Fish or Cut Bait! The Case for Individual Transferable Quotas in the Salmon Fishery of British Columbia. edited by Laura Jones and Michael Walker

Transcription

1 Fish or Cut Bait! The Case for Individual Transferable Quotas in the Salmon Fishery of British Columbia edited by Laura Jones and Michael Walker The Fraser Institute Vancouver British Columbia Canada 1997

2 Copyright 1997 by The Fraser Institute. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critcal articles and reviews. The authors of this book have worked independently and opinions expressed by them are, therefore, their own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the members or the trustees of The Fraser Institute. Printed in Canada. Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Main entry under title: Fish or cut bait! Includes bibliographical references. ISBN Pacific salmon fisheries--british Columbia--Management. 2. Fisheries--Licenses--British Columbia--Limited entry 3. Fishery management--british Columbia. I. Jones, Laura, II. Walker, Michael, III. Fraser Institute (Vancouver, B.C.) HD9469.S23B C

3 Contents About the Authors vii Introduction Laura Jones and Michael Walker 3 1 Can Individual Quotas Solve the Salmon Crisis? Management Issues and Quotas in the Salmon Fishery of British Columbia Paul Sprout 17 A Troller s Perspective on Individual Quotas Ken Erikson 25 2 Actual Experience with Individual Quotas Individual Transferable Quotas in Iceland Birgir Runolfsson and Ragnar Arnason 33 Regional Impact of the ITQ System in Iceland Birgir Runolfsson 65 Bureaucratic Management versus Private Property: ITQs in New Zealand after 10 Years Tom McClurg 91 Individual Vessel Quotas in the Halibut Fishery of British Columbia Paul Macgillivray A Pilot Project for Salmon A Pilot Project for Individual Quotas Laura Jones Beyond Individual Transferable Quotas Technologies of Sequestering and Monitoring Ocean Property Michael De Alessi 125 Beyond Quotas: Private-Property Solutions to Overfishing Elizabeth Brubaker 151

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5 About the Authors RAGNAR ARNASON received his Ph.D. in the economics of natural resources at the University of British Columbia in 1984 and has been professor of Fisheries Economics at the University of Iceland since He has published extensively on fisheries economics: his publications include articles in the Canadian Journal of Economics, Marine Resource Economics, Marine Policy, Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries. He has contributed to a number of books and collections on fisheries management and has edited several books. One of his recent publications is The Icelandic Fisheries: Evolution and Management of a Fishing Industry (Blackwell 1995). He is also known internationally for advising on fisheries policy and management. ELIZABETH BRUBAKER is the executive director of Environment Probe, a division of the Energy Probe Research Foundation. She is the author of Property Rights in the Defence of Nature, published in 1995 by Earthscan, and contributed a chapter on the environmental implications of establishing property rights in fish to Taking Ownership: Property Rights and Fisheries Management on the Atlantic Coast. Ms Brubaker has written on a broad range of environmental issues including water quality, water pricing, and the siting of controversial facilities. MICHAEL DE ALESSI is a research associate and coordinator of the Center for Private Conservation, a project of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. He received a B.A. in Economics and an M.S. in Engineering Economic Systems from Stanford University and an M.A. in Marine Policy from the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami. He is author of the private conservation case studies Oysters and Willapa Bay and Artificial Reef Building in Alabama and Florida and his articles on marine resources have appeared in such publications as New Scientist, International Herald Tribune, Journal of Commerce, and The Washington Times. KEN ERIKSON is a third generation commercial fisherman with experience in salmon trolling, seining, and gillnetting, trawling,

6 Fish or Cut Bait! and longlining all species of ground fish. He is a past director of the Pacific Trollers Association and currently serves on the Halibut Advisory Board. He is also alternate Director on Ground fish Hook and Line Advisory Board. He is President of Pacific Coast Fishing Vessel Owners Guild, which has representation on C.F.I.C., H.I.A.B., and H.A.B. He also sat on the Roundtable as a troll representative. LAURA JONES is the Environment Economist at The Fraser Institute. She joined The Fraser Institute in 1996 to develop the Institute s policy on the environment and has recently organized a series of conferences on mining, forestry and fishing in British Columbia. Ms Jones has published articles in Fraser Forum and the Ottawa Citizen, and edited the Fraser Institute Critical Bulletin Environmental Indicators for Canada and the United States. She received her B.A. in Economics from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, and her M.A. in Economics from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. Prior to joining the Institute she taught economics at various colleges throughout the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, and is currently teaching Economic Issues at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. PAUL MACGILLIVRAY is chief of the economic and commercial analysis group in the Pacific Region of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. For the past fourteen years, Mr. Macgillivray has worked as a fisheries economist throughout Canada (Vancouver, Ottawa and Halifax) and in the late 1980s he spent four months with the New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. TOM MCCLURG, General Manager of Policy and Operations at the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission has particular responsibilities for the management of the Commission s fisheries assets and consultation to develop an optimum model for allocation of those assets to Iwi (tribes). He is also closely involved with arranging the annual leasing of Commission quota and the issues of Iwi representation, Iwi organizational structures and business development. He remains an active participant in wider fisheries issues such as the ongoing review of the Fisheries Act and prior to his present position spent four years with MAF Policy (fisheries) as Manager, Strategic Policy. His previous experience and training is in the field of natural resource management. viii

7 About the Authors BIRGIR RUNOLFSSON received a B.S. in Economics from Lewis and Clark College, Oregon, USA, in 1986, an M.A. in Economics in 1990, and a Ph.D. in Economics from George Mason University, Virginia, USA, in He has been associate professor of Economics at the University of Iceland since Mr. Runolfsson is the author of numerous works on the use of individual transferable quotas in the Icelandic fishing industry, and has also contributed articles to journals such as Constitutional Political Economy. PAUL SPOUT is the Director, Operations Branch, Regional Headquarters, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Pacific Region. He has worked for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans as Senior Biologist responsible for Salmon, Shellfish, and Herring and as the Area Manager for both the North Coast and the South Coast divisions. He holds an M.B.A. and a B.Sc. from Simon Fraser University, and a Technology Diploma from the British Columbia Institute of Technology. MICHAEL WALKER is the Executive Director of The Fraser Institute. Born in Newfoundland in 1945, he received his B.A. (summa) from St. Francis Xavier University in 1966 and completed the work for his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Western Ontario in Dr Walker writes regularly for daily newspapers and financial periodicals. His articles have also appeared in technical journals in Canada, the United States and Europe; these include The American Economic Review, the Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Public Policy, Health Affairs, and the Canadian Tax Journal. He has written or edited 40 books on economic matters. ix

8 fish or cut bait: to choose a definite course of action, especially to decide whether to participate in, or retreat from, an activity. Random House Dictionary of the English Language

9 Fish or Cut Bait: The Case for Individual Transferable Quotas in the British Columbia Salmon Fishery