ICES Journal of
Marine Science
ICES Journal of Marine Science (2012), 69(7), 1168–1179. doi:10.1093/icesjms/fss085
Adaptation and maladaptation: factors that influence
the resilience of four Alaskan fisheries governed
by durable entitlements
Keith R. Criddle
Fisheries Division, School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 17101 Point Lena Loop Road, Juneau, AK 99801, USA;
tel: +1 907 7965449; fax: +1 907 7965447; e-mail: [email protected].
Criddle, K. R. 2012. Adaptation and maladaptation: factors that influence the resilience of four Alaskan fisheries governed by durable
entitlements. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 69: 1168– 1179.
Received 16 September 2011; accepted 4 April 2012; advance access publication 4 June 2012.
Sustainability of fisheries and fishery-dependent communities depends largely on the intrinsic characteristics of social, economic, and
legal systems that determine who is allowed to fish and how fishing takes place. That is, fisheries sustainability is not a biological
problem, it is a social problem. Social factors that contribute to or detract from sustainability are illustrated in four Alaskan fisheries
as they have evolved over time. Each fishery has come to be managed under durable entitlements (DEs) in terms of their participation.
DE programmes, such as limited entry permits and individual or community fishing quotas, can increase profitability and help fishers
adapt to modest adverse changes in stock abundance, ex-vessel prices, or input costs, but the design characteristics of some DE programmes makes them vulnerable to larger perturbations. Moreover, although DE programmes increase choice and therefore resilience
from the perspective of individuals, they can increase or decrease the resilience of fishery-dependent communities.
Keywords: catch shares, durable entitlements, fisheries management, sustainability.
Introduction
Charles (2001) characterizes sustainable fisheries systems in terms
of ecological, socio-economic, community, and institutional
dimensions. He suggests that sustainability requires more than
maintenance of robust fish stocks; it also requires conditions
that promote social and economic well-being, viable resourcedependent communities, and an institutional structure that
allows for evolution of socio-ecological systems. Rather than
attempting to identify necessary and sufficient conditions for sustaining fisheries-dependent socio-ecological systems, it may be instructive to consider what it takes to disrupt them. The surest way
to crash a fisheries-dependent socio-ecological system is to fail
to solve the common-pool resource dilemma through failure to
understand the limits of the biophysical system, the failure to
stay within those limits, or the failure to prevent emergence of a
race to possess the resource (Dietz et al., 2003). It is particularly
easy to crash socio-ecological systems by failing to recognize or
adapt to non-stationarities. As used here, non-stationarities are
changes to time-dependent process such that past behaviour of
the time-series does not convey useful information about future
behaviour to the time-series (Priestley, 1988). For example, in a
bioeconomic model of sustainable fishing, environmental or ecological change, population or demographic change, technological
change, changes in social preferences, or changes in input or
output prices may fundamentally alter how the fishery-dependent
socio-ecological system behaves (Schmitz and Seckler, 1970;
Beamish et al., 1999; Hamilton, 2007; Mueter et al., 2011).
Socio-ecological systems can also fail when subjected to
shocks—one-time perturbations—that exceed critical biophysical,
social, or economic thresholds. Critical shocks could include catastrophic environmental events such as a volcanic eruption or
tsunami, or socio-economic events such as macroeconomic failures, fishery closures, or zoonoses and epidemics that disrupt
socio-ecological systems to such an extent that the systems are
unable to re-establish a pre-event state even long after the event
has ended.
Alaska region fisheries are often held up as examples of fisheries
done right (Worm et al., 2011). However, although this may be
correct from a simple single-species biological perspective, the performance of Alaska region fisheries as sustainable socio-ecological
systems is more nuanced. The performance and resilience of four
Alaska region fisheries are discussed in the sections that follow.
# 2012 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
For Permissions, please email: [email protected]
The resilience of four Alaskan fisheries governed by durable entitlements
Each is currently governed under a system of durable entitlements
(DEs), which are solutions to the common-pool resource dilemma
that entail provisions to stint access to or withdrawals from the
common-pool through grants of durable exclusive privileges to
individuals or groups. Examples of DE include limited entry
permits (LEPs; Christy and Scott, 1965; Wilen, 1988), territorial
use rights in fisheries (Christy, 1982; Seijo, 1993), transferable
trap certificates (SAFMC/GFMC, 1992), days-at-sea allocations
(NEFMC, 2003), individual vessel quotas (IVQs; Casey et al.,
1995), individual fishing quotas (IFQs; Moloney and Pearse,
1979; NRC, 1999), community quotas (CQs; NRC, 1998), enterprise allocations (Stevens et al., 2008), sector allocations (Sylvia
et al., 2008; Wilen and Richardson, 2008), and community fisheries (Ruddle, 1989). The history of the four Alaska region fisheries
provides examples of successful and unsuccessful solutions to biological and social dimensions of the common-pool resource
dilemma, successful and unsuccessful adaptation to or accommodation of non-stationary changes in environmental, economic,
and social systems, and examples of successful and unsuccessful response to shocks.
Alaska’s salmon fisheries
Alaska is home to seven species of Pacific salmon: Chinook salmon
Oncoryhnchus tshawytscha, coho salmon Oncoryhnchus kisutch,
sockeye salmon Oncoryhnchus nerka, chum salmon Oncoryhnchus
keta, pink salmon Oncoryhnchus gorbuscha, steelhead trout
Oncoryhnchus mykiss, and cutthroat trout Oncoryhnchus clarkii
(Mecklenburg et al., 2002). These species have been the focus of intensive fisheries from pre-modern times (Newell, 1994; Clark et al.,
2006). Wherever Pacific salmon were abundant, subsistence harvesters exploited them. Practical limits to preservation and
storage of salmon, combined with the harsh consequences of
exceeding sustainable yields, ensured that harvests by subsistence
users did not routinely exceed the productivity of local stocks
(Rogers, 1979). Development of commercial fisheries in the late
1800s disrupted this long-standing resolution of the common-pool
resource dilemma in many ways. First, commercial harvests
reduced the amount of fish available to subsistence harvesters
and thereby reduced the food security of subsistence communities
and the food surpluses used for trade with neighbouring peoples to
obtain goods not available in coastal areas (Newell, 1994). In addition, the commercial fishery changed the nature of risk associated
with overharvest of the salmon resource. To subsistence users,
overharvest of salmon created a risk of starvation. In contrast,
the risk to commercial fishers was one of financial loss; if one
river was fished out, they could move on to the next. A longstanding solution to the common-pool resource dilemma was disrupted by the arrival of new resource claimants (Cordell, 1978;
Higgs, 1982).
The disruption of customary and traditional control of regional
fisheries led to unsustainable harvests and financial distress. In the
absence of effective social or legal controls on harvests, private
firms (fish packers) who controlled strategic properties near the
mouths of major salmon-producing rivers began to exercise financial and extra-legal controls on harvests (Cooley, 1963). The forces
of economic selection led to expansion of those packers that
adopted sustainable exploitation strategies and ensured the
demise of those that did not. However, in addition to ignoring
the rights and needs of subsistence harvesters, the packers took advantage of their exclusive role as monopsonists (sole buyers) to
exploit the fishers who delivered to them (Cooley, 1963). The
1169
packer’s solution to the common-pool resource dilemma
addressed biological sustainability because sustaining salmon
stocks aligned with their self-interest. However, in setting out to
maximize their own profits, packers adopted cost-effective
harvest technologies such as traps and weirs, which reduced
their need for fishers. The ensuing loss of fishing jobs combined
with objections to the serf-like labour conditions was not acceptable to a broad swathe of society. This dissatisfaction over the exercise of market power by the packers, and the failure of the federal
government to rein in that power, served as impetus for Alaskans
to seek statehood. Salmon traps were banned shortly after statehood was attained in 1959 (Rogers, 1979). The ban on fish traps
reignited the race for fish. As more and bigger boats entered the
fishery, it became increasingly difficult for fishery managers to
control catches, and biological sustainability was imperilled.
Following statehood, Alaska set about rebuilding depleted
salmon stocks (Cooley, 1963; Clark et al., 2006). However,
because they are highly migratory, salmon range far beyond state
waters (0 –3 nautical miles; miles hereafter) and well beyond US
territorial seas (0 –12 miles) that then represented the extent of
Federal and state authority to control fishing. Japanese vessels
fishing in international waters off Bristol Bay, Alaska, took substantial harvests of salmon from the 1930s through the commencement of World War II. Foreign fishing pressure resumed in the
mid-1950s and expended from Bristol Bay to areas off southcentral and southeast Alaska during the 1960s and early 1970s
(Pennoyer et al., 1979). Although bilateral negotiations with
Japan, Korea, and Russia helped limit the volume of foreign harvests, those harvests reduced the efficacy of state efforts to
recover stocks (Clark et al., 2006). US assertion of an exclusive economic zone (EEZ; 0 –200 miles) in 1976 was immediately followed
by a ban of foreign fishing for salmon within the EEZ off Alaska.
