Abstract: Since the 1980s, co-management strategies have been implemented in various contexts as an “attempt to enable those individuals and groups previously excluded by more top-down planning processes, and who are often marginalized by their separation and isolation from the production of knowledge and the formulation of policies and practices, to be included in decisions that affect their lives” (Kothari 2001, 139). Yet, thirty years after inception, have co-management structures allowed for the creation of a new kind of relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous actors that overcomes the acknowledged flaws and limitations of centralized top-down resource management and the social conflicts it engenders?

This paper will examine forms of partnership that have emerged between the Australian Commonwealth and State government agencies and Torres Strait Islanders since the implementation of the Torres Strait Treaty in 1985 and how the provisions set out in this Treaty, and the related Torres Strait Fisheries Act 1984, have or have not lead to a stronger representation of Islanders within the decision-making process of regional fisheries. My arguments will draw on empirical data gathered during fieldwork conducted in the Torres Strait from August 2008 to December 2009.

Cited Reference: KOTHARI, Uma. 2001. “Power, knowledge and Social Control in Participatory Development”: 139-152. In Cooke, B. and U. Kothari (Eds.). Participation: The new Tyranny? New York: Zed Book.

Annick Thomassin is a PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology, McGill University (Montreal, Canada), and a Visiting Student at CAEPR.