The Discourse of Participatory Democracy in Marine Fisheries Management

Environment and development
in coastal regions and in small islands

The Discourse of Participatory Democracy in Marine Fisheries Management

Heidi Glaesel, Assistant Professor of Geography,
Elon University (glaesel@elon.edu)

and Mark Simonitsch,
Chatham, MA (fishweirs@capecod.net)

for

Putting Fishers' Knowledge to Work Conference
University of British Columbia, Fisheries Centre, August 27-30, 2001

ABSTRACT: Participatory marine fisheries management systems bring together diverse stakeholders to share knowledge, authority, and responsibility for regional planning. As such, the intent of participatory or cooperative management endeavors is to move away from top-down, non-participatory governance systems that exclude local people and fail to meet conservation objectives. Case studies from the United States and Kenya are used to argue that despite official claims to the contrary, revamped fisheries management systems fall short of being genuine participatory democracies, fail to include stakeholders in substantive ways, and do not meet conservation goals. Means to share information in new, more effective ways and build truer, more equitable coalitions are offered. Keywords: participatory management, indigenous knowledge, marine fisheries, social justice

Since the mid-1970s, a growing number of specialists have considered the inclusion of local communities in environmental management necessary for successful conservation. These experts contend that conventional resource management policies fail because local communities pay the greatest cost for conservation in the form of lost access to resources, but receive few benefits from species protection. (Fairhead 1991, Chambers 1997)

Governments have aspired to eliminate the historic antagonism of local people toward resource management plans and instill a sense of responsibility for resources through changes in management that allow for greater local participation. Yet, even seemingly enlightened participatory management initiatives have often failed to appease local people or halt species declines. (Little 1994)

In this paper, we argue that there is an inherent flaw in calling for more participatory forms of management when the specific goals are predetermined. Under such conditions local people's role in the management process necessarily remains prescribed and largely symbolic. It is the contention of the authors, that whereas there is a discourse of participatory marine management, the practice remains hierarchical and inclined toward use of the knowledge of those with the most formal education and the least experience at sea. As with flying an airplane or farming a field, the approach to solving fisheries problems must incorporate the practical experience of interested and affected parties. Based on case studies from the United States and Kenya we offer a means to share knowledge in new, more effective ways to build genuine and more equitable coalitions that can perform more effectively.

Research Approach and Methods

Political ecologists view environmental crises as inextricably linked to a much wider development crisis, including a growing gap between rich and poor and the increasing number of people globally living in abject poverty. (Dorraj 1995, Bryant and Bailey 1997) In this context, environmental change is viewed as meaningful to individuals and user groups largely in terms of whether it provides an opportunity or presents a problem. (Blaikie and Brookfield 1987) Stakeholder groups in participatory marine management systems, including local people, state agencies, businesses, and environmental organizations, often share the long-term goal of fish stock recovery, but differ on the best means of achieving it. Central among the conflicts over how to best sustain fish stocks are the relative weight that should be given to: knowledge gained via observation and informal experimentation at sea by fishers, the institutionalization of the fishers' knowledge within the decision-making process, and the more formal training of fisheries agents, researchers at universities, and conservationists.

The Structure of Marine Management in the United States

The 1996 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, or Magnuson-Stevens Act, is the federal legislation under which the Department of Commerce is assigned by the US Congress the task for marine resource management in the United States. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is the federal agency within the Department of Commerce's National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with the responsibility for managing fish from three to two hundred miles from the country's coast. (www.nmfs.noaa.gov) Individual states manage near-shore waters.

In 1976, the predecessor of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the Magnuson Fisheries Conservation and Management Act created eight regional fisheries management councils. The function of these councils is to advise NMFS on issues identified in the federal legislation and to access regional knowledge in constructing this advice. Each council has approximately twenty appointed members who vote. The voting council members include mandatory appointees from each state, representatives from each state's fishery agency, and at-large appointees from any of the states from within the region. Appointees are nominated as a result of a political selection process that concludes with the various regional state governors independently submitting nominations to the Secretary of Commerce for her final selection.

