Doctoral Dissertation Research: Ecology, Participation, and Co-Management: Cooperative Resource Management Among Heterogeneous Groups in the Maine Lobster Fishery

环境决策进程必须顾及参与者的不同规范和世界观，包括相互冲突的自然和民主模式。 结果往往不太理想。 为了应对传统资源管理方法中存在的问题，出现了新型的组织关系。 其中一种安排是共同管理，这一制度赋予直接参与资源使用和开采的人更多的决策权，但要求他们与同样对资源感兴趣的其他群体合作。 在缅因州湾，龙虾共同管理的出现部分是为了应对缅因州湾及其周围地区其他商业鱼类种群的枯竭，以及随后公众对传统管理战略的批评。 共同管理的支持者力求提供新的机制，便利捕龙虾渔民参与决策论坛，并试图将正式的官僚程序与传统的地方做法之间的联系制度化。 本博士论文研究项目将研究参与龙虾共同管理机构的机构的能力，以适应渔民，科学家和管理人员的多种生态和参与模式，并将调查共同管理对参与者群体和子群体的不同影响。 该项目将建立在人类环境地理学、知识和民主理论以及渔业文献的传统基础上，以便得出理论和应用结论。 研究设计将整合通过与关键信息提供者的访谈、参与者观察、调查和焦点小组获得的数据。 除了使博士候选人准备高质量的博士论文，该项目将导致在研究区域的渔业，科学和管理社区的报告，包括建议如何共同管理过程可能会得到改善。 该项目将导致有价值的新见解的潜力共同管理在缅因州龙虾产业，它将提供结论，可以在其他地方进行测试，以更好地评估这种管理策略的优势和局限性，以及其对不同群体的不同影响。 考虑到其他北美渔业朝着利益相关者更多参与决策的趋势发展，这种研究尤其重要。 作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立的研究生涯。

Environmental decision-making processes must cope with participants' diverse norms and worldviews, including conflicting models of nature and democracy. Outcomes frequently are less than ideal. In response to perceived problems in traditional methods of resource management, new kinds of organizational relationships have emerged. One of these arrangements is co-management, a system that gives increased amounts of decision-making authority to those directly engaged in resource use and extraction but that requires them to work in concerns with other groups that also have interests in the resource. In the Gulf of Maine, lobster co-management has emerged in part as a response to the depletion of other commercial fish stocks in and around the Gulf of Maine as well as in response to the ensuing public criticism of conventional management strategies. Co-management proponents have sought to provide new mechanisms to facilitate the participation of lobster fishermen in decision-making forums, and they have tried to institutionalize links between formal, bureaucratic processes and traditional, local practices. This doctoral dissertation research project will examine the capacity of the institutions involved in lobster co-management institutions to accommodate the multiple ecological and participatory models of fishermen, scientists, and managers, and it will investigate the differential impacts of co-management on participant groups and subgroups. The project will build on traditions of human-environment geography, theories of knowledge and democracy, and fisheries literatures in order to draw both theoretical and applied conclusions. The research design will integrate data acquired through interviews with key informant, participant observation, surveys, and focus groups. In addition to enabling the doctoral candidate to prepare a high-quality doctoral dissertation, the project will result in a report for the study area's fishing, scientific, and management communities including suggestions as to how the co-management process might be improved. This project will result in valuable new insights about the potential for co-management in the Maine lobster industry, and it will provide conclusions that can be tested elsewhere in order to better assess the strengths and limitations of this management strategy as well as its varied impacts on different groups. This kind of study is especially significant given the tendency for other North American fisheries to move toward greater stakeholder participation in decision making. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.