Fishing failure and success in the Gulf of Maine: lobster and groundfish management

Abstract

This article examines the reasons management of the New England groundfishery has failed, while management of the Maine lobster industry has succeeded. After 35 years of management, groundfish stock sizes and catches are lower than ever while lobster stocks are at record high levels. We argue that the New England groundfishing industry is caught in a prisoner's dilemma from which it has failed to escape. That dilemma is due to the interaction of social, political and economic variables that have lowered the benefits of investing in rules to conserve fish stocks. The lobster industry, once marked by a piracy ethic, has been able to escape from its dilemma and, over time, develop a strong conservation ethic and institutions. Our evolutionary game theory model indicates that three sets of factors are involved in this cultural transformation of the lobster industry, which has led to support for better conservation rules and for law enforcement.