Other nations bordering the North Pacific also declared EEZs of
similar extent. In 1992, the North Pacific Anadromous Fisheries
Commission, acting at the behest of the United States, Canada,
Russia, and Japan, declared a ban on salmon fishing on the high
seas, i.e. beyond the 200-miles EEZs.
To stem the influx of fishing capacity into state-managed
salmon fisheries, Alaska passed the Limited Entry Act of 1973;
by 1974, Limited Entry was implemented in most Alaskan
salmon fisheries. Under Limited Entry, a maximum was set for
the number of vessels permitted to use specific types of gear in
each fishing area. In all, 12 655 LEPs for salmon were issued,
each for a specific region and gear type (CFEC, 2005). Past participation was used to determine who would and who would not be
granted LEPs. Koslow (1982) suggests that the criteria for
issuing LEPs disenfranchised small-scale fishers in Bristol Bay.
[Eligibility was determined on a points system that favoured
recent participation as evidenced by ownership of a commercial
licence to participate in the fishery. Licence-holders were
awarded three points per year for 1971 and 1972, two points per
year for 1969 and 1970, and one point per year for 1965–1968.
Points were also awarded for dependence on the fishery for at
least two-thirds of their income in 1971 and 1972, and for
fishing for at least 3 weeks in each of the 1971 and 1972 seasons
(Koslow, 1982). The criteria were intended to exclude part-time
fishers (Adasiak, 1979). Koslow (1982) notes that many local
fishers had less experience in the fishery, fished on smaller vessels
that yielded less income, and did not fish or fished for only a few
days in 1971 and 1972 because the salmon runs were weak.
Moreover, many local fishers did not hold permits because only
1170
K. R. Criddle
one permit was required per vessel and 33% of local fishers fished
in full partnerships (Koslow, 1982).]
LEPs are DEs that can, with few limitations, be transferred from
one individual to another at mutually agreeable terms of exchange.
Although the LEP programme stemmed the influx of boats, it
failed to prevent continued escalation of fishing power and associated pathologies of the race-for-fish (Wilen, 1988). For
example, in Bristol Bay, the average annual catch of 25.2 × 106
sockeye salmon is allocated to 1863 drift-gillnet and 981 set-gillnet
LEP holders under a winner-takes-all derby. The perverse incentives of the race-for-fish led fishers to purchase evermore powerful
and costly fishing vessels to catch an unchanged quantity of fish.
First adopters of technologies that increased the quantity of fish
caught per day gained ephemeral advantage over their peers
until the latter too adopted the technology or were bought-out
by others who would. Nevertheless, buoyed by strong prices
caused by declines in salmon production outside Alaska,
Alaskan salmon fishery ex-vessel revenues and the price of LEPs
soared through the mid-1980s (Figure 1). In other words, the socially and economically unsustainable structure of the Alaskan
salmon fisheries was masked by a non-stationarity—increasing
ex-vessel prices caused by stable demand and decreases in the harvests of high-valued salmon (Chinook, coho, sockeye, and steelhead) in the US Pacific Northwest and British Columbia.
Limits to the resilience of the Alaska salmon socio-ecological
system became evident by the early 1990s when first Norway,
then Canada, the UK, and Chile, began to supply world markets
with large volumes of farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and
farmed coho and steelhead (Figure 2). Competition from aquaculture supplies depressed Alaskan ex-vessel prices and revenues
(Herrmann et al., 1993; Herrmann, 1994; Williams et al., 2009;
Figure 1). Aquaculture production increased because technological innovation in aquaculture caused production costs to decline
more rapidly than the production-induced decreases in product
prices (Olson and Criddle, 2008). Feed costs alone have declined
by an average of 1.4% per year, despite rapidly rising prices for
fishmeal (Steiner et al., 2011). To those unfamiliar with the spendthrift incentives of the race-for-fish, it begs comprehension to
learn that Alaska’s salmon LEP fisheries fail to generate profits
comparable with those generated in salmon aquaculture, where
feed and smolt costs alone are .US$ 1.50 kg – 1 round weight
(Steiner et al., 2011). The collapse of ex-vessel prices created
social and economic turmoil in salmon fishing communities
because it reduced annual revenues from a peak of .US$ 1.3 ×
109 to ,US$ 0.2 × 109, and at the same time deflated the asset
value of LEPs to well below the amounts borrowed against their
previously high prices. Bursting of the LEP asset price-bubble financially ruined thousands of salmon fishers; 43% of the salmon
LEP holders did not participate in their fishery in 2002. These
effects were particularly pronounced in rural (defined as regions
with a population of ,2500 and not located in proximity to a
community with a population of .2500) Alaska, where local residents went from controlling .38% of all salmon LEPs in the
mid-1970s to only controlling 24% in 2010 (Gho et al., 2011).
The change in the distribution of salmon LEP ownership is
complex, but there are several salient patterns: 22% of the LEPs
issued to rural Alaskans are now held by urbanites in Alaska and
elsewhere in the United States; most (61.5%) out-of-region transfers resulted from migration by LEP-holders; and most (82%)
interim LEPs that have been cancelled were issued to individuals
who resided in urban and rural areas next to the fishery (Gho
et al., 2011).
Although Alaska’s salmon management may be characterized
as sustainable from a narrow biological perspective, it is hard to
describe the fishery as anything but an abject economic failure.
The race-for-fish resulted in individually sensible but collectively
irrational excess investment in harvesting capacity, which in turn
induced excess investment in processing capacity (Matulich and
Sever, 1999). The overcapitalized Alaskan salmon fishery is illpositioned to compete effectively against substitute suppliers
who operate under economic incentives that reward adoption of
cost-minimizing technologies, particularly when competitors
such as salmon aquaculture are structured to operate year-round.
Adoption of harvest and management strategies that fostered a
race-for-fish led to unsustainable investment in processing capacity and infrastructure in remote communities; there was a competitive advantage to being close to harvesting grounds.
Contraction of revenues has resulted in closure of processing facilities in communities with small or highly variable runs, or runs of
low-value (pink and chum) salmon species, especially when those
facilities are not located in transportation hubs. The loss of
wage-income and tax receipts has compromised the economic viability of these communities. Even if the recent recovery in revenues
(Figure 1) persists, it is unlikely that processing capacity and
related fisheries infrastructure will re-establish itself in remote
communities. There have, however, been recent exceptions to
Figure 1. Alaska salmon fishery ex-vessel revenues, 1980 – 2011.
Source: http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=CommercialBy
FisherySalmon.ex-vesselquery (last accessed 25 February 2012).
Figure 2. Global production (catch and aquaculture) of high-value
salmon (Chinook, coho, sockeye, Atlantic) and steelhead trout. ROW
(rest of world) is a summation of production by all other nations not
explicitly represented, 1970 –2009. Source: http://www.fao.org/
fishery/statistics/en (last accessed 25 February 2012).
The resilience of four Alaskan fisheries governed by durable entitlements
Figure 3. Halibut biomass and commercial catch, 1935 – 2011.
Sources: Quinn et al. (1985) and IPHC (1991 – 2011).
the pattern of spatial consolidation of processing capacity in
western Alaska, where non-profit Community Development
Quota (CDQ) entities have constructed small-scale salmon and
groundfish processing facilities operated as a service for local
fishers (CVRF, 2011).
Alaska’s halibut fishery
Fisheries for Pacific halibut Hippoglossus stenolepsis also pre-date
colonization. Nearshore fishing grounds were accessible to native
Alaskans who employed longline fishing gear that closely resembles the gear in current use (Thompson and Freeman, 1930).
Although pre-modern peoples were highly effective seagoers and
fishers, much of the halibut resource lies at depths and distances
from the coast that were inaccessible to them. Exclusive rights to
nearshore fishing grounds were well established and defended by
local tribes (Newell, 1994). Nevertheless, these rights were
ignored by colonists, so starting in 1888, commercial fisheries
for halibut developed off the US Pacific Northwest and British
Columbia, then spread rapidly through southeast and southcentral Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. By the early 1900s, catch
rates were in decline, and there was concern that the unregulated
halibut fishery was biologically unsustainable (Thompson and
Freeman, 1930). Once again, a successful solution to the commonpool resource dilemma was disrupted by the advent of new resource claimants.
In 1923, the United States and Canada signed the Halibut
Treaty. This stipulated formation of the International Pacific
Halibut Commission and vested that Commission with authority
to regulate halibut fishing along the eastern North Pacific coast.
The Commission was charged to manage the fishery so as to maximize yields over time (IPHC, 1998). Under catch limits established
by the IPHC and enforced by the US and Canadian governments,
the halibut stock was rebuilt, and catches increased through the
1950s (Figure 3). Increased stock abundance and associated
increased catch limits attracted more and more vessels, so to
prevent overharvesting, the fishery managers set ever shorter
seasons (Figure 4). However, the United States and Canada were
powerless to control halibut catches in portions of the species’
range outside their territorial seas [territorial seas extended 3
miles seawards before 1966; the United States extended its exclusive fishery zone to 12 miles from 4 October 1966 (P.L. 89-658),
then in 1976, asserted regulatory authority over fishing out to
200 miles from the coast]. Surges in bycatch by foreign distantwater fleets caused a decline of the halibut stock and a reduction
in the length of the domestic halibut season (Hoag and French,
1171
Figure 4. Season length, IPHC Area 3A—central GOA, 1935 – 2011.
