Browsing by Author "Wilson, James"

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Competition, Cooperation, and Learning in the Marine Commons: Implications for Collective Action
(2010) Johnson, Teresa R.; Wilson, James; Acheson, James M.; Cleaver, C.
"Success or failure of governance of the marine commons can be traced to the complex interactions of the natural and the human systems. The coupled human and natural system dynamics that generate the preconditions for collective action, especially the adaptive dynamics that lead to the emergence of informal social and economic structure, are not well known. We hypothesize that competitive interactions among fishers seeking knowledge about resource conditions lead to the emergence of dynamic social patterns and informal structures that reflect the particular circumstances of the natural and social system; the scale and mechanisms of those patterns and structures in turn affect the feasibility and effectiveness of collective action and, through that, the sustainability of the natural system. We examine this hypothesis in the context of the Maine sea urchin fishery. Although currently very small, it was a classic gold rush fishery during the late 1980s and the 1990s until the population became depleted and fishable aggregations became sparse. We conducted semi-structured interviews with key informants from the Maine sea urchin fishery to understand the biophysical circumstances in which cooperation might be feasible and that might form the basis for collective action. We find that the biophysical conditions relevant to sustainable processes in the fishery occur at the scale of individual ledges, a much finer scale than current management. In spite of co-management, limited entry, and a number of input control mechanisms the relevant unit in the fishery, the ledge, is still an open access fishery."
Evolution of the Maine Lobster Co-management Law
(2000) Acheson, James M.; Stockwell, Terry; Wilson, James
"In fisheries management circles, there is growing realization that traditional ways of managing marine resources are not working and that new approaches to management need to be tried. One of the most promising of these new approaches is co-management, where authority for managing fish stocks is shared between the industry and government agencies. This paper discusses the implementation of the new co-management system, which was initiated in the Maine lobster industry in 1995. "The law has clearly been successful; it has been framed in a way to allow lobster fishermen to be able to generate rules to constrain their own exploitative effort. At the same time, a number of problems have come to the fore, not the least of which was the fact that passage of one regulatory measure caused problems for certain groups of fishermen who demanded remedial legislation. Thus, the co-management effort in Maine has moved ahead by solving a sequence of problems. But the fact that these problems are being solved places Maine in the forefront of jurisdictions experimenting with new ways to manage fisheries. Those interested in fisheries management may want to recall the state's motto 'Dirigo' - 'I lead.'"
Framework for Modeling the Linkages between Ecosystems and Human Systems
(1996) Cleveland, Cutler; Costanza, Robert; Eggertsson, Thráinn; Fortmann, Louise; Low, Bobbi S.; McKean, Margaret A.; Ostrom, Elinor; Wilson, James; Young, Oran R.
"We hypothesize that sustainability requires human systems that are concordant at appropriate scales with the ecosystems to which they are related, given the limits of human information processing. Many current governance and management systems are at a scale which is either too large or too small for the ecosystems to which they are related, leading to unsustainable policies for these systems. Problems often occur when human systems developed and sustainable at one scale or for one ecosystem or for one part of an ecosystem are transferred without adequate modification to other scales and ecosystems or to the whole system. In this paper we develop an analytical framework for treating human systems, ecosystems, and their interactions simultaneously. We developed and initial dynamic, multiscale, spatial model that illustrates some of the core concepts of the framework. We are in the process of developing multiscale conceptual and mathematical models and empirical data bases, including a range of ecosystem and human system characteristics, aimed at testing our hypothesis and providing guidance for designing sustainable human systems within sustainable ecosystems."
