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| Sport Fish Concessions and Negotiations Some people believe in a "pick your poison" or " wish your poison " negotiation procedure and some don't. This page is dedicated to resolving the concession issue which has resulted from a difference of opinion over the ways a USE group may negotiate in general and specifically with the Alaska Board of Fish. There are two negotiating approaches. A.] " Historic Negotiation " Approach B.] " Pick Your Poison Negotiation " Approach A.] The " Historic Negotiation Approach " which most USE groups have used to deal with the Board, functions by going into a Board meeting with the attitude that a USE group has given up to much already. This approach assumes that any further losses would cause their families to starve and businesses to go under. This approach has served many USE groups in the past in that those groups may receive some losses but those losses are usually kept to a minimum. The Cook Inlet commercial fishing industry has always used the Historic Approach when negotiating with the Board. That approach has allowed it to maintain its grip on Cook Inlet's fisheries management for 30 years. B.] The " Pick Your Poison Negotiation Approach " came to be during the 1999 Board of Fish meeting in Soldotna, Alaska for Upper Cook Inlet. A couple of sport fish guides got into a couple of Board of Fish Committee's and began offering concessions to the Board because they felt that the Board was about to inflict zoning on the guides. These guides offered up concessions which the main body of guides would never have gone along with but the Board assumed that they some how spoke for the main guide body. The Board decided against zoning but those guides had no way of anticipating that decision. After leaving the zoning issue the Board then aquired the concessions and voted them into regulation. It is impossible for any USE group to reliably predict which way a Board will move. When a group offers up concessions, They are automatically assuming that they can predict which direction a Board will move. It is extremly dangerous for any use group to attempt to predict the direction a Board will move. The highly fluid nature of " Board direction " may change daily and concessions which anticipate a direction will usually miss their mark. As a Board's direction changes, those concessions will usually become counter-productive by being used later to implement a totally unexpected Board direction. Many times concessions are also self-defeating even if the USE group successfully predicts the direction the Board will move. Concessions are self-defeating because they reveal the use groups most valuable possession " its final fall-back position ". Use group concessions make the group much like a " buyer " and the concessions function much like telling a car dealer how high of a price you are willing to pay. Once this information has been revealed, the buyer has little hope of expecting to pay a lower price. Once the concession has been revealed, it is all but assured that it will be enforced, even if it was offered to prevent a less appealing alternative which never happened. The highly unpredictable nature of concessions makes them as much of a " possible liability " as a " possible asset ". --------------------------------------------- It is for this reason that most major USE groups do not make concessions up front to the Board. These groups have found through experience that they cannot expect the Board to move in a desired direction by leading it with concessions. It is therefore not a logical negotiating procedure for any USE group to " Pick Its Poison " when attempting to move a Board in any direction. It is for this reason that most USE groups apply the Historic Approach, when negotiating with the Alaska Board of Fish. | ||