Economics, Property Rights and Fishery Management

My topic is the role of property rights in marine capture fisheries, but given the awareness in Tasmania of the importance of aquaculture I will start with some figures on the relative importance of these two sectors of the fishing industry. World annual marine and inland aquaculture production has been steadily increasing to around 40 million mt, whereas annual production from marine capture fisheries seems to have hit a plateau (for the present) at 80 million mt, with a further 10 million mt coming from capture fisheries in inland lakes. The statistics on production of capture fisheries refer to landings, rather than catches – they omit the further 30 million mt of discarded by-catch. Of the landings of capture fisheries about one-third is used as feed for aquaculture species (10 million mt) or farm animals (20 million mt). In other words, of the fish we eat directly, 40% is farmed and 60% comes from capture of wild fish. Of the wild fish we catch we eat half directly, use a quarter as feed in farming, and throw a quarter away. I now turn to consideration of the world’s marine capture fisheries.