Source: IPHC (1991 – 2011).
1976). Therefore, partial closure of the halibut commons in the
1920s led to the temporary re-establishment of biological sustainability, but a failure to control foreign harvest of halibut and to
forestall the emergence of the race-for-fish caused instabilities in
the socio-ecological system. Arrival of new resource claimants operating beyond the regulatory reach of the United States and
Canada further disrupted the already precarious socio-ecological
system, and tipped it towards biological as well as economic
unsustainability (Figure 3).
Stock declines attributable in part to the inability of coastal
states to regulate harvests outside their territorial waters led to
widespread declaration of 200-mile EEZs, and with those extended
zones, the ability to control harvesting of fish stocks throughout
larger portions of their natural ranges (Munro, 1982). For
halibut, the results were an effective constraint on total catches
and supported rebuilding of the halibut stock (Figure 3), i.e. the
re-establishment of biological sustainability. However, the rebuilt
stocks attracted more US and Canadian fishers and necessitated
ever shorter seasons (Figure 4), to the point that as much as
26 000 t was being landed in as little as 2 d. Between 1982 and
1993, the halibut fishery exceeded its catch limit by an annual
average of 5.6%. Although “overages” were deducted from subsequent annual catch limits, failure to curb the race for shares of the
allowable catch jeopardized the efficacy of the catch limits
intended to ensure biological sustainability. Moreover, the
heated race for fish reduced the quality of fish available to consumers, suppressed development of markets for fresh fish, prevented
rationalization of capital investments, and decreased safety at sea
(NRC, 1999).
In 1991, Canada implemented a system of IVQs for the halibut
fishery off British Columbia. IVQs allot fixed percentages of the
annual IPHC-authorized halibut catch limit to the owners of
vessels with an established history of participation in the British
Columbia halibut fishery. Under the IVQ programme, fishers
were freed from the race-for-fish and could time their catches to
market opportunities and configure their investments in gear
and quota shares to maximize their private economic returns
(Casey et al., 1995). Ex-vessel prices paid to Canadian fishers
soared in the early 1990s (Herrmann, 1996, 2000).
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC), a
federal advisory body responsible for policy recommendations
for fisheries outside state waters (0–3 miles) and within the
200-mile EEZ off Alaska, voted in 1991 to implement an IFQ programme for halibut and sablefish Anoplopoma fimbria off Alaska.
After extensive public comment and review, the Alaska halibut
and sablefish IFQ programme was implemented in 1995. The
1172
IFQ programme awarded DEs to shares of the total allowable catch
(TAC) of halibut and sablefish to the owners of vessels that had
fished during a set of qualifying years; the share was based on
their average catches during a subset of the qualifying years. The
programme established separate quota-share allocations by
region and vessel size class, allowed market-based transfer of
quota shares between fishers, but prohibited transfers of quota
shares between areas and vessel size classes. The programme also
set limits on the consolidation of quota shares and restrictions
on leasing (NRC, 1999).
Under the IFQ programme, the halibut fishery off Alaska has
re-organized to deliver high-quality fresh product throughout a
protracted season. Average ex-vessel price (Alaska) increased
US$ 0.53 kg – 1, about $11 million per year in ex-vessel revenue,
with fishers receiving 92% and the processing sector 8% of
this increase (Herrmann and Criddle, 2006). Safety at sea has
improved from an average of .27 search and rescue missions
per season pre-IFQ to an average of ,8 missions per season
post-IFQ. The fishery has consolidated; the number of
permit-holders has declined by 34%, and the number of active
fishing vessels has declined by almost 60% (NMFS, 2010).
Management of annual catch limits has become more precise,
going from a pre-IFQ average “overage” of 5.6% to a post-IFQ
average “underage” of 1.4%. Fishing mortality attributable to
lost gear (ghost-fishing) has been reduced from an average of
3.2% to ,0.5% of the commercial catch.
In contrast to the loss of salmon LEPs from rural communities
and based on the same definitions used to report changes in the
distribution of salmon LEPs, rural Alaskan holdings of halibut
IFQ have increased from 14.4% at initial issue in 1995 to 20.8%
in 2009 (NMFS, 2010). Overall, 1.3% of the IFQ initially issued
to Alaskans is now held by non-Alaskans (NMFS, 2010). In
total, rural residents have increased their holdings of IFQ
outside their region from 17.7to 21.8% and decreased their
within-region holdings from 45.3 to 39.9%; this appears to be a
result of consolidation within regions and diversification of
regions fished to offset variability in within-region annual catch
limits. Because the data are confidential, detailed analyses of
these patterns of redistribution are unavailable. However, evidence
suggests that rural IFQ holdings have increased in larger (population 1000–2500) rural communities (NMFS, 2010). Processors
that handled the bulk of halibut landings before implementation
of IFQ lost market share and revenues as fishers bypassed traditional supply chains and entered into delivery contracts with
custom-processors and wholesalers (Matulich and Clark, 2003).
Under the IVQ and IFQ programmes, halibut fisheries became
more sustainable from the perspectives of biological conservation
and the economic viability of quota-share owners. These DEs fostered the emergence of new high-value fresh markets that benefited
consumers. However, IFQ reduced the market power of processors
and reduced the amount of fishing and fish-processing activities
conducted in remote ports. Pinkerton and Edwards (2009) argue
that leasing permitted under the Canadian IVQ programme has
led to socially detrimental impacts. Carothers (2008) asserts that
the sustainability of some remote communities was harmed
when IFQ recipients cashed their quota shares or moved out of
the community; private decision-making by IFQ-holders does
not take full account of secondary social and economic impacts
in the communities. Therefore, the introduction of DEs in the
halibut fishery enhanced socio-ecological sustainability in larger
rural Alaskan communities, but may have contributed to a
K. R. Criddle
decline of socio-ecological sustainability in some smaller and
more remote communities.
Recent increases in the number of halibut harvested by sportfishing charters have reduced the quantity of fish available to the
commercial fishery (NMFS, 2011). The sportfishery went from
6.6% of total removals in 1990 to 11.7% in 2011 (Hare, 2011).
Because the asset value of IFQ depends on expectations of the
value of current and future catches, decreases in catch limits in
the commercial fishery, whether occasioned by reductions in
stock abundance or increases in the quantity of halibut allocated
to other user groups, reduces the asset value of the IFQ unless
ex-vessel prices increase sufficiently to offset the reduction in allowable catch. In addition, increased catch by the charter sector
has affected the ability of managers to control total catches of
halibut because, unlike the commercial fishery, there is no realtime accounting for sport-catches. Instead, managers rely on estimates derived from an end-of-season mail survey to determine
whether charter-based sport-catches have exceeded the Guideline
Harvest Limit (GHL). If so, future sport-catches are subject to
more-restrictive daily bag limits and rules on retention of large
halibut. Despite these measures, the charter-based sport fishery
has regularly exceeded the GHL. Therefore, unconstrained expansion of a new class of claimants once again threatens social, economic, and biological sustainability of the halibut fishery.
Criddle (2004) presents an illustrative example of the calculations required to derive a socially optimal allocation of halibut
between commercial and sportfisheries. The problem requires a
simultaneous selection of a level of sustainable yield and an allocation of that sustainable yield between sport- and commercial fisheries. However, because the overall optimal solution is suboptimal
from the myopic perspective of each user group, it is in the selfinterest of stakeholders to oppose the socially optimal allocation,
and if political processes are used to effect the allocation, not
only is it unlikely that the outcome will be socially optimal, but
there will also be substantial losses of political and financial
resources used in lobbying decision-makers. Non-stationarities
such as changes in output prices, changes in input prices, and
changes in recreation participation rates change the socially
optimal allocation. Consequently, because prices and participation
rates are constantly changing, top-down management is unlikely
to keep pace even if it is unfettered by political machinations.
The Alaska halibut and sablefish IFQ programme was designed
to foster an owner-operator fishery, with overall limits on consolidation, owner-on-board requirements, and general prohibitions
on quota-leasing. Concern at what the IFQ was doing to small
(population ,2500) rural communities led the NPFMC, in
2002, to amend the halibut and sablefish IFQ programme to
allow small rural communities bordering the Gulf of Alaska
(GOA) to form non-profit CQ entities to purchase IFQ
(NPFMC, 2004a). The CQ entities were exempted from
owner-on-board requirements and were allowed to lease quota
to fishers. Although several communities formed non-profit entities to purchase CQ, Old Harbor on Kodiak Island is the only
community that has purchased CQ, and the Old Harbor CQ
entity has made only one purchase of IFQ. In contrast, CDQs
for halibut and sablefish were issued without cost to six non-profit
entities representing small rural communities bordering the
Bering Sea. The CDQ entities were issued IFQs for 10% of the allowable catch of halibut in the southeastern Bering Sea, and 100%
of the allowable catch of halibut in northern portions of the US
portion of the Bering Sea (NMFS, 2007). Since 2007, the CDQ
The resilience of four Alaskan fisheries governed by durable entitlements
entities have purchased additional halibut and sablefish IFQ (see
CVRF, 2011).
