Joint ventures in fisheries : their utility in developing and managing the resource

Abstract

Certain resource development projects require technology, expertise and finance, outside the scope of existing developers within the country that controls access to the resource in question. A joint venture between a foreign partner and a host country partner is one mechanism through which these factors can be obtained. By concentrating on relevant processes that are dealt with in fishing joint ventures, hopefully the information covered in this project will be of use to people involved in setting up and administering joint ventures, both in the fishing industry, and other areas of potential resource development.

A case study of a joint venture in the South Pacific, fishing for tuna, is presented on the basis of a conceptual framework which emphasises the necessity of managing the joint venture, the resource, and any other relevant actors or components, as an integrated system. This facilitates management on an optimum sustained yield basis, for the total benefit of society, and involves aspects such as marketing, processing, employment, production, scientific research, foreign exchange earnings, and the development and transfer of technology and skills. The case is dealt with from the perspective of the host country, showing how benefits from the joint venture were appropriated over time, and any useful precedents which came to light as a result of improved participation on the part of the local partner.

The South Pacific migratory tuna resource, a fishery in which joint ventures playa dominant role, is identified as existing in an unstable state, comparable to that which occurs in an open-access, unregulated common property res nullius resource. Management on a common property res communes basis is put forward instead, to ensure a "sustained yield" from the resource and to facilitate "fair appropriation of benefits". This method of management allows sovereign status to be retained by each country so that they can develop the resources within their jurisdictional zones as they see fit, fishing only being limited within the bounds of a quota allocation. This quota system would be administered and enforced by a regional management agency (probably the South Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency) on the authority of member countries, through region-wide centralised data collation and surveillance.

Access to relevant information is considered essential if joint ventures are to be effectively managed by the host country. It is suggested that efficient utilisation of information will only result, however, when countries cooperate with each other by working through an information agency, all parties “sharing" what they have learnt, to their mutual benefit. For the sake of effective co-ordination, in the case of the South Pacific tuna fishery it would be best if the information agency and the agency managing the regional quota system were one and the same.