From 2007 to 2010, CONCUR served as lead facilitator for the project. CONCUR provided process design guidance, strategic planning assistance and oversight of technical experts, and also served as the primary technical writer of the final AAG Report entitled, “Management Options for a Potential Red Abalone Fishery on San Miguel Island” (CONCUR Inc., January 29, 2010). This Report describes the management options developed by the stakeholders, the collaborative process used to guide the collaboration and the technical information that informed the management options.

At its March 2010 meeting, the California Department of Fish and Game approved the Marine Resource Committee’s recommendation to perform a supplemental modeling analysis examining the risk of total allowable catch levels. This, along with staff cost estimates of each alternative, will be used to inform its decision regarding a potential fishery for red abalone.

The report – entitled “Management Options for a Potential Red Abalone Fishery on San Miguel Island” (January 29, 2010) and co-authored by Department of Fish and Game (DFG) staff, Abalone Advisory Group (AAG) members and CONCUR – describes a suite of management options including considerations of a Total Allowable Catch (TAC) for a potential abalone fishery. The report also details the AAG’s collaborative joint fact-finding process and the population modeling effort used in the process. The report is the culmination of four years of work by the AAG.

From 2007 until February 2010, CONCUR served as lead facilitator for the AAG, a stakeholder group convened by the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) to represent the interests of commercial fishing, recreational diving, marine conservation, and fisheries science. The elements of the AAG’s charge were to provide recommendations regarding: 1) a “total allowable catch”, 2) alternatives for allocation between recreational and commercial take, 3) alternative regulations, and 4) potential management, enforcement, and monitoring techniques.

At its February meeting, the MRC recommended additional modeling to explore San Miguel Island abalone stock projections over a longer time frame. It further directed DFG staff to provide cost estimates and a more refined analysis of each management option. The MRC also recommended a recess of the AAG until supplemental modeling and cost estimates have been completed. These MRC recommendations will be presented to the full Commission for consideration at its March 3, 2010 meeting.

CONCUR’s multiple roles in the project included facilitation, process design, strategic planning, oversight of technical experts and technical writing. CONCUR also partnered with DFG to design the Terms of Reference for a Technical Panel process and a companion Review Committee effort. CONCUR Associate Rebecca Tuden was among the presenters to the MRC.

A PDF copy of the main AAG report is available here (PDF link). The report with all of its appendices is available here.

In documenting the Initiative’s North Central Coast Regional Stakeholder Group process, the article highlights enabling factors, strategic principles and key decision support elements that accounted for a successful collaborative planning process. One of first peer-reviewed articles to document planning for a network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), the authors link the rich case study to published literature on conservation biology and public policy mediation.

Full reprints of the published article are available for download/purchase via the journal publisher. You may also contact CONCUR for a copy of the pre-print version of the paper.

Negotiation is increasingly a required part the day-to-day work of many professionals active in the environment, energy, natural resource management, and land use planning fields. While you or your staff may have had some exposure to negotiation, CONCUR’s training can take what may have been informal experience, and take it up to the next level of professional practice, enabling you to produce more powerful negotiated agreements.

“Negotiating Effective Environmental Agreements” is an intensive two-day workshop designed to meet the needs of professionals who are in a position to negotiate environmental agreements. In Course One, we show you how a process of face-to-face negotiation can augment traditional policy making with creative agreements that are better informed and more stable. During the training, participants learn the elements of mutual gains bargaining, apply them in a series of simulated disputes, and reflect on the application of these tools to everyday work situations.

REGISTRATION AND PAYMENT INFORMATION: EARLY ENROLLMENT ENCOURAGED

The course tuition is $600 per individual until March 19th, $650 afterward, and includes course materials, 2 continental breakfasts, 2 lunches, and one course dinner on Wednesday evening.

NOTE: The registration fee goes up $50 per person after March 19^th – Please enroll early!

To encourage early enrollment, we have a limited number of twenty (20) early-bird tickets available at a special rate of two-for-$600 ($300 each).

