Analyzing the Impact of Governance Strategies on Trust and Risk in the Salish Sea Transboundary Fishery Context

The Salish Sea is the site of a transboundary fishery whose coastal jurisdiction includes British Columbia, Washington State, the two federal governments, and many Indigenous tribes with sovereign rights. Fishery management becomes increasingly complex when transboundary cooperation is needed. Furthermore, while the Salish Sea region has attempted to facilitate better transboundary collaborative governance, these have generally failed to institutionalize the principles of adaptive management. This research seeks to assess current trust and risk perceptions and analyze the effects of control mechanisms used in the transboundary fishery management network. The data consists of a survey measuring collaborative precursors, barriers, and outcomes such as trust, perceived risk, and inter-stakeholder influence. Establishing the relationships between types of management approaches and trust and perceived risk will provide the basis for subsequent research aimed at developing a management toolkit for facilitating collaboration in transboundary natural resource management systems