i:o l.KlNSINCi III! SMAI 1 I R I t)\IMI K( IM IISIIIKIIS 



en(r\ licciu-cs Ix- rctcimcd lor the tmic bcmg tor Ihc 

 Siilnum and riK'-hcrrmg lishcncs because the s[xxial ehar- 

 acter of these twi> major fisheries makes individual catch 

 qiiot.is impractical. But ihtise obstacles ilo not exist, or at 

 least are more manageable, m these smaller lisheries, and 

 so I propose that they should be manageil henceforth 

 under quota licences. 



Well-designed quota licences for these fisheries will 

 undoubtedly promote fleet rationaliziition, enable belter 

 management and, once in place, will be advantageous to 

 those insolved in the fisheries. The mt)st sensitive task is 

 that of" making the transition from the present arrange- 

 ments equitably and without causing dislocation of estab- 

 lished interests. I therefore turn first to propose general 

 procedures for eflectmg the transition to quota licences 

 for all of these fisheries. 



TRANSITION TO QUOTA LICENCES 



Most of these fisheries are now regulated under 

 limited-entry licences and, in many cases, too much 

 fishing capacity has been licensed. Quota licences will 

 provide a much more suitable system for managing and 

 rationalizing the currently distorted structure. A major 

 theme in this chapter is therefore how to transform lim- 

 ited-entry licensing into a system that enables the allow- 

 able catch to be allocated directly among licensees. 



Initial Quota Licences 



The shift from an established limited-entry licensing 

 system to individual quotas will require procedures to 

 bridge the old and the new. In Chapter 8 I concluded that 

 fishermen who have demonstrated a dependency on a 

 fishery should be "grandfathered" in under new licensing 

 arrangements. When quota licences are introduced, the 

 fairest way to allocate the allowable catch among the 

 established participants in the fisheries is according to 

 their shares of the catch in the recent past. The selection 

 of the base years for determining past participation is 

 important, however; long periods dilute the impact of 

 abnormally high or low catches in any one year, but they 

 tend to discriminate against recent entrants and those 

 who have recently increased their catch shares. On the 

 other hand, a very short period — such as a single season 

 — can lead to serious distortions among fishermen. My 

 recommended choice is intended to strike a reasonable 

 balance between extremes. 



1. Where a quota licensing system replaces an estab- 

 lished limited-entrj system, all owners of licensed ves- 

 sels that were eligible to fish for the relevant species 

 and reported landings in 1980 or 1981 should be 

 issued initial lO-year quota licences. 



2. The amount of quota authorized under each licence 

 should be determined with reference to the licensee's 



ri'|M>rted landiii^^s in 1^)80 and 1981 and the total 

 allowiihle calcli, us follows: 



i) Where the total reportcnl landings of all eligible 

 licensees averaged over 1980 and 1981 is etjual to 

 or greater than the total allowable catch of the 

 fishery, the total allowable catch sImiuUI he 

 divided auMHig all eligible licx'nsees in proportion 

 to their shares of the catch averaged over 1980 

 and 1981. 



ii) In all other cases (that is, where there is excess 

 total allowable catch), the licence sliould allocate 

 a quota equal to tlie liceasee's average reported 

 landings in 1980 and 1981. 



Through these means the available catch in crowded 

 fisheries can be divided fairly among eligible licensees, 

 but the excess in underutilized fisheries will be available 

 for allocation to anyone. 



Later in this chapter, I recommend that quota licences 

 be issued for specific zones, typically the north, south and 

 west zones described in Chapter 8, or subzones within 

 these. To guide the allocation of initial licences among 

 zones I propose the following: 



3. Initial quota licence holders should be required to 

 select the licensing zone or zones in which their 

 licences will apply. 



i) As long as the quotas identified with a zone by 

 this method are in total less than the allowable 

 catch for the zone (less a reserve for appeals), 

 quota licences should be issued without adjust- 

 ment. 



ii) If the quotas identified with a zone by this 

 method exceed the total allowable catch for the 

 zone, all quotas should be reduced pro rata. 

 Licensees whose quotas are thus reduced should 

 be olfered a quota equal to the amount of the 

 reduction in any other zone where the allowable 

 catch is not fully allocated. 



In complicated cases, it may be desirable to adopt sup- 

 plementary procedures in which licensees rank their pref- 

 erences, and quotas are allocated in successive rounds 

 with priority to first choices. 



Provisions for Appeals 



The proposed rules for initially allocating the new 

 fishing privileges may be unfair to some fishermen. In the 

 past, when new limited-entry licences have been intro- 

 duced, special appeal committees have considered the 

 special circumstances of individual fishermen and have 

 recommended that eligibility criteria be waived or 

 relaxed to prevent hardship. These have served a useful 

 purpose and this general approach should be followed in 

 future. 



