ISSUES IN FISHERY MANAGEMENT 



The opening paper by Van Meir appropri- 

 ately cites the Burkenroad observation that 

 fisheries should be managed for people not 

 fish, a trite, but occasionally overlooked ad- 

 monition. He emphasizes that the critical 

 element now is that time is running out in 

 many fisheries. The solution is to replace com- 

 mon rights with private rights, these rights 

 to be consistent and in balance with allow- 

 able yield. The progi'am should not only 

 permit, but also promote economic efficiency 

 both in the short run and in the long run. 



To begin limited entry programs we must 

 emphasize three areas: (1) a resolution of 

 jurisdictional conflict, (2) an educational 

 program which will communicate the poten- 

 tial benefits and dispel the idea that the 

 scheme is to be a government monopoly and, 

 (3) trial programs which will demonstrate 

 how limited entry operates in practice. 



Van Meir suggests that in practice we must 

 be willing to accept a second-best solution, 

 i.e., agree with biologists on harvesting maxi- 

 mum sustainable yield (MSY) and proceed to 

 specifying the most efficient way of doing this. 

 We must develop a system which will insure 

 that fishing rights will be allocated to the 

 most efficient producer at any point in time. 



Van Meir concludes by suggesting a system 

 for doing this. It is here that he introduces 

 the first real element of controversy. He sug- 

 gests a licensing mechanism. Licenses would 

 be allotted so as to include all grandfather 

 rights. They would be reduced by attrition 

 with the total number changing as technology 

 changes. Monopoly powers would be restricted 

 and rents would be redistributed via license 

 fees or taxes. 



Undoubtedly this is a reasonable step toward 

 a politically palatable solution. Others would 

 argue that there are other schemes that 

 would be more appropriate for certain fish- 

 eries. They would argue that this proposal 

 contains the same faults as U.S. agricultural 

 programs of the past decade, where a central 



authority is granted the right to determine 

 the number of licenses. To do so it must use 

 existing measures of technological capacity 

 and technological change, when both of these 

 may change substantially under the exogenous 

 influence of a newly introduced licensing 

 scheme. Some alternative suggestions would 

 allow both the rate of technological change 

 and the size and number of property rights 

 to be determined within the market mechan- 

 ism. The paper presented by Holmsen refers 

 briefly to one alternative. Also the paper by 

 Carlson could serve as a basis for preliminary 

 calculations of the appropriate number of 

 licenses in the tuna and groundfish fisheries. 



Pontecorvo introduces several broad con- 

 ceptual issues, among these being the need 

 for short run models which can be utilized 

 directly in resource management. If the short 

 nin is critical we should examine those models 

 which appear to be more satisfactory for the 

 short run. 



Pontecorvo focuses upon the difficulties of 

 choosing biological models and combining 

 these with economic models for both short 

 run and long run analysis — to determine 

 optimum solutions. He cites violent fluctua- 

 tions in the Pacific red salmon resource as 

 a characteristic which militates against the 

 use of even short run models, and also where 

 the costs of improving the information flow 

 may exceed the benefits. Further complica- 

 tions arise due to instability on the economic 

 side (demand and the general state of the 

 economy) and changing political and social 

 considerations. One suggestion here is that a 

 program geared to catch some average level, 

 less than the allowable yield during the 

 highest year, may be the desirable economic 

 solution — one case where we would suggest 

 taking less than MSY. 



Pontecoi-vo's position on social and political 

 issues is that these are fully accounted for 

 (albeit incorrectly) in the economists' assump- 

 tions of full employment and factor mobility. 



