Management of total allowable catches

Abstract

The ability of managers both to conserve the productivity of fisheries and to increase the value of fisheries is being restricted by the present need to buy Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQ's) to reduce Total Allowable Catches (TAC's). When productivity is uncertain and funds are limited, the present rules create incentives to manage fisheries by using conservative TAC's, thereby reducing the fisheries' value. By relinquishing the need to buy ITQ's to reduce TAC's, this report conjectures that, through managers' ability to vary TAC's in unison with fluctuations in productivity, the risk of stock collapse will be lowered and fishermen will be made better off; catches will be higher and costs of harvesting will be lower. Although, managers require freedom to adjust TAC's, once this freedom is given to them an incentive is necessary to ensure that its use increases the net value of fisheries. Such an incentive is provided by funding the management organisation on a fixed percentage of the catch.