Fishing Rights or Fishing Wrongs?

Power, Privilege, and Poverty: The Socio-Economics of Fishing Rights

Daniel Bromley, Anderson-Bascom Professor of Applied Economics, University of Wisconsin
Leigh Espy, Assistant Division Manager, Washington Department of Natural Resources
Mark Lundsten, President, Queen Anne Fisheries, Inc.
Scott Matulich, Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Washington State University

Assigning individual rights or privileges to fisheries will alter the social system in ways that change power relationships and the distribution of income. It is not clear whether we can take lessons from existing rights-based systems to understand and predict the ways in which pre-existing rights, power and privilege will be affected as new programs come on line. As fisheries change to rights-based, some sectors of the community may lose their ability to utilize these resources for personal use or financial gain. On the other hand, in many cases where fisheries have transitioned to rights-based programs, costs are shifted from public to private entities and the ease of management increases.

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Allocation: Who Wins and Who Loses?

Daniel Huppert, Associate Professor of Marine Affairs, University of Washington
Chuck McCallum, Executive Director, Chignik Seiners Association
Joseph Sullivan, Partner, Mundt MacGregor LLP

Every assignment of rights or privileges to use fishery resources will alter the distribution of wealth and benefits, sometimes creating "losers" as well as "winners" among existing fishers, fish processors, and others. In managing and creating use rights in, for example, water resources, mineral resources, public lands, and coastal lands, people have dealt with the issues of equity. The issue for the fishing rights controversy deals with the means of equitably distributing the benefits of increased economic returns to the affected groups. While most rights-based approaches endeavor to mimic the existing distribution as representing the most equitable allocation solution, there are always entities that do not meet the qualification criteria.

No video is available for this panel session.

Political Realities of Rights-based Management

Jay Ginter, Chief of Regulatory Operations Branch, National Marine Fisheries Service, Alaska Region
Mel Moon, Director, Quileute Natural Resources
Margot Sachse, Principal Investigator, Alternative Management Strategies Project, Australian Fisheries Management Authority
Chris Sporer, Executive Director, Pacific Halibut Management Association of British Columbia

Fishery management resides in a complex political environment that has evolved over decades. Existing economic and social interests in fishing may create political barriers to implementation of fishing rights. Increasingly, costs of fuel, competition from imports, and the requirements for safety and environmental protection add costs to achieve conservation benefits. This requires a restructuring of fishing effort in order to earn a living family wage in fisheries. Further, existing laws and management institutions may dictate procedural requirements that inhibit a rights-based system from operating freely. Finally, the particular interests of political actors in key positions will play a key role in the formulation of fishery policy.

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Where Do We Go from Here?

Rod Fujita, Scientist, Oceans Program, Environmental Defense
Mike Orbach, Professor of Marine Affairs and Policy, Duke University
Alison Rieser, Professor, University of Maine School of Law
Brad Warren, Editor in Chief, Pacific Fishing

In the two days of this symposium, we (will) have heard about a wide diversity of rights-based approaches, including (a) permanent, freely transferable individual quotas; (b) permanent quotas with strict limitations on vessel size, aggregation limits, and "owner on-board" requirements; (c) self-organized co-ops among holders of limited licenses; (d) community allocations that can be sub-allocated to individuals or not; (e) freely distributed semi-permanent rights; and (f) temporary individual quotas sold at auction. But have we answered the fundamental question, "Is rights-based management useful, and possible"? If rights-based management is a tool to be used, when and where do we use it? Lastly, if we move additional fisheries to a rights-based regime, the transition deserves far more attention than it has received in the past. Many, if not most, of the issues that people are fighting over are transitional impacts.

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