Fish and chips: cross-cutting issues and actors in a co-managed fishery regime in the Pacific Northwest

The goal of biological resource management regimes is to balance human uses of resources with their inherent regenerative capacities. While accomplishing this goal, managers usually face a multiplicity of stakeholder groups bringing a suite of different, and at times conflicting, interests and values to the management table. In the case of the migratory Pacific salmon, the resource regimes are comprised of a series of hierarchically nested institutional arrangements, engaged in cross-level and cross-scale interactions. Co-management institutions have emerged, at least in part, to address these challenges, encompassing a diversity of stakeholders, providing a forum for the sharing of different beliefs, values and perspectives and, importantly, an institutional response to a suite of cross-scale challenges. This article examines how institutional innovation, specifically the emergence of the Pacific Northwest salmon co-management regime, created new roles and legitimized the participation of new actors. In turn, this has transformed tribal co-managers into ??cross-cutting actors??, active in management arenas at multiple jurisdictional and spatial levels in which they represent different interests or constituents. Wearing ??different hats??, these tribal actors mobilize a suite of cross-cutting issues, relevant within different policy subsystems, and create bridges among actors who may be opponents in other fora. This has altered the emergence and trajectory of conflict and cooperation as well as problems of institutional interplay and addressed some of the scale-related challenges that exist within the Pacific salmon management regime.     

The anatomy of conflict and the politics of identity in two cooperative salmon management regimes

Last in a gauntlet of fisheries, indigenous fisheries were often curtailed due to concerns over the conservation of the salmon run. Cooperative management institutions have emerged recently as alternative management structures, often intended to empower marginalized groups and to distribute decision-making authority. Two case studies are examined where cooperative management approaches have emerged. One considers the tribes of the Puget Sound region in Washington, the other the Native Alaskans in the Kuskokwim River drainage. In both cases, resource-based conflicts provided the impetus for the emergence of cooperative management. However, these regimes have not eliminated conflicts nor have they necessarily reduced their frequency. The results of a comparative analysis of the two case studies indicate that management institutions can be structured to facilitate the emergence of cooperation and to make conflicts more amenable to resolution.     

Dedication

Dedication

Dedication     

Introduction

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics -     

Black Box Production of Paper Fish: An Examination of Knowledge Construction and Validation in Fisheries Management Institutions

In this paper I examine the relationship of institutional structures of governance to the production, acceptance and legitimization of knowledge by various stakeholder groups participating in fisheries management arenas. I focus first on the New England groundfishery where the stock assessments of federal scientists have come under intense criticism by fishermen. As a counterpoint, I examine knowledge production for management purposes in two fisheries where cooperative management institutions have emerged: the Puget Sound region of Washington and the Kuskokwim River watershed of Alaska. Knowledge is produced and legitimated differently by the different stakeholders in the management process. The findings highlight the critical importance of two-way communication, in which stakeholder groups both listen and are listened to, in creating a legitimated and more robust knowledge base with which management decisions can be made.