The fundamental task of the fisheries councils is to produce recommendations for fish management plans (FMPs). Local knowledge in the form of public input is solicited during the council's preparation of the FMPs. All council actions are in the form of recommendations to the Secretary of Commerce, a member of the President's cabinet and one of the nation's twelve most powerful political appointees. A process exists whereby NMFS reviews the council recommendations prior to their arrival on the desk of the Secretary for final approval. Enforcement of the approved regulations is the primary responsibility of the Department of Commerce. The US Coast Guard and the state fisheries enforcement organizations assist Commerce with enforcement responsibilities, but the primary regulatory effort to recommend, review, approve, implement and enforce fishery laws is accomplished within the Department of Commerce. (Wallace and Fletcher, second edition)

How the Existing System Fails to Meet the Criteria for a Participatory Democracy

NMFS, regional councils, SeaGrant Institutes, and mainstream conservation organizations have produced literature on the federal marine management process that promotes a belief that the Magnuson Act and Magnuson-Stevens Act encourages local-level participation and representative democracy. (Fowle 1993, McKay and Creed 1999) We contend that opportunities for authentic local-level participation are not as available as the literature suggests and that the current institutional structure of the marine fisheries management system is far from being a true representative democracy in that the opportunities it provides are largely symbolic.

Democracy has well-accepted criteria and if all of the criteria are not present then democracy does not exist. First is the right to be included as a full citizen of the organization making the collective decisions to which one is subject. Second, is the right to voting equality. Third, is an equal opportunity for participating effectively in decision making. Fourth is a full opportunity for acquiring an understanding of one's personal interest in the decision and last is the right to exercise with fellow citizens final control over the decisions. (Dahl 1989, p. 170)

No part of the council process fits the criteria for democracy. Council members are appointees and are not elected. By virtue of their formal oath the appointed members are held to maximizing benefits to the nation, generally interpreted as stricter conservation of marine resources. No council member is permitted to represent any one affected party over any other interested group or place. (Fowle, 1993)

Without elections for council membership the council has no consent from a body politic. Lacking consent the council has no claim for a constituency. Apart from the council appointees all other interested parties in the council are without any formal relationship to the fisheries management political process. In this unusual situation the individuals most affected have no formal political connection with respect to the council process as citizens, subjects, or members. How can it be claimed that council members are representing the political interests of these people?

The status of membership in the council closely follows the formula recommended by Plato for seeking justice in a totalitarian society. Only "philosopher kings" (seekers of wisdom) were considered fit to practice the "royal science" of politics. Deeming the average citizen's "virtue" insufficient, Plato would have appointed to government decision-making positions only the few wise people who were judged to have the highest amount of "civic virtue." Plato, unlike regional councils, left little doubt regarding his belief of the usefulness of local-level knowledge and participation with the statement "Equal treatment of un-equals must beget inequity." (Popper 1962, p. 96)

Many council committees have industry advisory groups. Can the utilization of advisors be the justification for claiming the existence of local level participation? The following conditions exist: First, advisors are volunteers; second, the Council Executive Committee appoints the volunteer advisors in closed sessions. Third, no mechanism or requirement exists for advisors to gather local knowledge using formal or informal methods prior to attending advisor meetings. Advisors are not required to disseminate meeting results locally, nor could they do so given the relatively small number of advisors, large areas and limited council budgets.

Hearings to collect public input are held on occasion, but since council members are not elected and staff members are heavily involved in holding these "hearings," the rich content and useful meaning of a public hearing with an elected representative is not achieved. Meeting attendees have no institutional political connection with the councils at these gathering that are conducted to obtain "public input" and moderated by a few appointees and staff. The best that can be said for attending public input meetings is that if the attendee is selected to be a speaker (s)he has an opportunity to use his or her knowledge to persuade those few appointees who may be present.

