Fish stocks boosted 'by giving fishermen a stake' in future catches

Collapses in fish stocks can be reversed when fishermen are given a direct stake in the number caught each year, a study has shown.
Guaranteeing individual fishermen and fishing communities a fixed share in the annual catch was found to put a stop to the “race-to-fish” encouraged by the quota system.
Researchers assessing more than 11,000 fisheries around the world concluded that “catch shares” are the most effective means of allowing fish stocks to recover.
They found that when catch share schemes are in place fishermen will take up to eight per cent less than their entitlement whereas in areas with the quota system they tended to take six more cent more than they should. Bycatch can be cut by 40 per cent.
Iceland, Australia and New Zealand have pioneered catch share schemes and they are now increasingly being adopted in the United States and Canada.
Shares in the fishery can be bought and sold and each becomes more valuable as fish numbers rise because while the proportion that can be caught remains the same the total tonnage increases. Each share is usually for a long period, such a decade.
“Under open access, you have a free-for-all race-to-fish, which ultimately leads to collapse,” said Dr Christopher Costello, an economist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in the United States.
“But when you allocate shares of the catch, then there is an incentive to protect the stock—which reduces collapse. We saw this across the globe. It’s human nature.
“The difference is comparable to renting an apartment versus the house you own. If you own something, you take care of it - you protect your investment or else it loses value. But there’s no incentive for stewardship when you don’t own the rights to it.”
The study, published in the journal Science, concluded the catch share system reduced fish stock collapses by about half and suggested that previous predictions that all fisheries will have crashed by 2048 are overly bleak.
“Catch shares may be a powerful part of the solution to global fisheries collapse,” he added.
Researchers cited the Alaskan halibut fishery as one of the prime success stories of catch shares because ofthe improvements that have been witnessed since they were introduced.
In 1995 so few halibut were left that it too just two or three days for the fishing fleet to catch the entire year’s quota. Now numbers are so high that the fishing continues for eight months.
Catch quality was also found to improve. When boats were racing to cram as many halibut as possible into the hold rather than waste valuable time returning to port to unload the fish were damaged. With the need to race removed the quality has risen enough that the price per pound is significantly higher.
“Halibut fishermen were barely squeaking by – but now the fishery is insanely profitable,” said Professor Steve Gaines, of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
“With catch shares we should see ecological as well as economic changes. Fish fare better when people directly benefit from not taking a fish out of the water.”
Dr John Lynham, of the University of Hawaii, said among the benefits of catch shares is the incentive to reduce “ghost fishing”, the toll taken on the marine environment by lost or dumped nets, hooks and lones. He said it reduced such deaths by up to 80 per cent.

Comments

[JIM]

This is a brilliant plan. Property ownership (this in the form of shares) has been repeatedly proven to be the most effective way to boost both productive value and sustainability of a variety of resources. Public property - owned by everyone and no one simultaneously - has been a scientifically proven failure, from litter to pollution to over production. Intellectual philosophy is fine and dandy, but is no match for instinct and reality.

[KR]

All of which (comments included) is totally irrelevant since the increasing acidity of a warming ocean is probably going to cause all shells (mollusc and cretacean) to dissolve. That takes away the foundation of the oceanic food chain, so no fish to worry about.

[Brien Comerford]

We don't need fisheries-we need fish to survive and thrive without humans killing them for food.

[stuart munro]

It looks like a desperate attempt to try to rebuild confidence in the failed Quota management systems.
An indefensible and egregious theft by government, the QMS devasted the fisheries it was ostensibly tasked to protect, which is no surprise given that it was designed by commercial interests rather than scientists. Notably Orange Roughy.
Markets are not very compatible with natural resources, because greed is infinite, but sustainable yield is finite.
NZ's fisheries fared infinitely better under the preceding, licensed fishery regime, and the administration costs were also significantly less.
Mr Smith, someone has sold you a political fantasy which is very important to its perpetrators. There is not, nor was there ever any environmental merit in the privatising of fisheries. But companies did well out of it. In the first ten years of the QMS in NZ, companies doubled their ownership of the resource to 80%, at the expense of small independent fishers. But they plundered it so badly that quotas had to be repeatedly cut. None have been raised to their previously sustainable levels.
Catch shares are just lipstick on a corpse.

[Roo]

Brien
This article describes a way of reducing the damage overfishing causes. Did you read it?

[Brien Comerford]

Fishermen are lethal maruders who invade marine ecosystems and massacre fish in addition to damaging aquatic ecosystems and biodiversity.