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The Pacific Salmon Treaty was established by Canada and the United States to secure sustainability of salmon harvests within the Pacific Northwest. Renewed in June 1999, the treaty functions to legitimize and empower the Pacific Salmon Commission as the agent of fishery sustainability. The Pacific Salmon Commission serves as a bilateral recommendation-making body. Through its formal and informal, communications, the commission suggests action and defines regional salmon policy. Over the past decade pressures related to overharvest, changing oceanic conditions, and an increasing demand for production have challenged the commission and the fishery as never before. The Pacific Salmon Treaty was officially signed into existence in 1985. It was supposed to be re-ratified in 1992. This did not occur. From 1992 until 1999 numerous ratification processes were attempted, all but one failed. During this time tensions mounted and expressed frustrations nearly prompted overt violence. In August 1997 Canadian fishermen angered at the lack of a solution blockaded a U.S. passenger ferry thrusting the issue onto the world stage. In response to the crisis Canada and the U.S. empowered a joint commission to find resolution. While the resultant Strangway-Ruckelshaus Initiative proved to be a failure, its findings paved the way for eventual re-ratification. The Pacific Salmon Treaty exists because salmon within the Pacific Northwest represent different but simultaneous values within rooted world view orientations. The respective political cultures of Canada and the U.S. have sustained administrative regimes consistent with their dominant understanding of salmon and its values. Divergent cultural expectations and shared economic pressures have sustained conflict over the fishery and led to political and economic uncertainty. The Pacific Salmon Treaty is a work in progress. Understanding the treaty's context, historical development and function is vital for the sustainability of the fishery. The recent ratification of the Pacific Salmon Treaty represents an evolution in shared resource management. Based upon an "abundance-based management" regime the 1999 agreement provides the Pacific Salmon Commission with more discretionary capacity. However, the new pact may prove to be incomplete in form and function because of contradictory world view orientations. This research suggests that an emphasis on struggle management instead of conflict avoidance coupled with an enhanced bilateral commitment to the sustainability of the fishery may prove most helpful for the long-term outlook of the salmon. It also suggests that it is simply too early to tell whether this most recent attempt can or will "save the salmon." / Graduation date: 2001

Policy decisions in fishery management are becoming increasingly complex and difficult. This is especially true for the salmon fisheries where policy outcomes affect the productivity of the salmon resource and the subsequent well-being of commercial fishermen, charter boat operators, Indian fishermen, and sport anglers. The objective of this study was to advance methodology from statistical decision analysis which would assist fishery managers in Oregon who must make particularly difficult choices with respect to allocation and production of coho salmon while recognizing uncertainties in the environment, incomplete state of knowledge, and the conflicting needs and desires of different interest groups. The method chosen given multiple objectives and uncertainty is multiattribute utility analysis. The approach consists, of two main components: (1) a computer model which simulates the life cycle of hatchery and stream spawning coho salmon given environmental variation, different hatchery juvenile release levels and harvest rates; and (2) an objective function which relates the different outcomes from alternative release levels and harvest rates to an assessment of the degree to which individual objectives are met. The approach was used to evaluate and rank the expected outcomes from twelve proposed policies under different hypothesized ocean environments. Analysis of the results suggest that (1) the most effective policy is achieved with a relatively low harvest rate and high smolt release level; (2) selection of a particular harvest rate is the most important decision variable; and (3) a large smolt release level can be maintained unless such releases adversely decreases the ocean survival of stream spawning coho. Because the coho fishery is a mixed stock fishery consisting of hatchery and wild stocks, the results suggest that too high a harvest rate will lead to depletion of wild stocks, considered important because of their potential contribution to production and diverse genetic traits and characteristics. Conversely, too low a harvest rate will lead to excessive escapement of coho and thus reduce the total catch. As is illustrated, formulating the coho decision problem in a multiattribute utility analysis framework is useful in two ways. First, by quantifying the objectives of the decision maker, consistent results from following alternative policies can be determined. These results provide a basis for comparison and serve as a guide for decision making involving uncertainty. Second, the approach is useful in isolating major objectives and conflicts, value judgments, trade-offs, and needed empirical evidence. / Graduation date: 1982

There has been much discussion of the merits and limitations of area licensing, i.e., a fishery management tool which restricts fishermen to certain geographic areas, in the British Columbia," Canada, salmon fishery. To date there has been little formal evaluation of the implications of this policy tool for salmon fishery management. In the reports by Pearse (1982), Sinclair (1978) and Fleet Rationalization Committee (1982) some insights on the subject are provided, but an evaluation in terms of specific criteria is lacking. This study evaluates five area licence configurations in the context of the B.C. salmon fishery. They are assessed based on evaluative criteria that cover the following subject areas: management operations; socio-economic effects; biological effectiveness; and economic efficiency. Each of these broad subjects are factored into specific elements, in which the emphasis is on the nature of the fishery and the resource. From the analysis it was found that the area licence configurations that factored the coast into two large harvest areas or the configuration that alienated small area(s) as test area(s) are most appropriate for the fishery. These configurations facilitated the attainment of management operations, socio-economic and biological goals, but not the economic efficiency goals. The other configurations, in particular those that factor the coast into a number of smaller harvest areas, result in exacerbating the problems with all criteria except economic efficiency and some biological factors. The appropriate area configurations for the B.C. salmon fishery would be the configurations that factors the coast into two large harvest areas; or the configuration where two or three small harvest areas are alienated from the existing harvest area. There are three fundamental reasons for this: (1) they are least disruptive (i.e., minimum impact on present harvest patterns, least politically sensitive, and minimum distributional effects); (2) they offer greatest flexibility to address political, economic, biological and social uncertainties; and (3) these area configurations provide the greatest ease of implementation and incremental adjustment of the status quo. Acceptance of these configurations will depend on the time horizon and the objectives of the decision makers. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

Magister Legum - LLM / The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982 UNCLOS) is ineffective in ensuring the conservation and long-term sustainability of marine fisheries in Areas beyond national Jurisdiction (ABNJ). This is a result of the lacuna in Part VII of the 1982 UNCLOS containing the framework provisions governing the conservation and management of marine living resources in ABNJ. The lacuna relates to the fact that the 1982 UNCLOS fails to address the threats posed by high seas fisheries to the long-term sustainability of the marine environment and the marine biological diversity found therein. The lacuna has not gone unnoticed by the international community as international laws and policies have been developed to address the issues plaguing the fisheries regime in ABNJ.