Fraser Forum
July 2004

Resolving Overfishing

By Michael De Alessi

Overfishing remains one of the more serious environmental problems in North America and around the world. Overfishing is a textbook example of the "tragedy of the commons," a situation where a lack of property rights rewards catching as much as possible, as quickly as possible, ahead of one's competitors, regardless of the effect on future stocks. Under such a system, commercial fishermen have little choice but to deplete the seas because any fish they leave behind will simply be caught by someone else, rather than left to grow and reproduce for another year. Regulations aimed at preventing overfishing have often only made things worse because they fail to address the tragedy of the commons.

Economists have long understood that allocating property rights to natural resources solves this problem. For the fisheries, allocating such property rights takes the form of something called "tradeable harvest rights," which assign a percentage of a scientifically determined total catch to individual fishermen or fishing associations. When it is clear who can catch what, there is no longer a race to fish.

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Michael De Alessi is director of natural resource policy at the Reason Foundation. Both are experts on individual fishing quotas, or IFQs.