Saving Global Fisheries ─ Reducing Fishing Capacity to Promote Sustainability

The Earth's oceans are overfished, despite more than fifty years of cooperation amongthe world's fishing nations. There are too many boats chasing too few fish. InSaving Global Fisheries, J. Samuel Barkin and ElizabethDeSombre analyze the problem of overfishing and offer a provocative proposal for a global regulatoryand policy approach.

Existing patterns of international fisheries management tryto limit the number of fish that can be caught while governments simultaneously subsidize increasedfishing capacity, focusing on fisheries as an industry to be developed rather than on fish as aresource to be conserved. Regionally based international management means that protection in onearea simply shifts fishing efforts to other species or regions. Barkin and DeSombre argue thatglobal rather than regional regulation is necessary for successful fisheries management andemphasize the need to reduce subsidies. They propose an international system of individualtransferable quotas that would give holders of permits an interest in the long-term health of fishstocks and help create a sustainable level of fishing capacity globally.