Further loss of meaningful political input occurs when the hearings to gather public input are subjectively summarized by council staffs and lightly reviewed by council members. On more than one occasion minutes from public input sessions have been verbally summarized and presented to the council when time constraints between the hearings and the council meeting did not permit preparation of a written summary of the public input. (MAFMC 1998)

How did it happen that Congress chose a governance system for fisheries that only permits symbolic use of fishers' knowledge? Congress's action to have decision-making by fisheries experts may have come from their concern for achieving national environmental goals if decision-making was to be shared with local communities or their representatives. Legislators may have understood that inherent with any form of deliberative democracy (representative or otherwise) is the inability to predict outcomes. In short - Congress may have believed a struggle between the desired outcome (sustainable resource goals) and procedure (local-level participation in self-government) to be an unsolvable paradox for a democratic process. (Dryzek 2000, p. 141)

The US Congress selected a form of guardianship governance that leaned heavily on a guiding concept of experts managing marine resources for their maximum sustained yield (MSY). This governing process depended principally on fisheries scientists and managers controlling the technique, distribution and amount of all fishing efforts from a large-scale vantage point. Within ten years of the enactment of Magnuson it became very apparent that MSY could not be attained on a sustainable basis with dependence on scientists and fisheries statistics. Despite the demonstrated poor management performance the entrenched decision making method continued without authentic participation of many of the affected parties. (Ludwig, et al. 1993, p. 17) Understanding why the US did not institutionalize authentic local-level participation and deliberative democracy is essential when putting fishers' knowledge to work in the system.

Four elements combined to influence the choice of a governance system where decision making was given to appointed-experts and the public's role was reduced to providing "input" to the experts. (Scott 1998, p. 4) The first factor that existed was to achieve the unremarkable condition of putting the harvesters and marine resources in administrative order. Official records of names and licenses of boats and captains were developed. A system of maps and charts was combined with the electronic capability to repeatedly and accurately locate geographical positions thereby enhancing enforcement.

The second element was the development of a very strong societal belief in the abilities of scientists and professional managers. This belief was reinforced not only by the economic progress in the United States, but also the actual life experiences of the members of Congress. Many of the legislators voting for Magnuson in 1976 were veterans of World War II where victory depended heavily on the centralized use of expert managers, engineers and scientists. The results of the Marshall Plan's success in rebuilding the economies of war torn Europe was one of a number of examples of remarkable outcomes that could be achieved with a centralized command and control process utilizing professional managers and experts.

A third element existed for constructing a process that did not share power with communities and utilize their knowledge. The federal government was strong, authoritative and confident that it could solve any problem. Institutionally guaranteed local-level participation was not considered relevant for making good decisions. By 1976, despite the lack of experience of grappling with common property resources (CPR) solutions, few people in Congress doubted the ability of the federal government's experts to solve any complex problem from a position of centralized control.

Fourth, and very important, is that the seafood industry did not have a functioning network of informally organized representative groups. A minimal "civil society" existed in the seafood industry. As a result, Congress received inconsequential resistance to establishing a top-down governance-structure as it proceeded to enact legislation where the public focus was largely on the benefits from the establishment of a 200-mile exclusive economic zone for U S fisheries.

Shouldn't this odd situation raise questions among the managers let alone our Congressional representatives? Fishermen are obsessed with catching fish and are compulsive in discussing fish, fishing and fishing regulations- on the radio, with the cell phone, at the shore, the pier and the coffee shops. In New England there are approximately 15,000 people (authors' estimate) among those working in the seafood industry who are vitally affected by council decisions - - - yet, the New England Fisheries Council meetings rarely attract more than 75 people and frequently no more than 25 unless a crisis is in the making.

Why is the interaction of fishing organizations with the council so meager considering there are hundreds of fishing communities and businesses intensely interested in the council's performance and who could benefit from engagement? We submit that the level of participation has very little to do with the traditional and trivial characterization of the rugged individualism of fishing people that is repeated in council literature. Repetition of the independent fisherman suggests it is the cultural fate of the majority of fishing people to be non-participating because they are rugged individualists. Fishermen respond to the same social impulses as everyone else responds. They have IRAs, become divorced, eat at Burger King, visit Disneyland and complain about taxes.

