European Tribune - Comments - Depressed by fish

Depressed by fish | 29 comments (29 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Gylfason's suggestion is the flavor of the month in Resource Management. The underlying premise is the rich and/or well-funded aren't greedy or stupid -- total nonsense, of course. The answer to dwindling fish stocks is to stop fishing until the fish repopulate. Depending on the fish and area that could be anywhere from 10 years to never.

by ATinNM on Fri Jan 18th, 2008 at 10:36:46 AM EST

Re: Depressed by fish (4.00 / 2)

ATinNM:

The underlying premise is the rich and/or well-funded aren't greedy or stupid -- total nonsense, of course.

Indeed.

Assuming the rich are greedy and stupid, how can policy be modified in a useful direction?

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Fri Jan 18th, 2008 at 11:07:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Depressed by fish (4.00 / 2)

The rich and greedy are a part of the problem in the sense that large scale fish mining tends to be more damaging than small scale fishing. But I'd like to point out a few things:

There is a lot of demand for fish. Unlike the demand for bullshit consumer products, I don't think this demand is really to any signficant extent created by industry. There simply is a lot of demand for fish because there are many people, and many people who like fish.
For most purposes, fish in the sea and ocean are an open access common pool resource. What we see happening in the sea is simply a tragedy of the commons, played out on a large scale. But it's something that has happened throughout human history.
Restricting access to this resource will directly drive up the price, and thus increase the incentive to break the rules. This means enforcement is a central problem for any solution.
The best solutions for common pool resource problems are communal: giving the local community a stake in and a means to protect a resource. However, it's difficult to see how that could work on the open sea!

by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Fri Jan 18th, 2008 at 12:13:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Depressed by fish (none / 1)

Gylfason, as far as I can see, is trying to change the incentive structure for fishers, which is generally a good approach. Especially with regard to the sidecatch it is important to change the incentive structure, though I haven't completely followed him there (don't understand what he's proposing).

Enforcement is still going to be a huge problem under his proposal, but not any more so than under the current scheme.

by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Fri Jan 18th, 2008 at 11:33:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Depressed by fish | 29 comments (29 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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