Governance and the Capacity to Manage Resilience in Regional Social-Ecological Systems
(2006) Lebel, Louis; Anderies, John M.; Campbell, Bruce; Folke, Carl; Hatfield-Dodds, Steve; Hughes, Terry; Wilson, James
"The sustainability of regional development can be usefully explored through several different lenses. In situations in which uncertainties and change are key features of the ecological landscape and social organization, critical factors for sustainability are resilience, the capacity to cope and adapt, and the conservation of sources of innovation and renewal. However, interventions in social-ecological systems with the aim of altering resilience immediately confront issues of governance. Who decides what should be made resilient to what? For whom is resilience to be managed, and for what purpose? In this paper we draw on the insights from a diverse set of case studies from around the world in which members of the Resilience Alliance have observed or engaged with sustainability problems at regional scales. Our central question is: How do certain attributes of governance function in society to enhance the capacity to manage resilience? Three specific propositions were explored: (1) participation builds trust, and deliberation leads to the shared understanding needed to mobilize and self-organize; (2) polycentric and multilayered institutions improve the fit between knowledge, action, and social-ecological contexts in ways that allow societies to respond more adaptively at appropriate levels; and (3) accountable authorities that also pursue just distributions of benefits and involuntary risks enhance the adaptive capacity of vulnerable groups and society as a whole. Some support was found for parts of all three propositions. In exploring the sustainability of regional social-ecological systems, we are usually faced with a set of ecosystem goods and services that interact with a collection of users with different technologies, interests, and levels of power. In this situation in our roles as analysts, facilitators, change agents, or stakeholders, we not only need to ask: The resilience of what, to what? We must also ask: For whom?"
Implementing the Western Gulf of Maine Area Closure: The Role and Perception of Fishers' Ecological Knowledge
(2012) Nenadovic, Mateja; Johnson, Teresa R.; Wilson, James
"The debate about the quality of fishers’ ecological knowledge (FEK) and its value to fisheries management has long been present in the literature. This study sought to understand the role of FEK in a particular fisheries management decision in the U.S. and to evaluate the extent that different stakeholder groups recognized and used FEK in fisheries policy creation. The 1998 implementation of the Western Gulf of Maine Area Closure (WGoMAC) was a management response to the rapid decline in the Gulf of Maine cod (Gadus morhua) stock. Using structured surveys and semistructured interviews, we collected information from major stakeholder groups that were active during the creation of the area closure: New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) members, Groundfish Advisory Panel members, Groundfish Plan Development Team members, and Maine groundfishers. Results indicated that 95% of respondents believed that fishers possess ecological knowledge that could be useful in the fishery management process. In the case of the WGoMAC creation, 62% of respondents indicated that FEK played a role in the decision, even though 85% recognized obstacles to the use of FEK in the management process. Interviews demonstrated that FEK was able to improve upon the spatial resolution of scientific data by identifying seasonal migration patterns of prespawning cod and behavioral differences between juvenile and adult cod. This information was a product of a peer-reviewed process among groundfishers and it was used to fine-tune the exact location of the closure. These findings suggest that there are ways to incorporate FEK into fishery management for the purposes of stock and habitat conservation. Additionally, the benefit of having ecological information that spans different spatial scales for fishery management was observed in this study. By combining the knowledge systems of fishers and fisheries scientists, managers were able to capture ecological information at a finer scale than the scale at which landings data are reported and fish stocks analyzed."
Matching Social and Ecological Systems in Complex Ocean Fisheries
(2006) Wilson, James
"This paper considers ocean fisheries as complex adaptive systems and addresses the question of how human institutions might be best matched to their structure and function. Ocean ecosystems operate at multiple scales, but the management of fisheries tends to be aimed at a single species considered at a single broad scale. The paper argues that this mismatch of ecological and management scale makes it difficult to address the fine-scale aspects of ocean ecosystems, and leads to fishing rights and strategies that tend to erode the underlying structure of populations and the system itself. A successful transition to ecosystem-based management will require institutions better able to economize on the acquisition of feedback about the impact of human activities. This is likely to be achieved by multiscale institutions whose organization mirrors the spatial organization of the ecosystem and whose communications occur through a polycentric network. Better feedback will allow the exploration of fine-scale science and the employment of fine-scale fishing restraints, better adapted to the behavior of fish and habitat. The scale and scope of individual fishing rights also needs to be congruent with the spatial structure of the ecosystem. Place-based rights can be expected to create a longer private planning horizon as well as stronger incentives for the private and public acquisition of system relevant knowledge."