Before 1995, the management paradigm put biological sustainability at risk and incentivized unsustainable investment in harvesting capacity. Adoption of the IFQ programme improved
biological and economic sustainability in the commercial sector,
but it ignored impacts to traditional processors and the secondary
social and economic impacts to communities. Halibut IFQ holdings have increased in rural Alaska, but the increase has been in
larger (population 1000–2500) communities. The CQ programme
was devised to allow communities to purchase IFQ as a means of
ensuring ongoing participation in the halibut fishery, but the CQ
programme has not been successful because community investment in IFQ has not been attractive financially. In contrast, the
CDQ programme received a de gratis allocation of halibut IFQ
and has leveraged earnings from that initial endowment to
support purchase of additional IFQ. The CDQ programme
increased the social and economic sustainability of western
Alaska communities. The CQ programme has a negligible effect
on the social and economic sustainability of GOA coastal communities. Expansion of the charter sector has been accommodated
through uncompensated reductions in commercial catch limits.
The combination of expanded charter-sector catches and a cyclic
downturn in halibut biomass amount to a shock that has
pushed portions of the commercial sector in Southeast Alaska
close to critical financial thresholds, threatening a loss of economic
sustainability. Enforcing harvest limits set for the charter sector
would protect the commercial fishery, as would a mechanism
that would facilitate market-based transfers of IFQ between the
commercial and charter sectors (Criddle, 2008).
Pollock in the eastern Bering Sea and Aleutian
Islands
The eastern Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) fishery for
pollock Theragra chalcogramma is among the largest commercial
fisheries in the world, with average annual catches more than
1 × 106 t (Ianelli et al., 2011). With few exceptions, this species
was not accessible to pre-modern fishers and was only lightly utilized in the first half of the 20th century. The fishery began in
earnest the early 1960s, with harvests by distant-waters fleets
from Japan and Russia (Alverson et al., 1964; Natural Resources
Consultants, 1981). Catches peaked in the early 1970s as biologically sustainable limits were exceeded (Figure 5). With the passage
of the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976, the
Figure 5. Foreign, joint-venture, and domestic catches of pollock in
the eastern BSAI, 1964– 2011. Sources: Berger et al. (1986), NMFS
(2002), and Ianelli et al. (2011).
1173
United States asserted exclusive rights to regulate fishing within
a 200-mile littoral zone (NMFS, 2002). Foreign fishing was permitted as long as catch limits exceeded projected domestic harvesting capacity, and catch limits were set to ensure biological
sustainability. These limits were monitored by observers placed
on board under the authority of the National Marine Fisheries
Service. With effective capacity to control catches and a mandate
under the Fishery Conservation and Management Act to set sustainable catch limits, the pollock stock was rebuilt.
By 1985, foreign fishing had been displaced by joint ventures
between domestic catcher vessels and foreign processing vessels
and shore plants (Berger et al., 1986). By 1990, joint ventures
had, in turn, been displaced in favour of domestic catcher
vessels delivering to domestic processing plants and motherships,
and US-flagged catcher-processors (NPFMC, 1991). The authority
to place observers on board pollock fishing vessels was extended to
joint ventures and domestic catcher vessels and catcherprocessors, thereby ensuring accurate monitoring of catches and
enabling in-season managers to shut the fishery before catch
limits were exceeded. This gave managers the opportunity to
ensure that catches did not exceed best estimates of biologically
sustainable limits.
However, by 1991, continued influxes of fishing vessels,
catcher-processors, and the expansion of shore-based processing
capacity precipitated a derby on the fishing grounds and lobbying
contests between inshore and at-sea sectors (NPFMC, 1991).
Excess capacity led to shortened fishing seasons, wasteful discards
of fish carcasses during the roe season, and financial instability for
the owners of fishing vessels and processing plants who were
unable to operate at the levels of capacity needed to pay off
loans (NPFMC, 1998). Frequent bankruptcies demonstrated that
the fishery was not economically sustainable (Hornnes, 2006;
Strong, 2011); the pollock fishery was clearly not structured for
economic sustainability.
In addition to racing for catch on the fishing grounds, the
inshore and at-sea sectors jockeyed for political advantage in the
NPFMC, each seeking opportunity to expand at the expense of
the other. This sector allocation war pitted a mostly
Japanese-owned shore-based processing sector against a largely
Norwegian-financed catcher– processor sector, both of which
based their fleets out of the Puget Sound region. As initial claimants of the pollock resource, the Japanese firms saw their erstwhile unfettered access to the BSAI pollock resource become
ever more constrained, first by the 200-mile EEZ, next by the preference being given to joint-venture processing, then by preference
being given to US domestic production. Their response was to
invest in motherships and shore-based processors to take deliveries
from the joint-venture catcher vessels and to structure their ownership through holding companies, subsidiaries, and non-voting
stock shares to conform to statutory definitions of domestic companies. As a fully US-owned corporation, Trident Seafoods was a
lone exception in the otherwise foreign-controlled pollock shorebased processing sector. The at-sea sector included the
Japanese-controlled motherships and supporting catcher-boats,
and a fleet of vessels, catcher-processors that processed their
own catch as well as catches delivered by catcher boats.
Catcher-processors began to enter the pollock fishery in the
midst of the joint-venture era. Although a few were built from
keel up in US shipyards, most were surplus US-flagged vessels
that were extensively rebuilt in foreign, particularly Norwegian,
shipyards and largely financed at favourable rates by Norwegian
1174
banks. With more fishing capacity than there were fish to catch,
and more processing capacity than there were fish to process,
each sector was anathema to the other.
Although the at-sea sector enjoyed operational advantages
(Herrick et al., 1994), the inshore sector was more effective at
lobbying, so the sequence of sector allocations enacted between
1991 and 1998 led to less and less fish being allocated to the
at-sea sector. This gave some freeboard to the inshore sector, but
harvesting and processing capacity within that sector increased
more rapidly than the inshore allocation, such that even if the
at-sea sector could be forced out, the inshore sector would not
be able to avoid the inexorable pathologies of a continued
race-for-fish. Faced with the prospect of mutually assured financial
ruin, representatives of the inshore and at-sea sectors bypassed the
NPFMC and secured congressional legislation to establish permanent sector allocations and to facilitate economic rationalization within each sector (Criddle and Macinko, 2000). The
American Fisheries Act of 1998 (AFA) established a permanent
moratorium on the entry of new vessels into the fishery and established a permanent allocation of the TAC to each sector. In addition, the AFA authorized payments of up to US$ 90 × 106 to
retire 9 of the 29 catcher-processors that were then active in the
fishery (AFA, 1998). Catch history from the retired catcherprocessors was to be allocated to catcher vessels associated with
the inshore sector in exchange for payment of US$ 75 million to
the US Treasury at a rate of US$ 0.06 per pound landed. The
AFA provided clear authority for companies within each sector
to form cooperatives (AFA cooperatives) and to negotiate civil
contracts to divide the sector allocation among cooperative
members, i.e. the authority to contract with each other to create
civilly enforced DEs. Provisions in the AFA also allowed marketbased within-sector transfers of DEs. The AFA increased the
number of fisheries observers on board vessels and in processing
plants, to ensure accurate accounting of catches of target species
and bycatches of non-target species. In addition, the AFA made
the Alaska CDQ programme permanent and increased the CDQ
pollock allocation to 10% (AFA, 1998).
The AFA resulted in a 50% increase in product recoveries per
kilogramme of pollock caught, increases in the production of
fillets instead of surimi, increased profits, reduced bycatch, and
improved management precision (GAO, 1999, 2000; Felthoven,
2002; NPFMC, 2002; Morrison Paul et al., 2009). In addition,
the operational flexibility and increased profits afforded by the
AFA helped the fishery weather changes in fishing seasons and
areas required to address ecological concerns related to putative
trophic interactions with the endangered western subpopulation
of the Steller sea lion Eumetopias jubatus, helped the fishery accommodate heightened restrictions on bycatches of Chinook
and chum salmon, and provided financial resources needed to
modernize vessels and processing equipment (GAO, 2000;
NPFMC, 2002; Criddle et al., 2011; Strong, 2011). In other
words, the AFA improved the economic sustainability of the
pollock fishery, strengthened monitoring and compliance to
better ensure biological sustainability of pollock harvests, and
positioned the fishery better to accommodate policies intended
to address some concerns related to sustainability of the BSAI
ecosystems.
