Brown pelicans and gulls look for an easy meal as a net is set in Morro Bay.

CONVENTIONAL wisdom attributes the problems facing marine fisheries to the open-access nature of the resource. Because no one owns the fish in the sea, fishers have no incentive to conserve. The result, to use a phrase coined by Garrett Hardin, professor emeritus of the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the "tragedy of the commons": users compete to get as much as possible, each for himself, thus inevitably depleting the resource all share in common. Attempts to manage the resource by traditional methods, such as restrictions on fishing gear and limited seasons, may only exacerbate the self-defeating competition. Fishers invest in bigger boats and more sophisticated gear in a race to catch as much as they can while the stocks last, thus accelerating the fishery's decline.

In the latest attempt to find a way out of this dilemma, some economists recommend that fish stocks be privatized via a system of transferable harvesting quotas. Such Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) systems in effect create limited property rights to the fish in the sea, since only those who own a quota are allowed to fish. Advocates claim that ITQs ensure biological sustainability while simultaneously promoting economic efficiency.

The basic idea is this: After government fisheries biologists determine a sustainable total catch level for a fish stock, the total is divided into ITQs. Each unit of quota entitles the holder to harvest a predetermined percentage of the total catch. Advocates argue that by giving fishers ownership rights to the resource, ITQ systems end the tragedy of the commons, instead fostering a sense of stewardship and encouraging conservation. Critics, however, point to issues that have emerged as such systems have been put into practice, and argue for caution.

Because ITQs can be bought and sold, market forces determine who participates in the fishery and at what level. It is expected, for example, that fishers with low operating costs will buy ITQs from their less efficient competitors.

Described by some as the "emission trading program of the sea," ITQs are being promoted as a cost-effective management tool. They are gaining popularity, in this era of growing privatization, as an opportunity for government to step back and let the free market manage marine resources.

Currently, ITQs are not used in any California fishery. In 1995, the Department of Fish and Game considered adopting individual fishing quotas for the southern California sea urchin fishery, but dropped the proposal when it failed to gain industry support. At the federal level, ITQ regimes are currently limited to the Alaskan halibut and sablefish, Atlantic quahog and surfclam, and South Atlantic wreckfish fisheries. During the 1996 reauthorization of the Magnuson Act, which governs federal fisheries management, Congress directed the National Academy of Sciences to study ITQs; it then enacted a four-year moratorium on new ITQ regimes pending the outcome of that study. A committee appointed by the Academy has held hearings around the nation and is currently developing recommendations regarding a national policy on ITQs. Its report is due to Congress in October.

ITQ advocates have criticized the current U.S. moratorium as a political maneuver by Alaskan legislators concerned that ITQs might benefit the Seattle-based fleet over home-state interests. Local communities in southwest Alaska, however, argue that the allocation of halibut ITQs essentially rewarded highly overcapitalized fishing fleets that had put the resource at risk, while punishing communities that had fished sustainably for hundreds of years.

In fact, small local fishers were pushed out before the system was even in place. When the season was severely restricted, they could no longer compete with overcapitalized boats. It was not worth it for them to go out for two days: they only had small boats; the weather might be bad; it was dangerous. They therefore bowed out in the face of hundreds of big boats. Then, a few years later, ITQs were allocated based on a time period in which they did not participate. Because they had let their halibut fishing lapse, they were left out of the allocation.

Pluses and Minuses
ALTHOUGH ITQs are the most recent trend in fisheries management and appear to be the tool of choice for many, much of the critical acclaim the system has received is based on theoretical benefits rather than actual results of ITQ systems. A review of ITQ implementation, both in the United States and abroad, suggests that Congress may be right to approach ITQs with caution.

The benefits of ITQs, though still debated, are potentially significant. By guaranteeing fishers a right to harvest a share of the catch, the quotas provide a level of security that, in turn, promotes rational harvesting that benefits both fishers and consumers. There are positive impacts for both fisher and consumer as well. In Alaska's halibut fishery, the season was limited to two 24-hour periods each year before ITQs were introduced. Hundreds of vessels participated in the frantic "race to fish." Boats were filled dangerously beyond capacity as skippers tried to maximize catch during the short - but incredibly valuable - season. Now under ITQ management, the Alaskan halibut season runs from April 15 to November 15 each year: eight months. Longer seasons provide fresh fish for consumers for a longer period and allow safer harvesting conditions for fishers.