To enroll in this course, please visit http://www.concurinc.com/courseone.html or contact our Berkeley office for more information.

This schedule is a contract vehicle which enables any US federal government agency to more easily contract with CONCUR for services. Under the Federal Supply Schedule Program, GSA enters into government-wide contracts with commercial firms to provide products and services, at stated prices, for given periods of time. This streamlined procurement vehicle significantly reduces the time required to obtain services because GSA has reviewed vendors’ capabilities, negotiated rates, and prequalified vendors to provide services. CONCUR was awarded a MOBIS contract (GS-10F-0077W) to provide professional facilitation services to the US Government, including:

* Defining, refining, and resolving disputes, disagreements, and divergent views in environmental public policy
* Leading or facilitating group briefings and discussions, enabling focused decision-making
* Recording discussion content and related facilitation support services
* Debriefing stakeholders
* Preparing and providing draft and final reports relating to the facilitated issues

Please visit our GSA page for more information about CONCUR’s GSA MOBIS contract.

The stakeholder group developed three alternative proposals (identified as Proposals 1, 2 and 3) that then served as the basis for the South Coast IPA adopted by the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force. The alternative proposals were created during the year-long efforts of the regional stakeholders, representing a broad range of interests and in-depth knowledge about local resources. CONCUR worked with stakeholders in joint fact-finding and negotiation to evaluate existing MPAs and develop alternative MPA proposals along the Southern California coast. The stakeholder group included representatives of commercial fishing, recreational angling, diving interests, ports and harbors, conservation organizations, and government agencies with MPA-related responsibilities. CONCUR conducted the stakeholder assessment, identifying the key interests and issues affecting the design of MPAs in the study region and interviewed approximately 100 key stakeholders in the study region to help form the SCRSG. Please visit the MLPA website for more detailed maps and specific information on the MPA proposals: http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa.

The MLPA provides that California will redesign its system of MPAs, to the extent possible, as a network. The MLPA Initiative is a unique public-private partnership that was designed to have the key stakeholders (rather than technicians) develop the recommendations for MPA placement based on their judgment, knowledge of the resource, and particular expertise. The MLPA pays particular attention to protecting representative examples of important habitats and ensuring that there are comparable areas included in MPAs for monitoring and habitat management.

For purposes of planning and designation of MPAs, the California coast has been organized into five different study regions. The MLPA South Coast Study Region encompasses approximately 2,354 square miles of state waters from Point Conception in Santa Barbara County to the California border with Mexico, including offshore islands. CONCUR has served as facilitator and convener of the RSGs in the Central Coast, North Central Coast and the South Coast (this just completed) study regions.

The Commission will initiate the environmental review process, with the entire regulatory process to adopt south coast MPAs taking about one year to complete. The California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) is tasked with the implementation of the MPA network and will work with its local partners to promote effective monitoring, management and enforcement of the new MPAs.

In Mississippi, the NSF funding is targeted at three scientific goals: (1) multi-scale simulation of biological systems; (2) modeling biological networks; and (3) modeling and simulation of nanoscale chemistry. Participants in the strategic planning session included representatives of the states four research universities: Jackson State University, Mississippi State University, the University of Mississippi, and the University of Southern Mississippi. In South Dakota, the RII funding is focused primarily on building infrastructure to support research and education in photo active nanoscale systems (PANS). The South Dakota meeting brought together representatives from eight educational institutions, two state government offices, program evaluators and NSF. CONCUR Principal Scott McCreary and Senior Associate Bennett Brooks co-facilitated both strategic planning sessions in October and November, 2009, working closely with the Principal Investigators from the respective states.

As part of its work in this area, CONCUR was earlier hired by the South Dakota research team to facilitate a one-day workshop in September 2009 designed to provide an update on existing cyber infrastructure activities in the state and support partnerships across the states research and education stakeholders. That effort was led by Scott McCreary and Associate Rebecca Tuden.