Alternatives to ITQs in equity–efficiency–effectiveness trade-offs: How the lay-up system spread effort in the BC halibut fishery

Evelyn Pinkerton

Marine Policy, 2013, vol. 42, issue C, 5-13

Abstract: Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs), also called “catch shares”, have been broadly adopted in the last two decades, at the same time that concerns about their equity and effectiveness in delivering the predicted outcomes have increased. This paper documents how an alternative fishermen-designed and operated system of spreading fishing effort to avoid the race for fish—called the lay-up system—worked effectively and equitably for four decades in the British Columbia halibut fishery before ITQs were introduced in this fishery. Why the lay-up system was allowed to collapse and its history ignored illustrates important roles played by conflicting ideologies, bureaucratic rationality, and the inability to imagine an alternative way of solving fisheries management problems. Trade-offs between the efficiency, equity, and effectiveness of halibut and other management systems are considered.

Keywords: ITQs; Co-management; Fisheries management; Equity; Pacific halibut (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X13000195
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:marpol:v:42:y:2013:i:c:p:5-13

DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2013.01.010

Access Statistics for this article

Marine Policy is currently edited by Eddie Brown

More articles in Marine Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().