The pacific halibut, Hippoglossus stenolepis, and sablefish, Anoplopoma fimbria, individual fishing quota program: A twenty-year retrospective

Abstract

Although catch shares may be an effective tool to address overcapital-ization in fsheries, there is increasing ev-idence that the costs and benefts of these programs may not be equitably allocated geographically or across generations. This paper examines the spatial and temporal distributional outcomes of 20 years of the Pacifc halibut, Hippoglossus stenol-epis, and sablefsh, Anoplopoma fmbria, Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) Program, which was implemented with many provi-sions explicitly intended to mitigate adverse effects on coastal communities, crew-members, small vessels, and new entrants. Utilizing performance metrics to track distributional objectives over time, we show that, similarly to other catch share pro-grams, the IFQ Program created winners and losers with inter-generational and in-ter-community inequities in access and op-portunities, an effect that may have been exacerbated by regulatory exemptions and loopholes as well as differentiated trans-portation access in rural Alaska. Never-theless, some programmatic provisions may have effectively curtailed a complete redistribution of QS (quota shares) within the feet. Furthermore, consolidation coupled with prolonged fshing seasons and product changes have provided for improvements in some conditions of employment for remaining crew members. We also provide lessons learned for the de-velopment and review of catch share pro-grams in the future with respect to defn-ing measureable objectives and establishing mechanisms for data acquisition at the outset. Data collections implemented at the start of a program can provide information to track performance against meaningful baselines. Although potentially time intensive in the development and imple-mentation periods, long-standing data col-lections may ultimately be easier from the standpoint of the respondents and adminis-trators than ones implemented after a pro-gram is in place.