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• Institutional change is an essential element to understand environmental governance. • Institutional change analysis based on the Bricolage concept may be more suited to the real-world dynamics. • Bricolage process shapes interaction between bureaucratic and socially built institutions. • The governance of the protected areas reveals the need for institutional flexibility and creativity. Institutional Bricolage can be a useful concept to understand how institutional change has occurred in natural resource governance. As an adaptive process, agents involved in governance blend rules, traditions, norms, symbolisms, and authority relationships, modifying old arrangements and inventing new ones. In this paper, we use the concept of Institutional Bricolage to analyze how institutional change has occurred during the implementation of marine extractive reserves in Brazil. We present examples of institutional adjustments, when formal or bureaucratic institutions interact with those socially built, in process of aggregation, alteration and/or articulation. We also discuss the influence of power, political and party dynamics on shared governance, and bring reflections on the governance of protected areas through the lens of Critical Institutionalism. Our findings reveal the importance of more flexible institutional designs, exploring questions that may guide a new research agenda on community conservation that is more coherent with local realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are several initiatives towards the science-policy interface and the co-production of knowledge, but there is still few methodological and empirically grounded guidance helping scientists to design and implement research that actively facilitate transformative changes in ocean conflicts. In this paper, we explore the potential of the participatory scenario planning tool in the transformation of a conflict case on small-scale fishing in Brazil. We highlight the lessons learned, potential, and challenges of the scenario planning approach for conflict transformation. Despite being an approach widely applied to coastal and marine environmental and management issues, the scenarios methodology has not been explicitly applied in conflict situations, with the parties in dispute, as we did. Our methodological approach consisted of a previous research stage, based on documental analysis, direct observation of meetings and semi-structured interviews, followed by a participatory scenario planning workshop. Our results show that the participatory scenario planning was able to find the common desires as well as the uncertainties that generated doubts, mistrust, and in many moments disagreements among different groups of stakeholders that were in conflict. Previous research and the employment of multiple methods to build the history of the conflict contributed to legitimate researchers' positionality, to know the parties involved and the power dynamics. We raised some questions to advance the understanding of how the participatory scenarios planning contribute to transforming ocean conflicts in a more critical and politicized view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we describe and analyze the co-management institutional framework at 21 Brazilian Marine Extractive Reserves (MERs) and present the dramas of its implementation from the local manager's perspective. We categorized the governance instruments of MERs into (i) instruments for land/sea tenure and beneficiaries' recognition, (ii) territorial use planning, (iii) institutional arenas for discussion and deliberation, as well as (iv) public policies. Although the legal arrangements of these protected areas address fundamental dimensions of governance, we present the challenges of its implementation based on the voice of local managers. The managers are the bridge between the central government and communities, dealing with the implementation of the institutional framework in a reality of multi-level and multi-scale drama: from local to national dilemmas, from organizational to structural ones. We explore these dramas and highlight the institutional dilemmas based on the paradoxes between legalism and social emancipation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Brazil, as in many other tropical countries, coastal communities have been dealing with a complex dynamics of change, mostly related to the degradation of ecosystems, growing tourism and changing government policies, with consequences for natural resources conservation and management. Understanding how these communities are dealing with such change and the trade-offs provide insights for building resilience. In this paper, we investigate how a Caiçara community (traditional group of mixed heritage) has been dealing with social-ecological changes over the last 50 years, and how these changes have affected the livelihood resilience. Livelihood pathway analysis revealed how the system behaved historically and how the past dynamics influenced and may continue to influence resilience building. In face of challenges and disturbances, the coping and adaptive strategies used by this community have helped to maintain the diversity of livelihood options and ecosystem services, which contributed to resilience. Self-organization, collective action and political agency were important components to deal with crises mainly related to territorial disputes concerning overlap with protected areas. The trade-offs in social-ecological system dynamics were related to the geographical isolation of the community (located on an island), the creation of protected areas, and the use of tourism income as a livelihood strategy. Over the years, social cohesion has weakened due to increased economic rationality and conflicts – which may undermine social-ecological system resilience in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few decades, the literature has pointed out pathways to success in co-management processes based on key conditions. Rather than offering prescriptive conclusions for successful co-management in protected areas, in this article, we highlight the importance of the "process" and certain elements that contribute to advancements of formal and informal co-management. We analyzed the trajectory of two protected areas for sustainable use in coastal Brazil - Extractive Reserves of Prainha do Canto Verde and São João da Ponta. Advancements of co-management were understood as processes of shared environmental and territorial governance, with levels of community participation and/or social control. Advancements were observed in both formal co-management arenas, such as deliberative boards for protected area management, and informal spheres, such as the implementation of projects and other actions involving traditional populations and partners. Drawing on Grounded Theory, the advancements were explained based on two categories of inter-related factors: (i) catalytic factors – crises, threats and other factors of social mobilization, emancipatory partnerships, and political identity, and (ii) structural factors, based on resources of community power and citizenship. Beyond diagnoses or rankings of success, the explanatory dimension of these phenomena highlights their inherent complexity. • Co-management evaluations of protected areas need to be further complexified. • Co-management advancements were observed in both formal and informal co-management arenas. • Catalytic and structural factors explain co-management in the long term. • The trajectory analysis is relevant to evaluate co-management advancements of protected areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]