There is a downside to the system as well, however. ITQs have major socioeconomic impacts on fishers and the fishing fleet, encouraging concentration of fishing rights in fewer hands; they may be prohibitively expensive to administer; and they may fail to resolve - and, indeed, may aggravate - the waste of resources known as the bycatch problem.

The initial challenge of ITQ management is allocation. Who should receive ITQs? Quotas are usually distributed on the basis of historical catch during a defined eligibility period, with the amount alloted to individual fishers designed to reflect the level of participation in the fishery during the designated period. Claims of unfairness and inequity may be inevitable. They may also be accurate. When New Zealand adopted ITQs, part-time commercial fishers were excluded from the allocation, and more than 2,000 people whose livelihood depended on fishing were left out of the system.

ITQs can cause changes in the structure of the fishing fleet as individual owner-operators sell their ITQs to larger-scale fishing companies and quotas are consolidated into fewer and fewer hands. When ITQs were introduced in Iceland, many fishers sold their quota and then leased it back, fishing for a percentage of the catch. Crew members who had traditionally been paid a fixed share of the catch had to accept only a share of the captain's share. Decreases in crew wages led to social unrest that culminated in national strikes in 1994 and 1995. In 11 years under ITQs, New Zealand's three largest fishing companies increased their combined percentage of total ITQ holdings from 25 to 55 percent, and ten companies now own more than 80 percent of all ITQs. Similar issues of ITQ concentration and changed industry structure are reported from Nova Scotia.

As for the issue of cost-effectiveness, it is possible that ITQ systems may turn out to be prohibitively expensive to administer and enforce effectively. They require regulatory agencies to monitor each fisher's catch to ensure it does not exceed the allotment. And because fishers want to fill their quotas with the highest-grade fish possible, ITQs constitute an incentive for smaller or less valuable fish to be discarded.

THERE MAY BE NO WAY BACK
ITQ SYSTEMS SHARE limitations with other management models. They depend on accurate and timely scientific research - which is sometimes impossible to come by. To set total catch at an appropriate level, scientists must know the population size and biologic characteristics of each species and must understand environmental factors that affect the species. This is no easy task. As one frustrated fisheries biologist noted, it's hard to get an accurate head count under water, for fish generally don't raise their fins when you call attendance.

Other management regimes use the total allowable catch concept too, but usually it's applied more loosely, for instance by correlating the season length with the amount of fish that managers think is sustainable. If fishers increase their capacity, they might exceed the target total; if conditions are poor or the stocks aren't doing so well, the fish are harder to catch and total catch may be less. With ITQs the season is longer - maybe even lasting all year - so the total will likely be caught even if the stocks are dropping and harder to catch. Therefore, ITQs appear to be more dependent on good science, though all management regimes are clearly vulnerable to poor information.

New Zealand learned the importance of fisheries research the hard way in the late 1980s, when its most valuable fishery collapsed after catch levels were set too high. First discovered in the 1970s, orange roughy was subject to intensive exploitation in spite of the fact that scientists lacked even the most basic understanding of the species. New Zealand's orange roughy fishery was managed by ITQ. (In the Winter 1997-98 issue of Coast & Ocean, Wesley Marx described ITQs as a "promising management tool" and criticized Congress for delaying further use of ITQs in the United States. In a sidebar, he mentioned the orange roughy collapse, but did not state that it occurred under ITQ management.) Although the necessity of rigorous research is not unique to ITQ systems, the orange roughy example serves as an important reminder that ITQs have inherent limitations.

ITQs are not a panacea. Although they may prove a useful tool for fisheries managers, the jury is still out on whether the benefits they provide outweigh their costs. Caution in adopting ITQ regimes is further warranted because once they are adopted they may be practically irreversible: the fact that they create individual property rights means there would be enormous resistance to any attempt to abolish them.

The challenges facing fisheries, both in California and around the world, do not have easy answers. It is to be hoped that a legacy of the International Year of the Ocean will be an increased commitment to exploring a wide range of potential solutions to the management challenges presented by the sea and the coast. 

Kaitilin Gaffney is an environmental attorney in Santa Cruz, California. She spent 1997 studying New Zealand's ITQ system under a Fulbright Fellowship.