Exploring pathways to the persistence of community engagement in co-management across social-ecological conditions

Evaluating sustained community engagement in co-management is critical for designing durable governance with conservation potential, yet such persistence remains rarely assessed. We analyze 750 co-management initiatives established under Chile’s Territorial Use Rights for Fishing policy (1998-2021), examining persistence across conditions theorized to shape collective action in social-ecological systems. Survival analysis shows that initiatives had a 75% probability of persisting beyond 15 years. Abandonment risk declined non-linearly with initial exploitable abundance and increased with monitoring distances. Exploring combinations of variables through cluster analysis reveals that, while initiatives starting with high abundance showed the highest persistence, some initiatives with lower initial abundance also endured at comparable rates when combined with shorter monitoring distances, proximity to large markets, higher poverty, and stronger upwelling. These findings suggest diverse pathways to sustained community engagement in co-management, generate hypotheses for future research, and show how tracking persistence can inform strategies for durable and equitable conservation.