SAVING OCEAN FISHERIES

Fishermen earn their living by competing with every other fisherman on the ocean for the most fish. The result has been overfishing, collapsed fisheries, and life threatening work conditions. Boat Captain Mark Lundsten describes his own experience on the Bering Sea. Today many fisheries have adopted "Catch Shares," a program that gives fishermen ownership in the resource. With individual, guaranteed, tradeable quotas, they have become better stewards of the fishery and learned to manage their shares for a productive and sustainable future. Once a skeptic, Mark became an advocate of catch shares and explains how they changed his life as a fisherman.

A PERC PRODUCTION
PROPERTY AND ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH CENTER
Bozeman, Montana, U.S.A
www.perc.org

Producer
LINDA PLATTS

Director
VANESSA WORKMAN
www.vanessaworkman.com

Narrator
MICHELLE BROWN
www.michellembrown.com

Script
LINDA PLATTS

Director of Photography
VANESSA WORKMAN

Post-production
Color-correction
Animation
VANESSA WORKMAN

Featuring (by order of appearance)

MARK LUNDSTEN
DON LEAL
KATE BONZON
GENEVIEVE KULASKI
TERRY ANDERSON
SHARIE RUCKER
RONALD BAILEY




REED WATSON
WILLIAM DENNIS
TODD GRAHAM
BRANDON SCARBOROUGH
KATHY VIATELLA

ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE
"Gravina, Of Queen Anne Charters" Produced by FILDAGO FILMS, Executive Producer, Mark Lundsten. Bristish Columbia, Alaska, 2007.
"The Night of the Guano" Produced by QUEEN ANNE FISHERIES and MASONIC OFFSHORE STUDIOS, Mark Lundsten, Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska, 1997.

STILLS
"Catch Shares Fish Pie" courtesy of EDF The Environmental Defense Fund
"Catch Shares in the World" Map courtesy of EDF The Environmental Defense Fund
"Catch Shares Country list" courtesy of EDF The Environmental Defense Fund
"Catch Shares in the U.S." courtesy of NOAA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration


SOUNDTRACKS
"Science Fiction" from the Hollywood Soundtracks Volume 1 of Partners In Rhyme
"Compete for Glory" from the Motivation Collection of Partners In Rhyme
www.partnersinrhyme.com

INTERVIEW LOCATIONS
Anacortes, Washington
San Francisco, California
Lincoln and Bozeman, Montana


SPECIAL THANKS TO
Don Leal
Mark Lundsten
Kate Bonzon
Jennifer Witherspoon
Daniel McKenzie
Michelle Bresnahan


© PERC, 2011

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Fish
• Fisheries
• halibut
• ocean
• sea
• fishing
• catch
• share
• quota
• transferable
• ownership
• fishermen
• sustainability
• price
• value
• stock
• account
• interest
• dock
• market
• FME
• conservation
• environmental protection

[refrodnesserd]

This is called, "The law of the Commons" and is a sound economic theory. Treating the ocean like a common grazing land removes the incentive for sound management of the resource. Ownership of the resource brings with it a desire to manage the resource in such a way as to ensure a livelihood for future years and future harvests.

[Fintasticinc1]

Don Knots was the idiot behind there CS. This is such a huge mistake, it has cut the commercial fishing businesses here in the gulf by 50%, including mine. You people need to get your heads out of your azz, because your lack of experience in this matter is breaking families all over the world, again including mine.

[meritree]

sorry forgot to add that the "law of the commons" has been re-examined through Nobel Laureate, Elinor Ostrom's work on the commons, and it doesn't in all cases support individual property rights

[meritree]

if the problem of exhausting ocean resources is GLOBAL....how do you expect to solve the problem when over 2/3 of the world doesn't have a recognizable property rights system?

[es2dante]

In Atlantic Canada a 400 year old economic system of successful local small entrepreneur fishermen was eradicated. Groundfish and scallops in the ocean now owned by a few investors.

With Catch Shares the same is happening in New England.

Watch "Fisheries Management Disaster parts 1 and 2 of 2".

[es2dante]

In Atlantic Canada a 400 year old economic system of successful local small entrepreneur fishermen was eradicated. Groundfish and scallops in the ocean now owned by a few investors.

With Catch Shares the same is happening in New England.

[es2dante]

This is pure FICTION.

Catch Shares steal a public owned resource and give it to a few investors.

Fishermen become miserable wage share croppers for Wall Street profiteers.

Local family businesses are replaced by alien mobile capital investment. Profits that used to stay in the communities go to investors.

Go ask the boots on deck fishermen in Lunnenburg, New Bedford or Reykjavik. Catch Shares enrich Investors with the sweat of Working fishermen and the ruin of small family boat businesses.