The movement of waterfowl across the Pacific Flyway creates ecological interdependencies across the entire landscape. However, management of waterfowl is fragmented between individuals and organizations operating at various scales, in different sectors, and within multiple jurisdictions creating a need for cross-boundary collaboration. The goals with this body of work are to (1) elucidate how collaboration leads to successful management of waterfowl, (2) identify what motivates and presents barriers to collaboration, and (3) explore organization and system levels drivers of collaboration nested within regional Migratory Bird Joint Venture partnerships.
I used a mixed methods approach to address these goals using qualitative and quantitative methods for data collection and analysis. I conducted semi-structured interviews with 32 key informants. Interview questions were designed to first develop a robust understanding of various roles in management and the goals and issues in regions across the flyway. Then, several questions focused explicitly on collaboration, while others addressed topics such as successful management and use of science. Semi-structured interviews were followed by web-based surveys of 645 participants identified through purposive and snowball sampling resulting in 220 responses (34% response rate). The survey instrument was designed to (1) collect key professional affiliation attributes about respondents, (2) identify professional connections and categorize those relationships, and (3) evaluate involvement in and perceptions of Migratory Bird Joint Ventures (Joint Ventures hereafter). Joint Ventures are the predominant formal partnerships designed to advance regional habitat management for waterfowl. Identification of professional connections was accomplished using a free recall name generator approach. Relationships were categorized by activities (sharing resources, implementing projects, collaborative decision-making) and management focus (population, habitat, human dimensions). Each chapter pulls from these extensive datasets to explore different dimensions of collaboration.
In chapter one, I investigate how waterfowl management practitioners define success and the ways in which collaboration contributes to success by analyzing interviews using grounded theory and thematic analysis. A recurrent theme is the multi-dimensionality of waterfowl management. Practitioners defined waterfowl management in multiple ways including a focus on population and harvest management, habitat management, and human dimensions. Management goals, actions, and metrics of success mirror these three elements. Interview participants identified key ways in which collaboration contributes to successful management, dependent on each of these elements. Collaboration contributes to population management by facilitating whole lifecycle or whole flyway level thinking. Interorganizational relationships can increase capacity for habitat management work, which is particularly resource intensive. Success defined by public and partner satisfaction is enhanced by collaboration because engaging partners broadly can increase buy-in and support for management actions. There was broad agreement that Joint Ventures are successful at regional management, but slightly less successful at advancing flyway level management. Additionally, by analyzing survey data on Joint Ventures with ordinal logistic regression, I quantify how Joint Venture involvement leads to a significant increase in perceived success.
Identifying key barriers to collaboration within this system can help practitioners find ways to strengthen existing partnerships and to engage new partners as needed. In chapter two, I explore the specific roles of partners in different sectors, and their motivations for and barriers to collaboration. Specifically, funding was identified as both a motivation for and the primary barrier to collaboration. Partnerships were formed to increase overall funding by leveraging economies of scale. However, funding restrictions, such as the inability to spend money on developing or maintaining collaboration and match requirements present key barriers. There are also siloes within waterfowl management that present barriers, such as that between population and habitat management, and competing approaches and goals within the broader waterfowl management enterprise. These barriers are present across many, if not all, sectors, and some organizations are more well-suited to overcome these challenges. This qualitative analysis does not present novel collaborative governance challenges. Rather, I present issues specific to waterfowl management across the Pacific Flyway in order to recommend specific ways to improve collaboration.
Within the multiscale management of migratory waterfowl, interorganizational relationships are nested within larger regional partnerships. In chapter three, I create a directed management network between organizations to examine cross-sector and regional patterns of collaboration. Engagement within larger collaborative forums is theorized to increase individual collaborative relationships. Furthermore, when management networks operate within complex social-ecological systems across large landscapes, we expect collaboration within such forums to align with ecological patterns. I analyze the waterfowl management network using valued exponential random graph models based on types of collaborative activities in which organizations engage. I find that collaboration within waterfowl management is particularly driven by state agencies and organizations operating at a regional scale. Involvement in Joint Ventures significantly increases the likelihood that any organization will collaborate in the broader management network. There are also significant differences between collaboration within each Joint Venture region. Organizations working with the Central Valley are significantly more likely to engage in collaboration, which may be explained by alignment with ecological patterns, the high concentration of wintering waterfowl, and the need for active, on-the-ground habitat management. However, there are other institutional dynamics at play. Larger Joint Venture regions that retain strong waterfowl priorities (e.g., Intermountain West) have more cross-boundary collaboration. The more recently established California Central Coast Joint Venture region has the highest intensity of collaborative ties, driven by regional actors with pre-existing relationships. This work reveals a more complex picture of social-ecological alignment, necessitating future research of nuanced ecological patterns and regional differences in management.
Together, these chapters further our understanding of the role of collaboration within a complex social-ecological system. Understanding the ways in which collaboration contributes to successful management can provide insight into pursuing more targeted collaborative efforts. Collaboration can be costly but is critical for large scale natural resource management. This work highlights the need to create clear objectives for collaborative partnerships because the benefits of collaboration are dependent on how we measure success. Additionally, results from these studies demonstrate the importance of Migratory Bird Joint Ventures. The ecological, institutional, and social dynamics within each region create different collaborative dynamics. Nonetheless, these formal regional partnerships present excellent opportunities to advance flyway level management of waterfowl. Waterfowl management presents a rich, multi-dimensional system in which to study collaborative dynamics, with countless additional avenues for research focused on cross-scale collaboration and social-ecological networks. Building upon existing and successful collaborative endeavors, I hope this work provides insight to the waterfowl management community that contributes to more effective partnerships moving forward.