Unlike the salmon and halibut fisheries with their ties to coastal
communities throughout Alaska, the pollock fishery primarily
involved vessels based in the Pacific Northwest or in Alaskan
ports served by pollock processors (NPFMC, 2002; Sepez et al.,
K. R. Criddle
2005). Shore-based processing of BSAI pollock takes place primarily in Dutch Harbor/Unalaska, Akutan, Sand Point, and to a
minor degree in Adak. Some catcher vessels that participate in
the BSAI pollock fishery are based out of Kodiak, but Kodiak is
too remote from the BSAI pollock fishing grounds so Kodiak
pollock processors depend instead on the comparatively small
(8 × 104 t) GOA pollock fishery. Value-added processing takes
place at some of these plants, but also at reprocessing facilities in
the Puget Sound region of Washington. Motherships and catcherprocessors often transfer processed pollock during visits to Dutch
Harbor/Unalaska or on return to their Pacific Northwest homeports (Strong, 2011). Plant managers and skilled workers in the
shore-based plants are typically year-round residents of the communities; unskilled labour consists mostly of foreign nationals
who reside in company dormitories and dine at company cafeterias. Fishing crew and skilled processing crew aboard catcher vessels
and catcher-processors are mainly from the Pacific Northwest, but
increasingly from western Alaska CDQ communities (WACDA,
2011). Unskilled processing crew aboard motherships and catcherprocessors are mostly foreign nationals. Dutch Harbor/Unalaska
is a regional hub for vessel repair and support services, but
major overhauls and repairs are generally completed at larger
ports, particularly in the Puget Sound region of Washington. As
the AFA linked pollock landings to existing shore-based processing
facilities, there has been little reshuffling of where pollock are
delivered and little evidence of the types of community impact
described in the salmon and halibut fisheries above. The one
notable exception is that the Coastal Villages Region Fund, one
of the CDQ entities, has expressed a desire to relocate the home
base of its catcher-processor, the “Northern Hawk”, from Seattle
to Seward, AK (CVRF, 2011).
The western Alaska CDQ programme is a unique initiative
designed to ensure that remote western Alaskan coastal communities are direct beneficiaries of offshore commercial fisheries in the
BSAI regions (Ginter, 1995; NRC, 1998). Starting in 1992, the
CDQ programme allocated 7.5% of the BSAI pollock TAC to six
non-profit entities representing 56 (now 65) economically disadvantaged coastal communities in western Alaska (NPFMC,
1991). CDQ rights were extended to include allocations of 10%
or more of the annual BSAI TAC for pollock in 2006 and to
include 10% to the TAC for other BSAI groundfish species, sablefish, halibut, king and Tanner crab, as well as the Prohibited
Species Catch limits under the Coast Guard and Maritime
Transportation Act of 2006 (NMFS, 2007). CDQ entities earn royalties from leasing quota to community members or to fishing
companies outside their regions and from investment earnings
based on those royalties (Figure 6). In general, the CDQ for nearshore species is fished by local boats and for offshore species is
leased to large vessels from outside the region (WACDA, 2011).
CDQ entities are heavily invested in companies that operate
large offshore catcher vessels, catcher-processors, motherships
active in BSAI pollock and other groundfish fisheries, and shorebased processors (WACDA, 2011). The mutually advantageous financial ties between the CDQ entities and AFA cooperatives contribute to social sustainability. For example, when the AFA fleet
came under criticism over elevated bycatches of Chinook
salmon, representatives from CDQ communities offered public
testimony in support of regulatory measures preferred by their
commercial partners (CVRF, 2011).
Despite the many factors that contribute to the resilience of the
pollock socio-ecological system, any of several external forcing
The resilience of four Alaskan fisheries governed by durable entitlements
factors could be disruptive. For example, increases in pollock
catches from Russia or increases in landings or farmed production
of other whitefish species could reduce demand in the markets for
Alaska pollock and hence reduce ex-vessel revenues (Strong,
2011). Similarly, continued reductions in Japanese demand for
pollock roe could reduce one of the most profitable products
and thereby threaten financial viability of the US fishery (Strong,
2011). Natural variation in the geographic distribution of
pollock as well as the need to avoid salmon bycatch can lead the
fleet to fish at great distances from port, distances at which
fishing may not be profitable for inshore catcher vessels that
must deliver their catches to processors within 48 h or risk substantial deterioration in product quality (NMFS, 2002). For
example, in autumn 2007, a combination of long distance to productive fishing grounds, high fuel cost, low product price, and low
catch rate led shore-based catcher boats to fail to harvest 10%
(37 991 t) of their autumn pollock allocation (NMFS, 2012).
Strong (2011) demonstrates that whenever the fuel price rises
more rapidly than the product price, the inshore sector is likely
to forego harvesting portions of its autumn pollock allocation.
In addition to being a direct loss to the inshore sector, the foregone
harvests represent a potential loss of revenue to the CDQ entities
owing to their ownership stakes in inshore catcher vessels. It also
represents a loss of net benefits to the nation as a whole as well
as a lost opportunity to the at-sea sector which could harvest the
pollock profitably that the inshore vessels are unable to harvest
profitably. Because the AFA was devised by Congress, it can only
be amended by congressional action. Such action is unlikely,
because it risks reopening other provisions of the AFA that
could prove disadvantageous to current participants in the
fishery. Therefore, the BSAI region pollock socio-ecological
system is resilient to moderate perturbations in external forcing
factors, but strictures on the transfer of DEs between the inshore
and at-sea sectors create conditions that predispose the system
to fail when perturbed beyond critical economic thresholds—
thresholds that were crossed in autumn of 2007 and 2011
(NMFS, 2012) and are likely to be crossed again in the future.
1175
Figure 6. CDQ royalty and non-royalty earnings, 1992– 2010. Source:
WACDA (2011).
Crab in the eastern Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands
Crab and other crustaceans were important to native fishers in the
pre-modern era and continue to be important for subsistence,
sport, and commercial fisheries. The history of Alaska region
crustacean fishery management is particularly troublesome.
Northern pink shrimp Pandalus eous fisheries flourished in the
1960s and 1970s but crashed and have only supported small
catches in subsequent decades. Red king crab Paralithodes
camtschaticus in the GOA supported a substantial fishery in the
1960s but declined in the 1970s, crashed in the 1980s, and has
not recovered. To a greater or lesser degree, all commercially harvested BSAI region stocks of red king crab, blue king crab
Paralithodes platypus, snow crab Chionoecetes opilio, and Tanner
crab Chionoecetes bairdi have shown similar patterns of boom
and bust (Figure 7). For the past two decades, four of the six
largest crab fisheries off Alaska have supported levels of fishing
mortality that are ,3% of their 50-year peak. In the other two,
recent (2001–2010) fishing mortality is ,15% of the 50-year
peaks. This suggests strongly that limits to the biophysical sustainability for these species are not yet fully understood.
Whereas the NPFMC has overall authority for the management
of crab in the 200-mile EEZ, in-season management of the fisheries
has been delegated to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game
Figure 7. Fishing mortality (’000 t) in major Alaskan crab fisheries,
1960 –2010. Sources: NPFMC (2011) and Stichert (2010).
(ADF&G). For many years, the ADF&G sought to control catch
and stabilize crab populations through a combination of
minimum size limits, prohibitions on the retention of female
crab, and season-length regulations. The NPFMC contributed to
management objectives by restricting the bycatch of crab in
groundfish fisheries. In each of the regulated crustacean fisheries,
1176
an absence of effective limits to the number of fishing vessels led to
compressed seasons (NPFMC, 2004b). Because crab must be processed live, processors had to increase their throughput capacity as
the number of crab fishing vessels increased, capacity idled as soon
as the crab seasons closed (Matulich, 2009). Hazardous weather
conditions combined with the race-for-crab led to high rates of
injury and loss of life (NPFMC, 2004b).
ADF&G managers attempted to reduce the intensity of the crab
derby through limits on the number of pots (baited traps) per
vessel for some fisheries, and through super-exclusive registration
for participation in fisheries for some minor crab stocks. Pot limits
were economically disadvantageous to the largest boats; they led
those boats to place and retrieve their gear at a faster rate than
was economically efficient (Greenberg and Herrmann, 1994).
Vessels that participated in super-exclusive registration fisheries
were prohibited from fishing in any other crab fishery. Because
super-exclusive registrations were implemented in small fisheries
such as the Norton Sound fishery for red king crab, the cost of
being ineligible to participate in larger fisheries caused big boats
to refrain from entering super-exclusive fisheries, reducing the
competition for local small-boat fishers (Natcher et al., 1996).
Pot limits did not improve the economic sustainability of crab
fisheries and had no beneficial effect on biological sustainability
(Greenberg and Herrmann, 1994). In contrast, super-exclusive
registration provided some improvement in the economic and
social sustainability of small local fisheries, because it had the
effect of reducing the number of participants in the fishery and
hence reducing the intensity of the race-for-crab (Natcher et al.,
1996).
Starting with the 2005/2006 fishing season, management of the
BSAI crab fisheries was restructured with IFQ issued to vessel
owners and skippers and individual processing quota (IPQ)
issued to shore-based and floating processors (NPFMC, 2004b).
