Fisheries

time. Such increases in effectiveness usually reach 2–3 per cent per year, and hence can double the impact of a fleet after two decades (Pauly and Palomares 2010). In fact, this method of management encourages technological progress for the sole purpose of catching more fish, even to the point of exceeding the target rate of exploitation. Some efficiency gains are likely to be realised through allowing trade in effort. The total effort should be determined on the basis of the same principles as the total catch quota.

Then there are several measures which are termed auxiliary, as they do not primarily address the basic problem of controlling the rate of exploitation but promote greater yields from fish stocks in various ways. One is selectivity of fishing gear (mesh sizes, for example). Larger meshes allow young, fast growing fish to escape capture and to be caught at an age when they have grown to a more appropriate size. Closing off nursery areas serves the same purpose. Protecting the spawning stock could be desirable, if the extent the size of the spawning stock is critical for recruitment of young fish. Regulations such as mandatory discarding of marketable fish are highly doubtful, as is mandatory retention of unmarketable fish. The rationale for such measures is to discourage people from seeking fish that they are not authorised to take. While this is indeed desirable, such regulations are economically wasteful and one should look for ways to achieve the desired outcome in less wasteful ways.

4.4 Managing the transition process

This would be most challenging when we are dealing with depleted fish stocks that need to be rebuilt. This situation arises because the capacity of the fishing fleet has outgrown the available resource, and so the fleet would have to be downsized. Both of these necessitate a cutback in fishing activity. Fish quotas that are lower than contemporary and recent catches which have depleted the fish stock are necessary to rebuild the stock. Such small quotas mean that some of the fishing capacity is redundant, and even with rebuilt stocks it is highly likely to remain redundant if a repeated depletion of the stock is to be avoided.

All this implies investment in the fish stocks as it were, through foregone earnings in the short-term for the purpose of obtaining higher benefits in the future. Likewise, having some boat owners leave the fishery means that they would be foregoing earnings they otherwise would have obtained, and those who leave would in any case not share in the higher benefits to be realised in the future. Since the justification for rebuilding fish stocks is higher future benefits, it would in principle be possible for those who remain in the

New Zealand One of the early cases of control by ITQs is the bottom trawl fisheries in New Zealand. One interesting aspect of how that regime was implemented in the inshore fishery was how excess fishing capacity was bought out by having fishers tendering quotas. These buyouts were, however, financed with public money and never recovered; plans to charge resource rentals were abandoned early on. This case is well documented in a number of papers (Ackroyd et al. 1990; Batstone and Sharp 1999; Clark et al. 1989; Hersoug 2002).

Pacific halibut Individual transferable quotas were first introduced in the Canadian halibut fishery. One noteworthy feature is industry participation and payment for monitoring of quotas. Another lesson is how individual quotas provide economic benefits in the form of higher catch value due to longer fishing season and more leisurely fishing (Fox et al. 2003; Rice 2003; Turris 2000; Wilen 2005).

Ayvalik-Haylazli Lagoon fishery The Ayvalik-Haylazli Lagoon fishery, near a major agricultural and commercial centre city in Turkey, is an example of

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fishery to buy out those who leave; in this way share the future income recovery with them (Martell et al., 2009). The problem is, however, that future income is an expected and not a certain variable, and the vagaries of nature could in fact greatly delay the realisation of any income recovery. Those who remain in the industry could, therefore, be reluctant to offer much of the income recovery they expect.

There is also a key issue in SSF, particularly a lack of access to capital, limiting the potential for this process. There is therefore a case for governments to come up with funds to finance the transition from overexploitation and overcapacity to an optimally exploited fishery with optimal fleet capacity. It should be stressed, however, that this is only bridge financing; in due course those who remain in the fishery should pay back the loans they got for the transition. Anything else could create the expectation that boat owners in an overexploited fishery will always be bought out, which could entice people to invest in overcapacity purely on the expectation of being bought out later.

4.5 Learning from successful international experience

There are a number of cases of successful transitions from an overexploited fishery, or a fishery with overcapacity, to a better managed fishery, albeit not fully optimal. Below is a non-exhaustive selection of these cases and their most salient features are mentioned.