11 Todd

Critique of the Global Treaty Solution Method
There is no global fishery problem, only a globe of local fishery problems. What this means is that a worldwide international organization or treaty, the necessary solution for truly global problems such as global warming or the ozone hole, is not necessarily the best way to save the world's fisheries.

Both global warming and fishery collapse are classic tragedies of the commons. Such problems must be solved at or above the organizational level of the commons in question.
An example may help clarify this point: Suppose the residents of a town share a piece of grazing land. Overgrazing could be prevented by an enforced edict from a state or national official, because the townspeople would have no choice but to follow the order. Or the town could establish its own grazing rules binding on all residents.

What would not be likely to work, however, would be neighborhood or smaller-scale grazing control agreements. There would be no reason for anyone to participate in such a scheme, because it would mean the loss of personal income without really solving the overgrazing problem.
Ultimately, the only commons management system for which it is long-term rational for a commons user to participate in is one encompassing the entire commons.

Now, the fishery application: Unlike climate users, who can only rationally participate in a global climate agreement, fishery users can participate rationally in a management system encompassing only a single fishery. Therefore, the problem of overfishing can be solved at the individual fishery level, not just with a world sustainable fishing agreement.

It is not yet clear to me that such a treaty, let alone a special regulatory organization to administer it, is actually the most efficient way to solve the problem. The reason is that the U.N. lacks coercive power over its subdivisions: Unlike a fishing regulatory law in a nation, a world sustainable fishing policy could not simply be created by the U.N. and forced on the world. Each nation would have to be individually persuaded, most likely by its own citizens or by nation-to-nation diplomacy, to sign onto the agreement. Because any attempt to reform fisheries management will demand considerable politicking on the national and nation-to-nation levels, creating a global treaty does not reduce the amount of work that must be done to solve the problem. But if intranational or nonglobal international action is sufficient to solve the problem, why bother with the international organization?

This is not to say that global action is irrelevant. Fishery resources in the deep ocean must be regulated by some sort of international body, but this does not mean that such a body needs to regulate every marine fishery in the world. The climate aspect of the fisheries issue must also be addressed globally.

A world sustainable fishing treaty could be a uniquely useful contribution if it included terms that required signatories to pressure nonsignatories to join the treaty. But creating such a strong treaty might be so hard in the first place as to still make it a waste of effort.

Most of the world's local fishery problems must be resolved to prevent serious global consequences resulting from a substantially reduced food supply. But top-down pressure from a global governing body is not necessarily required to get them solved. Instead, the "horizontal" pressure of national trade policies, bilateral and (nonglobal) multilateral agreements, and national and international citizen activist groups may be the most viable way to solve the world's fishery problems.

Some Other Ideas

Climate Change
Present and future climate change has implications for almost every aspect of human existence and so must be addressed in our report. But although a global climate solution may be helpful or even necessary to solve the world's fishery problems, our group is hardly able to provide one. Here is a proposal for how the climate issue could be addressed in the solution:

First, briefly summarize the relationship between fisheries issues and climate change. Make sure we get everything covered: Changing water temperatures, ocean acidification, etc. Attempt to estimate how serious of a problem climate is relative to the other problems facing fisheries.

If we find that climate change is a significant problem for the world's fisheries, then we should simply recommend that the global climate problem be solved but that what such a solution should be is outside the scope of this study.

If it turns out that climate change is a relatively insignificant problem, we should state as such but note that a climate solution should be found for other reasons.

Management System Design
Management measures must acknowledge the full complexity of the ecosystem to be managed.
The article "Multispecies and Ecosystem Models in a Management Context" in the book "Responsible Fisheries in the Marine Ecosystem" cites a number of hypothetical examples of how well-intentioned management measures can fail.

The central reason for these failures is that nature does not respond directly to whatever aspect of human behavior is being regulated under the management measure. A fishing fleet does not do a certain number of horsepower-days of fishing on a fishery, it takes specific fish from the ocean. And if those fish were young, or great in number because of a lucky catch, a fish stock could still be destroyed even if all rules of a reasonable management system were followed perfectly. Other simple management systems, such as total allowable catch limits and closed areas, can fail for similar reasons.

Above all, the world's fisheries must adopt management systems that work. Certain systems are known to work better than others, and this should be taken into account when our group decides what solution to recommend.

In "Performance of Fisheries Management Systems," another article in "Responsible Fisheries in the Marine Ecosystem" the authors review and update an OECD study on the merits of various fishery management systems. Many popular systems, most notably a total allowable catch limit, are found wanting. The authors urge the use of individual fishing quotas (IFQs) or other schemes which grant fishers the right to take a particular amount of fish. Although other management methods are not useless, they will probably work best when used with individual quotas.

Management Systems Must Have the Support of the Fishers
Fisheries management must be done in consultation with the people directly dependent on the fishery in question, and our solution should state as such. The people who will make the day to day management decisions need to sincerely and respectfully listen to the views of the fishers, even if they do not always follow the fishers' advice. Additionally, the actual enforcement of rules must be done in the least offensive way possible. I have in mind one of the people we met at Gloucester: You could tell how being hostilely stopped and questioned while doing research work in a closed area aggravated him. Excessively heavy-handed, paternalistic, or otherwise insulting management policies are likely to invite attempts to overturn them, and thus contribute nothing to the solving the problem.

 Comments on 11

I believe this essay brings up many good points - the need for support on the local level, as well as the importance of local management. However, I also think it overlooks some bigger problems and successes demonstrated in the past. The fishery problem is a global fisheries problem, as well as a globe of local fishery problems. When one country will not cease fishing out of international waters or waters belonging by law to another country, the problem is not local, but global. When the fishing economy and market tie many different countries together, both developed and developing, the problem is most definitely not local, but global. Because many of the problems leading to a global fishery collapse, in this global age, involve at least more than one country or region, if not all regions at one time, the problem cannot merely be viewed as a collection of local tribulations or a real solution will not be developed. For these reasons, top-down pressure is definitely, in some cases, a required component of the solution. - Claudia