Transnational Environmental Management: U.S.-Canadian Institutions at the Interlocal Scale

Abstract

Salmon know no borders or boundaries. The representatives from both countries recognized this fact, and had the wisdom to fashion an agreement to work for the good of the resource and its users in Alaska and Canada. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Alaska Director Dave Allen Canada, the United States, and Mexico manage their environments through federal and subnational government institutions. These three North American neighbors also have each negotiated agreements concerning their shared species, water, and air. In spite of such domestic and international mechanisms to safeguard natural resources, the United States and Canada are grappling with a complex series of shared problems related to climate change, economic globalization, pollution, and internal conflicts over the use of natural resources. This essay focuses on Canadian and American international relations related to environmental politics on a local transboundary scale. It introduces the concept of interlocal relations to describe a new set of institutions that have been developing between the countries--institutions that are concurrently international and local. International environmental regimes have undergone a transformation in the last decade from a system based on centralized nation-state governance of natural resources to a devolved collaborative system of management in which subnational and non-state actors can play a significant role. Domestically, in both Canada and the United States, there have been cyclical trends of public attentiveness and government response since the environment became the focus of policymaking in the mid 20th century (Harrison 2003; Kraft and Vig 2007). Between the 1960s and 1990s both nations generally increased their levels of regulatory pressure and created new intergovernmental mechanisms of environmental management (MacDonald 2007; Portney 1992). However, since the early 1990s both federal governments have stepped back from command and control regulations. They have devolved many of the national responsibilities for the environment to their states, provinces, and municipalities, and have increased collaborative decision-making through stakeholder groups, private public partnerships, and flexibility in enforcement. These policy conditions, in combination with the increasing scientific awareness of ecosystem function, have created Canadian-American binational commitments to shared natural resources. Moreover, these conditions are beginning to shape the development of new institutions for the U.S. border with Mexico to the south. The issue of managing borderland ecosystems has largely been neglected. In general, studies of international environmental agreements and their effectiveness focus on federal-level actors, global institutions, and large-scale actions. On the other hand, studies of domestic environmental issues usually stop at the border without considering the cross-border consequences of national policies. Both branches of study frequently fail to include smaller-scale remedial and conservation activities occurring in borderlands. In spite of this, state, provincial, and local governments do create transnational sets of rules or practices to further localized international goals addressing pollution, development, or harvests in borderlands. It is especially important to examine such cooperation on the local scale for two reasons. First, local implementation of remedial actions and conservation practices is an important part of international environmental arrangements. The small-scale actions of local people and organizations can be key indicators of whether a large-scale environmental agreement will actually bring about change in behavior. Second, without accurate tools of evaluation, it is difficult to understand the effects that localized transnational cooperation may have on ecological problems and border communities. The research presented here aims to broadly address issues of international environmental politics by contributing more narrowly to the understanding of the institutional performance of natural resource management mechanisms in interlocal commons. …