What is different about fishermen from those in other occupations is the tremendous self-confidence (not individualism) required to earn their living in a hostile and dangerous oceanic environment. (McGoodwin 1990) Fishers understand that they will continually confront, throughout every part of their careers, the necessity to be resourceful when faced with an endless stream of difficulties before returning safely to port with sufficient fish to earn a living.

The amount of engagement of non-appointees with the fisheries decision making institution is like "everything else in organized society, it remains, to a significant extent, the product of particular (institutional) arrangements on which, once established, it continues to depend�" In New England the majority of fishing people are oriented toward a small local community life style, yet the council system is single level, regional and national. "�The failure to press, or even to imagine alternative arrangements makes the resulting approach to politics seem natural" and the fishermen's response seem unnatural. (Unger 1998, p. 219)

Dividing the United States into eight large regions for marine fisheries management was a small but incomplete step towards devolving power from the federal level. The regional ocean area governed by the approximately twenty appointed Council members meeting two days every six weeks is generally larger than the size of the combined land area of the member states of the council region. The council areas of responsibility are simply at too large a scale for effective management across culturally and biophysically diverse subregions.

Council meetings are often held at fine hotels in rooms that are largely empty of those who are most affected by the decisions. (Bohman 1996, Introduction) The elitism of the present system discourages attendance and participation at meetings. The physical layout of the room at council meetings also serves to intimidate potential speakers who must come forward to an isolated table with microphone that is surrounded by a large horse-shoe shaped council table. A person subjectively chosen by the council chair to comment often finds that his or her time at the microphone is very limited, not occurring at a time relevant to the debate, or interrupted if (s)he is repeating a point previously made by any other attendee.

In short, fishers recognize that their own voice or their voice through smaller-scale organizations is often ineffectual at council meetings; and they recognize that there is little reason to continue to pay dues, attend local meetings, and collectively bring ideas to the regional level, when local organizations do not have a formal place within the region council system. Frequently the principal reason for attending is fear that appointees at the council level do not understand the variety of the consequences of their decisions from Maine to Connecticut.

We have attended many meetings with fishermen in their communities over the years. Repeatedly the most common complaint voiced regarding the fishery process is that it does no good to attend council meetings. Why? Because attendees intuitively understand that their participation is symbolic - that their attendance or the numbers of people in attendance is not synonymous with participation and that the ability for participation exists only in the role of appointed expert or with the few articulate people who are comfortable with the system and who are known to the principal actors in the council process.

The consequences of being excluded from authentic participation are not neutral. Minimal opportunities to be involved in the routine tasks of resource decision making has resulted in the diminished capacity of fishermen and others to participate in deliberations. Often the result of being excluded is to be distrustful, apathetic and cynical, as the hopelessness of an outcome based on genuine collective deliberations becomes apparent. (Brower 1993) The vast majority of harvesters view themselves as politically included only by virtue of having to comply with council's rule making. When fishermen reveal these traits and feelings "the powers that be" view their behavior as that of people lacking the skills and impulses necessary to be participants in co-managing. Fishing people have become burdened with a self-fulfilling prophecy. The less they are involved, the less they understand. The more incompetent they appear the more justification exists for continued exclusion from the process. (Simonitsch 1998)

Large Scale Management Areas Restrict Opportunities to Put Fishers' Knowledge to Use

By 1985 it was fairly clear to any serious fisheries observer that the concept of attaining maximum sustainable yields (MSY) for the fisheries was unattainable. Without the collaboration and participation of people with practical knowledge the expert rule makers had been devising plans that lacked an understanding of what made the fish harvesting business actually work. The various rules and regulations were, to a large degree, an abstraction and failed to include recognition of the resourcefulness and competitive nature of fishing, the marketplace, and fishing people. Fishers immediately found many loopholes. By only being required to follow the rules and never having been genuinely involved with identifying and incorporating into fishing practices actions for achieving sustainability, a disaster occurred.

