Technical Capacity Versus Capacity in Use: Challenges in Defining Efficient Fisheries Regulations

Abstract

"In Norway, perceived improvements that followed the introduction of quotas and access limitations to secure future fisheries, pose some interesting questions about efficiency. Comparison of small scale fisheries practices before and after the introduction of efficiency regulations, shows that these regulations can change the social system of fishing in unforeseen ways. The economic and biological improvements following the regulations are debatable. Explanations for the lack of efficiency draw upon the politics of knowledge, or how scientific explanations narrowly define and legitimize what efficiency is and how to achieve it. In the case of small boat fisheries, defining fisheries problems by technical measures alone, overlooks two important factors: 1) Variation within that technological category of fisheries and 2) Social incentives and constraints of technology in use. Failure to take these factors into account leads to changes that are actually counterproductive to fishing efficiency in the small boat fisheries. The present longitudinal study draws upon qualitative and quantitative data in the small scale fleet in Troms and Finnmark, the two northernmost counties in Norway. Data were collected intermittently from 1984-1996."