Incentive-based approaches to sustainable fisheries: WORKING PAPER

This record describes, and links to a working paper published through the Economics and Environment Network at The Australian National University in Canberra.

The failures of traditional target-species management have led many to propose an ecosystem approach to fisheries to promote sustainability. The ecosystem approach is necessary, especially to account for fishery-ecosystem interactions, but by itself is not sufficient to address two important factors contributing to unsustainable fisheries - inappropriate incentives bearing on fishers, and the ineffective governance that frequently exists in commercial, developed fisheries managed primarily by total harvest limits and input-controls. We contend that much greater emphasis must be placed on fisher motivation when managing fisheries. Using evidence from more than a dozen ?natural experiments? in commercial fisheries, we argue that incentive-based approaches that better specify community, individual harvest, or territorial rights and also price ecosystem services - coupled with public research, monitoring and effective oversight - promote sustainable fisheries.