Parametric Management: An Ecological-Social Approach
(1995) Wilson, James; Dickie, Lloyd M.
"The immediate causes of over fishing arc usually ascribed to the harvesting of too many fish to allow adequate spawning, recruitment, and sustainability. We argue that the actions that lead to over fishing are most probably to be found in the broader parametric effects of fishing on the whole biotic and environmental system. Fishing activity leads to a degradation of the biotic or physical environment of desirable species, upsetting their feeding patterns and disrupting normal life cycle sequences. These reduced opportunities for growth, reproduction and survival alter the capacity of the whole system to maintain the organization of energy flows on which the fishery depends. However, the fundamental cause of over fishing lies in social institutions that either cannot conceive the complex biological interactions, or have insufficient authority to control the inputs. From a management perspective, this changed view of the over fishing problem suggests: (1) a shift to rules designed to address the parametric effects of fishing rather than the species-specific effort controls of traditional management. and (2) creation of a multi-level governance system (of basic federalist structure) in order to match the scales and minimize the potentially large transaction costs of system wide governance. Additionally, the difficult problem posed by uncertainty - our limited ability to tie particular restrictions to particular outcomes - means that hierarchical governance processes are needed to develop the basic requirements of credibility, incentive alignment and individual assurances."
Reduncancy and Diversity in Governing and Managing Common-Pool Resources
(2000) Low, Bobbi S.; Ostrom, Elinor; Simon, Carl P.; Wilson, James
"In many fields, policymakers seem to have an increasing preference for simple, large, non- redundant systems of analysis and governance. To address this question, we examine several arenas in which scholars have studied the costs and benefits of different levels of redundancy, including: ecological resiliency, computer design, aircraft design, genetics and genetic algorithms, condercet jury theory, and regulatory regimes. Both empirical data and models suggest that a simple prescription is, at best, premature--bigger and less redundant may not always be 'better.' We find that several kinds of costs and benefits must be considered, and they do not co- vary uniformly with size and redundancy. We suggest that a better approach is to ask: For any system, what is the optimal level of redundancy?"
The Relationship between Ecosystems and Human Systems: Scale Challenges in Linking Property Rights Systems and Natural Resource Management
(1995) Cleveland, Cutler; Costanza, Robert; Eggertsson, Thráinn; Fortmann, Louise; Low, Bobbi S.; McKean, Margaret A.; Ostrom, Elinor; Wilson, James; Young, Oran R.
"We hypothesize that successful sustainability requires human social systems that are concordant with the ecosystem to which they are related at appropriate scales given the limits of human information processing. Many current governance and management systems are either too large or too small for the ecosystems to which they are related, leading to inappropriate policies for these systems. Problems often occur when human systems developed and sustainable at one scale or for one ecosystem or for one part of an ecosystem are transferred to other scales and ecosystems or to the whole system without adequate modification. In order to test this hypothesis, we are developing multiscale conceptual and mathematical models and data bases that include a range of ecosystem characteristics and human system characteristics."
Scale and Costs of Fishery Conservation
(2007) Wilson, James
"Observation and measurement of the ocean's ecosystems is difficult and costly. It makes verification of our theories difficult and forces us to engage in collective action based upon often very imperfect concepts of the dynamics of the system. Once we establish the institutions of collective action, however, we adopt 'official' conceptions of system dynamics that define the bounds of individual action. In response, individuals (in both private and public employment) invest in skills, knowledge, capital, technology, business plans, and scientific agendas that fit within those bounds. The self-interest reflected in these investments filters the amount and the quality of private information provided to the public so that it is consistent with the self-interest of the agents who acquire it. If the system being managed is simple and the costs of data collection minor, these impairments are not likely to be significant. Under these circumstances a public, impersonal science body should be able to gather whatever information is necessary for continuing adaptive governance. In a complex system, however, these impairments deprive the governance process of valuable information and reduce the scope for collective adaptation (the set of feasible rules). In these circumstances path dependent lock-in reduces adaptive capacity, contributing thereby to the circumstances for still another tragedy. "Our way out of this dilemma rests in institutional design that is adapted to an understanding of the limits of our ability to monitor, predict and control natural systems. We tend to gravitate towards scientific, institutional, and private arrangements that emphasize the use of quantitative knowledge. We do this because our collective experience elsewhere has taught us that quantitative approaches facilitate the processes of collective action. In the kinds of complex systems found in the ocean, however, the ability to acquire collectively useful quantitative knowledge is limited in ways that are consistent and knowable. At fine ecological and temporal scales the costs of observation generally prevent reasonable quantitative management of the resource; at broad scales quantitative approaches are impaired by the slow pace at which we can acquire observations of the system. Nevertheless, knowledge of these fine and broad scale aspects of natural systems is important to our adaptive capacity. Persistent reliance upon institutional arrangements keyed to quantitative approaches only tends to blind us to a substantial segment of the natural system, restrict our adaptive capacity, and make us vulnerable to surprises that develop outside the scope of our collective vision. Improving our adaptive capacity, consequently, means matching our institutional designs to the kinds of knowledge we can acquire economically."