Allocation of IFQ and IPQ was based on catch history and processing history. Under the programme, fishers can only sell their catch
to processors with sufficient IPQ and processors can only purchase
crab from vessels possessing IFQ. In addition, the programme
includes financial impediments to discourage harvesters from
switching to processors other than those to whom they have
sold catches previously. The programme also includes provisions
to arbitrate ex-vessel prices. In addition, the crab IFQ/IPQ programme allocated 10% of crab IFQ to Alaska CDQ entities.
The implementation of the programme led to substantial
increases in revenues to harvesters (Matulich, 2008), whereas processors did not gain significant benefits (Matulich, 2009).
Following programme implementation, the number of vessels actively fishing for crab declined to 34% of the number previously;
consolidation has been more pronounced outside of Alaska
(32.8%) than in Alaska (37.9%). Since programme implementation, the distribution of home ports for crab vessels has increased
from 24.2% Alaskan to 27% Alaskan. The fraction of crab vessels
home-ported in Washington has declined (65.4–61.5%), whereas
the fraction in Oregon has increased (8.8–10.3%). The number of
vessels home-ported in other states has declined from four to one.
The number of crew jobs decreased to a similar extent. The reduction in part-time employment opportunities resulted in substantial numbers of past crew members becoming dissatisfied with
programme outcomes (Lazrus et al., 2011). However, Abbot
et al. (2010) report that total man-hours of crew labour was unchanged by programme implementation, that total wages paid to
K. R. Criddle
crew also remained unchanged, and that fewer crew were
employed so the annual earnings for active crew increased. As
most hiring is done where the vessel and skipper are based, the distribution of employment impacts appears to mirror the distribution of changes in the home ports of active vessels (Lazrus et al.,
2011). Like the halibut/sablefish IFQ programme and the
pollock AFA cooperatives, the crab IFQ/IPQ programme
increased economic benefits for quota shareholders. Ownership
of IFQ has consolidated, the pace of fishing has slowed, vessels
that continue to be used in the fishery are used for longer
seasons, and pots are soaked for longer periods between retrievals
(Abbot et al., 2010). Longer seasons are advantageous to owners,
skippers, and crew who specialize in crab fisheries, but disadvantageous to those who engaged historically in a suite of crab and
other fisheries.
By defining crab DEs as rights to catch/sell and rights to buy,
the crab IFQ/IPQ programme provided a measure of stability to
processors and their adjoining communities, but when a processor
closes for financial or other reasons, fishers may be bereft of a
market for their IFQ crab. This is most likely to arise in remote
regions with relatively small fisheries and a single local processor,
for example, in the Pribilof Islands and on Adak. In each case, the
National Marine Fisheries Service has issued emergency orders to
provide fishers with markets for their IFQ crab, but the need for ad
hoc measures suggests that the IPQ/IFQ crab fishery socioecological system is less resilient in peripheral fisheries such as
Adak and the Pribilof Islands. As noted above, consolidation of
IFQ has reduced the number of crew positions and increased the
duration of crew jobs to something that more closely matches
the duration of crew jobs in the 1970s before vessels flooded
into the fishery and precipitated the race-for-crab (Abbot et al.,
2010). These changes are beneficial for some crew and detrimental
for others. The impact of the changes on communities is unclear.
Are the communities better off with smaller numbers of fully
employed crew or larger numbers of crew employed for short
seasons? The volatile character of crab populations raises questions
about whether the consolidated fishery can expand effort to match
rapid increases in crab stocks. Consider, for example, the Bering
Sea fishery for snow crab (Figure 7), which experienced a fourfold
increase in allowed catch between 1996 and 1998. Fisheries with
excess harvesting capacity or latent permits can quickly respond
to increases in allowable harvest limits. However, it is uncertain
if a fleet consolidated for optimal economic efficiency for a
snow crab catch limit 0.3 × 105 t can reconfigure quickly to
harvest a catch 1.2 × 105 t. To increase harvesting capacity, it
could be necessary for current IFQ-holders to sell or lease IFQ
to vessels that are not currently active in the fishery. A similar potential need to expand processing capacity was addressed in the
design of IPQ by allowing for an influx of processors if certain
landings thresholds are exceeded.
Discussion
Sustainable fisheries-dependent socio-ecological systems are
founded on practices that ensure that the expected flow of use,
option, and non-use benefits do not degrade through time.
However, choices of which combination of benefits to sustain
and choices of management measures to promote those benefits
imply choices about who will benefit. The four cases discussed
above demonstrate that DE programmes are not a panacea. As suggested in Johnson and Libecap (1982) and demonstrated
The resilience of four Alaskan fisheries governed by durable entitlements
theoretically in Boyce (1992), DE programmes can contribute to
biological sustainability but cannot ensure it. NRC (1999) suggested that the primary conservation benefits of DE programmes
would be reductions in bycatch discard mortality and ghost
fishing, and closer adherence to the TAC. Recent empirical
studies (e.g. Branch, 2009; Essington, 2010) suggest that the
primary conservation benefits have resulted from establishment
and enforcement of biologically sustainable TACs. The implementation of DE programmes disrupts extant social systems to the
benefit of some individuals and communities to the detriment
of others. Whether the result of these changes is increased or
decreased, sustainability is unclear. DE programmes are generally
adopted as measures of last resort for fisheries that have ceased
to be socially or economically sustainable. Consequently, the
status quo ex ante is unlikely to be sustainable. Nevertheless, DE
programmes often include measures to force the outcome to preserve social and economic characteristics of the status quo ex ante.
However, such measures may prevent the system from adapting to
changes in stock abundance and spatial distribution, changes in
ex-vessel prices and input costs, etc. Fisheries-dependent socioecological systems are inherently non-stationary. Because the behaviour of non-stationary systems is inherently different from
that of stationary systems, management strategies designed for stationary systems are unlikely to be successful. Reducing the number
of restrictions imposed on DE programmes will increase their
ability to evolve when faced with non-stationarities or shocks.
DE programmes that fail to include all major groups of fishers,
as in failure to include charter-operators in the Alaska halibut IFQ
programme, are unlikely to be socially sustainable in the face of
increased demands by the omitted category of users. For Alaska
halibut, expansion of the charter sector led to increased conflict
with the commercial sector and to a suite of regulatory proposals
intended to limit further expansion of the charter sector or to
devise market mechanisms for balancing allocations between commercial IFQ-holders and charter operators. That expansion of the
charter sector coincided with an environmentally induced reduction in halibut growth rates and exacerbated the conflict
between commercial IFQ-holders and charter operators.
Although DE programmes increase choice and therefore resilience
from the perspective of individuals, their effect on the resilience of
fishery-dependent communities is ambivalent. If DEs are allocated
to individuals and are freely transferable, decisions to accumulate
or divest DEs are unlikely to attend to social impacts. However,
DEs do not have to be defined as the possessions of individuals;
they can be defined for sectors as they were for AFA pollock cooperatives or for communities as they were for the CDQ programmes. Allocating DEs to sectors or communities might
facilitate consideration of a broad set of social impacts, but it
may not actually lead to broadened consideration of social
impacts.
Acknowledgements
This paper benefited from discussions that developed at the second
Ecosystem Studies of Sub-Arctic Seas (ESSAS) Open Science
Meeting, Seattle, WA, USA, in May 2011. Two anonymous
reviewers suggested detailed revisions that contributed to the accuracy of the paper, but I bear sole responsibility for the opinions
expressed herein and for any errors in fact. Support for the research was provided by the Pollock Conservation Cooperative
Research Center.
1177
References
Abbott, J. K., Garber-Yonts, B., and Wilen, J. E. 2010. Employment
and remuneration effects of IFQs in the Bering Sea/Aleutian
Islands crab fisheries. Marine Resource Economics, 25: 333 – 354.
Adasiak, A. 1979. Alaska’s experience with limited entry. Journal of the
Fisheries Research Board of Canada, 36: 770– 782.
AFA (American Fisheries Act). 1998. US Public Law 105– 277. 105th
Congress, 2nd session, 21 October 1998.
Alverson, D. L., Prunter, A. T., and Ronholt, L. L. 1964. A Study of
Demersal Fishes and Fisheries of the Northeastern Pacific Ocean.
University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver.
Beamish, R. J., Noakes, D. J., McFarlane, G. A., Klyashtorin, L., Ivanov,
V. V., and Kurashov, V. 1999. The regime concept and natural
trends in the production of Pacific salmon. Canadian Journal of
Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 56: 516– 526.
Berger, J. D., Smoker, J. E., and King, K. A. 1986. Foreign and joint
venture catches and allocations in the Pacific Northwest and
Alaska Fishing area under the Magnuson Fishery Conservation
and Management Act, 1977– 84. NOAA Technical Memorandum,
NMFS F/NWC-99. 62 pp.
Boyce, J. R. 1992. Individual transferable quotas and production externalities in a fishery. Natural Resource Modeling, 6: 385 –408.
Branch, T. A. 2009. How do individual transferable quotas affect
marine ecosystems? Fish and Fisheries, 10: 39 – 57.
Carothers, C. 2008. Rationalized out: discourses and realities of fisheries privatization in Kodiak, Alaska. In Enclosing the Fisheries:
People, Places, and Power, pp. 55– 74. Ed. by M. Lowe, and C.
