Managing the impacts of commercial fisheries on the endangered North Atlantic right whale: a social-ecological systems approach.
Permanent URL:
http://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20240477
Helmuth, Brian (Committee member)
Connolly, James (Committee member)
The first part of this research developed a qualitative causal loop diagram of federal performance and stakeholder engagement in right whale conservation over the past two decades. This increased the understanding of the role of policy makers in enacting, evaluating, and adapting conservation policy over time. The second part of this dissertation investigated the current state of information sharing between the federal government and stakeholders who participate on the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team. This part of the research identified gaps by the federal government in informing and guiding its advisory body in the policy process. The third part of this dissertation applied dynamic systems modeling to address uncertainty in exploring future policy options. Stakeholder-based modeling was used to increase knowledge of human effects on right whales, and also to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the dynamic social-ecological system in which human activities and right whales occur.
Based on the findings of this research, this study drew a series of conclusions assessing the state of the federal framework to prevent lethal commercial fishery interactions with marine mammals. Specifically, this study identified a misalignment of time scales between how the policy process operates and how quickly outcomes can be detected in the ecological system. Social-ecological systems theory points to the critical role of evaluative research as a feedback on policy iteration. The causal loop diagram illustrates that such evaluative research is limited in this case.
This study also revealed a perception among members of the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team that the link between stakeholder-based policy-making and ecological outcomes is unclear. Further, as the number of scientific variables considered in the policy process increases, understanding among team members of how the variables affect policy decreases. This study concluded that the National Marine Fisheries Service must clarify the policy framework of the Marine Mammal Protection Act to the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team and assume the role of explicitly evaluating the understanding of team members of how scientific data are presented, are processed, and influence the policy process.
Lastly, this study established a stakeholder-based dynamic systems modeling framework to improve the policy process at each stage. More broadly, this study concluded that the existing Marine Mammal Protection Act regulatory framework should be refocused for large whales to consider systemic effects of chronic sublethal entanglement. Policy options should incorporate dynamic modeling as a facilitator of policy negotiations, an integrator of scientific information in policy-making, and a foundation for a future social-ecological research agenda.
dynamic modeling
Marine Mammal Protection Act
North Atlantic right whale
social-ecological systems
take reduction teams
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