Experiences with Fisheries Co-Management in North America

Abstract

The authors of this chapter focussed first on the question of who was using the term co-management in North America and what was meant by it. We used the definition proposed by the editors of this book: ‘an arrangement where responsibility for resource management is shared between the government and user groups’ (Sen and Nielsen, 1996). However, much of our discussion soon shifted into a comparison of power sharing in Canada and the United States, particularly who has decision-making authority over fisheries resources and how this changes over time. In discussing the ideal conditions for government user cooperation and a mutual willingness to support local governance, the idea of Jeffersonian Democracy came to mind. Jefferson envisioned a national government limited purely to national concerns and subsequent divisions into state, county and township governments such that ‘... each might do for itself what concerns itself directly, and what it can so much better do than a distant authority’ (McHugh, 1972).