New system could help avert collapse of fisheries

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Guaranteeing individual fishermen a share of the catch could help avert a global collapse of fisheries, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

Such programs, known as catch-shares, eliminate the frantic race to get the biggest share of the catch as in traditional open-access fishing, a system that promotes overfishing and habitat destruction, putting a key global food supply at risk.

“Under open access, you have a free-for-all race to fish, which ultimately leads to collapse,” said Christopher Costello of the University of California, Santa Barbara, whose study appears in the journal Science.

“But when you allocate shares of the catch, then there is an incentive to protect the stock, which reduces collapse. We saw this across the globe,” he said in a statement.

Costello said the study offered hope that fisheries can resist the widespread collapse projected two years ago by Canadian Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Reuters