nfcc: national fisheries conservation center

Serving the Interests of Conservation: The Collaboration Conundrum
By Sharon B. Young

Conservation and animal welfare advocates are increasingly involved in collaborative efforts with fishing interests and the managers who represent them. These collaborations may be for the purpose of defining conservation issues, educating both sides on aspects of the conflict between conservation of animals and the economy of the fishery, or in finding solutions to problems that have been already identified. I have been involved in both federally appointed and ad hoc groups of fishermen and conservation group representatives working to resolve conservation concerns that arise from the entanglement of marine mammals in fishing gear. In the best of worlds, collaborative efforts between fishermen and conservation representatives or conservation biologists can lead to meaningful solutions to vexing problems. However, like many things in life, this tool is a double-edged sword that can injure your cause as well as it can protect it.

Conservation groups have much to gain from collaborations:

Fishing interests may not feel that conservation concerns for a particular species are pressing in nature. Collaborations can educate them. In turn, conservationists are more likely to propose meaningful solutions if they are educated about fishery operations.
Whenever both sides can agree on the problem, they are vested in finding a solution. As an example, the harbor porpoise working group came together in the early 1990s to discuss high levels of mortality of porpoises in gillnets. This resulted in collaborative efforts to obtain funds for an experiment that subsequently indicated that acoustic devices placed on nets might reduce mortality while still allowing fishermen to fish.
Collaborations can also provide information that is more likely to be trusted by both sides and can be used by managers in decision making. As examples, fishermen and conservation biologists worked together to obtain information on the distribution of bottlenose dolphins in coastal waters of North Carolina that will be critical to determining the level of effect of fisheries on local populations. Conservation biologists and fishermen have also conducted joint experiments to investigate properties of gillnets when they are struck by large objects (such as whales). This research helped focus a federal working group's discussion on how to modify nets to reduce the potential of gillnets to entangle large whales.

These examples demonstrate the utility of collaborative efforts to find solutions to pressing species conservation concerns.

But the collaborative sword also poses a danger to conservation interests. Collaborative discussions and joint research help each side get to know individuals from the other side. This personal knowledge may engender a feeling that the welfare of the "partners" in the collaboration is as important as that of the animals or the ecosystem we are supposed to represent. The result of this may be a tendency to weaken conservation advocacy so as to avoid injuring or offending collaborators. While this weakened advocacy may result in joint agreement on a solution, the solution may not be in the best interest of the animals if too high a premium has been placed on the welfare of the fishing industry partners.

In a personal example, I am appointed to a federal panel charged with reducing risk to highly endangered right whales that gather in their critical habitat in Cape Cod Bay in late winter and early spring. Although no gillnetting is allowed in this area at the high use time, lobster gear, which is known to entangle right whales, is still permitted. To an outsider, with no knowledge of the personalities involved, the obvious solution to reduce risk is to remove the lobster gear as well. This federally appointed team, comprised of managers, scientists, conservation interests and fishermen is tasked with reducing risk to right whales; however, conservation group representatives on the team know that banning lobster gear is counter to the interests of fishermen with whom they have worked closely. The interests of the whales whom we are charged with protecting conflict with the interest of the fishermen whom we have gotten to know personally. A decision that favors the interests of our collaborators may not be in the best interest of the animals that I, and others, have been appointed to protect.

Collaboration is a valuable tool for educating interest groups, and developing information that both sides may trust. It is an important means for vesting both sides in the development of solutions to pressing conservation concerns. After all, if both sides have agreed on the problem and the solution, then both sides are likely to work to see their plan succeed. But conservation groups must be wary of trading our advocacy for access to the good will of fishing interests. We must be mindful of our purpose and collaborate whenever it will further the interests of the animals or ecosystems we are there to protect. But we must also be willing to use tools that are more adversarial if collaboration is likely to result in a product that may well undermine the interests we are charged with protecting. The difficulty is in knowing which of the many tools we have at our disposal will work best to attain the important goals we seek to achieve.

Sharon B. Young is a marine mammal consultant for the Humane Society of the United States and has worked on fishery/marine mammal interactions for the organization since 1992. She serves on a number of federal advisory groups and multi-stakeholder teams working to resolve conflicts between marine mammals and fisheries, and has testified before Congress on the success and shortcomings of these efforts.