Midwest Fish & Wildlife Conference 2016

AUTHORS: Marc Gaden*, Great Lakes Fishery Commission; Robert Lambe, Great Lakes Fishery Commission

ABSTRACT: In 2015, the Great Lakes fishery management community celebrated a monumental anniversary: fifty years of lake committees. Lake committees are multijurisdictional bodies, comprising senior fishery managers from each of the provincial, state, and US tribal authorities on the Great Lakes. The lake committees, which first met in 1965, serve as permanent, strategic mechanisms through which the fishery managers cooperate. The binational Great Lakes Fishery Commission maintains the lake committee process. Nothing compels managers from one agency to cooperate with managers from other agencies. Prior to the formation of lake committees, the myriad management agencies made little effort to cooperate and, in fact, often instituted fishery policies that worked at cross purposes. With the formation of lake committees, fishery managers, for the first time, had a place to share information and understand each other’s actions. In 1981, after the “environmental decade” that was the 1970s, the lake committees became more strategic with the adoption of A Joint Strategic Plan for Management of Great Lakes Fisheries, a non-binding agreement. The Joint Strategic Plan called upon lake committee members to identify their shared objectives, develop plans to achieve those objectives, and pledge to implement those objectives back in their home jurisdiction. This presentation will present a history of Great Lakes fishery management; describe the management chaos that existed prior to the formation of lake committees; discuss the factors leading to the permanent process for collaboration; and reflect on the significance of the highly collaborative, much distinguished, Great Lakes fishery management regime.