Scale Misperceptions and the Spatial Dynamics of a Social-Ecological System
(1998) Wilson, James; Low, Bobbi S.; Costanza, Robert; Ostrom, Elinor
From pg. 4: "While answers to these questions are critical to the design of appropriate management regimes, it is almost impossible to get sufficient empirical data to test these hypotheses. One can, however, build models of panmictic and metapopulations to explore these questions. Consequently, here we explore a series of illustrative models in which local populations - modeled as either panmictic or metapopulation structures - are managed as if they comprised a single large population. These models are a dynamic version of the generic bioeconomic model of a single stock (Clark, Anderson) and are used to investigate the circumstances under which common regulatory procedures might lead to depletion of the fishery."
Search, Communication and the Preconditions for Collective Action in Three Fisheries
(2012) Wilson, James; Acheson, James M.; Johnson, Teresa R.
"In this article, we compare the Maine sea urchin, lobster and groundfish fisheries with the goal of giving another viewpoint on factors causing the differential success of management efforts in these three fisheries. In 1990 Elinor Ostrom published her famous list of the preconditions conducive to successful collective action. We argue that the preconditions she lists, especially those that are the self-organized product of individuals interactions with each other (not those that are principally a product of broader-scale formal governance) and with the environment, are sensitive to the costs individuals incur while learning about and adapting to complex natural and social environments. Our motivation is to address Ostroms admonition for 'further work to explain why some contextual variables enhance cooperation while others discourage it.' (Ostrom, 2000b). We focus our argument on the way different environments lead to different problems of learning and adaptation, and consequently, to the emergence of different social structure and dynamics that may or may not be conducive to collective action. We then turn to a quick description of the way the problem of learning and adaption affects informal social structure and the likelihood of collective action in three fisheries. We believe this focus on learning and adaptation leads to a better understanding of the ways natural and human systems interact and, thereby, adds to the literature concerning the success and failure of collective action in the commons."
Self-Governance in the Maine Lobster Fishery
(1993) Wilson, James
"The Maine lobster fishery has long been described as a classic case of overfishing - both biologically and economically. To the discomfort of standard management theory the fishery continues to produce high sustained yields; in terms of biological performance it may be one of the best managed fisheries in the world. This result occurs without resort to limited entry or individual transferable quotas (ITQ's). This paper argues there are strong biological, social and economic reasons to be skeptical that limited entry will ever solve the fisheries conservation problem. It suggests that the reasons for the lobster fishery's continued success can be found in the institutions of virtual user self-governance that have evolved over the years. Self-governance forces a consensus with regard to the kinds of rules used in the fishery, assures wide-spread perception of their fairness and efficacy and leads to a situation where social sanctions are widely used for their enforcement. Self governance in this fishery has led to mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon and mutually enforced."
Social-Ecological Scale Mismatches and the Collapse of the Sea Urchin Fishery in Maine, USA
(2012) Johnson, Teresa R.; Wilson, James; Cleaver, Caitlin; Vadas, Robert L.
