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Session 3B: Opportunities
Linking Cooperative Research and Management:
Integration, Panel Summary
J
IMD. M
URRAYSea Grant Extension , National Sea Grant College Program
NOAA/OAR, R/SG, Room 11752, SSMC3
1315 East-West Highway , Silver Spring, Maryland 20910, USA
Feedback needs to go to the managers and to the researchers so that we can redirect research or change the research that we are working on… Cooperative research has a place in every feedback loop. Should eventually be able to drop the word cooperative and it will become implicit in the world of research because it has been fully integrated. [Bonnie Ponwith, acting director, Office of Science and Technology, NOAA Fisheries]
The final session of the joint Sea Grant/American Fisheries Society symposium focused on the inte-gration of cooperative fisheries research and management. Jim Murray, director of outreach with the National Sea Grant Office, moderated the panel and noted that a lot of progress has been made in the past 20 years in the fields of cooperative research and management. The councils are examples of cooperative management, but 20 years ago, the council process did not work very well. In the past, the participation process was largely ritualistic—the council developed fisheries management plans (FMPs), there was a law requiring public hearings, fishermen came to public meetings and they would angrily vent, council members would speed the meeting ahead, and the council would move forward with very little change to the whole FMP as a result of the whole process. This process has changed. The take-home point is that change is often incremental in society and government, but progress is being made. Below are some speaker highlights, followed by a summary of the facilitated panel-audience discussion. White papers prepared by panelists follow this panel summary.
• It would be nice if scientists and fisher-men got together before a meeting to find a common goal and theme and de-cide ahead of time. It would achieve a lot more if you can work together on an agreed common goal before going through the process.
• We can only gain from cooperative re-search and management. There are hurdles that need to be addressed though, including a continued discon-nect between funding agencies, fisher-men, industry, scientists, and manage-ment.
• Need to work toward taking a project’s
Peter Kendall, FV Miss Alicia, Portsmouth, New Hampshire
results and translating them into practical guidelines and using the ideas to formulate a management response. In order to do this, we need liaisons between funding agen-cies and management agenagen-cies, someone who can take project results and put them into management. Research projects should be picked and chosen by the management agencies so that research projects are scripted in such a way that they can use the results in the decision-making process in a timely matter.
• A hurdle for scientists and fishermen—funding problems/issues. Scientists are always trying to get money (very competitive), and thus there is not as much shared informa-tion as there should be.
• Effective fishery management requires (a) a foundation of credible scientific information, (b) a consistent flow of high-quality information, (c) managers that understand the science well enough to use it in making management deci-sions, and (d) active engagement of rel-evant sectors of society.
• Research feeds a product to managers (science information and advice); the managers use this information and pro-duce an outcome (decision). Managers are the clients of science—the manage-ment process is the driver for determin-ing what science needs to be done. • Science must be responsive and timely
to meet management needs, and a feed-back loop must be established to en-able the science programs to adapt to changes in management.
• Setting research priorities is both an ecological and social phenomenon. Competition is an important tool for setting research priorities.
• Cooperative research should be fully integrated into comprehensive research plan-ning and execution.
• Science products must meet rigorous peer-review standards.
• Cooperative partners play an important role in facilitating communication and help-ing to bridge gaps in communication.
• Integrating research and management must take place at the onset in the priority setting stage, not after the research is completed.
Integration is a Process
For over the past 20 years, the integration of cooperative research and comanagement systems in U.S fisheries management has progressed, albeit slowly. Yet, the potential for further integration
Bonnie Ponwith, acting director, Office of Science and Technology, NOAA Fisheries (substituting for Steve Murawski, director of scientific programs and chief science advisor, NOAA Fisheries)
remains tremendous. The panel made clear that there is no single blueprint or model for integrating cooperative research and comanagement systems, but rather, these systems must evolve, adapt, and adjust over time. Integration is a process that builds on trust, credibility, and previous successes, involving the integration of research and management priorities, scientific and local knowledge, funding, and coordinated institutions. Integration is specific to political, managerial, and scientific contexts.
Characteristics of Successful Integration
The panel identified some common characteristics of successful integration systems. A central tenet of any cooperative research and comanagement scheme is that the scientific product must be of the highest quality and meet peer-review standards. To maximize success, it is essential that all relevant stakeholders work together from the outset to identify goals, objectives, and approaches for address-ing mutually acknowledged fishery research and management needs. Successful integration not only requires a mutual understanding and agreement of the desired outcomes, but perhaps more impor-tantly, a degree of trust among participants that provide integrity in the process. Third-party
inter-• Comanagement is a paradigm shift in governance and management. It is a so ciety-centered approach of self-gover nance, participation, networking, and decentralization.
