Fishing cooperative societies are an important institution at the grass roots level having wide presence both in inland and marine fisheries sector. Though cooperatives have been a subject of study and debate since long specially in the agriculture sector, few studies have been done on the fishing cooperatives. Further, most of these studies have focused on production, marketing and financial aspects of fishing cooperatives. This paper presents case studies of two reservoirs namely, Hirakud and Surada, of Orissa undertaken to assess the performance of the fishing cooperative societies in implementing conservation measures in fisheries resource management. An index was prepared to measure the performance of fishing cooperative societies. The findings revealed that performance of the Primary Fishing Cooperative Society at Sourada reservoir was high in implementing fish conservation measures while it was low at the Hirakud reservoir.
Co-management, Reservoir fisheries resources, Fishing cooperative societies
