Pacific Salmon fisheries: Climate, information and adaptation in a conflict-ridden context

Pacific Salmon are anadromous fish that cross state and international bound aries in their oceanic migrations. Fish spawned in the rivers of one jurisd iction are vulnerable to harvest in other jurisdictions. The rocky history of attempts by the United States and Canada to cooperatively manage their r espective salmon harvests suggests that such shared resources may present d ifficult challenges for effective adaptation to climate change. On June 30, 1999, the two nations signed an agreement which, if successfully implement ed, may end several years of rancorous conflict. For the previous six years , they had been unable to agree on a full set of salmon "fishing regimes" u nder the terms of the Pacific Salmon Treaty. This conflict was sparked by s trongly divergent trends in the abundance of northern and southern salmon s tocks, and a consequent change in the balance of each nation's interception s of salmon spawned in the other nation's rivers. The trends are attributab le, in part, to the effects of large-scale climatic fluctuations. This case demonstrates that it may not be a simple matter to respond effectively to a climate change. Adaptation is difficult when a resource is exploited by m ultiple competing users who possess incomplete information. If, in addition , their incentives to cooperate are disrupted by the impacts of the climati c variation, dysfunctional breakdowns in management rather than efficient a daptation may ensue. Institutional factors will determine the extent to whi ch the management of such resources can adapt effectively to climate variab ility or long-term climate change.