Closing the Commons--Opening the 'Tragedy': Regulating North-Norwegian Small-Scale Fishing

Abstract

"The North-Norwegian small scale fishing fleet have face radically changing conditions the last three years. Due to scientific reconsiderations about the size of the cod-stock, fishing was severely reduced in 1989. From partaking in an open access / common property context, fishermen now face a private fishery since th4e introduction of boat quotas in 1990.

"Organizational frames influence both the productive ethics and the strategies in exploitation of resources. My studies of the North-Norwegian small-scale fleet indicate that both ethics and strategies change in relation to the new frames. Formerly exploitation and expansion inherent in the small-scale production were curtailed. The leveling of productive effort can be seen as an outcome of: 1) the fishermen's notions of the property ways of production and management of resources, and 2) the organizational features of this particular types of production. After the introduction of boat quotas the same organizational features have a totally new and reversed significance for fishermen's economic strategies; instead of limiting economic expansion, they provide incentives to expand. My studies indicate that this also changed the fishermen's notions of proper ways of production.

"My paper will discuss how the organizational context as well as the productive ethics and strategies of fishermen are changing. And how state regulation can have unintended implications; how the suppositions for entering a tragic situation are more present now than before."