that their colleagues are more knowledgeable than them. When looking at observable characteristics, we find that, regardless of comparison group, males show higher trust in their own knowledge than do females, and those with higher education believe they are more knowledgeable than people in general.