Adaptive CoManagement: BEAUFORT SEA

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Adaptive Co-Management BEAUFORT SEA

• Adaptive Co-Management Working Group
• Ocean Management Research Network Conference
• Ottawa, Ontario
• October 26th, 2007

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Asked to

• Give a general reaction to the concept of ACM
  principles and concepts
• identify barriers / opportunities to the
  application of ADM in the Beaufort Sea LOMA
  planning context
• elaborate an applied research agenda around ACM
  to support policy makers and practitionerS

Looking north over Kugmallit Bay from Tuktoyaktuk
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Principles and Concepts include

• Policy Considerations
• Partnerships and power sharing
• Institutional design for adaptive co-management
• Complex systems thinking
• Adaptive capacity and resilience
• Conditions of success and failure
• Learning, knowledge and social capital

Martha Flaherty, a steadfast advocate for Inuit
Women, children and youth at CZC 06
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Policy Considerations

• Treat ACM as a process focused on problem solving
  
• Recognize that a processoriented approach may
  have high transaction costs in the short-term but
  benefits in the long-term

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Partnerships and power sharing

• Create incentives for partners to engage in new
  ways of sharing power
• Seek appropriate roles for the partners

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Institutional Design for Adaptive co-management

• Make sure to use existing institutions and
  include all of the key players

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Complex systems thinking

• Bring decisions as close to the user as possible
• Pay attention to drivers of change that originate
  outside the local or regional system to be managed

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Adaptive capacity and resilience

• Acknowledge scientific uncertainty and
  incorporate local and traditional knowledge
• Use adaptive management approaches to encourage
  systematic learning
• Encourage systematic learning, be flexible in
  making management decisions
• Build adaptive capacity at multiple levels
• View building adaptive capacity and resilience as
  a long-term process

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Conditions of success and failure

• Seek an understanding of local rules and
  definition of group membership
• Ensure clear objectives, accountability and
  adequate fiscal support. Engender platforms for
  negotiation and conflict resolution
• Allow enough time to build mutual trust and
  respect
• Find ways to overcome bureaucratic rationality

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Learning, knowledge and social capital

• Focus on learning-by-doing through iterative,
  reflexive practice, problem solving, action
  modification
• Focus on instrumental learning to enhance the
  efficiency of management practice
• Question standard operation procedures so as to
  consider a broad range of options (double-loop
  learning)
• Create information clearinghouses to build a
  shared understanding

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THANK YOU