Individual Transferable Quotas

This volume examines the impact of fish stock assessment and catch share arrangements in context through case studies and in terms of ecosystem, economy and society. It examines the rationalizing work of bio-economic projects, especially the institutionalization of individual transferable quota (ITQ) in fisheries: what impact have they had on fisheries and fishers? The contributing authors understand ITQ and quota management as bio-economic projects, that is, as widely deployed but locally constituted projects that combine biological and economic logics to rationalize production and, in this case, fish. Politicians and managers use these projects and the models that justify them to rationalize fisheries in favor of modern technology and for capital and species efficiency. Aimed at a diverse interdisciplinary fisheries management readership, and designed as a guide to issues emerging in any assessment of ITQ, the book is a timely investigation of the origins and diverse experiences of ITQ projects, including resistance to them, attempts to develop fisheries management around them, and experiences of the risks that come with them. Now around forty years old, ITQ has never been subject to the kind of comprehensive sustainability assessments once advocated by Elinor Ostrom, let alone the full-cost accounting of impacts at the national level that Evelyn Pinkerton recently called for. Fisheries, Quota Management and Quota Transfer offers multi-disciplinary assessments of the effects of ITQ from scholars working in eight countries. The book brings together scholars from anthropology, economics, geography, sociology, the history of science, and marine environmental history to discuss experiences from fisheries in eight industrialized countries. It considers cases from outside as well as inside the EU, including ITQ pioneers, New Zealand and Iceland. The combination allows for an unprecedented international perspective on stock assessments and share allocation systems. By emphasizing emerging, becoming, learning and transforming through knowledge, the book conceives technology as a field of power and choice, nevertheless dominated by managers through specific projects in specific contexts. Individual chapters relate bio-economic projects to separate theoretical literature, an approach that facilitates multi-disciplinary dialog.

The genesis of this conference was on a quay of the port of Bergen in March 1985. Ragnar Amason suggested to Phil Neher a small, mid-Atlantic conference on recent developments in fishery management. In the event, more than twenty papers were scheduled and over one hundred and fifty conferees were registered. Logistical complications were sorted through for a summer 1988 conference in Iceland. The really innovative management programs were in the South Pacific; Aus tralia and New Zealand had introduced Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs); and Iceland, Norway and Canada were also experimenting with quotas. It seemed to the program committee (Rognvaldur Hannesson and Geoffrey Waugh were soon on board) that these quotas had more or less characteristics of property rights. Property rights were also taking other forms in other places (time and area licenses, restrictive licensing of vessels and gear, traditional use rights). The idea of rights based fishing became the theme of the conference.

This report provides insights on the political economy of biodiversity related policy reforms. It draws on existing literature and four new case studies covering the French tax on pesticides, agricultural subsidy reform in Switzerland, EU payments to Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau to...

Report of twenty-three studies looking at the UK, The Netherlands, Iceland, Canada, New Zealand, United States, Australia, Alaska and Chile.

A proposal for a new global approach for fisheries focused on reducing fishing capacity and providing incentives for long-term sustainability. The Earth's oceans are overfished, despite more than fifty years of cooperation among the world's fishing nations. There are too many boats chasing too few fish. In Saving Global Fisheries, J. Samuel Barkin and Elizabeth DeSombre analyze the problem of overfishing and offer a provocative proposal for a global regulatory and policy approach. Existing patterns of international fisheries management try to limit the number of fish that can be caught while governments simultaneously subsidize increased fishing capacity, focusing on fisheries as an industry to be developed rather than on fish as a resource to be conserved. Regionally based international management means that protection in one area simply shifts fishing efforts to other species or regions. Barkin and DeSombre argue that global rather than regional regulation is necessary for successful fisheries management and emphasize the need to reduce subsidies. They propose an international system of individual transferable quotas that would give holders of permits an interest in the long-term health of fish stocks and help create a sustainable level of fishing capacity globally.

This open access book provides a comprehensive examination of the European Landing Obligation policy from many relevant perspectives. It includes evaluations of its impacts at economical, socio-cultural, ecological and institutional levels. It also discusses the feasibility and benefits of several potential mitigation strategies. The book was timely published, exactly at the time where the Landing Obligation was planned to be fully implemented. This book is of significant interest to all stakeholders involved, but also to the general public of Europe and to other jurisdictions throughout the world that are also searching for ways to deal with by-catch and discard issues.