Columbia River Tribal Fisheries: Life History Stages of a Co-Management Institution

How has Columbia River fisheries co-management evolved from an ineffective process dominated by lawsuits into a more functional institution?  This presentation will outline changes in Columbia River fisheries co-management institutions between treaty tribes and state agencies that have occurred from the 1970s to present.  To understand this evolution, I analyzed management periods at approximately 10-year intervals using Elinor Ostrom’s (1990) framework for enduring common property resource institutions.  Ostrom’s framework includes 1) clear boundaries and use rights, 2) rules that fit local conditions, 3) collective-choice governance, 4) monitoring, 5) graduated sanctions and enforcement, 6) conflict-resolution capacity, 7) recognition of community rights by external authorities, and 8) relationships to nested institutions.  I also used salmon life history stages as an analogy linking institutional development back to the salmon resource.  This stage-based analysis illustrates how Columbia River co-management began with a transformative shift establishing clear boundaries and use rights, followed by iterative rule changes and periods of reorganization.

During the “egg stage” in the early 1970s, the Belloni and Boldt legal decisions initiated a tenure shift and created Columbia River co-management institutions.  By upholding treaty fishing rights, the decisions established a clear use right , while leveraging federal court jurisdiction to ensure strong conflict resolution capacity  and providing recognition of community rights by an external authority.  Later, in the “alevin” and “parr/fry stage” of the late 1970s and 1980s, co-managers created a new set of institutions for collective choice governance through U.S. v. Oregon structures and refined rules.  Through the 1980s, tribes developed additional monitoring, graduated sanctions and enforcement capacity, and also built relationships with nested institutions, such as the Pacific Salmon Commission.  During the 1990s, the “smolt stage,” co-managers redesigned institutional structures in response to Endangered Species Act listings, which led to a new alliance between states and tribes.  For the “early adult stage” in the late 2000s, differences between co-managers were recognized more directly within planning documents.  From the 1980s to present, conflicts were increasingly resolved without litigation, and external authority of tribes expanded into international decision-making arenas. 

Conditions that have facilitated more effective co-management with Columbia River treaty fisheries included creating conflict resolution mechanisms beyond litigation, addressing the tension between treaty rights and conservation, and developing tribes’ organizational capacity.  Building local legitimacy of co-management practices, such as addressing Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and shifting social norms were additional conditions.  Columbia River co-management relationships are not static and continue to be negotiated.