Communities, Coasts, and Crises

Managing Together on a Blue Planet

Tony Charles covered a number of topics during his “integrated management” lecture last Thursday night. “Natural Disasters”, the “Oceans State”, “Top 20 Concerns”, and “How to Help” were among some of the subjects discussed. One point Charles made, when discussing, “How to Help”, was that building local management in small fishing communities, like the Yucatan in Mexico, could be a successful technique to help stop over-fishing on a local scale. It was my understanding that he believes starting locally, going from the “bottom up”, is one way to effectively influence a “top down” initiative and eventually have local people sharing resource management responsibilities with the government; something he referred to as “co-management”. This idea sounds very similar to some of the reasons for needing Canada’s Ocean Strategy; “giving Canadians an opportunity to become engaged in decisions affecting Canada’s three oceans”, and also similar to the Little Albrow Lake example we learned about back in January. I believe that the more people involved, the better. Starting from the bottom up is definitely a method worth practicing and publicizing.
Although Tony Charles’ presentation was not one of my favorites to-date, I appreciated the ideas and facts presented.