NOAA issued a draft of its new catch share policy last week. Despite Director Jane Lubchenco’s clear support for the concept, the draft policy stops short of requiring that fisheries managers implement catch shares. This is a good thing. Instead of mandating catch shares, the draft policy focuses on education, cooperation, and transparency. The agency commits itself to “reducing technical barriers and administrative impediments” to implementing catch shares. Those are exactly the roles that NOAA should be playing.
Too often, proponents of catch shares imply that all we need do is wave a private property wand and the problems besetting fisheries will magically solve themselves. If only it were that easy. The basic idea is to set a firm cap on how much of each kind of fish can be captured in a fishery. This cap, the Annual Catch Limit (ACL) is supposed to be set at a level that prevents overfishing, and restores depleted stocks (that's good). Catch shares then divide that catch up among participants in the fisheries. In most cases, the participants are then free to use their shares or to lease them to others, or trade them on the much fabled “free-market”. Much of the conversation surrounding catch shares is so focused on the supposed efficiencies of this property-rights regime that it ignores the problems of overcapacity, by-catch and enforcement.
The NOAA draft policy deserves credit for at least raising these issues, although it could do far more to bring them into focus. Unfortunately, the draft policy doesn’t engage with the serious distributional concerns associated with many catch share plans raise. Other than some general language about “community sustainability” the draft plan ignores the distributional implications of catch shares entirely. Catch share programs can lead to boat owners being squeezed by armchair fishermen seeking economic rents. The crew and deckhands plying their dangerous craft are even more vulnerable in a catch share situation. Their already measly share of the catch is often further reduced to cover leasing fees, and there are even reports of crew being booted off boats in favor of share holders. Catch shares cannot be a progressive tool for fisheries management if hard working crews wind up as sharecroppers. Managers need to create an appropriate regulatory context within rigorous, scientifically-defined, and well-enforced annual catch limits. Only then might well-designed catch share programs be worth exploring.
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Rebecca Bratspies | December 18, 2009
NOAA issued a draft of its new catch share policy last week. Despite Director Jane Lubchenco’s clear support for the concept, the draft policy stops short of requiring that fisheries managers implement catch shares. This is a good thing. Instead of mandating catch shares, the draft policy focuses on education, cooperation, and transparency. The agency […]
Victor Flatt | December 17, 2009
As we move into the last days of climate negotiations in Copenhagen, the chances of securing a binding agreement of all countries continues to look less and less likely. The primary culprit, according to the New York Times, is the G77, a group of 130 developing countries that have negotiated as a block since arriving. […]
David Hunter | December 16, 2009
Environmental negotiations have long set the standard for transparency and participation. The relationship between environmental organizations (of all kinds) and the negotiators has always been one tempered by a shared vision that the negotiations would succeed (in contrast to negotiations at the WTO or World Bank where “success” for many activists was often defined as […]
Ben Somberg | December 16, 2009
In his speech in Copenhagen Tuesday, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger applauded international leadership on climate change, but said that national or international agreements alone will not address the issue. He said that the “scientists, the capitalists and the activists” across the world have and will play an important role. And he talked about the job […]
Victor Flatt | December 16, 2009
There are two separate meetings going on here in Copenhagen, really. The one that everyone is focused on is the official negotiations between the countries to reach a new binding agreement on climate change (or extend Kyoto in some form). The other “meeting” is the interaction of the observer organizations inside and outside of the […]
Sidney A. Shapiro | December 15, 2009
The Concord Monitor has identified a New Hampshire factory (Franklin Non-Ferrous Foundry) that has been the subject of previous OSHA investigations and fines, yet continues to expose its workers to dangerous conditions. OSHA’s most recent fine, $250,000, came after the agency found that a worker had high levels of lead in his blood. The newspaper […]
David Hunter | December 15, 2009
Although virtually all of the attention regarding Copenhagen in the United States focuses on mitigation targets, in the developing world a primary focus of any environmental agreement is on the scale, sources and governance of any financial resources being made available. This is particularly true in Copenhagen, where the Global South has demanded upwards of […]
Ben Somberg | December 14, 2009
In this morning’s “Underused Drilling Practices Could Avoid Pollution,” ProPublica has more important reporting on hydraulic fracturing, the process of injecting chemicals at high pressure under deep rock to extract natural gas. Reports Abrahm Lustgarten: Energy companies have figured out how to drill wells with fewer toxic chemicals, enclose wastewater so it can’t contaminate streams […]
Holly Doremus | December 12, 2009
This posting is reprinted, by permission from Legal Planet. The Fish and Wildlife Service yesterday announced some very good news — the brown pelican will soon be removed from the list of endangered and threatened species. This enormous fish-eating bird has been protected since 1970, when it was included on the very first list of […]