Fish Population Dynamic and Stock Assessment

10.4.4.2. Allocation of fishing rights

Allocation means reduction of the right of some nations or people of fish where and how they please. It is a dominant feature of fishery law in most countries, simply because there are not enough fish for all fishermen to fish in the way they please.

Allocation is always controversial when it is begun. The decisions about who gets the rights to fish are political decisions. The laws are difficult to devise in a democratic manner and difficult to enforce (Stroud, 1980).

Allocation started centuries ago with kings’ decrees to reserve fish for themselves or to protect their subjects from foreign fishermen. Now the new Law of the Sea gives coastal national the right to control access to their 200mi fishing zones and allocate the catches between their nationals and foreigners.

Allocation within countries is widespread. Treaties with Indian tribes have provided special fishing rights for the Indians. In addition, many laws that set closed seasons, closed areas, catch quotas, and restrictions on gear are really for the purpose of both allocation and conservation.

Some allocations among nations and among fishermen using different kinds of gear have been established and accepted for a long time, but as commercial stocks become fully exploited, further allocation will be needed. So many fishermen and so much gear enter the fisheries that the fishermen barely make a living, and conservation becomes difficult.

If the fluctuation has been caused by the application of so much fishing effort to the stock that its abundance has been depressed to the level of maximum sustainable yield or below, then a reversal cannot be expected without a reduction in fishing effort.

The reduction is accomplished by licensing only part of the fishermen and, in effect, allowing them to own an exclusive right to fish. Such limited entry has been tried in numerous fisheries around the world, usually with a mixture of social, economic and conservation goals. When limits have been imposed on a fishery during its period of growth they have been reasonably successful, but attempts to impose them after fisheries have become unprofitable have created difficult social, legal, economic, and political problems (Rettig and Ginter, 1980) that have usually prevented achievement of the objectives of limited entry.