| The purpose of this paper is to use conflict management principles to identify the most effective decision-making process for Canada's fishery management regime in dealing with the Hake fishery. The current decision-making process, as managed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), has not established an environment where the fishermen trust, have confidence in, and understand its management decisions. An opportunity exists to improve DFO's decision-making process by including stakeholder participation. The challenges of stakeholder participation and objections that are commonly raised in opposition to the management of fish resources through consensus will be analyzed as it relates to the Hake fishery. This paper will show that, to facilitate a consensus dialogue, it is important to reconcile the differences between management priorities and scientific and traditional knowledge. A healthy dialogue that leads to decisions being made through a consensus process will allow stakeholders to have ownership of the decisions. Better management decision, less conflict, and a cooperative atmosphere will result.;"The people that go in the room say your problem is my problem; we have a strong incentive to come up with a plan to solve the issues for everyone. That is the core model for me. I do not think that this has got through to most fishery management agencies. It requires them to let go of the control that they have. They have the curious notion that will bring disaster when in fact the organizational and regulatory behavior that they have is what brought the disaster." (Interview with a non-government representative). |