"Scale mismatches result in incomplete or ambiguous feedback that impairs the ability to learn and adapt and, ultimately, to sustain natural resources. Our aim is to examine the sea urchin fishery in Maine, USA to better understand the multiscale, social, and biophysical conditions that are important for the design of institutions that might be able to sustain the resource. During the late 1980s and 1990s, the Maine sea urchin fishery was a classic gold rush fishery. In the beginning, the fishery was characterized by an abundant resource with little to no harvesting activity, followed by a period of rapid increase in landings and effort that led to a subsequent and persistent decline in the sea urchin population and a significant reduction in effort. We conducted semistructured interviews with scientists and experienced fishermen to understand the multiscale, social, and biophysical conditions that influence fishermen’s harvesting strategies, and the implications of this for the design of institutions for successful resource management. The current co-management system includes an advisory body made up of industry members and scientists it also includes limited entry, and additional input control mechanisms. Many of these measures are implemented at a very broad scale; however, we find that the ecological conditions relevant to the sustainable processes occur at the scale of individual fishing sites or ledges, which is a much finer scale than current management. Therefore, the co-management system maintains an open access system and leaves few incentives for the development of sustainable harvesting strategies among fishermen. The clear suggestion is that the appropriate management system would be one that directly addresses the fine scale ecological and social dynamics within this fishery and gives fishermen property rights over individual ledges (for example, leases). After having briefly reviewed experiences in Canada and Chile, we found that knowledge of the coupled natural and human system at the fine scale is necessary if we are to assess the feasibility of area management in this fishery, because what works in one fishery does not necessarily work in another."
Voluntary Participation in Regional Fisheries Management Council Meetings
(2010) Brzezinski, Danielle T.; Wilson, James; Chen, Yong
"Insufficient and unrepresentative participation in voluntary public hearings and policy discussions has been problematic since Aristotle’s time. In fisheries, research has shown that involvement is dominated by financially resourceful and extreme-opinion stakeholders and tends to advantage groups that have a lower cost of attendance. Stakeholders may exhibit only one or all of these traits but can be still similarly advantaged. The opposites of these traits tend to characterize the disadvantaged, such as the middle-ground opinions, the less wealthy or organized, and the more remote stakeholders. Remoteness or distance is the most straightforward and objective of these characteristics to measure. We analyzed the New England Fishery Management Council’s sign-in sheets for 2003–2006, estimating participants’ travel distance and associations with the groundfish, scallop, and herring industries. We also evaluated the representativeness of participation by comparing attendance to landings and permit distributions. The distance analysis showed a significant correlation between attendance levels and costs via travel distance. These results suggest a potential bias toward those stakeholders residing closer to meeting locations, possibly disadvantaging parties who are further and must incur higher costs. However, few significant differences were found between the actual fishing industry and attendee distributions, suggesting that the geographical distribution of the meeting attendees is statistically similar to that of the larger fishery. The interpretation of these results must take into consideration the limited time span of the analysis, as policy changes may have altered the industry make-up and location prior to our study. Furthermore, the limited geographical input of stakeholders may lend bias to the Council’s perception of ecological and social conditions throughout the spatial range of the fishery. These factors should be further considered in the policy-formation process in order to incorporate a broader range of stakeholder input."
When are Common Property Institutions Efficient?
(1995) Wilson, James
"Common property is commonly viewed as the vestigial remains of a primitive, non-market economy. The regimes themselves are viewed as quaint, inefficient and unimportant to a modern economy. Prescriptive economists, for this reason, consistently urge the replacement of common property regimes with private property arrangements. From an institutionalist's perspective, whether this prescriptive view is correct or not depends upon the relative efficiency of common property regimes - efficiency in terms of the allocation and coordination of resource use. Put differently and in the form of a question, in a heterogeneous environment in which individuals and groups are free to chose among alternative institutions for the conduct of transactions, will common property institutions become extinct? In this paper I'd like to argue that the answer to this question is no and, if one admits that information and knowledge of even the most mundane varieties are valuable economic resources, that common property arrangements are much more common and important than is commonly realized."