Having excluded the working fisheries public and other affected parties from authentic rule making the Congress unintentionally created the classic "us and them" dilemma. Despite the rather obvious institutional failure the lobbying of national environmental interests influenced Congress to view the deteriorating situation as a result of an inadequate number and selection of rules rather than a situation requiring institutional changes that promote a distributed social process for making decisions. Congress dutifully enacted a "Sustainable Fisheries Act" (SFA) in 1996 that implemented valuable habitat concerns, but also established rigid goals and timelines that further reduced the potential usefulness for incorporating fishermen's knowledge and authentic local level participation in deliberations. (Wallace and Fletcher, second edition) SFA also precipitated a large increase in legal actions by green groups and fisher organizations against NMFS and the Department of Commerce regarding conservation objectives.

Why is there a reluctance to institutionally incorporate practical knowledge? The first reason is that the more the fisher knows the less important is the specialist. Secondly, if the specialist is less important his or her funding is less secure. The third reason is that science is involved with the future and less concerned with the past. Fishing knowledge is history. Fourth is that the knowledge of fishers is not collected into scientific format. Experts often view practical knowledge as a collection of "cracker barrel" information. Scientists are most comfortable with knowledge that is the product of controlled experiments that can be repeated.

Although science is theoretically egalitarian most scientists have little experience and confidence in the skills, intelligence and experience of ordinary working people. Pascal correctly observed that the failure of rationalism is "not its recognition of technical knowledge, but its failure to recognize any other." (Scott, 1998, p. 340)

Marine Management in Kenya

Despite significant differences in per capita income and length of democratic tradition in the United States and Kenya, the two countries share a very similar history with regard to participatory marine fisheries management. As in the United States, the Kenyan government has relied on large-scale management plans, mapped the seas, licensed fishers and boats, and felt little threat from scattered informal fishing and seafood industry organizations. The discourse of participatory management has been in place in Kenya since the 1970s, but authentic bottom-up management has yet to be implemented. (Peluso 1993)

The first notable move toward potentially giving local people greater voice in marine management came in 1979 when two of Kenya's conflict-laden marine parks, Malindi and Watamu, were re-zoned and designated biosphere reserves. The change from parks with no legally sanctioned extractive activities to multi-zone park and reserve complexes with traditional forms of fishing allowed in reserves included plans to incorporate local people into a more participatory management structure. Although the Kenyan government secured United Nations Man and the Biosphere funds for the rezoning, management remained in the hands of the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).

By the mid-1990s, additional areas had been set aside as parks without consulting the local communities they displaced. Tensions with local communities had mounted to the point of armed assaults on marine park rangers, arson of beachfront park structures, and blatant poaching, all of which threatened Kenya's valuable tourism industry. To gain control of the situation, the director of KWS who publicly opposed participatory management was replaced with a man known for his people-friendlier approach (Baskin 1994) and a seven million dollar World Bank loan was used to implement a Community Wildlife Officer (CWO) program at each protected area. The sole CWO duty was to understand and assist resident communities to meet their needs. (Snelson 1993)

Due to widespread corruption and a lack of will for true participatory management, funds for the CWO program "disappeared" within a few years. (http://www.transparency.org) Additional external funds were secured for local communities living near marine protected areas (MPAs) to provide input into marine resource management in "bottom-up" Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) initiatives. After initial consultations with stakeholders in informal settings and using local languages, additional meetings were held in English at fine hotels. Invitations were not extended to local fishers based on the notion that their will was already known from the initial input sessions. (Glaesel 1999)

