or alteration. Especially when they had experienced becoming increasingly dependent on the lessees after the introduction of the lease by public bidding, they tried to redress the power balance by collective actions. The fishermen, whose values included independence and freedom, organized in anti-enclosure movements, a development that also occurred elsewhere following the enclosure of the marine commons. This culture of resistance must be understood against the background of the starkly deteriorating socio-economic position of these petty commodity producers. Many lacked the capital to diversify or change their activities and therefore depended on eelgrass exploitation to make a living. They were encapsulated in capitalist relations of production. The lessees and traders paid wages and absorbed the shocks of fluctuating market prices by lowering labour costs. In addition, they exploited the mowers through a truck system. The eelgrass mowers developed a germinating class consciousness. The Texelians stood up for their right to an existence and gained results despite their weak bargaining position. In the end, the state was sensitive to their arguments and asked the municipalities involved to take over the regulation and supervision of eelgrass mowing again. The municipality of Wieringen did so. Although the eelgrass mowers henceforth worked under slightly better conditions, they remained dependent and dissatisfied. The gathering of washed-up or floating eelgrass gave many an opportunity to supplement their meagre incomes. So did the exploitation of various other marine living resources. As economists Townsend and Wilson maintain, there is a ‘normal tendency of fishermen to switch away from declining stocks’ (1987:323). They usually apply the same strategy once it has become unrewarding to catch a particular species. Such switching behaviour is ‘the most important adaptive strategy used by fishermen’ (Acheson 1988:49). It may bring about a dispersion of pressure on marine resources, a consequence neither intended nor foreseen. This is exactly what Texel fishermen have been doing for quite a long time. They turned to the exploitation of various ecological niches in an attempt to cope with resource deterioration, market fluctuations, state intervention and limitations of access such as those of the oyster and eelgrass industries. They generally pursued different species with different kinds of gear over the annual cycle. They were continually trimming their sails to the wind. The common pool nature of resources enables this kind of flexibility: ‘Common property is created by the guarantee to each individual that he will not be excluded from the use or benefit of something; private property is created by the guarantee that an individual can exclude others from the use or benefit of something. Both kinds of property, being guarantees to individual persons, are individual rights’ (Macpherson 1975:107). Of course, the availability of multiple niches and resources is a precondition for resilience and efficient adaptation under conditions of common pool exploitation. Marine commons offer more opportunities in this respect than, say, a small communal tract of land that is suitable only for cattle grazing.
Trimming the Sails to the Wind
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