Carothers. American Fisheries Society Symposium, 68. 223 pp.
Casey, K., Dewees, C., Turis, B., and Wilen, J. E. 1995. The effects of
individual vessel quotas in the British Columbia halibut fishery.
Marine Resource Economics, 10: 211 – 230.
CFEC (Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission). 2005. Changes in
the Distribution of Alaska’s Commercial Fisheries Entry Permits,
1975– 2004. Report 05-3N Alaska Commercial Fisheries Entry
Commission, Juneau, AK. 428 pp.
Charles, A. T. 2001. Sustainable Fishery Systems. Blackwell Science,
Oxford. 370 pp.
Christy, F. T. 1982. Territorial use rights in marine fisheries: definitions
and conditions. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper, 227. 10 pp.
Christy, F. T., and Scott, A. D. 1965. The Common Wealth in Ocean
Fisheries: Some Problems of Growth and Economic Allocation.
Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. 281 pp.
Clark, J. H., McGregor, A., Mecum, R. D., Krasnowski, P., and Carroll,
A. M. 2006. The commercial salmon fishery in Alaska. Alaska
Fishery Research Bulletin, 12: 1 – 146.
Cooley, R. A. 1963. Politics and Conservation. The Decline of the
Alaska Salmon. Harper and Row, New York. 230 pp.
Cordell, J. 1978. Carrying capacity analysis of fixed territorial fishing.
Ethnology, 17: 1– 24.
Criddle, K. R. 2004. Economic principles of sustainable multi-use fisheries management, with a case history economic model for Pacific
halibut. In Sustainable Management of North American Fisheries,
pp. 143 – 171. Ed. by D. D. MacDonald, E. E. Knudson, and Y. K.
Muirhead, American Fisheries Society Press, Bethesda, MD.
281 pp.
Criddle, K. R. 2008. Examining the interface between commercial and
sport fishing: a property rights perspective. In Evolving Approaches
to Managing Marine Recreational Fisheries, pp. 123 – 147. Ed. by
D. R. Leal, and V. Maharaj. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD.
245 pp.
Criddle, K. R., Evans, D., and Stram, D. 2011. Marine fisheries off
Alaska. In North by 2020: Perspectives on Alaska’s Changing
Social-Ecological Systems, pp. 305– 328. Ed. by A. L. Lovecraft,
and H. Eicken, University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks. 736 pp.
Criddle, K. R., and Macinko, S. 2000. A requiem for the IFQ in US
fisheries? Marine Policy, 24: 461– 469.
1178
CVRF (Coastal Villages Region Fund). 2011. Annual Report of the
Coastal Villages Research Fund 2010. CVRF, Anchorage, AK. 40 pp.
Dietz, T., Ostrom, E., and Stern, P. C. 2003. The struggle to govern the
commons. Science, 302: 1907– 1912.
Essington, T. E. 2010. Ecological indicators display reduced variation
in North American catch share fisheries. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 107: 754 – 759.
Felthoven, R. G. 2002. Effects of the American Fisheries Act on capacity, utilization, and technical efficiency. Marine Resource
Economics, 17: 181 – 205.
GAO (General Accounting Office). 1999. Fishery management: market
impacts of the American Fisheries Act on the production of pollock
fillets. US GAO/RCED-99-196, Washington, DC.
GAO (General Accounting Office). 2000. American Fisheries Act produces benefits. US GAO/RCED-00-176, Washington, DC.
Gho, M., Iverson, K., Farrington, C., and Free-Sloan, N. 2011. Changes
in the distribution of Alaska’s commercial fisheries entry permits,
1975– 2010. CFEC Report 11 – 3N. Alaska Commercial Fisheries
Entry Commission, Juneau, AK. 318 pp.
Ginter, J. J. C. 1995. The Alaska community development quota fisheries management program. Ocean and Coastal Management, 28:
147– 163.
Greenberg, J. A., and Herrmann, M. 1994. Allocative consequences of
pot limits in the Bristol Bay red king crab fishery: an economic analysis. North American Journal of Fisheries Management, 14:
307– 317.
Hamilton, L. C. 2007. Climate, fishery and society interactions: observations from the North Atlantic. Deep Sea Research II, 54:
2958– 2969.
Hare, S. R. 2011. Assessment of the Pacific halibut stock at the end of
2011. In IPHC Report of Assessment and Research Activities 2011,
pp. 91 –194. International Pacific Halibut Commission, Seattle. 614
pp.
Herrick, S. F., Strand, I., Squires, D., Miller, M., Lipton, D., Walden, J.,
and Freese, S. 1994. Application of benefit – cost analysis to fisheries
allocation decisions: the case of Alaska walleye pollock and Pacific
cod. North American Journal of Fisheries Management, 14:
726– 741.
Herrmann, M. 1994. The Alaska salmon fishery: an industry in economic turmoil. Journal of Aquatic Food Product Technology, 3:
5 – 22.
Herrmann, M. 1996. Estimating the induced price increase for
Canadian Pacific halibut with the introduction of the individual
vessel quota program. Canadian Journal of Agricultural
Economics, 44: 151 – 164.
Herrmann, M. 2000. The individual vessel quota price induced effects
for Canadian Pacific halibut: before and after Alaska IFQs.
Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics, 48: 195– 210.
Herrmann, M., and Criddle, K. R. 2006. An econometric market
model for the Pacific halibut fishery. Marine Resource
Economics, 21: 129 – 158.
Herrmann, M., Mittelhammer, R. C., and Lin, B-H. 1993. Import
demands for Norwegian farmed Atlantic salmon and wild Pacific
salmon in North America, Japan, and the EEC. Canadian Journal
of Agricultural Economics, 41: 111 – 124.
Higgs, R. 1982. Legally induced technical regress in the Washington
salmon fishery. Research in Economic History, 7: 55– 89.
Hoag, S. H., and French, R. R. 1976. The incidental catch of halibut by
foreign trawlers. IPHC Scientific Report, 60. 24 pp.
Hornnes, R. 2006. Norwegian investments in the US factory trawler
fleet, 1980 – 2000. MSc thesis, University of Bergen. 100 pp.
Ianelli, J. N., Honkalehto, T., Barbeaux, S., Kotwicki, S., Aydin, K., and
Williamson, N. 2011. Assessment of the walleye pollock stock in the
eastern Bering Sea. In Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation
Report for the Groundfish Resources of the Bering Sea/Aleutian
Islands Regions, pp. 51 – 168. National Marine Fisheries Service,
Seattle.
K. R. Criddle
IPHC (International Pacific Halibut Commission). 1998. The Pacific
Halibut: Biology, Fishery, and Management. IPHC Technical
Report, 40. 64 pp.
IPHC (International Pacific Halibut Commission). 1991 – 2011.
Report of Assessment and Research Activities. International
Pacific Halibut Commission, Seattle. http://www.iphc.int/
library/raras.html (last accessed 25 February 2012).
Johnson, R. N., and Libecap, G. D. 1982. Contracting problems and
regulation: the case of the fishery. American Economic Review,
72: 1005– 1022.
Koslow, J. A. 1982. Limited entry policy and the Bristol Bay, Alaska
salmon fishermen. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic
Sciences, 39: 415– 425.
Lazrus, H. M., Sepez, J. A., Felthoven, R. G., and Lee, J. C. 2011.
Post-rationalization restructuring of commercial crew member opportunities in Bering Sea and Aleutian Island crab fisheries. US
Department of Commerce, NOAA Technical Memorandum,
NMFS-AFSC-217. 62 pp.
Matulich, S. C. 2008. Did processing quota damage Alaska red king
crab harvesters? Empirical evidence. Marine Resource Economics,
23: 253– 271.
Matulich, S. C. 2009. The value of individual processing quota in the
Alaska red king crab fishery: a preliminary analysis. Marine
Resource Economics, 24: 187– 193.
Matulich, S. C., and Clark, M. 2003. North Pacific halibut and sablefish IFQ policy design: quantifying the impacts on processors.
Marine Resource Economics, 18: 149 – 167.
Matulich, S. C., and Sever, M. 1999. Reconsidering the initial allocation of ITQs: the search for a Pareto-Safe allocation between
fishing and processing sectors. Land Economics, 75: 203 – 219.
Mecklenburg, C. W., Mecklenburg, T. A., and Thorsteinson, L. K.
2002. Fishes of Alaska. American Fisheries Society Press,
Bethesda. 1037 pp.
Moloney, D. G., and Pearse, P. H. 1979. Quantitative rights as an instrument for regulating commercial fisheries. Journal of the
Fisheries Research Board of Canada, 36: 859– 866.
Morrison Paul, C. J., de Torres, M. O., and Felthoven, R. G. 2009.
Fishing revenue, productivity, and product choice in the Alaskan
pollock fishery. Environmental and Resource Economics, 44:
457– 474.
Mueter, F. J., Siddon, E. C., and Hunt, G. L. 2011. Climate change
brings uncertain future for Subarctic marine ecosystems and fisheries. In North by 2020: Perspectives on Alaska’s Changing
Social-Ecological Systems, pp. 329– 357. Ed. by A. L. Lovecraft,
and H. Eicken. University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks. 736 pp.
