Steven L. Yaffee , Beyond Polarization: Public Process and the Unlikely Story of California's Marine Protected Areas (Washington: Island Press, 2020). 1–485 pp. ISBN: 9781642830828

• Published date: 01 July 2023
• Author: John Kirlin
• Date: 01 July 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13681

Received: 6 June 2023Accepted: 7 June 2023

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13681

Beyond Polarization: Public

Process and the Unlikely

Story of California’s Marine

Protected Areas

Steven L. Yaffee, (Washington: Island

Press, 2020). 1–485 pp. ISBN:

9781642830828

John Kirlin

McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific, Sacramento, California, USA

Email: jkirlin@pacific.edu

Professor Yaffee writes about the creation of a network of

124 Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) within the three miles

of state waters off the coast of the State of California, the

fruit of a well-structured public policy process, funded

largely by philanthropies, over the 2004–2012 period.

Two prior attempts to implement the Marine Life Protec-

tion Act (1999) failed.

O’Leary, coeditor of a symposium on collaborative

public management (2006), writes approvingly in a back

cover blurb on Yaffee’s book “This is the best analytical

case study of collaborative problem solving ever pub-

lished”(2020). This review finds value in the volume but

also judges it gives too much attention to the facilitation

of stakeholder processes. Those stakeholder processes

were “collaborative,”but they occurred within structures

of authority acknowledged but inadequately analyzed by

Yaffee. Important to analysts of collaboration, this case

illustrates important relationships between authority, the

roles of executives, and collaboration, developed below.

Yaffee (2020) declares his book “…a narrative. Public

decision making is anything but dry, and the best way to

explain that is to tell a story.”(xiii) The focus of the story

is the “Marine Life Protection Act Initiative,”created by a

Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the

Resources Agency, State of California, and the Resources

Legacy Fund Foundation (RLFF), to recommend MPAs to

the California Fish and Game Commission (FGC), which

could legally modify existing or create new MPAs.

In addition to statutorily required science (the “Science

Advisory Team,”SAT) and stakeholder (“Regional Stake-

holder Groups,”RSG) elements, the distinctive features of

the Initiative included a “Blue Ribbon Task Force”(BRTF)

composed of experienced public policy professionals

charged with recommending new MPAs to the FGC, and an

effective staff. A key feature of the Initiative was substantial

funding from philanthropies organized through the RLFF.

Nearly $8.5million was provided for the first phase of the

Initiative (late 2004 through early 2007) (72–85) and private

philanthropic funds by 2012 totaled $35 million (3).

The BRTF hired the author of this review as Executive

Director of the MPLPA Initiative, serving in that role from

late 2004 until early 2007 when asked to serve as Execu-

tive Director of Delta Vision, addressing even more deeply

divided and powerful interests regarding water supply

and ecosystem functions in the State of California. As

reported by Yaffee, “John Kirlin, executive director of the

Initiative, was accountable to (for) the outcomes of the

MOU…”(89).

The first six chapters (106 pages) provide a useful his-

tory of the Marine Life Protection Act, two failed efforts

led by the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) to imple-

ment the Act, the forces resulting in the signing of the

MOU, and the early history of the Initiative. These chap-

ters should be read by all who engage in this volume.

The work of the Initiative was divided into four

regions addressed sequentially (Central Coast, 2005–2007;

North Central Coast, 2007–2009; South Coast, 2008–2010;

and North Coast, 2009–2012), where the first date is

the start of Initiative work in a region and the last

approval of revised MPAs by the FGC. Yaffee sensibly

addresses each region separately in a total of 300 pages,

mostly focused on the work of the RSG. Those interested

in the mechanics of facilitation should read all chapters.

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