Managing Fisheries Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Managing Fisheries - Essay Example Since most of the fishing in done outside the territorial waters of coastal nations and done mostly in international deep waters, there is no control over how much fish a company or a ship can catch. To prevent over fishing and depletion of certain stocks such as Cod, Tuna, different methods have been brought it. Some of the methods are fees system and tradable fishing quotas (Tietenberg, 2009). The fees system requires that access to a certain area or fishing region should be controlled by levying fees. The quota system suggests that fishing companies should be assigned a certain capping quota on the amount of fish they catch in a year (Hanley, 2007). This paper examines important issues about fisheries management and how the tradable quota system functions. Fishing on a vast scale by mechanised ships soon disrupts the regeneration of selected fish species such as mackerel, Black cod, tuna. This in turn has disrupted the oceanic bio life cycle as these fishes were higher in the food chain and fed on fish such as carp. When the larger fish are depleted, other predatory fish such as carp have proliferated. These have in turn overfed on the lower part of the food chain, all the way till the planktons, the lowest form of ocean life have not been able to regenerate. As a result, vast patches of seas suddenly turn into lifeless wastes, just as patch of desert does not have any type of life. This is mainly due to over fishing and pollution caused by fishing boats (Perman, 2003). Tradable fishing quotas were designed to prevent such an over fishing of specific fish from the life chain of the seas and oceans. Technically, individual trading quotas – ITQ were allotted to members of a fishery and these quotas determined the amount of specific species that can be caught. Tradable rights include tradable lobster and crab traps, tradable days-at-sea and individual transferable quotas - ITQs. The advantage of ITQs is that it maintains the balance of the ecosystem for a