Munro, G. R. 1982. Fisheries, extended jurisdiction and the economics
of common property resources. Canadian Journal of Economics,
15: 405– 425.
Natcher, B., Greenberg, J. A., and Herrmann, M. 1996. Economic
evaluation of superexclusive designation for the summer Norton
Sound red king crab fishery. In High Latitude Crabs: Biology,
Management, and Economics, pp. 153– 165. University of Alaska
Sea Grant College Program, AK-SG-96-02, Fairbanks. 713 pp.
Natural Resources Consultants. 1981. Pacific pollock (Theragra chalcogramma): resources, fisheries, products and markets. Report prepared for the National Marine Fisheries Service, Seattle.
NEFMC (New England Fishery Management Council). 2003.
Amendment 10 to the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery Management
Plan. NEFMC, Newburyport, ME.
Newell, D. 1994. Tangled Webs of History: Indians and the Law
in Canada’s Pacific Coast Fisheries. University of Toronto Press.
319 pp.
NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service). 2002. Final Environmental
Impact Statement for American Fisheries Act Amendments 61/61/
13/8. National Marine Fisheries Service, Juneau, AK.
NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service). 2007. Regulatory amendment to revise harvest regulations for the halibut, sablefish, and
The resilience of four Alaskan fisheries governed by durable entitlements
pollock community development quota fisheries in accordance
with the Magnuson – Stevens Fishery Conservation and
Management Act, as amended by the Coast Guard Act of 2006.
Environmental Assessment/Regulatory Impact Review/Initial
Regulatory Flexibility Analysis. National Marine Fisheries Service,
Juneau, AK.
NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service). 2010. Transfer report:
changes under Alaska’s Halibut IFQ Program, 1995 through
2009. US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service
Alaska Region, Restricted Access Management Program, Juneau,
AK. 221 pp.
NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service). 2011. Draft regulatory
amendment for a catch sharing plan for the Pacific halibut
charter and commercial longline sectors in International Pacific
Halibut Commission Regulatory Areas 2C and 3A. US
Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service Alaska Region,
Juneau, AK. 242 pp.
NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service). 2012. Catch reports for
groundfish, CDQ, and IFQ fisheries. http://www.fakr.noaa.gov/
sustainablefisheries/catchstats.htm (last accessed 10 March 2012).
NPFMC (North Pacific Fishery Management Council). 1991.
Amendment 18/23 to the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands
and Gulf of Alaska Fishery Management Plans. NPFMC,
Anchorage, AK.
NPFMC (North Pacific Fishery Management Council). 1998.
Amendment 51 to the Fishery Management Plan for groundfish
of the Gulf of Alaska and Amendment 51 to the Fishery
Management Plan for the groundfish fishery of the Bering Sea
and Aleutian Islands (Inshore/Offshore III). Environmental
Assessment/Regulatory
Impact
Review/Final
Regulatory
Flexibility Analysis. NPFMC, Anchorage, AK.
NPFMC (North Pacific Fishery Management Council). 2002. Impacts
of the American Fisheries Act. NPFMC, Anchorage, AK.
NPFMC (North Pacific Fishery Management Council). 2004a. Final
Environmental Assessment/Regulatory Impact Review for
Amendment 66 to the Fishery Management Plan for Gulf of
Alaska Groundfish. NPFMC, Anchorage, AK. 213 pp.
NPFMC (North Pacific Fishery Management Council). 2004b. Bering
Sea Aleutian Islands Crab Fisheries Final Environmental Impact
Statement. NPFMC, Anchorage, AK.
NPFMC (North Pacific Fishery Management Council). 2011. Stock
Assessment and Fishery Evaluation Report for the king and
Tanner crab fisheries of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands
regions. NPFMC, Anchorage, AK. 679 pp.
NRC (National Research Council). 1998. The Community
Development Quota Program in Alaska and Lessons for
the Western Pacific. National Academy Press, Washington, DC.
215 pp.
NRC (National Research Council). 1999. Sharing the Fish: Toward a
National Policy on Individual Fishing Quotas. National Research
Council Committee to Review Individual Fishing Quotas.
National Academy Press, Washington, DC. 422 pp.
Olson, T. K., and Criddle, K. R. 2008. Industrial evolution: a case study
of Chilean salmon aquaculture. Aquaculture Economics and
Management, 12: 1 – 18.
Pennoyer, S. 1979. Development and management of Alaska’s fisheries. In Alaska Fisheries: 200 Years and 200 Miles of Change, pp.
17 – 25. Ed. by B. R. Metleff. University of Alaska Sea Grant
College Program, Fairbanks.
Pinkerton, E., and Edwards, D. N. 2009. The elephant in the room: the
hidden costs of leasing individual transferable fishing quotas.
Marine Policy, 33: 707– 713.
1179
Priestley, M. B. 1988. Non-Linear and Non-Stationary Time Series
Analysis. Academic Press, San Diego. 237 pp.
Quinn, T. J., Deriso, R. B., and Hoag, S. H. 1985. Methods of population assessment of Pacific halibut. International Pacific Halibut
Commission Scientific Report, 72. 52 pp.
Rogers, G. W. 1979. Alaska’s limited entry program: another view.
Journal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada, 36: 783 – 788.
Ruddle, K. 1989. Solving the common-property dilemma: village fisheries rights in Japanese coastal waters. In Common Property
Resources, pp. 168 – 184. Ed. by F. Berkes. Belhaven Press,
London. 302 pp.
SAFMC/GFMC (South Atlantic Fishery Management Council/Gulf
Fishery Management Council). 1992. Regulatory Amendment to
the Spiny Lobster Fishery Management Plan for the Gulf of
Mexico and South Atlantic. Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management
Council, Tampa, FL.
Schmitz, A., and Seckler, D. 1970. Mechanized agriculture and social
welfare: the case of the tomato harvester. American Journal of
Agricultural Economics, 52: 569 – 577.
Seijo, J. C. 1993. Individual transferable grounds in a community
managed artisanal fishery. Marine Policy, 18: 78 – 81.
Sepez, J. A., Tilt, B. D., Package, C. L., Lazrus, H. M., and Vaccaro, I.
2005. Community profiles for North Pacific fisheries—Alaska. US
Department of Commerce, NOAA Technical Memorandum,
NMFS-AFSC-160. 552 pp.
Steiner, E., Criddle, K. R., and Adkison, M. D. 2011. Balancing biological sustainability with the economic needs of Alaska’s sockeye
salmon fisheries. North American Journal of Fisheries
Management, 31: 431– 444.
Stevens, G., Robert, G., Burke, L., Poullioux, E., Roussel, D., and
Wilson, J. R. 2008. The evolution of management in Canada’s offshore scallop fishery. In Case Studies in Fisheries Self-Governance,
pp. 111 – 124. Ed. by R. Townsend, R. Shotton, and H. Uchida. FAO
Fisheries Technical Paper, 504. 465 pp.
Stichert, M. A. 2010. Annual Management Report for Shellfish
Fisheries in the Kodiak, Chignik and Alaska Peninsula Areas,
2009. Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Fishery
Management Report 10– 32. ADF&G, Anchorage, AK. 67 pp.
Strong, J. 2011. Fishing for pollock in a sea of change: a history and
analysis of the Bering Sea pollock fishery. MSc thesis, University
of Alaska Fairbanks. 250 pp.
Sylvia, G., Munro Mann, H., and Pugmire, C. 2008. Achievements of
the Pacific whiting conservation cooperative: rational collaboration
in a sea of irrational competition. In Case Studies in Fisheries
Self-Governance, pp. 425 – 440. Ed. by R. Townsend, R. Shotton,
and H. Uchida. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper, 504. 465 pp.
Thompson, W. F., and Freeman, N. L. 1930. History of the Pacific
halibut fishery. IPHC, Seattle. 61 pp.
WACDA (Western Alaska Community Development Association).
2011. 2010 Report of the Western Alaska community development
quota program. WACDA, Anchorage, AK.
Wilen, J. E. 1988. Limited entry licensing: a retrospective assessment.
Marine Resource Economics, 5: 313– 324.
Wilen, J. E., and Richardson, E. J. 2008. Rent generation in the Alaskan
pollock conservation cooperative. In Case Studies in Fisheries
Self-Governance, pp. 361 – 369. Ed. by R. Townsend, R. Shotton,
and H. Uchida. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper, 504. 465 pp.
Williams, A. H., Herrmann, M., and Criddle, K. R. 2009. The effects of
Chilean salmon and trout aquaculture on markets for Alaskan
sockeye salmon. North American Journal of Fisheries
Management, 29: 1777– 1796.
Worm, B., Hilborn, R., Baum, J. K., Branch, T. A., Collie, J. S., Costello,
C., Fogarty, M. J., et al. 2011. Rebuilding global fisheries. Science,
325: 578 – 585.
Handling editor: Dr. Audrey Geffen