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Rights-Based Approaches to Fishing: Theory and Experiences by Ragnar Arnason
This document discusses rights-based approaches to fishing management and summarizes the presenter's key points on the topic. It describes how common property management can lead to overexploitation of fisheries, while individual property rights promote efficiency but may undermine equity and traditions. Experience shows that individual transferable quotas have successfully reduced effort and increased prices and quota values economically, while their social and biological outcomes are more mixed. Community fishing rights also show potential if designed properly with inclusive membership and efficient decision-making structures. The presentation concludes by summarizing case studies of different rights-based approaches and their outcomes.
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Rights-Based Approaches to Fishing: Theory and Experiences by Ragnar Arnason
- 1. Rights-Based Approaches toFishing: Theory and experiences A presentation at the conference Tenure and Fishing Rights 2015 Ragnar Arnason* Apsara Angor Hotel, Siem Reap March 23-27 2015
- 2. Topics I. Rights-based fishing:What do we know? – Theory – Experience II. The cases presented at this conference III. Conclusions
- 3. I. Rights-based fishing: What dowe know?
- 4. The Common PropertyProblem Universal: Holds for all resources, places and times! Note however… (1) If the “CP-group” is sufficiently small (< 10 members) => not complete waste. (2) If the CP-group is able to establish co-ordinated use (i.e., a management regime) => waste is reduced! The Common Property Theorem Valuable resources held in common tend to be overexploited and wasted
- 5. The CPP inFisheries In fisheries, the CPP appears as 1. Excessive fishing fleets and effort 2. Overexploited fish stocks 3. Poor profitability, low personal incomes 4. Little or no contribution to GDP 5. A threat to biological sustainability 6. A threat to economic/social sustainability
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- 7. Individual Property Universal: Holdsfor all resources, places and times! Validity is pretty obvious – Aristotle noted this 350 B.C – Individuals maximize their benefits; why would they not? – Formally proved in economic theory (e.g. Welfare theorem I) The Individual Property Theorem Valuable resources held by single agents tend to be well used and preserved
- 8. Note however,….. • Itempowers rights holders – Allows them to retain old traditions if they want So, individual property • Promotes economic efficiency – Maximizes income and economic growth • But it does not necessarily promote (1) Equity and fairness (2) Preservation of traditional social structures – Tends to undermine them!
- 9. The empirical evidence •Most fisheries in the world have been and are organized as CP-fisheries Outcome: overexploitation! (Exactly as predicted by theory)
- 10. The global fisheryin 2004 (World Bank and FAO 2009) 0.0 20.0 40.0 60.0 80.0 100.0 120.0 0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00 1.20 1.40 Fishing effort (index) Revenuesandcosts(B.US$) Optimal Potential profits Current Current loss
- 11. Global Fishery Waste Sustainableglobal fishery: Current (2004) and profit maximizing outcomes Current Optimal Difference (optimal –current) Fishing effort 13.9 m. GRT 7.3 m. GRT -6.6 m. GRT Harvest 85 m. mt 81 m. mt. -4 m. mt. Biomass 148 m. mt 314 m. mt. +165 m.mt. Profits -5 b. USD 44 b. USD 49 b. USD 50 b. USD Global Development Assistance in 2004
- 12. Although global fisheries arestill mostly organized as common property ones rights-based fisheries are becoming more common
- 13. Key Property Rightsin Fisheries Key Property Rights in Fisheries Sole ownership Territorial user rights TURFs Individual quotas IQs/ITQs Community rights Rarely used Mainly sedentary species Very common Fairly common Good Experience Good Good Mixed
- 14. Individual Transferable Quotas:ITQs • The most widely applied rights-based fisheries management system in the world • Adopted as a major part of the FMS by at least 22 major fishing nations ─ New-Zealand, Australia, USA, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Germany, UK, Portugal, Spain, Russia, Morocco, Namibia, South Africa, Chile, Peru, Falkland • Close to 25% of global catch is now taken under ITQs!
- 15. Outcomes of ITQs -General pattern around the world - Economically very successful! (1) Reduction in fishing effort (immediately) (2) Fishing capital declines (but usually slowly) (3) Unit price of landings quickly increases (often greatly) (4) Quotas become valuable (quickly!)
- 16. Outcomes of ITQs(..cont.) Socially ? (1) Alters structure of fishing industry/communities – More efficient operations, techniques – Tends to consolidate operations (fewer vessels, fishers) (2) Creates new valuable assets – some people get rich (3) Promotes more capitalistic culture Biologically moderately successful (1) Biomass recovers (slowly) (2) Enhanced sense of resource stewardship by fishers (3) Discarding often reduced Good or bad?
- 17. Limitations to PRs •In principle PRs solve the main problems of fisheries • In practice there are difficulties 1. PR-technology – Can we define and enforce PRs? – Prohibitively costly to enforce the PRs 2. Socio-politically infeasible These difficulties apply in particular to artisanal fisheries in less developed countries (esp. Africa & Asia) 50% of the global fishery
- 18. But note • Commonproperty problem within the community! – Not a trivial problem (decision making in groups, politics, impossibility theorems, disparage member interests etc.) • Likelihood of success depends on (a) the quality of community rights and (b) decision making set-up! For these reasons attention has been drawn to community fishing rights
- 19. Fishing Communities: Design Principles:Summary (Ostrom 1990, Arnason 2005) 1. Community rights should be as high quality as possible 2. Community must be able to restrict entry 3. Community should be inclusive – i.e. include all fishers in the area
- 20. Design Principles: Summary(cont.) 4. Community should have as homogeneous membership as possible 5. Each member’s pay-off should be increasing in the aggregate pay-off 6. Fishing communities should be endowed with efficient decision-making structures – Governance!
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- 22. The case studies 1.Eight cases 2. From different parts of the world 3. However, not representative (too few & not random) 4. Have not been able to study carefully => may have missed and misunderstood
- 23. Case studies: Summarytable Individual rights Communal rights Results Type Type Quality Design principles Bio- economic Social Cambodia TURFs Med No? +/- + Indonesia TURFs (Weak) No? (+/-) (+) Sierra Leone TURFs Med No? ? (+) PNA Days Days Strong (Yes) + + Mexico Licences TURFs Weak No? -? ? Canada ITQs +(?) (-) Iceland ITQs + (-) Australia IEQs +
- 24. Summary 1. Great varietyof arrangements 2. Mostly weak PRs and imperfectly developed community management frameworks
- 25. Pattern of outcomes 1.Bio-economic outcomes – If individual rights => good – If community rights => weak 2. Social outcomes – If individual rights => weak – If community rights => good
- 26. What should theCommission do? 1. Member nations decide on fisheries management 2. Commission should: • Encourage adoption of rights-based methods • Offer technical and expert advice • Offer financial support (adjustment, regional etc.) - loans rather than grants. • Beef up enforcement especially for landings
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