• Comanagement is a partnership agree ment between fishermen, government, and the stakeholders, involving shared authority of the fishery, consultations and negotiations, and clearly defined roles and rights among partners. • Successful power sharing takes those that
are not empowered, usually the fishers, and allows them to work on an equal basis to those that are in power. • A lot of it is dealing with conflict, so
you need a process or forum to make rules, solve problems, learn, and open up lines of communication to help deal with conflicts and a process to build institutions that work more effectively.
• Cooperative research and comanagement are different but must work together, com-pliment and support each other, inform management, nourish community education, and foster community involvement.
• Empowered people become more involved in the management process itself and increase the chances that comanagement programs will succeed through local in-volvement and ownership. Scientific and local knowledge can compliment and en-hance each other.
• Empower community members to utilize local knowledge and practices and give the local community the opportunity to learn skills and learn about the research process.
Robert Pomeroy, associate professor and Sea Grant Fisheries Extension specialist, University of Connecticut, Avery Point Campus
Jason Schratwieser, conservation director, International Game Fish Association
• The International Game Fish Asso-ciation has been around for a while, since 1939, and was created for two purposes: (1) to create a code of ethical angling rules that allow for comparison of catches worldwide, and (2) to promote and encourage the sport of fishing for both recre-ation and research, as a source of data.
• Problem: cooperative management
is difficult because of all the differ-ent user groups with differdiffer-ent back-grounds, which often leads to dis-trust.
• Solution: get appropriate groups in-volved earlier in the research and data collection—this will foster trust and transparency and this allows for trust from the beginning.
• There is a need for better cooperative management, implementation, and compli-ance.
mediaries (university-based organizations, nongovernmental organizations, professional project co-ordinators, facilitators or mediators, and Sea Grant extension agents) can play an important role in convening key stakeholders and building support and trust. These third parties could also fill an important liaison function to link research results to practical management applications. Establish-ing clear priorities that guide research fundEstablish-ing decisions is also essential. A clearly articulated re-search plan that is directed at critical management needs can serve to broaden the funding base by providing a common frame of reference for funding agencies.
Future Focus
As cooperative fisheries research and management evolve, exciting new opportunities will arise. Historically, comanagement has worked best in fisheries that can be compartmentalized at a finite or small scale. As fisheries management moves towards an ecosystem-based management system, how will comanagement systems enable a holistic regional approach to fisheries management? What in-stitutional and legal changes will be needed to allow for fisheries management systems to adapt to emerging comanagement opportunities? How can fisheries managers and researchers utilize and integrate emerging advances in ocean observing systems to support cooperative research and comanagement programs? Most importantly, how can we design performance and evaluation proto-cols to ascertain whether or not we are achieving intended outcomes by using the most cost-efficient methods?
As we look to the future, the public resources available to support fisheries research and manage-ment at the federal, regional, and state levels will continue to be constrained. By implication, effective management of fisheries resources mandates that affected parties must embrace the integration of
Steve Waste, program manager for analysis and evaluation, Fish and Wildlife Program, Northwest Power and Conservation Council
• Difficulty in agreeing on problem definition coupled with shared funding responsibilities under overlapping mandates have resulted in a fragmentation of research efforts in the Co-lumbia River basin.
• Key research questions have persisted for years because resource management agencies have been unable to secure or collaborate on the funding commitments necessary to mount organized, large-scale, and/or long-term field experiments to address them.
• The Columbia River Basin Research Plan rec-ommends that policy makers facilitate the in-tegration of the currently compartmentalized research agendas and budgets of entities that share common objectives, by convening a re-gional research partnership.
• The partnership would provide a forum for the identification of shared research priori-ties and development of collaborative imple-mentation and funding strategies.
• Developing standardized approaches, making and securing long-term funding com-mitments, and coordinating with regional partners are all essential to the develop-ment of an integrated, regional approach to research.
cooperative research and management. As suggested by panelists, using third-party liaisons, including outreach and education as part of the funding criteria, and designing cooperative research plans that have direct and focused management implications will contribute to the success of cooperative pro-grams.
