Caleb Gallemore
Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy at Northeastern Illinois University
Fisheries Policy
Progress, but a long way to go
Background: Wikimedia, 2010
First, a few points about fisheries:
- Fisheries is plural
- Think about specific fishery depletion, not depletion in general
- Only some fisheries are open access
- Fisheries are always a form of rival good
-
Remember, rival goods are goods in which someone's consumption prevents the consumption of others
What is overfishing?
- Overfishing occurs when more fish are taken than is consistent with a particular target
- Economic overfishing: more fish are taken than is consistent with maximum profits (usually maximum sustainable yield)
- Recruitment overfishing: too many fish are taken to allow for reproduction of new fish, known as recruitment
- Growth overfishing: young fish are caught while still growing, lowering potential biomass of the take
What makes fisheries a renewable resource?
What makes fisheries a commons?
Technology and overfishing
- Some overfishing, even to extinction, prior to 19th century
-
Increasing overfishing problems following technological developments in 19th century
Explosion Harpoons
Background: Sauber, Wikimedia, 2009
Longline fishing
Background: NOAA Library Archives, Wikimedia, 2012
Trawling
Background: NOAA, Wikimedia, 2005
Larger ships
Background: Wikimedia, 2005
So how might we try to
avoid a tragedy of the
commons in fisheries?
Regulation:
The Eastern Bering Sea pollock fishery
Background: Blindheim, Wikimedia, 2011
Monitoring
- About 100 boats
-
Two observers placed on 16 largest and 80% of smaller boats to monitor catch, discard, and bycatch
Regulation and Enforcement
- Cap set on allowable catch for ecosystem by the National Marine Fisheries Service
- Cap is based on fish abundance determined by observers
- Observers ensure catch limits are followed
- Most other fisheries only have about 10-20% observer coverage, if any at all
Market I: Privatization:
Alaska Pacific Halibut Fishery
Background: Miller, Wikimedia, Circa 1927
Individual Fisherman's Quota
(IFQ) System
- Pre-1995: open access fishery, catch regulated by season length
- By early 1990s, season as short as a day in some places
- Derby fishery
- IFQ: share of the total allowable catch
- Apportioned based on previous catch shares
-
Individual transferrable quotas (ITQs): can be sold to other boats
How might IFQs and ITQs
change incentives from the
incentives under the open
access system?
Market II: Certification:
The Marine Stewardship Council
Marine Stewardship Council
- NGO originally founded by WWF and Unilever
- Investigates the fishing practices of entire fisheries
- Certifies sustainable yields
- Monitors fisheries and reports annually
Image source: WWF Australia
Certification Expansion
- In 2011, 102 fish stocks certified under MSC, 12% of world's catch
- Numbers continue to grow
- Wal-Mart required all seafood sources to be seeking MSC or similar certification as of June 2012
- Whole Foods uses MSC and Blue Ocean Institute/Monterray Bay Aquarium
- MSC certification concentrated in European and North American far-north fisheries
How does fishing certification
reflect the Coase theorem?
Common Property
Management:
Chilean caletas
Background: Wikimedia, 2013
Chilean Abalone Fishing
- 400+ caletas along Chilean coast
- Harvest many different species
- Chilean abalone major source of income
- Stocks collapsing from overfishing in late 1980s
- Largely sedentary
- Population dynamics very local
- 1991: New Chilean law allows cooperatives of fishers from caletas to apply for exclusive access to fishing territories
- Cooperatives manage stocks collectively
- 547 currently registered
- Higher abalone stocks within registered areas
Background: Wikimedia, 2009
The Status of Fisheries Today
- Estimates that 30% of world catch is illegal
- About 1.6% of national exclusive economic zones in marine protected areas
- Bycatch in shrimp fisheries up to 5X catch
- 2008 FAO estimate that 32% of global fish stocks overfished
- < 1% of global fish species are formally assessed
Background: Jan van Kessel, Wikimedia, 1660
Background: Rothstein, Farm Security Administration, Circa 1935, Wikimedia
Fisheries Policy
By Caleb Gallemore
