Mendeley
JSTOR
GPO
The World Bank
Ecology, Food, Agriculture, Sustainability
Can Catch Shares Prevent Fisheries Collapse?
Tags:
Research Findings
Overfishing is a problem that has become more acute as global populations have increased, technology has improved and the environment has degraded. Until recently most management efforts have focused on limiting fishing days or areas, yet fishing stocks have continued to decline precipitously.
Scientists from UC Santa Barbara and the University of Hawaii suggest a possible solution in “Can Catch Shares Prevent Fisheries Collapse?” In their 2008 study, published in Science, the authors looked at statistics from more than 10,000 fisheries between 1950 and 2003. They found that catch-share systems, which encourage fishermen to act cooperatively rather than competitively, can reduce and possibly even reverse fisheries collapse.
Key findings include:
- As of 2003, fisheries using a catch-share system were collapsed about half as often as fisheries not using the system.
- Assigning secure rights to fishermen leads to significantly improved catches as well as financial returns.
- Catch-share systems not only slow the decline toward widespread collapse, but actually stop this decline.
The authors conclude the study by writing: “These findings suggest that as catch shares are increasingly implemented globally, fish stocks, and the profits from harvesting them, have the potential to recover substantially.”
Tags: oceans, science
Teaching Notes
Analysis assignments
Read the issue-related New York Times article titled "U.S. Acts to Alter New England Fisheries."
- If you were to rewrite the article based on knowledge of the UC Santa Barbara and University of Hawaii study, what key changes would you make?
Read the issue-related Washington Post article titled "Predator Fish in Oceans on Alarming Decline, Experts Say."
- If you were to rewrite the article based on knowledge of the UC Santa Barbara and University of Hawaii study, what key changes would you make?
Read the UC Santa Barbara and the University of Hawaii study titled "Can Catch Shares Prevent Fisheries Collapse?"
- Summarize the study in fewer than 40 words.
- Express the study's key term(s) in language a lay audience can understand.
- Evaluate the study's limitations. (For example: Do the results conflict with those of other reliable studies? Are there weaknesses in the study's data or research design?)
Newswriting assignments
- Write a lead (or headline or nut graph) based on the study.
- Spend 60 minutes exploring the issue by accessing sources of information other than the study. Write a lead (or headline or nut graph) based on the study but informed by the new information. Does the new information significantly change what one would write based on the study alone?
- Interview two sources with a stake in or knowledge of the issue. Be prepared to provide them with a short summary of the study in order to get their response to it. Write a 400-word article about the study incorporating material from the interviews.
- Spend additional time exploring the issue and then write a 1,200-word background article, focusing on major aspects of the issue.
Leave a comment