Translating Legal Rights into Management Practice: Overcoming Barriers to the Exercise of Co-Management

Abstract

In many cases the management of certain common property natural resources has been successfully shared between government agencies and groups claiming co-management rights. This analysis adds to existing middle-range theoretical propositions about how such co-management arrangements develop, and specifically how groups overcome barriers to co-management when their co-management rights are protected in law but resisted politically. The paper examines a range of strategies used successfully by a coalition of environmental groups and Indian tribes with rights to participate in fish and wildlife habitat protection in the state of Washington. Their struggle first to procure co-management agreements and then to have the agreements implemented has implications for the theory and practice of joint management of other common property resources, especially where multiple agencies and parties are involved.