"Participation" for fishers in the marine management process is thus a limited type of pseudo-participation which includes consultation and informing but precludes true partnership through delegated power and cooperation. Local input into marine management is even more restricted along the approximately 95 percent of the Kenyan coast where there are no marine parks or reserves. In this substantial area, the understaffed Fisheries Department governs fisheries management. Whereas many officials in KWS express interest in participatory management, those in the Fisheries Department generally do not. Indeed, several Fisheries Department officials openly express disrespect for fishers and disbelief that they might have anything to learn from unlettered people. (Glaesel 2000)

Modifications to the Existing Systems that May Not Put Fishers' Knowledge to Work

Whereas MPAs are certainly an area in which governance structures could be modified to include fishers' knowledge in meaningful ways, this has not been the case in Kenya or the United States. Initial indications are that the newly created U.S. MPA Advisory Commission will likely remain top-down and heavily weighted toward experts with limited inclusion of fisher representatives. Fisher representatives will not be put forward by their own communities but be selected by degree-bearing experts. (John Poppalardo, Fish Expo 2001 NOAA MPA Booth)

Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) are currently under discussion in the United States by the Pew Oceans Commission and marine fisheries management councils. ITQs represent a relatively radical economic and social change in the management of marine resources that proponents claim might reduce perplexing allocation issues, but would maintain the dysfunctional decision-making process. An additional disturbing aspect of ITQs is that where they have been implemented, such as in New Zealand, Iceland, and Canada they have favored the development of large-scale commercial interests. (White 2001)

Very little enthusiasm exists within the fisheries management council system, NMFS, KWS, or the Fisheries Department for promoting fundamental changes that would insure use of fishers' knowledge. Apparently, change can be considered, but not if it is change to the arrangements for the established order. Neither MPA or ITQ approaches currently outline clear ways in which fishers' organizations and the knowledge generated from them would have an institutionalized place in the decision-making bodies that generate legislation that affect activities in ITQ and MPA areas.

Alternatives that Put Fishers' Knowledge to Work

How can a transformation from the present systems to ones that includes actual institutionalization of both fishers' knowledge and participation take place? The present council process will not disappear overnight, nor should we wish for it to vanish. Agreeing now on what the future should look like enables a phased implementation of changes to occur in logical manner. By agreeing now we can create a road map for ourselves and our leaders in government that would reveal our thought-out desires for coastal life, retention of small family corporations, incentives for good stewardship, recovery and preservation of the habitat, and development of vigorous economic activity that is at the heart of maintaining communities. If we agree now to eventually institutionalize fishers' participation in the decision making process then it becomes easier to strategize and plan the steps necessary to accomplish future goals.

Institutionally guaranteeing the involvement of fishers and the use of their knowledge is imperative and fundamental to creating sustainable fisheries. Failing to formally incorporate this structural change will result in a return to the "old ways" whenever funds are not available for collaborative work or when strong personalities in the system are inclined to have it their way.

Previously in this paper we have benefited from John Dryzek's observation of the paradox "that to advocate democracy is to advocate procedures, to advocate environmentalism is to advocate substantive outcomes." (Dryzek 2000, p. 140) One U.S. non-governmental organization has directly confronted the paradox between procedure and outcome. Its concepts could serve as a model to others in the United States, Kenya, and elsewhere, especially if it and groups using similar bylaws were formally incorporated into the marine management decision-making process. The organization to which we refer is the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance (NAMA), a New England group with diverse multi-state membership that has constructed a self-governing constitution that is specifically designed to provide for sustainable outcomes for the commons and protection of individual rights. (NAMA Constitution 1999)

NAMA members work to develop connected, self-governing community based organizations that are interested in achieving sustainable and abundant marine resources in New England. The organization's members include commercial and recreational fishers, conservationists, educators, seafood industry members and ordinary citizens who work together to promote a secure future for individuals and the coastal communities in which they live. Their unique constitutional effort is built on a set of ethical principles, comparable to the US Constitution's Bill of Rights, that provide the moral authority to protect and promote individual rights and responsibilities and the sustainability of common property resources.

