Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T09:59:35.422Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Socioeconomics of Individual Transferable Quotas and Community-Based Fishery Management

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2016

Parzival Copes
Affiliation:
Institute of Fisheries Analysis, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia
Anthony Charles
Affiliation:
Management Science and Environmental Studies, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Get access

Abstract

In many fisheries around the world, the failures of centralized, top-down management have produced a shift toward co-management—collaboration and sharing of decision making between government and stakeholders. This trend has led to a major debate between two very different co-management approaches—community-based fishery management and market-based individual transferable quota management. This paper examines the debate over the relative merits of these models and undertakes a socioeconomic analysis of the two approaches. The paper includes (1) an analysis of differences in the structure, philosophical nature, and underlying value systems of each, including a discussion of their treatment of property rights; (2) a socioeconomic evaluation of the impacts of each system on boat owners, fishers, crew members, other fishery participants, and coastal communities, as well as the distribution of benefits and costs among fishery participants; and (3) examination of indirect economic effects that can occur through impacts on conservation and fishery sustainability. The latter relate to (a) the conservation ethic, (b) the flexibility of management, (c) the avoidance of waste, and (d) the efficiency of enforcement. The paper emphasizes the need for a broader approach to analyzing fishery management options, one that recognizes and properly assesses the diversity of choices, and that takes into account the interaction of the fishery with broader community and regional realities.

Type
Invited Presentations
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Charles, A. T. (1997). “Fisheries Management in Atlantic Canada.” Ocean and Coastal Management 35, 101119.Google Scholar
Charles, A. T. (2001). Sustainable Fishery Systems. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Science.Google Scholar
Charles, A. T. (2002). “Use Rights and Responsible Fisheries: Limiting Access and Harvesting Through Rights-Based Management.” In Cochrane, K. (ed.), A Fishery Manager's Guidebook: Management Measures and Their Application (pp. 131157). FAO Fisheries Technical Paper No. 424, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy.Google Scholar
Coastal Communities Network. (1997). “Community-Based Co-management of the Fishery.” CCN, Pictou, Nova Scotia. Online report. Available at www.coastalcommunities.ns.ca.Google Scholar
Copes, P. (1986). “A Critical Review of the Individual Quota as a Device in Fisheries Management.” Land Economics 62, 278291.Google Scholar
Copes, P. (1995). “Problems with ITQs in Fisheries Management, with Tentative Comments on Relevance for Faroe Islands Fisheries. In Johansen, S. T. F. (ed.), Nordiske Fiskersamfund i Fremtiden [Nordic Fishing Communities in the Future] Vol. 1 (pp. 1942). Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers.Google Scholar
Copes, P. (1997). “Social Impacts of Fisheries Management Regimes Based on Individual Quotas.” In Pálsson, G. and Pétursdóttir, G. (eds.), Social Implications of Quota Systems in Fisheries (pp. 6190). Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers.Google Scholar
Copes, P. (1998). “The Independent Fishery Sector: Defending Their Community-Based Common-Property Resource Rights.” English version of an invited address at a conference organized by the Comité des pêches du quartier de Guilvinec, held in Le Guilvinec, France, 21 November 1998. Available as Simon Fraser University, Institute of Fisheries Analysis, Discussion Paper No. 98-4. [20pp.].Google Scholar
Copes, P. (2000). “Adverse Impacts of Individual Quota Systems on Conservation and Fish Harvest Productivity.” Discussion Paper No. 00-2 [16pp.]. Simon Fraser University, Institute of Fisheries Analysis. An earlier version of this paper appears in the Proceedings of the Eighth Conference of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade. Online. Available at www.orst.edu/Dept/IIFET.Google Scholar
Neher, P. A., Amason, R., and Mollett, N. (eds.). (1989). Rights-Based Fishing. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (1993). The Use of Individual Quotas in Fisheries Management. Paris, France: OECD.Google Scholar
Pinkerton, E. W. (1989). Cooperative Management of Local Fisheries. Vancouver, Canada: University of British Columbia Press.Google Scholar
Pinkerton, E., and Weinstein, M. (1995). Fisheries that Work: Sustainability Through Community-Based Management. Vancouver, Canada: The David Suzuki Foundation [199 pp.].Google Scholar
Pomeroy, R. S. (1995). “Community-Based and Co-Management Institutions for Sustainable Coastal Fisheries Management in Southeast Asia.” Ocean and Coastal Management 27, 143162.Google Scholar
Shotton, R. (ed.). (2000). Use of Property Rights in Fisheries Management: Proceedings of the FishRights99 Conference. Held in Freemantle, Western Australia, 11-19 November 1999. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper No. 404, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy.Google Scholar
Townsend, R. E., and Charles, A. T. (1997). “User Rights in Fishing.” In Boreman, J. G., Nakashima, B. S., Powles, H. W., Wilson, J. A., and Kendall, R. L. (eds.), Northwest Atlantic Groundfish: Perspectives on a Fishery Collapse (pp. 177184). Bethesda, MD: American Fisheries Society.Google Scholar