NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) was a key participant in the FAO technical and policy-level consultations of 1991-1999 that led to the FAO International Plan of Action for the Management of Fishing Capacity. The U.S. Plan of Action includes a commitment to prepare regular assessments of overcapacity in federally-managed...
In the UK, individual quotas are imposed on the demersal whitefish trawl fleet. Many of the key whitefish stocks are at historically low levels, and there is pressure on the industry to adjust to remove the current excess capacity. Adjustment in the fishery is likely to favour vessels that are...
NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) recently completed two reports on excess harvesting capacity, National Assessment of Excess Harvesting Capacity in Federally Managed Commercial Fisheries and Excess Harvesting Capacity in U.S. Fisheries: A Report to Congress. This paper presents the definitions of harvesting capacity, excess capacity, and overcapacity used in...
The paper analyzes the recent behavior of the Peruvian Anchoveta Sector, the largest single stock fishery in the world. It describes the different phases of boom and contraction that it has undergone since the 1960s, and how the lack of adequate regulation allowed –and even fostered– over-investment in the sector...