Wednesday, June 17, 2015

What works in fisheries management?

Here is a great article by J. Sutinen illustrating the historical failure of command-and-control approaches to fisheries management.

ITQ systems (aka: "catch share systems") are basically cap and trade for fishing, and look like a very promising policy solution.  Here is an article from EDF on the basics.  More here from the Fish Project (Oregon Institute of Marine Biology).  Here is a nice summary from the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

Here is another article from EDF regarding improved fisher safety under ITQs.   

Here is a map and list of ITQ managed fisheries in the world (old data, there are a lot more now).

Read about success in Iceland (from EDF). 

Are there downsides and complications to this approach to fisheries management? Yes, of course. No policy will be a panacea.  Perfect solutions do not exist. 

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I absolutely loved the article about the successes in Iceland. It was a very simple article and easy to understand, and I loved the hot links in the article that helped to explain topics that the reader might not understand. My opinion is that if Iceland can implement an ITQ successfully, then other countries should be able to as well, and help with the over-exploitation of fish.

Unknown said...

Protecting our fish stocks by gathering info, conducting analyses, and solving issues is becoming a science more with time. I did not even know of sustainable fisheries existed before taking this course. There is too much fish out there for me to ever think that human beings can actually control the decline or fishing practices. I am learning that I should never doubt what human being are capable of doing. Fishing quotas and fishing caps are innovating way of maintaining fishery management.

Tori Deluise said...

A successfully implemented ITQ creates a market for the values that are associated with fisheries. The EDF article was very helpful in explaining ITQs in a basic way. As with any solution there are disadvantages. However, after reading these articles, the book and lecture notes, it is pretty obvious that ITQs are the best solution for over-fishing.

Unknown said...

Iceland's successful implementation of the ITQ system gives a model for other nations to one day emulate. I had no idea that the idea of a 'catch share' system went back as far as 1976 and it really puts into perspective how long it takes for some environmental policies and ideas to take hold of the community. Even in financial crisis the fishing industries of Iceland remained stable, the largest company "keeping all 650 employees on payroll". I think Iceland is a good model for countries throughout the Caribbean and larger countries, such as the United States and Canada, but with larger countries there would obviously need to be modifications to the program.

Shelby White said...

I've read tons of articles on fisheries management discussing what strategies work and which do not, but this paper was different in the way that it presented it's reasoning. Usually, TAC and MSY is looked down upon because it is based off mathematical models that attempt to predict the future with much uncertainty. I had never thought of TAC as a "race to fish" issue, but it makes sense considering that humans are rational and will attempt serve their best interests. Why would a fisherman wait to fish and extend the season when others are already out trying to maximize their catch? This does not help overexploitation in any way and if anything, speeds the process up. I was also surprised to see that multi-species management was handled so negatively in this paper. I believe that it is the most valuable way to handle fisheries since each species is dependent on another in different ways. Managing single species will not account for changes that occur with other species, which can be more dangerous to the fishery.