One of the important characteristics of the NAMA constitution is its requirement for all decisions to be made at the "most local level possible" by a diverse group of interested and affected parties. The bylaws create authentic bottom-up self-governance structures, while insuring that local, regional and national fisheries governance provides justice for the resource. Considerable energy was spent to avoid dangers from the false supposition that populations are homogenous and therefore majority rule is fair because the minority and majority would have similar basic interests. (Goldwin 1997, p. 66) Although the NAMA governance system requires effective participation of recreational and commercial fishers it is not a plan for fishing interests to control the decision-making process and internally works to prevent the formation of unjust majorities. (Visit www.namanet.org)

A few public examples of marine resource management that nurture participation by groups with a diverse composition are beginning to emerge as success stories in ways that confirm the NAMA belief that affected parties can act accountably if given responsibility. The Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council's real-time management of Illex squid is a development with exciting promise for increased effective participation. Massachusetts' Striped Bass Advisory Committee is working extremely well to generate responsible recommendations by interested parties that are largely self-organized. Maine recently succeeded in passing legislation that divides the states waters into small-scale lobster management zones and sea urchin management zones. The small-scale zones have enhanced management through putting local knowledge to use. (LaPoint 2001) Although zoning won't be the answer for all species, the devolution of power to more local levels will. (Pendleton and Simonistsch 1999)

Discussion

Genuine political participation has much more to recommend for itself than the mere justification that it is the preference of well-meaning people. Using the knowledge of fishers and other interested parties in authentic and fair deliberation forces the involved parties to justify their decisions and opinions by appealing to and defending chosen goals with reason. It is with effective participation in deliberations that a democratic society develops its civic capacities for cooperation, confronting contradictions, tolerance for pluralism and the ability to disagree without anger.

There are three characteristics that must exist before a person can be considered an effective participant in a collective decision making process. First, the individual must have an equal opportunity for placing matters on the agenda. Second, the participants must have an opportunity, equal to every other person's, to engage in full discussion. Third, an equal opportunity must exist to participate in making the final decision, either by voting or by consensus. (Dahl, 1989, Chapter 8)

It is through the development and exercise of this kind of public reasoning that mature and effective political responsibility is developed and maintained and not with the accumulation of power and resources and action based on what the majority is presently thinking. The kind of deliberative democracy that evolves from political arrangements with checks and balances, such as the NAMA constitution provides, requires governance decisions and the fair distribution of benefits and burdens not solely on the basis of majority rule, but based on a fair reasoning process that is "public-regarding." (Sunstein 2001)

We believe that the lack of participation is due in large part to the inability of fishers to authentically participate in the decision process. In the United States, the institutional arrangements dictated by Magnuson do create a useful role for the Secretary of Commerce, NMFS, and the council appointees, but fail to give the affected and interested parties any genuine political roles in the governance system. Deliberative shortcomings are easily predicted when similarly thinking people only spend time in dialogue with one another. When diversity of participants is not present then governance power is not available to those with competing views. (Sunstein 2001)

In Kenya the KWS, the Fisheries Department, and multi-national organizations dictate how marine resources will be managed. In both the United States and Kenya, local knowledge, when formally gathered is generally undertaken by social scientists, but it is knowledge gained by narrowly defined experts in the "hard" sciences that informs policy making. (Huntington 2000) Fishers and other interested parties understand their place in this information hierarchy and see little practical benefit from individual efforts or supporting association efforts when those actions continue to be viewed as producing knowledge that is illegitimate in the current system.

A worst-case scenario has resulted from not institutionally incorporating fishermen's knowledge in the management process. The composition and dominance of the existing governing structures have become taken for granted and the established interests have not only taken on a semblance of naturalness, but have also defined each other as their rival. A part of the mentality of the established interests is to view their wellbeing as connected to the preservation of their positions with respect to membership in officially recognized decision-making bodies, including council and its committees or Kenyan state agencies. Desiring their own survivability the relatively few established players often view initiatives in terms of maintaining their status quo. Political creativity is stifled except where the initiatives do not de-stabilize the existing institutional structure. (Unger 1998, p. 214)

