Voluntary Participation in Regional Fisheries Management Council Meetings

dc.contributor.authorBrzezinski, Danielle T.
dc.contributor.authorWilson, James
dc.contributor.authorChen, Yong
dc.coverage.countryUnited Statesen_US
dc.coverage.regionNorth Americaen_US
dc.date.accessioned2010-09-15T20:33:56Z
dc.date.available2010-09-15T20:33:56Z
dc.date.issued2010en_US
dc.description.abstract"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."en_US
dc.identifier.citationjournalEcology and Societyen_US
dc.identifier.citationmonthJuneen_US
dc.identifier.citationnumber3en_US
dc.identifier.citationvolume15en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10535/6337
dc.languageEnglishen_US
dc.subjectfisheriesen_US
dc.subjectcitizen participatory managementen_US
dc.subject.sectorFisheriesen_US
dc.titleVoluntary Participation in Regional Fisheries Management Council Meetingsen_US
dc.typeJournal Articleen_US
dc.type.methodologyCase Studyen_US
dc.type.publishedpublisheden_US

Files

Original bundle

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Voluntary Participation in Regional Fisheries Management Council Meetings.pdf
Size:
269.21 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format

Collections