Cover Story
PERC
May 2008
Beyond IFQs in Marine Fisheries
From antiquity, fishermen have been largely regarded as strictly “food gatherers.”
Now, new evidence reveals a dramatically different occupation for fishermen, one
where they not only catch fish, they work together to improve the management
of the fish they catch. Beyond IFQs in Marine Fisheries presents four cases of how
this is being carried out in practice with the help of tools such as individual fishing
quotas, sector management, harvest cooperatives, and government-granted fishing
concessions.
Written by Donald R. Leal, Michael De Alessi, and Pamela Baker, this booklet is
based on an educational seminar held in Washington, D.C., for policy makers and
practitioners in fisheries management. As discovered at the seminar and shared
here, under the right conditions, fisherman can become stewards when it comes to
the marine environment.
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Houston Chronicle
December 9, 2007
Gone fishing
It’s time for a new conservation model to protect fish and fishermen
Associated Press
Conservationists, supported by federal rule-making, believed that the best way to reduce
overharvesting of many types of fish was to impose limits: on the size and number of fish that
could be caught, and on the total number of days in any given year’s harvest. But those seemingly
logical rules have caused great harm in the Gulf Coast — to the red snapper
they are supposed to protect, and to the fishermen
who make their living by them.
Now, Environmental Defense, along with commercial
fishing interests and other coastal businesses
that depend on a healthy Gulf and robust fish stocks, says the time has come to adopt individual
fishing quotas, a new and better model for ensuring a sustainable fishing industry.
Under the old model, the rules created a raft of unintended consequences without preventing overfishing.
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What's Happening
Panama City News Herald
February 6, 2008
Fishing for answers
The first step on the road to recovery is to acknowledge there is a problem. That might be the
biggest obstacle to resolving an impasse between area fishermen and state outdoors officials.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will hold a public meeting Thursday at Bay Point
Marriott Resort in Panama City Beach to discuss proposed new restrictions on red snapper fishing. The
state, citing research that shows the population of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico has become
dangerously low, wants to adopt for coastal waters the same regulations on the length of the season
and the size of the catch that are to be used in federal waters (which begin nine miles offshore)
beginning later this month.
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