Authentic democratic deliberations have long been recognized for achieving three important goals with respect to good government. First, self-governance legitimizes the laws we make. Secondly, the very best reason for compliance with the rules is when you make them yourself. Third, acceptance of accountability in complex situations has been identified as a principal benefit from receiving and assuming responsibility. (Boven 1998, chapter 9)

The literature produced by fisheries councils is simply incorrect regarding the claim for representative democracy and local level participation. If councils were representative democracies then it could be fairly stated that elected council members were "effective participants" and we in the body politic had opportunities equal to every other party through the performance of our representatives. Similarly incorrect is the literature put forth by agencies in support of Kenya's ICM plans that claims that a participatory process was used to reach broad consensus on how to address critical coastal management issues. (http://www.crc.uri.edu/field/esa/kenya_current.html)

Literature that creates a discourse of participatory marine management is a serious impediment to authentic participatory democracy. It serves to reinforce mistrust between fishing populations and those with degrees and positions of relative power in fisheries governance that produce the materials. The inaccuracies can also raise false expectations for authentic participation among newcomers to the industry thus alienating new generations of fishing people before truly participatory management systems are implemented.

Conclusion

Our experiences in the United States and Kenya reveal an alarming and discouraging state of public participation that respects no border or economic status. Top-down management and coercive conservation will not benefit the environment in the long run. Fishers, fisheries managers, conservationists, and researchers are all experts in that each group has specialized, relevant knowledge that the others do not. All must be harnessed to improve fisheries management locally, regionally, and nationally. (Mauro and Hardinson 2000, Johannes 2001) How this knowledge is gained might include everything from fisher-run workshops for state employees, to swapping a day at work periodically with someone in another area of fisheries management, to establishing centers for indigenous fisheries knowledge, and formally reconstituting the management process with internal mechanisms that decentralize authority and create authentic participatory roles for fishers and all other interested parties.

Considering the cultural and political history in the United States the widespread disaffection with the council form of government was inevitable. Rule making by an appointed elite group having no institutionalized connection between those who must follow the rules and those who make the rules is generally recognized as politically illegitimate. (Bell, 1976)

It is time to destroy the durable myth repeated in U.S. fisheries management literature that claims that fisheries councils encourage representative democracy and local level participation. Until members of Congress recognize and publicly confront the political reality of the shortcomings of how fisheries people are governed and then understand the undesirable consequences of the present meager process no useful improvements in the governance process will occur and the performance of the councils will not achieve their potential. Congressional and state representatives have a major responsibility for implementing useful change in the participation and methods for deliberations used in the institutions for managing marine resources. Legislators who do not make every effort to improve our institutions and promote fairness for our resources and citizens weaken their moral claims as protectors of justice and as representatives for citizens and common resources.

It is not sufficient for government to increase the numbers of the fish in the oceans. Fishing people's lives from Kenya to the United States have been unnecessarily and irretrievably altered by the feeble abilities of inadequate centralized command systems. By transforming the fisheries governance system fishers, and all of the parties with vital interests in marine resources, will begin to build an improved relationship with the ocean. (Norse 1993) The authors of this paper do not contend that use of fishers' knowledge in democratic deliberations will guarantee desired outcomes. We do believe that with fishers fair inclusion among a diversity of decision makers, who work within the constraints of a reason-demanding constitution, that society can better achieve its social, economic, and environmental goals than with the present system. Our basic task at this conference should be to create fundamental changes for a positive relationship between the ocean's inhabitants and users.

At the heart of governance is the human obsession to control our future on this planet. Since humans alone have the power to significantly alter this earth we have the primary responsibility for its future care and protection. Our system of fishery laws has been developed by extension of the same unique abilities we possess that created abstract concepts like equality and justice. Only humans, not the aquatic creatures, are responsible for the quality and performance of these laws. It is one of our major ethical responsibilities to improve the governance institutions we have created and know to be inadequate. (Simonitsch 1997 and 1998)

References

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