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Abstract:
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"The adoption of 'rights-based fishing' as the basis for management of fisheries involves the enclosure of common property. Although there are often good efficiency grounds for moving to private property, this enclosure transfers property from the community to private owners. Institutions could be devised in which decision making is governed by private property institutions, but in which the broader community continues to share in the benefits produced by the resource. The usual proposal to accomplish this has been to require lease or royalty payments by resource users, but such payments (especially to central governments) are politically unpopular. This paper instead proposes the creation of fisheries governance corporations with both private and public stockholders. These public stockholders might be local governments or local service institutions, such as hospitals, schools, or port authorities. By exercising its share rights, the local public owners continue to have input into the governance of the resource and continue to receive benefits, perhaps in the form of lease payments for use of the publicly-held fishing rights. Because the public ownership continues to be at a local level, this form of joint public-private governance is more consistent with many traditional institutions of common property governance than various forms of control by a national government."
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