The Klamath River Basin has been fraught environmental resource management issues that have been both highly politicized and publicized in the American West. The problems of water allocation in this region have been the result of conflicting interests between fishermen, tribes, wildlife, and farmers, which rely on scarce water resources for their livelihoods. Doremus and Tarlock(2008) refer to the Klamath Basin as a “problemshed” because its social and ecological problems pervade all of its borders, effecting all communities within the watershed. In 2005, progress towards a compromise began when renown mediator, Bob Chadwick, was hired by federal agencies in the Department of the Interior to convene stakeholder meetings in the basin between
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Community Based Resource Management(CBRM) is defined by Child and Lyman(2005) “as a process by which landholders gain access and use, right to, or ownership of, natural resources; collaboratively and transparently and plan and participate in the management of resource use; and achieve financial and other benefits from stewardship”(as cited in Fernandez-Gimenez, 2008). Systems of collaboration vary with degrees of formal government involvement (Brewer, 2012), and varying definitions of participation (Bixler 2015). Proponents of CBRM argue that it is a more democratic and equitable system than the traditional top down method of management, and also provides results which are more appropriate for the social and ecological context of place(Yung, Patterson, Freimund, 2010). Opponents of CBRM have expressed concern that it will lead to degradation of environmental resources because local actors have an incentive to over use resources. Yung, Patterson, Freimund critique both arguments because they depict local communities as fixed and homogenous, and either inherently more ethical or inherently self-serving. A similar critique of the innateness of local scale is offered by Brown and Purcell (2004). Construction of local people as “timless and monolithic” ( Yung, Patterson, Freimund 2010) neglect the diversity of cultures and politics within place, where CBRM and other similar management systems take place. The question my research seeks to answer is: What is the role of cultural identity in the Klamath River Basin, and how has identity impacted the process of collaboration in the formulation of the Council and the
Community Based Resource Management(CBRM) is defined by Child and Lyman(2005) “as a process by which landholders gain access and use, right to, or ownership of, natural resources; collaboratively and transparently and plan and participate in the management of resource use; and achieve financial and other benefits from stewardship”(as cited in Fernandez-Gimenez, 2008). Systems of collaboration vary with degrees of formal government involvement (Brewer, 2012), and varying definitions of participation (Bixler 2015). Proponents of CBRM argue that it is a more democratic and equitable system than the traditional top down method of management, and also provides results which are more appropriate for the social and ecological context of place(Yung, Patterson, Freimund, 2010). Opponents of CBRM have expressed concern that it will lead to degradation of environmental resources because local actors have an incentive to over use resources. Yung, Patterson, Freimund critique both arguments because they depict local communities as fixed and homogenous, and either inherently more ethical or inherently self-serving. A similar critique of the innateness of local scale is offered by Brown and Purcell (2004). Construction of local people as “timless and monolithic” ( Yung, Patterson, Freimund 2010) neglect the diversity of cultures and politics within place, where CBRM and other similar management systems take place. The question my research seeks to answer is: What is the role of cultural identity in the Klamath River Basin, and how has identity impacted the process of collaboration in the formulation of the Council and the