Hugo Salgado: Individual Transferable Quotas in Chilean Fisheries

A Community Colloquium presents Hugo Salgado, Professor of Universidad be Concepcion, Chile: "Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQ) in Chilean Fisheries: A tale of economic success and social disconformity." ITQs in Chile have led to economic success by creating more secure jobs, products of higher value, and more exports with reduced catches. Nevertheless, this has generated industry concentration, unemployment, entry of new fishermen into the artisanal sector, and entry barriers in the processing industry. Wages in the harvesting and processing industry have decreased. The highly concentrated industry now has more political power to influence regulators and the quota-setting process. As this process is now controlled by the industry, quotas have been set much higher than biological recommendations, and harvests have been lower than the quotas set during the past few years. Fish stocks do not seem to recover, indicating overexploitation. All of this has generated intense debate between those who are benefitting and those who are being negatively affected by the ITQ system. Understanding this process is crucial to designing ITQ systems that could contribute to more sustainable fisheries in developing countries, not only from an economic perspective, but also from a biological and social perspective, too.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Salgado
• Hugo
• Fisheries
• Sustainable
• Sustainability
• Marine
• Bren
• School
• Environmental